Welcome
The Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement (VC) is a unit of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Since its founding in 1978, the Center has been guided by the mission to improve the quality of life for all residents of the City of Chicago and the metropolitan area through research and technical assistance to organizations and local government agencies in their efforts to revitalize the many and varied neighborhoods and communities.
The Voorhees Center works in collaboration with faculty and involves urban planning and policy graduate students in its work so that they may acquire practical experience in research and policy analysis through their work on Voorhees projects while providing valuable service to communities. In any given year, the Center works on twelve major projects. In keeping with the Great Cities Institute mission, the Center is committed to the creation of new knowledge, and problem solving in a participatory context and in partnership with faculty, community groups, residents and other stakeholders.
The Center's community development and affordable housing-related projects generally involve data collection and analysis, community surveys, technical assistance, community impact studies, needs assessment and gap analysis, market studies, feasibility analysis, affordable housing plans, financial analysis, etc. Additionally, the Center maintains a subsidized housing database (IHARP) for Chicago and the state of Illinois. The Center primarily responds to requests for assistance by community organizations, local government agencies, and others and works in close collaboration with them.
Its area of focus through the years has been community development in general and affordable housing in particular; it has extensive experience and strength in affordable housing policy and finance. Future projects will build on this strength while taking due consideration of the fact that the quality of life in any community is the sum total of variables including housing, jobs, good schools, community safety, and transportation, among others. This enhanced model will allow the Center to adopt an interdisciplinary approach to community development that weaves the core issues of affordable housing into a new, holistic, and comprehensive development 'tapestry' of jobs, economic development, transportation, health, safety, culture, and art. This long-term approach to comprehensive community development is expected to make the Voorhees Center more effective in partnering with communities in a more comprehensive way to accomplish holistic community development goals, informing and influencing policy change, and improving how government does business with communities.
Each community is unique and the needs of each community and the partners the Center works with vary a great deal. With 30 years of working with the community, Voorhees Center areas of specialization include:
- Affordable housing issues
- Community planning & development
- Market studies
- Needs assessments
- Impact analysis
- Feasibility studies
- Data collection and analysis
- Real estate finance
- Evaluations
Please visit the publications page for examples of studies prepared by the Voorhees Center. If you are interested in getting more information about the work of the Center, feel free to contact any of the staff listed below:
Yittayih Zelalem |
(312) 996-6674 |
yittazel@uic.edu |
|---|---|---|
Janet Smith |
(312) 996-5083 |
janets@uic.edu |
400 South Peoria Str, Suite 2100
Chicago, IL 60607
