RECLAIMING CHICAGO IS AWARDED THE 2025 CHICAGO PRIZE! Click here to learn more

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Reclaiming Chicago

Rebuild, Reclaim and Repopulate the City’s core neighborhoods for and with everyday working people and working-class families.

RECLAIMING CHICAGO IS AWARDED THE 2025 CHICAGO PRIZE!

Reclaiming Chicago is the recipient of the 2025 Chicago Prize awarded by the Pritzker Traubert Foundation! This award of $10 million will expand Reclaiming Chicago’s effort to incorporate a large lot strategy to pursue larger swaths of vacant land proximate to the existing areas of focus, greatly expanding the number of homes we can create in each neighborhood. The first site the award will support is at 74th and Talman at the south end of the Chicago Lawn neighborhood. This development includes 125 new homes with green space (a park and walking path) inside an existing neighborhood, stitching together blocks, increasing density, and supporting nearby commercial corridors at 63rd, 67th, and 71st Streets. This project will build upon the work done by SWOP in this neighborhood, where it has already preserved and built hundreds of affordable new homes.

The Chicago Prize funds will recycle upon sale of the homes as modelled by all of the Reclaiming construction loan funds, allowing for the development of other large-scale developments in our communities as well as continuing to scale up the infill strategy that has been successful to date.

We are excited for this next step in rebuilding, repopulating and reclaiming our core neighborhoods in the South and West Sides of Chicago!

The Goal

Build 2,000 HOMES ON THE SOUTH and THE WEST SIDES of Chicago, strategically and at scale BLOCKS AT A TIME so that we can replace vacancies, violence, and decades of disinvestment with affordable homes, safe streets, and OPPORTUNITIES FOR FAMILIES, especially families of color, TO BUILD WEALTH AND EQUITY.
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homes on the west side of Chicago

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homes on the south side of Chicago

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Where We Are

We have made significant progress:

NEW HOMEOWNERS

  • 71 HOMES SOLD with families moving into those homes
  • 650 BUYERS in the pipeline

NEW HOMES

  • 76 HOMES BUILT
  • 90 HOMES UNDER DEVELOPMENT across five neighborhoods
  • 125+ HOMES PLANNED in first large-lot strategy in Chicago Lawn
  • 500 LOTS FOR DEVELOPMENT committed by City at a pace of 125 per year

NEW MONEY

  • $52+ MILLION COMMITTED to date for home construction
  • $56 MILLION ALREADY DEPLOYED creating jobs, new homes and new homeowners, then redeployed on the next phase of building upon sale of homes
  • $30 MILLION COMMITTED from the State of Illinois to provide homebuyer subsidies

Creating generational wealth through homeownership.

Some of our Homeowners

Where We're Going

United Power members organized over 1,200 people to meet with newly elected Mayor Johnson and he committed to work with us:

  • COMMITED 500 CITY-OWNED VACANT LOTS
We have identified over 500 lots across the three city wards (9th, 20th and 24th) that our anchor member institutions are ready and waiting to get working on. The first 70 of these lots were conveyed in Fall 2024.
  • CUT THE RED TAPE
We have identified a number of ways for the city to free up the land and allow us to build as quickly as possible. The Mayor appointed his Chief of Staff John Roberson to be our point person to enact these efficiencies.
  • MONEY TO CLEAN-UP THE LAND
To offset the cost cleaning up vacant land, often vacant for decades and to return it to useful life including shoring up the city’s long-term tax base, we want the city to commit subsidy dollars to offset the cost of the land improvement to ensure the homes remain affordable to working families We want the city to commit at least $10 million this year to offset that cost.
  • STATE SUBSIDY
Last year’s state budget had a line item for $10 million to IDHS to provide United Power with grant funds to be used for homebuyer subsidies for this effort. We want a line item in the state budget again increased to $15 million to allow more progress to be made in 2025.

Where We Started

  • Began with Reclaiming Southwest Chicago.
  • In 2019, began to expand the effort to the west side
  • Secured $215 million in the state capital budget funds for affordable housing; $15 million directly allocated to Reclaiming Southwest Chicago and Reclaiming North Lawndale
  • 1251 people met with newly elected Mayor Lightfoot. Won commitment to work on Reclaiming Communities
  • Seeking city and state commitments for three key geographies in Chicago: Chicago Lawn and Back of the Yards on the southwest side and North Lawndale on the west side

Led by Proven Local Institutions

Past Initiatives

RECLAIMING SOUTHWEST CHICAGO

United Power member, The Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP) has led a strategic and concentrated effort to reclaim Chicago Lawn from 11,000 foreclosures and over 700 vacant properties. Since 2012, SWOP has helped over 650 families save their homes from foreclosure and has transformed dozens of vacant properties into over 100 homes and apartments. In this reclaimed neighborhood crime is down by over 70%, vacant properties have been reduced by over 50%, and school quality has dramatically improved. SWOP is now actively working to acquire and rehab another 100 homes and apartments to continue this effort to create affordable homes, safe streets, and good schools.

RECLAIMING NORTH LAWNDALE

A dozen United Power member institutions are leading the effort to rebuild North Lawndale, including Lawndale Christian Development Corporation (LCDC), North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council (NLCCC), and the North Lawndale Homeowners’ Association (NLHOA). In 2005-06, United Power and Lawndale Christian led the effort to build over 100 Ezra Homes on city-owned vacant lots in North Lawndale. The Ezra Homes still stand today—owned by active community residents, helping families build wealth and equity, and serving as testaments to what can be. The Ezra Homes are part of LCDC’s track record, bringing $100 million worth of commercial and residential development to the community. LCDC and Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives (CNI) are leading the effort to build 250 affordable new homes on city-owned vacant lots in the first phase of Reclaiming North Lawndale.

In the Media

 
 
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Associated Initiatives

NEHEMIAH HOMES – NYC

East Brooklyn Congregations (EBC), an affiliated entity of United Power, has constructed 5,000 affordable homes in East Brooklyn for working class and working poor households—rebuilding areas that were once as vacant and disinvested as the south and west sides of Chicago. These efforts have created over $2 billion in wealth and equity for first-time homebuyers (mostly people of color). And the foreclosure rate has been less than a fraction of 1%

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