ORGANIZING NEIGHBORHOODS FOR EQUALITY NORTHSIDE
4648 N Racine, Chicago, IL 60640 www.onechicago.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: Organizing Neighborhoods for Equality: Northside is a mixed-income, multi-ethnic, intergenerational organization that unites our diverse communities. We build collective power to eliminate injustice through bold and innovative community organizing. We accomplish this through developing grassroots leaders and acting together to effect change.

Community Building Organizing includes Economic Justice Issue Team, Mental Health Justice Issue Team, Police Accountability/Violence Prevention Coalition.The Economic Justice Issue Team (EJIT) chooses campaigns that focus on raising progressive revenue. This means researching tax and budget issues, educating our membership, and advocating for policies that ask the rich and big corporations to pay their fair share in taxes. Our campaigns tend to focus on the state level, but we also take on federal and city level policy fights as well. The EJIT coordinates its campaigns in conjunction with several coalitions: Fair Economy Illinois, Grassroots Collaborative, Peoples Action and Center for Community Change.The Mental Health Justice Issue Team is made up of people living with mental illness, neighborhood providers and allies. Our view on mental illness is that recovery is possible. We believe that people living with mental illness should live in the least restrictive setting as possible. We fight for the rights of people living with mental illness to end the oppressive stigma. We work together to ensure that the needs of all community members are met through community based services and advocacy focused on recovery.ONE Northsides Violence Prevention Coalition (VPC) has created a 5 year plan to address structural racism, violence and mass incarceration and we will do it byDemolishing barriers in employment that foster violence and change the narrative for black and brown men on the Northside of Chicago. This will be accomplished by reducing incarceration rates by 30 %, recidivism rates by 20%, and dropping the expulsion rates in Chicago Public Schools by 50% for Communities on the Northside of Chicago by 2020.Bringing us closer to our five year goal, the Violence Prevention Coalition was instrumental in passing legislation in 2014 that removed the felony question from job applications (Ban The Box). Going forward the Violence Prevention Coalition has created a campaign that we are working on that will bring mandatory GED education to persons incarcerated in the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) who are without one.More than 90% of violent crimes are committed by people who have had some contact with the Justice system. People of color returning from prison who are seeking a second chance at life are finding themselves without the tools to succeed and in many cases no better off than when they were first incarcerated, this is a trend that is literally killing our communities. The VPC has decided to change this!With more than 48,000 people incarcerated in its facilities, the majority of whom are Black and Brown; over 22,000 of them do not have a High School Diploma or GED. Of the 22,000 people who are in need of a GED education to kick start a successful life upon release, less than 2,000 people incarcerated in Illinois had the opportunity to test for the GED certification in 2014.

