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Community meeting, Chicago, IL

CHICAGO

Turning Neighborhoods Around

In the last two decades CDCs across Chicago have grown into one of the nation’s largest and most productive community development networks: between 1980 and 2000 more than 40 CDCs produced over 10,000 units of affordable housing, nearly half of all residential development in the city during that time and a net investment of $800 million in the poorest neighborhoods. Over the same period Chicago CDCs developed more than 1.5 million square feet of commercial and industrial space.

Bethel New Life CDC in West Garfield Park , for example, is hailed internationally as a community development model. It began small but has magnified its impact over 25 years by working on projects that met more than one need: e.g., a senior citizens’ residence combined with a health clinic, simultaneous rehabilitation of an apartment complex and its storefronts. To date, the CDC has built or rehabilitated more than 1,000 homes, placed 4,000 in full-time jobs, and founded a program that has cut its neighborhood’s infant mortality rate by 36% since the mid-1980s.

Chicago is also home to ShoreBank, the first commercial bank devoted to community development, whose $600 million in loans have helped 13,000 South Side and West Side families and entrepreneurs renovate homes and businesses over the last 30 years.

A New Model: Community Broker

In the last half-dozen years, the community building industry in Chicago has changed dramatically. After losing a few high-profile CDCs, the Chicago Local Initiatives Support Corporation (Chicago LISC) and some of its CDC partners decided they needed to take on new roles. Rather than focusing only on housing or commercial production, CDCs would try more broadly to connect their neighborhoods to the economic mainstream. That meant new services, which in turn meant CDCs would have to attract new organizations able to provide them.

Living Cities supported three CDCs as they attempted to take on this new “brokering” role, through Chicago LISC’s New Communities Initiative (NCI). These three—in the Pilsen, Near West Side, and Southeast Chicago areas—have been instrumental in creating new rental and sales housing, six employment centers, four grocery stores or shopping areas, two charter schools, several open space and park improvements, and a support program for child care providers.

Pilot Cities Initiative: The New Communities Program

NCI was such a success that Chicago funders decided to replicate it. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation provided LISC with $12.5 million to expand into 13 more neighborhoods, in an effort now called the New Communities Program (NCP). These areas face a variety of challenges and needs, so rather than directing development projects from the top down, NCP aims to have each community direct them from the bottom up. It is, in effect, Chicago’s largest ever grassroots organizing effort, with more than 2,500 residents already participating in its planning efforts. To learn more about the New Communities Program and the Pilot Cities Initiative, visit the PCI page.