Large corporate employees also are trying to move the needle. Companies in the Chicago Apprentice Network that was founded by Aon, Accenture and Zurich offer full-time, entry-level jobs to full-time students at community colleges. More than 40 companies recently were offering 800 apprentice roles.
The nonprofit Skills for Chicagoland’s Future recruits and trains unemployed and underemployed Cook County job seekers for dozens of companies. Since its start in 2012, it has placed more than 8,000 workers for 100 employers including Bank of America, CDW, McDonald’s, PepsiCo and Walgreens.
AT&T in 2018 opened a call center in the Horner Park neighborhood and staffed it with employees recruited from 19 neighborhoods on the South and West sides most affected by high unemployment and gun violence.
The telecom giant hired more than 600 workers from these neighborhoods for jobs at call centers and retail stores, says Eileen Mitchell, president of AT&T Illinois and AT&T Great Lakes States. “We have to focus on creating opportunities, so residents can look to a better future,” Mitchell says.
Improving income and wealth also requires revitalizing South and West Side neighborhoods that have been hollowed by the loss of manufacturing jobs and an exodus of Black residents to the suburbs, surrounding counties and the South.
Entire communities thrived around steel mills and factories that paid good, solid wages with which you could raise a family, says Wilson of the Shriver Center. When the plants closed there was nothing to replace them and communities on the South Side became blighted as businesses shuttered and the downtown areas became “frozen in time,” Wilson says.
Community development in these neighborhoods is complicated and requires multiple layers of capital such as tax credits and tax-increment financing district designation. The nonprofit Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives spent the better part of a decade on a revitalization of the Pullman neighborhood, coordinating $370 million in investment and creating 1,500 jobs.
The initiative attracted a Walmart, a Whole Foods distribution center and a plant operated by a manufacturer of green cleaning products. CNI teamed with other groups on the development of an Englewood retail center anchored by a Whole Foods Market that opened in 2016. And it’s working with a team of developers on the Bronzeville Lakefront project that includes redevelopment of the former Michael Reese Hospital.
“We need to rebuild communities from the ground up and from within,” says CNI President David Doig, a veteran of community development and former superintendent of the Chicago Park District. “That way you start to bring population, jobs and retail back so people that live there can benefit and not feel that they have to leave to get what they need.”
There’s optimism that the turbulence of 2020 will usher in an era of more opportunity. The Floyd killing highlighted the inequities that exist but also established a platform where African Americans can speak openly of the challenges, says Denitra Griffin of AGB.
“The good thing is that there’s willingness to be open, to change and to listen,” she says. “I think there’s substance behind the changed behavior. It’s not just checking the box. This is providing a glimpse to people of what success can look like and change your life.”
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