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
HCP OF ILLINOIS INC
HCP will advocate for homeownership opportunities with the Housing Choice Voucher Working Group, led by CAFHA. HCP brings national expertise on public housing authority (PHA) best practices, key national partnerships, and co-facilitates committees of the Working Group. As a partner on CAFHA’s 2020 CCT Advancing Equitable Homeownership grant and a national advisor on PHA programs that promote equitable access and support for long-term wealth building, HCP will take program/policy recommendations and advocate for change. The aim is to scale up PHA homeownership programs to increase awareness and meet the desires of voucher holders, and create a means to repair past harms caused by federal and local housing policy and the real estate industry.
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Grant Recipient
Star Farm Chicago
This request is to support the construction, landscaping, and pre-development costs associated with rehabbing the Star Farm Fresh Market and Community Kitchen. We are requesting $180,000 to support architect and engineer fees ($15,000), installing black iron HVAC in the shared kitchen ($60,000), installing a set of metal rear exit stairs ($40,000), fencing and landscaping of the side lot ($40,000), and installation of a concrete slab driveway ($25,000).
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Grant Recipient
Fresh Taste
Austin Fresh is a collaborative grantmaking five-year program. started in 2020, to increase access to healthy affordable food, support community gardens and local food production, grow food enterprises, and protect and strengthen food assistance programs in the Austin neighborhood. The vision is an equitable Chicagoland region where all people have knowledge of and access to healthy food. The funders involved with Austin Fresh have committed to a minimum $1M for each of five years to support the neighborhood. This renewal request is for the third year of this successful neighborhood focused funder collaborative. This project aligns with the building supply-side skills and attracting capital strategies of Food:Land:Opportunity while also reducing fragmentation.
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Grant Recipient
Advocates for Urban Agriculture NFP
Advocates for Urban Agriculture is requesting continued support of its initiative to provide capacity-building grants to Chicago area growers, with particular emphasis on small, emerging, and BIPOC owned/operated growing operations, contributing to the expansion of grower’s ability to produce and distribute locally grown food.
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Grant Recipient
FEATHERFIST
Over the past two years, Featherfist has weathered the most unique service environment that we have ever seen. We have consistently serviced people experiencing housing instability and homelessness. We have continued to work during and through the pandemic because our clients are vulnerable and had to be served, despite the crisis that the world was experiencing. Featherfist continues to be mission minded, addressing barriers to obtaining and maintaining permanent housing. Featherfist is requesting general operating support. Our needs are two fold, specifically, we have experienced increased program growth which has led to the need for increased accounting support. Secondly, we have identified the need for increased behavioral health services for our current clients. This funding will allow us the opportunity to hire clinical staff/consultants to increase our capacity to provide these services on an ongoing basis as well as begin the initial service provision. Featherfist will create and implement a behavioral health component that can provide internal referrals. We know that clients have better participation rates and this better outcomes when they can receive services within 1 system. It is our hope that this investment into our agency will set the stage for the development of increased unrestricted funding that can further support our programs within 2 fiscal years.
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Grant Recipient
Fresh Taste
North Lawndale Fresh is a collaborative grantmaking program to increase access to healthy affordable food, support community gardens and local food production, grow food enterprises, and protect and strengthen food assistance programs in the North Lawndale neighborhood. The vision is an equitable Chicagoland region where all people have knowledge of and access to healthy food. The funders involved with North Lawndale Fresh have committed to a minimum $1M for each of five years to support the neighborhood. This is the first year of that five-year commitment to North Lawndale Fresh. This project aligns with the building supply-side skills and attracting capital strategies of Food:Land:Opportunity while also reducing fragmentation.
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Grant Recipient
MANO A MANO FAMILY RESOURCE CENTER
Mano a Mano is requesting general operations funds in support of overall agency goals to empower our immigrant community to reach their best immigantion status, to have access to health call and education leading them to pursue opportunities and success within an integrated community.
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Grant Recipient
ALL CHICAGO MAKING HOMELESSNESS HISTORY
All Chicago respectfully requests $150,000 in support of a reconstituted, flexible, Chicago COVID-19 Homeless System Agency Emergency Fund. All Chicago is partnering with Chicago Funders Together to End Homelessness to reactivate this fund, which in 2020 provided $768,292 in emergency assistance to thirty-seven of All Chicago’s partner agencies. Support will focus on immediate and unanticipated needs brought to the fore by the COVID-19 pandemic. In light of the Omicron wave and its impact on people experiencing homelessness—and the staff and systems that support them—All Chicago seeks support to offer a second round of flexible, unrestricted funds to agencies in 2022. Flexible funding via the Agency Emergency Fund can support costs related to staff retention, recruitment, well-being needs for staff, temporary housing, outreach, transportation, food, supplies, facility modification or expansion, technology, staffing, or other demonstrated costs related to the pandemic. Anticipated awards will range between $10,000 to $15,000, from a pool expected to be in excess of $800,000.00 Applicant organizations for Agency Emergency Fund support will initially include approximately forty core service providers who receive funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, under the Continuum of Care (CoC) program. With sufficient support, All Chicago will extend this invitation to shelter providers and other homelessness service agencies that are closely connected with these core service providers. Agencies will be invited to complete a brief online application with a few questions to minimize barriers to accessing dollars. The timeframe for spending the collective funding received will be determined by the amounts awarded by private philanthropy and the number of applications submitted. All Chicago will issue an initial round of provider payments within three weeks of the invitation to providers and will make additional rolling payments as additional funding is received and the invitation network is broadened. Rolling payments will continue until all funds are exhausted. All Chicago's partners have been extraordinarily responsive and resilient in their support of people experiencing homelessness during the last two years, and they are continually faced with unanticipated challenges. In the early days of the pandemic, the Agency Emergency Fund provided crucial support for agencies. Leading the reactivation of the Agency Emergency Fund are Northern Trust and several other members of Chicago Funders Together to End Homelessness (CFTEH), a local philanthropic collaborative incubated at Michael Reese Health Trust. In a matter of weeks, foundation members of CFTEH which have mobilized resources include: Blowitz-Ridgeway Foundation, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, the Chicago Community COVID-19 Response Fund, Crown Family Philanthropies, Cuore e Mani Foundation, Northern Trust, The Owens Foundation, Pierce Family Foundation and Denis Pierce, Polk Bros. Foundation, Waterton Philanthropic Fund, and an anonymous foundation funder.