Community Lender Partners With Nonprofit to Pilot Job Training Program For Ex-Offenders

The Chicago Neighborhood Rebuild Pilot Training Program offers job training for ex-offenders and youth by putting them to work rehabilitating vacant homes in three of Chicago’s most disinvested areas. Photo Credit: Chicago Community Loan Fund
The Chicago Neighborhood Rebuild Pilot Training Program offers job training for ex-offenders and youth by putting them to work rehabilitating vacant homes in three of Chicago’s most disinvested areas. Photo Credit: Chicago Community Loan Fund

Community Lender Partners With Nonprofit to Pilot Job Training Program For Ex-Offenders

The Chicago Community Loan Fund in collaboration with the Safer Foundation is in the midst of their three-year-long Chicago Neighborhood Rebuild Pilot Training Program.

The program provides ex-offenders and young people with job training opportunities and allows them to assist with home renovations.

Through the Chicago Neighborhood Rebuild Pilot Training Program, the two organizations have come together to tackle recidivism, unemployment, and vacant housing in Chicago’s hardest hit neighborhoods. The goal of the three-year pilot is to rehab 50 houses in the Englewood, Lawndale, and Garfield Park.

“The goal of this program is to purchase, renovate, and sell 50 single-family and two-flat residential properties in the 7th, 10th, and 11th police districts. Those three police districts were chosen because they have been known to have the highest level of violence and the highest level of underdevelopment. The goal is to provide investment [in neighborhoods] while also offering workforce development for ex-offenders and the hardest to employ youth,” said Lycrecia Parks, vice president of Portfolio Management for the Chicago Community Loan Fund.

The people who participate in this program will be able to gain experience doing renovations along with other job skills that will help them find employment. So far, 78 people have been recruited to participate in the workforce training pilot. Of those 78 people, 96 percent are black and 39 percent are ex-offenders.

“We aren’t just training them in this skill, we know that’s not enough and we have incorporated wrap-around services for them. After the cohort is over, there is still a counselor that will check in and make sure they are showing up for work on time, we can help them with their resumes, and we can connect them with any other resources that they may need to ensure that they don’t return to violent crimes or incarceration,” said Parks.

As a lender, the Chicago Community Loan Fund has its own goals in addition to providing job training. The Loan Fund is looking to get vacant properties rehabilitated and back on the market for potential homeowners.

“We are trying to improve these communities by showing that people and families still want to live in these neighborhoods. We know that homeowners take pride in their neighborhoods so having this be a for-sale model shows them that we want them to have a stake in their neighborhoods,” said Parks. “They are going to be the ones that create those block clubs that will deter the crime.”

So far, the Chicago Neighborhood Rebuild Pilot Training Program has renovated five properties and sold one. The program is currently in its second year of operation and by the end of the three-year pilot program, they hope to have shown that there are people who want to move into these three undervalued communities.

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