April 19 , 2005

UIC PROGRAM TO IMPROVE NORTH LAWNDALE HOUSING, SERVICES

A new University of Illinois at Chicago program is looking to improve housing, non-profit services and community media in North Lawndale.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has given UIC a
$200,000 grant through late 2006 to fund the initiative. The grant money will go toward five projects to be conducted by the Neighborhoods Initiative of UIC's Great Cities Institute, in partnership with local organizations and other UIC units:

Low-income Housing:
UIC's Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement will
inventory government-subsidized housing. The center and the Chicago Rehab Network will educate the housing owners on ways to maintain low rents when their subsidies expire, rather than converting their property to market-rate units. Workshops and a resource guide will inform residents how and when subsidies expire and how they can help preserve low-income housing.

Accessible Housing:
The Voorhees Center, along with the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences, will assess the needs of seniors and people with disabilities. The center and Access Living will connect residents with resources to reduce or eliminate accessible-housing barriers.

Employment Services:
UIC's Center for Urban Economic Development will do a market study to know what help residents need to find jobs, and will design services to enhance the North Lawndale Employment Network.

Nonprofit Growth:
The Great Cities Institute and the Steans Family Foundation will assess 20 nonprofits and train them to increase their capacity, adjust their programming, diversify their funding, and collaborate with other organizations.

Community Media:
A graduate-level class in the UIC department of communications will develop an evaluation tool for the North Lawndale Community News, a biweekly newspaper with 30,000 circulation. The class will evaluate the newspaper by May 2005, and will adapt the tool for the newspaper's periodic self-evaluation.

"This is how our students can learn nonprofit agency dynamics, which they can't do in the classroom, and they can apply planning theory immediately after learning it," said Atanacio Gonzalez, associate director of the Neighborhood Initiative.

The Neighborhoods Initiative coordinates a network of partnerships for
research, education and service with diverse organizations in neighborhoods near UIC. For information, see www.uic.edu/cuppa/gci/uicni/

- UIC -