GSDC

NCP staff brought community leaders together and in a series of meetings they created a vision for the future of Chicago Lawn and established eight strategy areas on which to focus the efforts of the community in order to change the existing Chicago Lawn into the vision of the future.

Our Shared Vision for a New Chicago Lawn

Because we love Chicago Lawn and want to stay here, we envision a community that in five years would be voted one of the top 10 most desirable neighborhoods in the county. Chicago Lawn will have stable homeownership and no abandoned buildings, high quality health care accessible to all residents, great parks with excellent facilities and programs, outstanding schools and a wide assortment of cultural, sports and educational after-school activities for children and youth. It will have a thriving retail and industrial sector bringing jobs to the neighborhood and making 63rd Street among the most popular multi-ethnic dining and shopping destinations in the city. Chicago Lawn will be an attractive, safe and inviting place to live for families of diverse racial, religious, ethnic, socio-economic and immigrant backgrounds, with something to offer individuals of all ages. It will be a place where residents, key leaders and stakeholders from community institutions and the public and private sectors know each other and work together, holding each other accountable in keeping this community thriving.

Strategy Areas and Projects

These strategy areas encompass over 60 projects and plans on which a local community organization or institution has agreed to take the lead. Click here to download the Chicago Southwest Quality-of-Life Plan view detailed descriptions of every project. Listed below are the projects that NCP organizations and task members have recently completed or are currently working on.

• SWOP and GSDC teamed with Speaker Madigan to pass Illinois House Bill 4050, which creates a pilot program database to help track bad actors in the lending process and mandates pre-purchase counseling among those most vulnerable to predatory practices.
• Housing Connections/ Neighborhood Works? Clean and Green Day, including Housing Fair. NCP staff organized a five-block (85 houses) clean up utilizing neighborhood leaders as captains of each side of each block. The Housing Fair featured 23 presenters and used 16 volunteers. Additionally, staff from the Botanical Garden coordinated the installation of a community garden, including raised garden beds, flowers and trees.
• Metropolitan Family Services and Lawn Terrace Apartments jointly proposed a new "intergenerational" project that brings seniors and children together on a weekly basis. The partnership successfully secured NCP support with a seed grant of $8,000 to launch the program. One of the components of this program will be an intergenerational gardening project, utilizing a volunteer, Ellen Garza, from the University of Illinois Extension Master Gardener Program.
• GSDC will be opening a Center for Working Families, which will include a Homeownership Counseling component. Currently this component is available as Pre-Purchase classes and Foreclosure Counseling, but these services will be expanded to include Post-Purchase classes and the mandatory pre-purchase counseling required by HB 4050.
• GSDC and the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC) recently received a grant from the MacArthur Foundation to utilize a mapping technology that NIPC created. As part of our Housing Preservation Strategy, GSDC decided to focus in particular on the bungalows that are so prevalent in Chicago Lawn and to assist bungalow owners access the many incentives available to them.
• NHS is forming a Homeowners Association with 80 Chicago Lawn homeowners as members so far. The Association will work in coordination with the mapping staff to educate homeowners about programs that can help them pay for repairs and more.

• 16 local high school students, along with several teachers and a Master Gardener volunteer planted 51 flowerpots along 63rd Street.
• Over the 2005 summer, Gage Park High School students planted flowers, watered flowerpots and planned gardens in green spaces along 63rd Street.
• GSDC made a bid on a 40,000 square foot building on 63rd Street for the Center for Working Families (CWF) site and is seeking design concepts for the building. The CWF will be located on or near 63rd Street, close to public transportation, and will include a workforce center, staffed by Instituto del Progresso Latino, the Homeownership Center, a Tax Center and Financial Literacy programs, and the predatory lending counseling center.

• SWOP has held Four Leadership Development Sessions, preparing over 80 community leaders for participation in public life. These neighborhood leaders are essential to completing the projects and plans we have outlined to improve the neighborhood.
• Through the New Americans Initiative, over 400 residents have signed up for citizenship.
• Families por la paz (St. Clare Church/Talman Elementary School) leaders are holding meetings with CPD Superintendent Phil Cline, Alderman Burke, and 8th District Commander Carroll to work on gang violence around the school.
• Maria High School students began projects in theology classes researching 1966 Fair Housing March in Marquette Park as a first step in development of a memorial for the Marquette Park Area.
• 80 Homeowners have become Neighborhood Ambassadors with NHS. The Association will work in coordination with the mapping staff to educate homeowners about programs that can help them pay for repairs and more.

• SWOP hired a new organizer to focus on safety and safety related projects.
• LISC agreed to support Ceasefire with a 40K grant to help keep outreach workers on through the summer.
• Families por la paz (St. Clare Church/Talman Elementary School) leaders are holding meetings with CPD Superintendent Phil Cline, Alderman Burke, and 8th District Commander Carroll to work on gang violence around the school.
• GSDC and Southwest Women Working Together (SWWT) hosted a "Violence Prevention in the Workplace" seminar to educate business owners and managers on smart workplace violence prevention measures and on how to respond to employees undergoing domestic violence.

• SWOP, joining with United Power, successfully lobbied for an increase in Kidcare and Familycare funds, increasing access by additional 125,000 families.
• Holy Cross Hospital and other Southwest Side institutions successfully lobbied for increased state funding and a federal support fund for the hospital.
• Healthy Chicago Lawn held a community forum to increase community awareness of their planning process and to generate new involvement. They then developed action teams to further develop strategies in key public health areas; the four action groups meet monthly. Visit the Healthy Chicago Lawn website for more information.

• Southwest institutional leaders sponsored a series of free summer barbeques with Ceasefire in area hotspots for the neighborhood youth. Key institutional leaders cooked and served at those barbeques. Churchview Supportive Living and GSDC teamed up to sponsor a barbeque in the lot behind the senior residence building.
• GSDC continues to work on the planning process with community leaders for the SouthWest Fest in summer 2006.
• Community leaders meet with Chicago Public Art Group to begin planning process for public art project with area youth.

• In October 2004, GSDC brought together manufacturing and commercial businesses with Education-to-Careers Coordinators from neighborhood high schools to discuss how these two types of institutions can partner together to create opportunities for youth and establish a reliable, local workforce.
• In February 2005, GSDC helped place ten students with industrial companies for Job Shadowing Day, exposing them to a variety of job opportunities.
• GSDC is partnering with Instituto del Progresso Latino for an expanded workforce center on the Southwest Side as a part of the Center for Working Families and a Manufacturing Sectoral Center.
• GSDC expanded the summer intern program with a local high school, working with students in the 63rd Street gardening project. These students earned a paycheck through the KidStart program with the Mayor's Office on Workforce Development.

• Parents Associations are being strengthened at Marquette, Eberhart and Talman Elementary schools.
• Leaders and staff at Marquette, Eberhart and Talman Elementary schools and SWOP started the "Parents as Mentors" program. 18 teachers at Marquette School have completed SWOP's Leadership Development sessions to begin understanding the process of getting parents more involved in public life.
• Instituto del Progresso Latino and SWOP are beginning the planning process for an alternative high school in Chicago Lawn.

Get involved!

To learn more about the NCP, please visit http://www.newcommunities.org.