March 2024 — Moving the Needle | Woods Fund Chicago
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WFC GRANTEE PARTNERS ORGANIZING FOR CHICAGOANS TO HAVE A PLACE TO LIVE — AND STAY —
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This past Election Day, Chicagoans had the opportunity to vote on Bring Chicago Home — a ballot measure that would have restructured Chicago’s Real Estate Transfer Tax (RETT) to legally establish dedicated funding for affordable housing. This was a campaign in the works for years, led and organized by several of Woods Fund Chicago’s grantee partners across geography and generations. Moreover, Bring Chicago Home was a proposal designed to address the deep-rooted injustice of housing inequality that has plagued Chicago — particularly Black Chicagoans — for decades.
The history of housing discrimination in Chicago is deeply embedded into the city’s fabric — so much so, that practices such as redlining, predatory housing contracts, price markups on homes sold to Black residents, and discriminatory parameters written into housing deeds have resulted in segregation that is still visible today in most maps of city data. While these practices may no longer be legally permitted, communities where Black Chicagoans and other residents of color reside remain blighted as resources are persistently inaccessible.
Today, systemic disinvestment and segregation have left thousands of Chicagoans without stable housing, disproportionately affecting Black Chicagoans at a massive scale. Woods Fund Chicago grantee partner Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (a key steering committee member of Bring Chicago Home) released a report in 2023 on the Estimate of People Experiencing Homelessness in Chicago. Findings reveal that homelessness had increased by 4.5% from before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, 82% of people experiencing homelessness are people of color, and “Black and African American Chicagoans account for 53% of all people experiencing homelessness while making up only 29% of the city’s total population."
Housing is at the heart of several factors that determine one’s quality of life. Other gaps as the result of disinvestment in Black neighborhoods and communities of color such as food access, employment, education, and transportation are only exacerbated by housing instability. Bring Chicago Home was a proposed step toward housing every Chicagoan by utilizing the wealth produced by real estate transactions over $1 million to create protected funding for affordable housing. Investment in affordable and accessible housing is crucial to breaking the cycle where resources are denied to Black Chicagoans and residents of color.
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Housing isn’t an issue that begins and ends at the polls, and while the Bring Chicago Home referendum narrowly lost, urgent efforts by our grantee partners and their coalitions to house every Chicagoan and bring justice to the painful racial and economic inequities of the city will not cease. We commend the unyielding efforts of our grantee partners including Bring Chicago Home steering committee members Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Communities United, Not Me We, and ONE Northside, and the 20+ grantee partners who supported and provided community education around the ballot measure. We celebrate your tenacity and integrity and support your continued work in organizing for racial and economic justice across Chicago and beyond.
We call upon our partners, supporters, and peers to support this coalition of organizers as they work at the frontlines within and across communities to right decades of systemic racial harm in Chicago. There are many ways to get involved and show your support, whether keeping up-to-date through newsletters and social media, joining community events, or volunteering time and resources. Justice is a benefit to all of us, and all of us are needed in the movement to achieve that vision.
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Woods Fund Chicago Director of Grants Management and Assistant Corporate Secretary Deborah D. Clark shared a testimony at GivingData’s conference last fall about Woods Fund Chicago’s improvements to the grantmaking process and how GivingData software has supported these transitions. Deborah has over two decades of grants management experience at WFC, and her testimony speaks to our approach to evolving our processes to best match the needs of our current and potential grantee partners. Along with improving the processing of sending grant applications, providing the ability to be more responsive to applicants and grantee partners, and improving our data management, Deborah highlights how GivingData “helps us with the transparency that we aspire to.”
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The Future of Philanthropy Is Trust-Based
Why We're Reading It: The Trust-Based Philanthropy Project developed a 16-page supplement for the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Spring Issue that dives into the opportunities of a Trust-Based Philanthropy (TBP) approach. The supplement covers topics such as how funders are beginning to adopt TBP, how funders can be kept accountable, TBP's relationship with racial justice, how TBP rejects corporate structures and reflects community, and more, providing insight into how a Trust-Based approach can strengthen movements and reinforces Woods Fund Chicago’s commitment to centralizing TBP and its principles.
Stanford Social Innovation Review // Read now
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Border and Rule by Harsha Walia
Why We're Reading It: The book delves into the complex dynamics surrounding borders, examining their historical origins, political significance, and social implications. Walia explores how borders are not just physical lines on a map but also constructs of power that shape identities, economies, and geopolitics. The book analyzes the ways in which borders impact individuals and communities, often exacerbating inequalities and reinforcing systems of oppression. Through an interdisciplinary lens, Border and Rule challenges readers to critically reflect on the role of borders in our world and consider alternative frameworks for understanding and addressing global issues.
Border and Rule // Find a local retailer
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Black Women Leaders Are Powering Philanthropy
Why We're Reading It: Nonprofit Quarterly features the new book Portraits of Us: A Book of Essays Centering Black Women Leading Philanthropy and its editor Toya Nash Randall, who discusses the process of putting together the book and creating a portrait of the often overlooked and underappreciated work of Black women leaders in philanthropy, the challenges they face, and the convening power that emerged as they leaders came together to share their experiences.
Nonprofit Quarterly // Read now
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What’s the best way to count Chicago’s homeless population?
Why We’re Listening: With housing front-and-center at the Chicago Primary Election, we’re listening to this interview with Bob Palmer, WFC grantee partner Housing Action Illinois’ policy director, that delves into the challenges Chicago faces in accurately counting its unhoused population — and how an undercount could affect funding for critical services to prevent homelessness and provide support.
WBEZ Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons // Listen Now
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