Paving the Path to Homeownership for Housing Choice Voucher Holders
Since the mid-20th century, homeownership has been one of the most important vehicles for building wealth in the United States. According to research from the…
Grants
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Our Grantmaking Strategy
For more than 100 years, The Chicago Community Trust has convened, supported, funded, and accelerated the work of community members and changemakers committed to strengthening the Chicago region. From building up our civic infrastructure to spearheading our response to the Great Recession, the Trust has brought our community together to face pressing challenges and seize our greatest opportunities. Today, that means confronting the racial and ethnic wealth gap.
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Grant Recipient
Inner-City Muslim Action Network
Since 2013, the Granville T. Woods Academy has stood vacant, vandalized and a blight on the surrounding community. Englewood is home to two of the ten zip codes receiving the highest number of returning citizens every year. Multiple studies establish housing, health care, and employment as the critical components of successful reentry, yet many returning citizens struggle to access all three, creating instability at the individual, family and neighborhood level. The Regenerator, a project of the Go Green Development Group - comprising IMAN, Teamwork Englewood, Resident Association of Greater Englewood and E.G. Woode - will remediate and repurpose the Woods Academy to tackle these three integrated components with a robust health and wellness ecosystem, permanent supportive housing and workforce development opportunities, along with a range of reentry services. IMAN will be the owner and operator of the health and wellness ecosystem at The Regenerator. IMAN is requesting pre development funding from CCT for the interior buildout of this wellness ecosystem which includes a Federally Qualified Health Center, urgent care and pharmacy, bringing critical primary, behavioral and oral health care access and jobs to the entire community. This project is phase II of the Regenerator buildout.
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Grant Recipient
CITY COLLEGES OF CHICAGO FOUNDATION
According to the Advancing Workforce Equity project people of color are a large and growing share of Chicagoland’s workforce (47%), but do not share equitably in its prosperity. Workers of color are more than twice as likely as their white peers to earn wages under $15/hr. In 2018, racial gaps in wages and employment cost the region about $136B in lost economic activity. City Colleges of Chicago and the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership seek an investment to support a joint strategic planning process that aligns the unique resources and capabilities of both systems to better serve Chicago residents together. The Chicago Blueprint process will model City Colleges’ and Chicago Public Schools experience developing the Chicago Roadmap and leverage documented national examples of strategic alignment between community colleges and workforce investment boards in order to create a multi-year, multi-faceted strategic plan with goals aligned to each respective system and impact targets aligned to job and mobility targets. City Colleges requests support for Phase One of the Chicago Blueprint for Upward Mobility. The comprehensive plan encompasses three stages: (1) a comprehensive plan to research, review, and implement best practices in workforce-education partnerships; (2) identify the obstructions to upward mobility faced by our communities; and (3) galvanize the Chicago-Cook community of city agencies and employer partners to develop an actionable plan that addresses this fragmented system and successfully connects residents to local resources, training, and education and training that creates access to meaningful career opportunities.
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Grant Recipient
Center for Community Self-Help
The Center for Community Self-Help (Self-Help), in partnership with The Resurrection Project (TRP), the Hope Center Foundation of Chicago (HCF), and Lawndale Christian Development Corporation (LCDC), requests $40,000 to support our proposal to Advance Sustainable Homeownership in the greater Chicago area. These funds will supplement our second-year funding, allowing our collaborative to increase the geographic reach of our program by adding a new partner (HCF) - a trusted community organization serving greater Roseland - while minimizing the financial shock to existing collaborative members. Together, our two funding proposals seek to directly complement and enhance the work of the Reclaiming Chicago Initiative (RCI), a campaign organized by United Power for Action and Justice to help families in the South and West Sides of Chicago build wealth through homeownership. For this iteration, the collaborative will build on the learnings of our first year of funding and support the RCI vision by providing counseling services to individuals across the home purchase spectrum, utilizing referral channels to connect potential homebuyers to affordable financing solutions, forging new relationships to increase homebuyer DPA access, and piloting an expanded reserve program to protect new owners against unforeseen financial emergencies that may threaten their new ownership status. Through these efforts, we will work towards our long-term Reclaiming Chicago goal of increasing and sustaining the number of Black and Latino homeowners across the South and West Sides of Chicago.
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Grant Recipient
NORTHWEST SIDE CDC
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Grant Recipient
Metropolitan Planning Council
MPC is committed to building equity in Chicago's built environment by tackling systemic challenges that have historically marginalized communities of color. This organizational grant will support three key initiatives: 1. Great Rivers Chicago focuses on collaborative governance and community engagement to improve riverfront development and environmental stewardship. MPC will work with the River Ecology and Governance Task Force to enhance co-governance, community involvement, and long-term river asset management. 2. The Chicago Citywide Land Use & Zoning Assessment aims to facilitate comprehensive land use planning and reform Chicago's zoning regulations. MPC will conduct public engagement, evaluate Planned Developments, and develop accessible resources to guide community stakeholders and policymakers. 3. The Home Lending Partnership Implementation Program is part of MPC's Change Lab and seeks to create equitable pathways to homeownership for underserved communities. By fostering collaboration between financial institutions and community-based organizations, the program will address systemic barriers to economic stability and homeownership for residents of color. The requested general operating support will enable MPC to sustain and expand these initiatives, driving lasting community revitalization and economic inclusion for communities of color.
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Grant Recipient
Inner-City Computer Stars Foundation
The Inner-City Computer Stars Foundation (i.c.stars) requests $300,000 across two years from Bridges to Brighter Futures to fund our Chicago program implementation. These funds will support our 4-month hybrid technology job skills training, resulting in thriving wage jobs, and our 24-month residency program, where participants receive continued case management, career advising, and professional skills development while working in the tech sector and assessing our cutting-edge curriculum and skill assessments. i.c.stars' vision is to break barriers and create transformational opportunities for one million untapped learners and leaders to reach and advocate for economic freedom and generational wealth by 2030. The support of the Bridges to Brighter Futures will ensure i.c.stars has a direct impact on our participants and an indirect impact on all the lives they touch in their families, workplaces, and neighborhoods.
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Grant Recipient
Centro De Trabajadores Unidos United Workers Center
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Grant Recipient
WIEBOLDT FOUNDATION
The 2024 Wieboldt Foundation Capacity-Building Cohort seeks to fill an unfortunate void that exists. Intensive capacity-building funds are hard to come by, yet essential to strengthen, stabilize and enhance the impact of community organizing nonprofits. In this regard, these entities would function like any business; better equipment, stronger skills, and streamlined operations contribute to an improved bottom line – measured here in overall impact rather than profit. Additionally, fostering collaboration among a cohort of community organizing groups is important to the sustainability of the ecosystem. Specifically, organizational capacity will be built in 4 areas: operations; organizing; resources; and collaborations.