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
Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance
CAFHA leads the Housing Choice Voucher Working Group, launched in 2016, and the only cross-sector coalition in the region advocating for equitable housing opportunities for voucher holders. CAFHA will promote recommendations, developed through CCT-funded research under its 2020 Advancing Equitable Homeownership grant, and honed through coalition work under our current Growing Household Wealth grant, regarding public housing authority homeownership program best practices, by advocating for policy and programmatic changes among housing authorities, HUD, and the lending and real estate industry. The aim of this effort is to scale up PHA homeownership programs to meet the desires of voucher holders and create a means to begin to repair the racial homeownership gap caused by public policy and actions of the real estate industry.
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Grant Recipient
FUTURE TIES NFP
Since 2010, Future Ties has served youth and families through after-school programming, teen workforce development, parenting skills and capacity building, parent mentoring, and the provision of direct resources including food and more recently, pandemic equipment. To date, we have served 800+ youth. Future Ties leverages the professional expertise and on-the-ground experience of Founder and Executive Director Jennifer Maddox, who is an active Chicago Police Officer for 26 years. As a patrol officer servicing the Parkway Gardens Apartments community, she observed and responded firsthand to the challenges facing residents and built a positive relationship with the community. She established Future Ties directly within this community, on a block labeled one of the most dangerous in the city of Chicago per The Sun-Times. When we have funding and are able to compete and become attractive to youth we have seen the rate of violence decrease. Alternatively, when funding has been limited, we have seen a spike in violence due to a lack of opportunity, hopelessness, and resources. Our model is based on trauma-informed and whole family approaches. Grant funds will be used to support Future Ties programming in Parkway Gardens and the surrounding community.
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Grant Recipient
WINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC
Window to the World Communications respectfully requests The Chicago Community Trust’s consideration of a renewed and generously increased grant of $200,000 to support WTTW News, our local affairs and journalism platform that has been serving the greater Chicago region for more than 35 years.
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Grant Recipient
Latino Policy Forum
Working with our very broad range of more than 150 multi-sectoral membership relationships, partnerships, and coalitions, we will apply our core skills of analysis, advocacy, leadership, and collaboration to the goals of ensuring that governmental policies are fully responsive to the needs of Latinos, that the underlying systems and practices that affect policies are shifted toward greater responsiveness and inclusivity, and that an increased capacity to effect policy and systems change is developed within Latino-serving nonprofits. We plan to address systemic inequality that has been exacerbated by COVID for Latinos and immigrants in the areas of housing, social services, and economic redevelopment.
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Grant Recipient
The Network - Advocating Against Domestic Violence
The Network: Advocating Against Domestic Violence (The Network) is a collaborative membership organization dedicated to improving the lives of those impacted by domestic violence (DV) through education, public policy and advocacy, & the connection of community members to direct service providers. We also operate the IL DV Hotline, which received 28,940 calls in FY20. We work in collaboration with over 40 community-based DV service providers to advance the collective power of those experiencing gender-based violence. The Network advocates at the local, State, & Federal level to ensure that survivors have sufficient services and responsive systems and is applying to Chicago Community Trust to expand and develop this critical systems advocacy.
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Grant Recipient
Corporation For Supportive Housing
CSH will continue to advance our efforts to connect individuals to housing solutions that break the cycle of chronic homelessness. Specifically, we will: 1) Continue expanding our work with the Chicago/Cook Co. Flexible Housing Pool (FHP)—a coordinated body that is re-orienting the crisis response system by funding supportive housing for people with complex health needs and cycling through homelessness and costly health crisis services. For this grant period, our priorities will focus on engaging new sectors as Investors, increasing the amount of money invested in the FHP, and using project data that has been evaluated to better refine the FHP’s marketing pitch to primarily target MCOs. 2) Continue working to improve the IL Justice System’s process for reentry of returning citizens at risk of homelessness through a robust quality improvement effort surrounding housing placement, as well as improved standards for transitional housing—key steps in ensuring all returning citizens are connected to safe, stable housing upon exiting prison. For this grant period, our priorities will focus on providing training on the Housing Needs Assessment to IL Dept. of Corrections (IDOC) staff and transitional housing providers, as well as engaging with key stakeholder groups, in particular the IL Reentry Council’s Housing Workgroup, related to: 1) expanding the knowledge of and availability of alternative housing and services options, outside of recovery housing, and 2) strategizing about how to connect high-need reentry groups to housing. CSH is also working to fundraise for a reentry housing demonstration project with the FHP in order to build evidence for the effectiveness of paying for supportive housing to reduce recidivism and increase stability and opportunities for community members coming home.
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Grant Recipient
ILLINOIS COALITION FOR IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE RIGHTS
As the undocumented population continues to be left out of federal relief legislation, our directly impacted leaders continue to speak out about the need for state and local governments to provide permanent direct cash assistance. ICIRR, as a member of the IL Cost of Living Refund Coalition, partners with Economic Security for Illinois (ESIL) and provides strategy, organizing, and legislative support around ESIL’s campaign to expand inclusion of the state Earned Income Credit to ITIN filers and other historically excluded persons. ICIRR will engage its broad membership in 2022 to make Illinois one of the few states to include these groups, and will also advocate and organize around direct cash assistance in the context of COVID relief.
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Grant Recipient
Thrive Counseling Center
Thrive Counseling Center, serving Chicago’s West Side and Near West Suburbs, respectfully requests $50,000 to expand and enhance mental health care for minority and low-income youth ages 6-17. It is no surprise that the demand for care has jumped dramatically during the pandemic. The American Pediatric Association recently declared a mental health crisis for our nation's children and teens. The capacity to provide affordable care lags far behind this demand. Thrive clients must wait an average of three to four months to see a therapist or psychiatrist unless their condition is especially acute. And yet, the agency is often the only option for mental health care for these low-income families in our area as very few private practitioners accept Medicaid. Support from the Chicago Community Trust will enable Thrive to: a) hire an additional youth therapist to expand capacity to assist youth, and b) enhance our therapists’ ability to address trauma, especially racial trauma, by hosting a series of four focused workshops delivered by an external trainer with expertise in this modality. When polled, Thrive therapists rated racial trauma training as the number one professional development need. Outcomes include an increase in low-income youth clients and an enhancement in therapists' confidence in their abilities to effectively treat racial trauma among their clients.