Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for
Neighborhood and Community Improvement
University of Illinois President James
Stukel (center)
with Nathalie and Alan Voorhees
Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for
Neighborhood and Community Improvement
University of Illinois President James
Stukel (center)
with Nathalie and Alan Voorhees
The Nathalie P. Voorhees Neighborhood Center was founded in 1979 with a major gift from Alan and Nathalie P. Voorhees. Since its founding, the Voorhees Neighborhood Center has developed a record and reputation for responding to the technical assistance and research needs of the many community organizations and coalitions in the Chicago area.
The Voorhees Neighborhood Center is part of the University of Illinois at Chicago's Center for Urban Economic Development in the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs. The Voorhees Center is managed by an Associate Director of UICUED. Being part of UICUED and the UPPA College allows the Voorhees Center to draw on the university faculty and other resources to accomplish its work.
The two main goals of the Voorhees Center are 1) to provide technical assistance and research needs requested by community organizations and coalitions in the Chicago area and 2) to provide Urban Planning graduate students practical experience in community development while they are studying for their master's degree.
The Voorhees Center has been part of a university wide network brought together under the UIC Great Cities Program to develop partnerships with the communities adjacent to the university campus. This network has received funding from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) through its Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC) and Joint Community Development Program (JCDP). As part of these partnerships the Voorhees Center has been working with three community development corporations that operate in the neighborhoods near the university. The Voorhees Center will work in partnership with these cdcs to enhance and further develop their affordable housing and economic development programs.
Examples of recent research and technical assistance projects that the Voorhees Neighborhood Center has worked on include the following:
1. The Voorhees Center has completed a rent study for The Resurrection Project. The Resurrection Project is a community development corporation which is based in the Pilsen community. The Pilsen community is just south of the UIC campus. TRP has been developing a rental rehabilitation program for housing in the neighborhood. TRP was interested in getting a better idea of what was happening in the Pilsen housing market. For this reason, the TRP staff asked the Voorhees Center to work with them to do a renter’s survey. The survey asked a series of questions about the rent, condition of the apartment, satisfaction with the building and neighborhood, and demographic information. This information is meant to, first, assist TRP in better understanding the rental conditions in the neighborhood and secondly, to help them design their housing programs to meet the needs of the community.
2. The Voorhees Center completed a background paper on Strategies for Development without Displacement in June, 1995, which is now available on the WWW at http://www.uic.edu/~pwright/dwd.html. This paper was prepared for the Chicago Rehab Network. The CRN organized a task force of representatives from communities undergoing gentrification and displacement, government officials, business interests and researchers. The task force had as its goal to develop a series of policies for the City of Chicago to guide community development without displacing the existing residents and businesses who reside in communities that need reinvestment. The Voorhees Center was asked by the CRN to form a research team and do the background research on how other cities have alleviated or prevented displacement and gentrification. The research team also looked at the policies and programs at the city and federal level that were being implemented.
3. The Voorhees Center has worked with the Coalition To Protect Public Housing to research the impact of recent changes in public housing policy in Chicago. The research focuses on the Section 8 Voucher and Certificate Program and also the redevelopment plans for the Cabrini Green public housing development on Chicago's near north side.
Pat Wright, Associate Director
University of Illinois at Chicago
400 South Peoria Street
Suite 2100
Chicago, Illinois 60607
312-996-5083
E-mail: PWright@uic.edu or other Voorhees staff members: