The Endeleo Organization wants to redevelop 95th Street Corridor

Melvin Thompson is the executive director of Endeleo Institute, an organization that is looking to revitalize the 95th Street Corridor with businesses. Photo provided by Kimberley Rudd
Melvin Thompson is the executive director of Endeleo Institute, an organization that is looking to revitalize the 95th Street Corridor with businesses. Photo provided by Kimberley Rudd

The Endeleo Organization wants to redevelop 95th Street Corridor

By Tia Carol Jones
A local organization wants to revitalize the area along the 95th Street Corridor, from Cottage Grove to Halsted, to include much needed businesses for the community’s residents. The Endeleo Institute was founded in 2011 to empower the community to improve the health, education and economic outcomes to allow for a better quality of life by repurposing existing assests.

The Endeleo Institute is part of Trinity United Church of Christ, located 400 W. 95th St. It is the fusion of three Trinity initiatives – Endeleo Health, Endeleo Education and Endeleo Community Development -- into one organization. The Endeleo Institute spearheaded the restoration of the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library, located at 9525 S. Halsted. It had fallen into disrepair and the Endeleo Institute believed restoring the library would serve as a catalyst for revitalizing business along that corridor.

The word Endeleo in Swahili is for progress, growth and development. The Endeleo Institute capitalized on the momentum and attention garnered by the restoration of the library and bought an 800 sq. ft. building on the corner of 95th and Harvard. That building will be the site of a coffee shop, which is something the Endeleo was told by residents they wanted. Later this year, Café DuBois, named after WEB DuBois, will open.

“We hope that, along with the library and the café and a few other things that we have planned along the corridor, it will inspire other like-minded entrepreneurs to open businesses along the corridor,” said Melvin Thompson, executive director of the Endeleo Institute.

Thompson said the corridor has been overlooked for decades. The area has not been one that has had bustling retail. The Endeleo Institute knew it was something it was going to have to do for itself.

The corridor sits in the Washington Heights community, wedged between Roseland and Auburn Gresham, a community of 27,000 people. Thompson said based on a 2016 Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning report that indicated the community had the highest single family home ownership rate in the city. It was news to him. Thompson knew there was a solid African American homeownership rate, but he didn’t know it was nearly 67%.

Commonly, where high homeownership rates exist, there is complementary retail development and business to meet the needs of those homeowners. In Washington Heights, that is not the case. The  Endeleo Institute didn’t believe that was good for the community and they started to look at why it happened.

“We shouldn’t have to travel 15 miles to sit down at a Red Lobster, or have a cup of coffee. The report also stated Washington Heights was losing $198 million that was “leaking” out of our community,” Thompson said.

It means that community residents were leaving the community to spend money to get the kinds of amenities people in other communities have access to just by walking out of their houses and across the street. Thompson wants the same for the Washington Heights community.

For instance, there is not a full-service grocery story in the Washington Heights community. The closest grocery stores are the Jewel-Osco on 95th and Stony Island and the Jewel-Osco that is on 95th and Ashland Ave. The Residents who live in-between those two grocery stores need a car or some form of transportation to get to them. Thompson has seen people in the community get off the bus with 8 to 9 grocery bags. There are plans to have a local corner market, once a vacant space is located.

“This project will bolster equality by closing the wealth gap that is just expanding between Black people and white people every day. That’s never going to change until we start creating wealth for ourselves,” Thompson said.

The Endeleo Institute is actively recruiting community residents, business owners and individuals who are interested in seeing the 95th Street Corridor revitalized, vibrant, thriving and safe.
For more information about the Endeleo Institute, visit endeleoinstitute.org.

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