OUR MISSION
is to provide the Northwest Side and Belmont Cragin with the tools and resources to preserve affordable housing and prevent displacement and provide business development assistance to local small businesses.
OUR STORY
THROUGH THE COMMUNITY’S INPUT AND BUY-IN,
the Northwest Side Community Development Corporation was created in 2018 to address the economic development concerns of the Belmont Cragin neighborhood — a low-to-moderate income community with nearly 80,000 residents, of whom 80% are Latinx.
The Belmont Cragin Quality of Life Plan, developed in 2015, revealed major needs around affordable housing and businesses & jobs. More than 600 residents and 30 local institutions worked on this community plan to create strategies for responding to these needs; one such strategy was to start the Northwest Side Community Development Corporation.
Since its creation, Northwest Side CDC (NWSCDC) has grown from an organizing agency with a housing focus to a direct service provider with three programmatic areas: rental counseling, business development, and economic and cultural place keeping.
As an organization incubated by the Northwest Side Housing Center, NWSCDC builds upon a fifteen-year mission of responding to the needs of the community.
OUR IMPACT
Read our most recent End of Year Report to learn more about the impact we have had in promoting development without displacement on the Northwest Side of Chicago.
OUR PROGRAMS
Business Advising—We offer Spanish bilingual consultations to business owners and community entrepreneurs in order to identify their individual goals, provide individualized support in reaching those goals, and connect them with a network of financial and technical resources.
Rental Counseling—We provide Spanish bilingual counseling and direct support to clients needing to access rent relief, utility assistance, and other city and state economic empowerment resources, as well as education on the Housing Choice Voucher program (Section 8) for both tenants and landlords,
Place Keeping—We curate events with cultural and arts entertainment through the activation of underutilized spaces in Belmont Cragin. We also take on community advocacy and engagement work to address the broader economic development needs of the neighborhood and its residents.
