Something exciting is happening on the South and West sides of Chicago.
Quietly and with little fanfare, parts of the city better known for poverty and crime are being transformed painstakingly, block by block, by United Power for Action and Justice, a coalition of nonprofit organizations that have dubbed their collective effort Reclaiming Chicago. Their mission is simple but critical: Build modest single-family homes in neighborhoods such as Roseland, North Lawndale, Back of the Yards and Chicago Lawn and sell them at an affordable price to people with modest incomes who are prepared to become homeowners.
The group is off to a great start, having raised tens of millions for construction from an assortment of big banks, foundations and other deep-pocketed contributors since 2018. United Power built 70 homes in these selected neighborhoods last year and is on track to more than double that total in 2025. The goal is to construct 2,000 homes within the next five years, half on the South Side and half on the West Side, clustering the units on specific blocks as they’re developed with the goal of creating revitalized communities in compact areas plagued for many year by vacant lots.
We met recently with a large group of folks behind the effort, including the Rev. James Meeks, former state senator and founder of the Hope Center Foundation, along with his group’s executive director, Shenita Muse; Richard Townsell and Whittney Smith of the Lawndale Christian Development Corp.; David Doig, president of Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives; Imelda Salazar, community organizer with the Southwest Organizing Project; and attorney Nick Brunick, who works with Reclaiming Chicago.
What we heard made us feel hopeful that real progress on some of Chicago’s seemingly intractable problems is possible with a modest investment and the expertise and hard work of people on the ground in the affected communities who’ve spent their careers developing affordable housing.
United Power has the money to build and keep building. With $40 million in hand — none of it directly from taxpayers — in a revolving fund designed to perpetuate itself as homes are sold, what the group needs to keep the momentum is continued investment by the state in subsidizing those who buy the units. In the past two years, the state has contributed $15 million, enabling homes built at a cost of about $400,000 each to be sold for $250,000 to $300,000. These are 1,650-square-foot homes with three bedrooms, room enough for a small family.
With the subsidized prices and borrower-friendly mortgages from participating financial institutions such as Self-Help Federal Credit Union, owner now of the old Seaway Bank on the South Side, households making annual incomes as low as $45,000 can qualify with credit scores of at least 580. The groups that make up United Power are tasked with vetting applicants and ensuring they are in need of this kind of subsidization and that they are prepared to keep current on their loan and save enough to maintain their homes.
Those in the group tell us they’re unsure whether Gov. JB Pritzker’s budget includes the money again for fiscal 2026.
So how important were those dozens of homes United Power constructed and permitted in 2024? By themselves, they accounted for a substantial chunk of the 321 detached homes for which new permits were granted in the entire of city of Chicago, according to Chicago Cityscape, which tracks real estate development data. That’s right. Last year, the city permitted just 321 new single-family homes in all of Chicago — a city of 2.7 million people.
There has been much debate within the Democratic Party of late on the difficulty in some blue cities and states of translating policy goals into action. In Chicago, for example, the need for more affordable housing — indeed, more housing of all kinds — is a frequent talking point for politicians, yet we see little action thanks in part to the red tape, regulatory hurdles and (sometimes) aldermanic opposition to certain types of projects in their wards.
Or, as this page discussed recently, when we do see new affordable-housing construction, we see amenity-rich apartment buildings built for $800,000 or more per unit, a cost level that isn’t scalable given the limited resources available for these projects.
So when an initiative such as United Power’s proves its concept and meets a yawning need, it should be celebrated and made a priority. Despite the fiscal woes facing Illinois, we hope the state continues its participation in making this critical program work. United Power is asking for $15 million this year after getting $5 million from the state last year.
When blocks full of vacant lots that breed crime and hopelessness are reclaimed and transformed into little communities, they become more than productive contributors to the tax rolls. A concentrated number of residents means more care for the neighborhood and more eyes on the street, keeping everyone safer.
In Roseland on the Far South Side, Rev. Meeks tells us, these are the first new homes built there in decades.
When it comes to addressing housing insecurity and the cost of simply keeping a roof over your head in Chicago, there is no substitute for generating more housing supply. We need to build more, do it faster and more cheaply, and curtail the bureaucratic controls and impediments — well-intentioned though they usually are — that frustrate those who’ve dedicated their careers to this critically important work.
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