Since its inception in 1987, the Lawndale Christian Development Corporation has worked to fulfill the church’s call for love and justice by addressing social issues and disparities throughout North Lawndale.
A big part of that includes initiatives of creating affordable housing, co-op businesses and community organizing.
“Our understanding of that calling is to commit ourselves to tackling the housing and wealth disparity in North Lawndale,” said Whittney Smith, LCDC’s deputy director and counsel. “Our work is about people, we just happen to develop buildings in service of our work with people.”
Over the past several decades, LCDC has developed more than 200 units of affordable housing and overseen around $120 million of residential and commercial redevelopment in North Lawndale, like building the Carole Robertson Center and local Lou Malnati’s. And their development efforts aren’t stopping any time soon.
On Friday, LCDC is hosting Lawndale United: Development for a Stronger Community, a celebration of its accomplishments, plus an opportunity to meet North Lawndale neighbors and learn about LCDC’s resources.
Though LCDC has hosted summer barbeques over the past few years, this is one of the organization’s larger events since the pandemic, and a reintroduction of sorts into the community.
“It’s really about re-neighboring ourselves,” Smith said of the event, an opportunity to meet some of LCDC’s new neighbors, and have them meet each other. “We know that one of the most vital aspects of Black life and our thriving in this country has always been about our relationship to one another, our ability to support one another.”
In addition to introductory remarks by Smith and LCDC Executive Director Richard Townsell, Lawndale United will make time for residents to chat, then participate in a community visioning workshop. The workshop will allow them to discuss aspects of their neighborhood that they want to improve and how to go about doing that, though this isn’t the first time that LCDC is gathering community feedback.
With other community leaders, LCDC has helped organize the nearly 250 members of the North Lawndale Homeowners Association, one that Smith said isn’t focused as much on tending grass or the color of homes as it is with equity.
“We organize with our folks for the power to argue for our fair share of city and state and county resources,” Smith said. For example, the homeowners association won $2.2 million from the City of Chicago to renovate the Chicago Public Library’s Douglass Branch in 2018, creating a better library for both patrons and employees.
Members of the homeowners association, Smith said, are vocal about their goals for the community. LCDC also canvasses with their interns and fellows, knocking on every door in North Lawndale to talk about their hopes and aspirations for their neighborhood.
“The heart of all of the feedback we get is about how we can better care for one another,” Smith said. This includes creating better opportunities for youth, and everyone else in the community, by creating play and gathering spaces, like parks and restaurants.
At Lawndale United, there will be a handful of resource tables, including one on homeownership, co-op initiatives, and financial support, informing attendees about LCDC’s services and resources.
One of these services is LCDC’s eight-hour, home-buying curriculum that walks participants through the process. This comes with financial support education, including topics such as how to improve credit or navigate finances when it comes to buying a home, owning a business or just in everyday life.
“It’s all about building that generational knowledge of wealth,” Smith said.
Celebrating successes
LCDC’s accomplishments include building the Martin Luther King Legacy Apartments on 16th Street and Hamlin Avenue, the block where Dr. King lived during his time in Chicago. In addition to affordable apartment units, the building houses the Soul Food Lounge (its chef, Quentin Love, is catering Lawndale United), Open Books bookstore and a UIC recruiting community center.
LCDC has also launched a worker-owned cooperative with three different businesses cooperatives: one for construction, printmaking and chocolate-making, all of which will open later this year.
These co-ops are “born and raised and poured into by community members who are looking to not just enrich themselves, but enrich their families and communities through collective entrepreneurism and collective people power,” Smith said.
One of LCDC’s upcoming efforts is to build 1,000 single-family homes on vacant lots in North Lawndale, of which there are around 3,000. So far, they have built 23 of these homes in the last two-and-a-half years, all but three of which have sold. The homes are 1,700 square feet with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Many, Smith said, are sold to first-time homebuyers, and there’s a waitlist to be one of them.
This year, LCDC plans to build up to another 50 of these homes and is hoping to soon scale to constructing around 200 a year. These homes are affordable, though Smith hesitates to use that word because of the stigma around it.
“The affordability element comes in the work we do after the home is built, and not what the home looks like or what it’s made of,” Smith said. “These are world class homes by any measure.” And they’re all a part of LCDC’s mission to develop and empower its community.
Smith said, “We want to build a stronger, more connected North Lawndale.”
The event will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. at Sinai Community Institute, 2653 W. Ogden Ave. Register for free on Eventbrite.