ONE Northsides Affordable Housing Team chooses campaigns that focus on defending the North Sides diverse neighborhoods against gentrification.Right now ONE Northside works on several affordable housing issues:SROs: ONE Northside led the Chicago for All Coalition, which was successful in passing the Single Room Occupancy Preservation Ordinance on November 12, 2014. The Ordinance regulates the sale of SROs and provides new tenant protections, and has played a key role in holding developers accountable. Our focus now is on implementing the Ordinance by bringing together all stakeholders tenants, owners, the City, and developers to make sure SROs across Chicago are preserved and improved. So far, affordable housing developers at 6 SROs are on their way to preserving the properties for the current residents.Chicago Housing Initiative (CHI): ONE Northside is part of a city-wide coalition, the Chicago Housing Initative (CHI). working to preserve and improve public housing in Chicago. The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) is currently sitting on over $430 million in unused funds and has left thousands of units intentionally vacant, letting our public resources go to waste for years. This affects tens of thousands of families on the waiting list looking for housing.To hold CHA accountable for spending these funds towards providing public housing, we are working on a citywide ordinance called Keeping the Promise that would require more oversight of CHA through the city council. Since the lack of regulation of CHA is also due to a federal agreement that exists between 39 local housing authorities and the federal government, we are working on a national campaign to demand more transparency and inclusiveness of community organizations in formulating and implementing these agreements.Right to Purchase: ONE Northside is working with allies to expand on the Chicago for All Ordinance to ensure that residents in all rental housing are protected, especially at time of building sale.Affordable Requirements Ordinance (ARO): ONE Northside was part of a citywide group of organizations that create the ARO and recently were pushing for a stronger ARO, which is an ordinance that requires new development that need government support or approval to build a required amount of affordable housing units on-site or pay-out of this obligation through funding the citywide Low-Income Housing Trust Fund. These groups had previously fought to pass the original ARO passed in 2007. When the City called a task force to look at the ARO in 2015, ONE Northside was at the table, pushing the stakeholders to do more to create affordable housing in communities that needed it most. These improvements passed City Council in January 2015 and the revised legislation more than doubled the amount of revenue generated for affordable housing, as well as increased on-site affordable units.Tenant Organizing: ONE Northside organizes tenant associations in at-risk project-based Section 8 buildings and Single Room Occupancy buildings, which are small micro-apartments that are usually at affordable rents. The tenant associations work to preserve the affordability and improve the conditions of their housing, and to educate each other about their rights as tenants. In 2017, we have successfully worked with tenants to renew their Section 8 contracts for 5 more years in two Section 8 buildings in Uptown840 W Sunnyside and Ainslie Manor.Below are our current tenant organizing fights:Wilson Mens Hotel: ONE Northside is supporting tenants of the 250-unit Wilson Mens Hotel in organizing a Tenant Association. The building was purchased by a developer, City Pads, in July 2017 who intends to displace all tenants and reduce the size of the building by 75%. The tenants are fighting for a relocation plan that allows all tenants to remain in affordable housing on the Northside, and for at least half the units following rehabilitation of the building to be affordable for those currently living there.Uptown Tent City: ONE Northside has worked with homeless residents under the Wilson and Lawrence viaducts to demand a viable housing solution for all residents and to created a shift in the narrative of homelessness in Chicago. As affordable housing decreases throughout Chicago and the cost of living increases, ONE Northside wants to highlight the citys inability to address Chicagos overall affordable housing issues, particularly on the north side.Development/CBA Campaigns: ONE Northside has been organizing for community benefits agreements (a type of contract between a developer and community members) in several developments on the north side. As more and more developer money comes into our neighborhoods, ONE Northside wants to ensure that that money goes towards affordable housing, local jobs, and protections for existing tenants, including small businesses, that could be displaced or priced out.Below are three developments we are currently working on:Wilson/Broadway: A developer named George Markopoulos is planning to build a 197-unit luxury development at the corner of Wilson & Broadway. ONE Northside is fighting for a CBA that guarantees that the development will meet certain criteria designated by the community, that guarantees a third of units as truly affordable, local living wage jobs in all aspects of the development, and protections for the small businesses which will be displaced from the site.Granville/Broadway: There is a development on Granville and Broadway where developer, City Pads, has proposed building luxury studios to replace a car wash and cell phone store. Our team is working on a community benefits agreement with the developer to ensure the jobs pay a living wage, hire from the community, and includes more affordable units in the building.No Target Coalition: There is a proposal to develop a Target on a property on Devon and Sheridan, owned by the Chicago Housing Authority, in 2019. While we support the new units of public housing coming into Rogers Park, we believe that leasing the land to a Target and a market-rate developer is a corporate giveaway of public land. Our team has been fighting for a community benefits agreement with Three Corners Development in order to ensure new jobs do local hiring, that there is truly affordable family-sized CHA units, and that there are protections for local, small businesses in the development of Target.

Education and Parent Leadership OrganizingThe Education Team is made up of parents, students, teachers, and resident allies ready to take action via community-based approaches to address challenges of educational equity in Chicagos Northside public schools. Leaders are intentional about developing a relational culture in which we seek to strengthen ties between our communities and our schools based on shared values and re-defining teacher preparation that takes into account the range of issues that students and families face every day.

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