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
Featured
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
Sarah's Inn
Sarah's Inn respectfully requests a $25,000 grant from the Chicago Community Trust to support our Intervention Program. Our Intervention Program provides Advocacy and Counseling to victims of domestic violence. These critical services work to help our clients heal from trauma, stabilize their families and help to create a non-violent future for them and their children. We provide emergency services and assistance, case management, supportive services, legal services and counseling, and our holistic approach means clients receive trauma-informed, best practice services throughout a variety of interventions. Intervention services are confidential, bilingual (English/Spanish) and offered free of charge to survivors and their children.
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Grant Recipient
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING AND FAMILY ISSUES
COFI exists to build the power and voice of parents, primarily mothers and grandmothers from Black and Brown communities, to shape the public decisions that affect their lives and the lives of their families. Through COFI, over 5,000 low-income parents of color have been trained as civic leaders in communities and, with POWER-PAC IL, in policy advocacy at city/state/federal levels. Closing the racial wealth/income gaps are top priorities of POWER-PAC IL, with particular focus on reducing debt burdens and increasing wages/savings opportunities – especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This grant will help us continue to ensure that low-income parents are full, participating members of coalitions fighting the racial wealth gap.
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Grant Recipient
APNA GHAR INC OUR HOME
Apna Ghar’s mission is to provide critical, comprehensive, culturally competent services, and conduct outreach and advocacy across communities to end gender violence. Intervention services (crisis and long term) at Apna Ghar are the focus of this proposal and have a framework that brings together community-driven strategies and local partners to empower our program teams to intervene with those at the highest risk of experiencing violence, while also working with the broader community to transform their understanding of gender-based violence. Our work through this grant will continue our increased efforts of pandemic response and ensure services to prevent violence, case management and counseling, access to legal services, street outreach, training and technical assistance and shelter, and housing programs can continue to meet the needs of our local communities.
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Grant Recipient
CHICAGO COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS
Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) respectfully requests renewed funding for its advocacy work to prevent and end homelessness. As a systemic advocacy nonprofit, CCH leads campaigns to address the causes of homelessness, including lack of affordable housing, fair wage jobs, health care access, and equal opportunity for systemically marginalized communities. By combining organizing, policy advocacy, and legal aid, CCH strives to center the experiences and expertise of people with lived experience to build power and make change. General operating support from the Trust would support: Bring Chicago Home (BCH): BCH advocates a progressive real estate transfer tax (RETT) increase on property sales over $1 million, with funds dedicated to permanent supportive housing and homeless services. State Legislation: CCH is leading advocacy on HB5265 (waives school fees for low-income charter school students); HB4432 / SB3123 (increases in grant amounts / equity reforms to TANF); HB2775 (removes source of income discrimination in housing); and SB3747/HB4242 (ensures childcare for parenting youth in the child welfare system). State Budget: CCH advocates level or increased funding to all homelessness line items in the Illinois state budget (Homeless Youth, Homeless Prevention, Emergency and Transitional Housing, Permanent Supportive Housing).
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Grant Recipient
Michael Reese Health Trust
Chicago Funders Together to End Homelessness (CFTEH) seeks renewed funding from CCT to advance its cross-system and cross-sector goals in partnership with people most impacted by homelessness. CFTEH is a community of 30 funders in the Chicago region, including The Chicago Community Trust, working to prevent and end homelessness. The collaborative works closely with government partners, policymakers, system leads, and advocates to align funding and priorities, improve housing policies, and build public and political will to address homelessness.
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Grant Recipient
WOMEN EMPLOYED
Women Employed (WE) plays a unique role in increasing opportunities and security for women as policy advocates seeking systemic improvements that touch the lives of women in low-income jobs and women of color, particularly Black and Latina/x women. In our new strategic plan, WE reaffirms our mission, with the goal of growing women’s economic power in order to close the wealth gap at the intersection of race and gender. When we think about economic power, the word Poder in Spanish is helpful. Poder both means power (n) and to be able to (v). To close the wealth gap and fulfill the goal of growing the economic power of women – their economic ability to make decisions that benefit them and improve their quality of life is essential.
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Grant Recipient
Ladies of Virtue NFP
Ladies of Virtue (LOV), is a mentoring and leadership program for girls, ages 9-18, living in Chicago's under-resourced communities. We prepare our girls for leadership through character development, career readiness and civic engagement. In addition, we offer our LOV for Life alumni program for our graduates ages 18 to 24. In the wake of the pandemic, the girls we serve need more empathy, nurturing, and social-emotional learning than ever. During the isolation of remote learning, many of our parents reported that their girls seemed depressed or withdrawn. Parents were also under enormous stress. When surveyed, over 70 percent of parents said they wanted mental health supports for themselves or their children. Furthermore, recent research shows that the suicide rate of Black females ages 15 - 24 increased by 59 percent (Black males ages 15 to 24 years old rose by 47 percent) but it decreased in white youth. As such, we realized that girls and their parents needed and will continue to need even more intensive and ongoing support to further their healthy development and cope with the challenges of parenting in underserved communities. Ladies of Virtue is requesting funding to provide mental health workshops, small group and individual mental health counseling to girls as well as workshops to their parents. In addition, we will provide mental health training to the 75 leaders and mentors in our program. Mental health supports would support emotional well-being and social-emotional learning. Adult workshops will cover trauma-informed care, adolescent mental health, social-emotional development in young people, and other topics requested by parents. All counseling and mental health workshops would be delivered either in person or via videoconference by a licensed mental health professional.
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Grant Recipient
Southland Human Services Leadership Council
The Southland Human Services Leadership Council has been in existence for 10 years and incorporated for the last 4. The Council has achieved enormous successes for the region, networking 70+ human services agencies, coordinating a news and advocacy resource for members and the populations they serve, and getting people to think regionally about the South Suburbs. But in 2019, the SHSLC hit a plateau - and COVID-19 has been a near-death experience for service coordination in the region. The organizations directed by Board leaders have been in survival mode, and this application describes discovering a path to greater sustainability and impact. This funding proposal is being submitted because since its inception, the capacity has not existed for the SHSLC to define needs more comprehensively with the participation of those who are being served.