ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Supporting job creation, business recovery and growth in disinvested communities in Chicago.
MISSION
To help drive financial flows from the global marketplace back into Chicago’s urban landscape. With our partners in business, workforce development, and government, we will attract, establish, and grow businesses on the south and west sides of Chicago that produce globally competitive goods and services that are sold to large buyers and distributors in Chicago and around the world.
Chicago’s south and west sides have experienced significant loss of businesses over the last 70 years: steel and coal processing, machinery, automotive, rail car, food processing, and the businesses that make the thousands of things that go into all of them. Those departures, and closings, resulted in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs and have left behind thousands of acres of unproductive space in predominantly African American neighborhoods.
Globally Competitive Goods & Services
Workforce Development & Job Creation
These new and strengthened local businesses will be destinations, and stepping stones, for hundreds and thousands of Chicagoans who are
- Coming up through our schools, technical institutes, and colleges
- Currently underemployed or working in jobs that cannot pay head-of-household wages
- Returning to civilian life after serving in our armed forces
- Returning to open society after completing time for criminal convictions
Instead of losing talent to other cities, or to inactivity and discouragement, we desire to see God’s image bearers in Chicago gainfully participate in productive economic activity.
Supply-Chain Localization
Together Chicago is working to help bring these strengthened businesses to the attention of a leading healthcare provider that purchases over $100M each year in supplies and services. We are successfully helping these companies qualify as new supply-chain partners.
Home Ownership
To help new employees anchor themselves in these revitalized communities, rather than simply commute in for work, we have created a home ownership initiative:
- For-sale, single-family homes
- Within walking distance of these new jobs
- With modern, beautiful amenities,
- Robust construction
- Ultra-high energy efficiency
- With down payment assistance and favorable underwriting from major banks
- Financial and homeownership literacy programs
- At a price point that is comparable to local rent levels
Working individuals and families that step into these sorts of career opportunities, and this sort of home ownership will have the opportunity to experience higher household incomes, and asset ownership and appreciation that, we hope, will be a part of breaking cycles of poverty and discouragement, and will lead to generations of economic security and stability.
GET INVOLVED
Be a part of this collective effort to increase economic opportunities