Invest South/West shows promise at two-year mark
The first map is made up of an array of dots, one for each homicide or nonfatal shooting in Chicago. It shows the darkest concentrations of dots in neighborhoods on the city’s South and West sides.
A second map shows neighborhoods in Chicago that have suffered from a lack of investment — few home mortgages, little commercial lending, sparse use of government tax incentives.
Lay one over the other and their outlines are remarkably similar. They cover neighborhoods with names familiar to anyone who chronicles the city’s urban troubles: Austin, Englewood, Auburn Gresham, North Lawndale and others.
The mashup of two such maps played a key role in the planning that went into Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Invest South/ West initiative, the signature economic development program of Lightfoot’s term in office. Launched in 2019, it aims to commit $750 million in city funds over three years to 10 economically fragile neighborhoods. In addition to the twin scourges of disinvestment and violence, they also endure inequitable education spending, lack of upward mobility, health fragility and even short life expectancy.
Invest South/West hit its second anniversary late last month, and Lightfoot rightly recognized the landmark at a boisterous celebration at the South Shore Cultural Center.
The anniversary merits a careful appraisal. Enough time has passed to make an early assessment of the city’s objectives and efforts, as well as Lightfoot’s reliance on commercial and philanthropic resources to reach her goals.
At the heart of the Invest South/West effort is a notion that the destructive powers of crime, disinvestment and other ills can be tackled with government and private resources. Buttressed by effective policy, they can create a new city map — one that tracks the positive impact of reinvestment
Capital, planning and community effort can be targeted at 10 key corridors, in a handful of Chicago’s most underserved neighborhood areas. And if the Invest South/West plan works, the catalytic effects can serve as models for future efforts in broader swaths of the city.
Such was the thinking of Lightfoot’s administration two years ago, when the mayor launched Invest South/West. Encouraged by early response and progress, Lightfoot in February 2020 hosted a daylong “poverty summit” and declared an intent to end poverty in Chicago “in the next generation.”
Then poverty, inequity and upheaval all struck back.
The COVID pandemic hit hard within a month of the summit, fiercely attacking the poor living in Black and brown communities. Many had inadequate health resources, and legions needed to ride public transportation to jobs where they risked exposure to the disease. Then in May, when demonstrations over the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis gave way to riots and looting, the destruction bore the stigma of the city’s economic inequities, too.
“The pandemic really sharpened our intentionality around making sure that we were doing the work in our communities,” Lightfoot told me, in a brief conversation at the Invest South/ West celebration. “So many things came flashing through during the pandemic, around the consequences of not investing in community: Life expectancy gap, health care issues, poverty.”
Then she broadened the frame of reference. “All of these things are manifestations of larger issues, and a big part of that is lack of investment and intentionality around inequity,” Lightfoot said.
The mayor believes Invest South/ West has helped address some of the issues, and turned out her administration in force for the two-year celebration. A handful of aldermen got shout-outs from the stage, and dozens of community members had moments in the spotlight — design teams selected to develop projects for under-resourced communities; the entrepreneur who opened a Culver’s restaurant in a resurgent Pullman neighborhood.
Brown’s “Payback” gives voice to anger at injustice. It’s a fitting message, given the treatment of Black and brown people over generations, in Chicago and across the country. And planning and development commissioner Maurice Cox serenaded the effort. Thrusting his cell phone toward a microphone, he initiated a call-and-response with the James Brown anthem “Payback.”
“There it is: one-point-four billion dollars,” Cox trumpeted.
“The big payback,” Brown sang. “Yes, it is,” Cox rejoined. “Mayor Lori Lightfoot. For the children. And the grandchildren.”
“That’s it!” Brown piped. “Payback!” Lightfoot has flashed her share of anger about inequity. She also is seeking to emphasize empowerment of the urban underclass. She espouses an approach in which skills training, access to capital and connections all set the path toward economic growth and peace in the streets.
And this is where the private and philanthropic sectors need to become key. Government alone cannot achieve what Invest South/West sets out to do. About half of the claimed $1.4 billion Invest South/West investment comes from banks, investors and philanthropy that will be vital to any long-term success.
And the focus on investment in neglected South and West side communities is long overdue. A 2019 study by the Urban Institute found that private sources invest in wealthy Chicago neighborhoods at four times the rate
they invest in poor neighborhoods. And commercial lending dwarfs lending by public and what the Urban Institute calls “mission-driven” sources. Public and philanthropic sources accounted for $4 billion of loans in Chicago from 2011 to 2017, an outlay that pales in comparison with the $67 billion from a variety of commercial sources, the Urban Institute found.
“It takes all of us, philanthropic money, private money, alongside public money, to make a difference,” said Helene Gayle, president and chief executive of the Chicago Community Trust, who has helped marshal philanthropic resources toward addressing inequities in the city. “It will take policy changes too,” she added.
Gayle points to policies such as the reduction of fines and fees under Lightfoot as a significant help to people with few financial resources. Reduced impoundment of vehicles and forgiveness of debts owed to the city’s water department have helped struggling families, she added.
The Trust also helps lead efforts to expand economic opportunity — increasing wealth at the household level, catalyzing economic opportunity in disinvested communities, and empowering the voices of local residents, especially people of color.
Jimmie Williams is a case study in the kind of help the Trust can offer — regardless of how Invest South/West ultimately fares. In fact, the Trust was backing Jimmy well before Lightfoot’s Invest South/West strategy took root.
Williams grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes and the Ida B. Wells housing complex, before experiencing homelessness at age 12. He was arrested 19 times as an adult and decided to start a business after spending time in jail on a charge related to firing a handgun in a crowd of people.
At that point, Williams had few other options: With his record, no one would give him a job. A $1,500 loan in 2008 from microlender Accion — now called Allies for Community Business — helped him start a snowplowing business. Landscaping followed, to even out cash flow.
Today, Williams’ Urban Roots landscaping
and snowplow company, based on the Far South Side, has dozens of corporate and residential clients. Revenues are closing in on $500,000. The Williams have benefited from a series of corporate, university and philanthropic training programs. One in particular stands out: The Neighborhood Entrepreneurship Lab, sponsored by the Chicago Community Trust.
At the program’s inception five years ago, Williams was one of five entrepreneurs selected to receive mentorship from established business executives for nine months and a $20,000 cash infusion. Mentors helped the company determine cost of cutting a square foot of grass, follow industry practice in bidding for contracts and manage a day-labor workforce that can be unreliable.
“We just put our horse blinders on and jumped into the field to do networking,” Williams said of the company’s business development efforts.
He also developed a relationship with the program founder, Robert Crawford, the retired founder of Brook Furniture Rental.
Crawford has helped coach Williams, and others in the Trust program, while also contributing personally and raising $3 million over six years to fund the program. This year’s cohort involved 19 entrepreneurs, paired with donors to solve particular business problems or opportunities.
Crawford points to Williams’ success as emblematic of the program’s potential. “They’re really starting to grow. They’re giving people jobs,” Crawford said. “It gives other people hope when they see what these people are doing.”
Hope is a rare commodity these days. Through programs such as the Neighborhood Entrepreneurship Lab, the Chicago Community Trust has learned to offer hope, resources and training to overlooked and underserved communities across the city. It’s a good complement to Invest South/West — a program with promise, and much left to prove.