Grants

Grant Recipient

Dust Em Clean Maintenance Company Inc.

Awarded: June 2023 Awarded Amount: $100,000

Dust Em Clean is seeking a predevelopment grant to redevelop a long vacant site at 634 E 61st Street in the West Woodlawn neighborhood, into a three-story, 9,200 square foot mixed use building that will include 4,800 square feet of ground floor commercial space and four residential units on the upper floors. The project has a total development budget of $5,069,394 of which $4,262,899 is construction costs plus a 5% contingency. Dust Em Clean has secured a letter of intent from the Chicago Community Loan Fund to provide a permanent loan in the amount of $632,000 and will apply in August 2023 for 3.8M in funding from the City of Chicago, See Letter of Support from the City of Chicago Department of Planning & Development attached. The owner has contributed $156,000 in cash equity and is seeking $100,000 from CCT and will seek additional grant dollars to fill the remaining gap from ComEd, State of Illinois or We Rise Together Fund. The existing building will be totally demolished and a new building will be constructed. Upon securing financing commitments, it is the goal to complete construction documents and obtain a building permit by January 2024 and commence construction in April 2024. The office building will house Dust Em Clean administrative and training space and two commercial lease tenants, i.e. STOP a non-profit organization and Nathanials Hot Dogs.(Letter of Intent to Lease have been uploaded). Dust ‘Em Clean is an established certified minority and woman owned business based in the Woodlawn community area and has served as a catalyst for economic impact for Woodlawn since its inception in1996—hiring and training hundreds of community, neighboring, city, and state residents. Because they are based in the neighborhood with their existing office a few blocks away, providing workforce training and jobs, direct and indirect economic impact (i.e., income tax revenue, property tax revenue, local sales tax revenue, etc.) and generational wealth creation for a long-term African-American family for West Woodlawn. While also transforming a blighted property into a productive use is just as important as securing a new office space for its business as well as other businesses and providing affordable housing. According to the City of Chicago’s Woodlawn Plan Consolidation Report, adopted by the Plan Commission in May 2020, key priorities for Woodlawn include the redevelopment of vacant property, support for small businesses and entrepreneurs, and additional housing—all of while the proposed development will provide additional local investments and vibrancy within the neighborhood.

Grant Recipient

Art Institute of Chicago

Awarded: June 2023 Awarded Amount: $2,500

Grant Recipient

Unity Parenting and Counseling Inc

Awarded: June 2023 Awarded Amount: $210,000

Unity is requesting funds to implement and enhance its 6 Chicago Southside based homeless youth housing programs . All youth programs serve 18-24 years olds . Ujima Village is an overnight shelter for youth , serving dinner and breakfast. Harmony Village and Project Ignite serve individuals and youth headed families including intact young families in transitional housing . Ignite serves homeless youth living with HIV/AIDS, Ujima STARS provides shorter term project based transitional housing for young singles and families and then moves them into Rapid Rehousing with intensive services and tenant based housing subsidies . Unity’s Flexible Housing Pool Program (FHP) works in partnership with the Center for Housing and Health and other youth serving homeless programs in Chicago to ensure that homeless youth experiencing medical/mental health issues, recent contacts with the juvenile or adult corrections systems are given housing and support to deal with immediate critical needs and to build pathways to ongoing independence and stability, Umoja Village provides permanent housing for disabled youth. Funds will support program enhancement through targeted research, program and fund development to ensure the programs address crises and survival needs while simultaneously building resources and skills needed to plan and attain a successful future.

Grant Recipient

Chicago Furniture Bank

Awarded: June 2023 Awarded Amount: $75,000

The mission of the Chicago Furniture Bank is to provide dignity, stability and comfort to Chicagoans that face poverty by allowing clients to handpick an entire home’s worth of furniture for free. In just four years, we have become the largest furniture bank in the country, fully furnishing 90 homes per week (giving away 140 bed sets) through partnerships with 450+ social service agencies. The CFB has 60+ full-time employees, with most staff being hired from nonprofit workforce development partners, and currently runs 13 trucks a day. Additionally, we have diverted more furniture from landfills than the volume of the Empire State Building. In 2022 the CFB furnished 4,200+ homes, and we plan to continue to grow to reach our goal of furnishing 5,000 homes annually by 2024. In 2020, the CFB launched its sister nonprofit, Honest Junk Company (HJ), to help fund the organization. Honest Junk is the first 501c3 junk removal and corporate decommissioning service in the country. HJ donates all usable items picked up to various charity partners, with all revenue going to help fund the CFB. In 2022, HJ did roughly $2.2M in revenue up from $800K the year prior. The CFB is a true nonprofit social enterprise and is able to cover roughly 90% of its operating budget through earned revenue. This means that every $1 donated generates $10 worth of cash flow towards the CFB’s mission. Every person should be able to sleep on a bed, share a meal at a table, and do homework on a desk. At the very least, furniture poverty affects one’s quality of life; at worst, it becomes a contributing factor to social exclusion, physical and mental distress, and recidivism to homelessness. Our streamlined program helps to stabilize households when they are beginning a new chapter in their lives and adds a tremendous amount of value to our nonprofit partners by providing outsized economic security that supports their clients’ long term success. Providing furniture to those leaving shelters is a critical and oftentimes overlooked component in the Housing First Model, as we believe four walls and roof does not truly create a home. The CFB is requesting $75,000 in funding from the CCT to allow us to hire our first caseworker. This employee’s goal will be to get those living in furniture poverty, but not connected to referring agencies, appointments at the CFB via our partnership with Chicago’s / United Way's 211 call center. The CFB believes that one of the largest beneficiaries of this expansion of services will be low-income home-owners that are living in furniture poverty, but can’t find a caseworker to refer them to CFB.

Grant Recipient

Taskforce Prevention and Community Services

Awarded: June 2023 Awarded Amount: $135,000

Taskforce Prevention and Community Services is a community based organization on the West side of Chicago, in the Austin Community. The organization offers several important services that are prioritized in this RFP and is submitting this application to request funds to support its general operations functions and organizational growth.

Grant Recipient

Cicero Independiente

Awarded: June 2023 Awarded Amount: $75,000

Cicero Independiente requests renewed general operating support to ensure that we can continue to meet the information needs of a bilingual, immigrant community and provide paid opportunities for people of color to acquire journalism skills and increase civic engagement.

Grant Recipient

Here To Stay CLT Inc

Awarded: June 2023 Awarded Amount: $100,000

The Here to Stay Community Land Trust creates affordable homes and the opportunity to build wealth through homeownership to community members at risk of displacement due to gentrification. For each property Here to Stays acquires and rehabs in the rapidly gentrifying areas of Chicago’s northwest side, we need approximately $200,000 in subsidy in order to reduce the sales price to target affordability at 80% AMI. This grant would be part of a subsidy layer that would ensure two more families can remain in the community and grow their household wealth while experiencing the stability of homeownership using the community land trust model.