World Chicago: Connecting Human Rights Workers with Heartland Alliance

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights tells us that ALL people have the right to be recognized as a person before the law. We must be recognized as having inalienable rights to life, liberty, and personal security, no matter where we live.

Iryna Aleksieieva is the Project Manager of the Right to Protection fund in Ukraine. The recent conflict in Ukraine motivated the former private commercial lawyer to stand up for her values. There are over 5 million internally displaced people in Ukraine, and the current violence and forced migration only add to those numbers.

“These people live in in the shadows. They lack access to basic rights and often end up homeless or in jail. It is important to stand up for the invisible, to speak for those without a voice.”

Heartland Alliance’s Refugee and Immigrant Community Services (RICS) program had the pleasure of hosting Iryna as a World Chicago Fellow last year. The program is dedicated to connecting professionals with shared values to help spread diplomacy and build shared networks.

For Iryna, the opportunity has provided chances to learn from nonprofit and legal experts. Her organization has grown quickly over the years, but the need continues to grow as more and more people see their rights at risk. She’s had the opportunity to speak with lawyers from our own fast-growing National Immigrant Justice Center, as well as learn about the behind-the-scenes best practices for program development and fundraising.

“So much happens here, and there are so many things you provide. Seeing how all of these services fall under one umbrella is enlightening.”

As part of the exchange, Iryna has been able to support our RICS programming for new immigrants – a particular help for our ESL and employment training programs, where hundreds of Ukrainian immigrants look to build the skills necessary to thrive.

“I feel like a part of the family here. In just a short time, the people who work and learn here have been so welcoming and friendly.”

The global refugee crisis is on the rise, with more than 65 million people displaced worldwide. The challenges we face are great, meaning that the connections we make with human rights champions are more important than ever. Providing people like Iryna with opportunities to grow as leaders isn’t just a matter of diplomacy, it is an integral piece of the greater fight for equity and opportunity for all people.

We must share not only our skills and techniques–we must share our values. When people like Iryna cross our paths, it’s critical to connect. We aren’t alone in this fight. You aren’t alone in this fight. All around the globe, there are countless people who believe in the sanctity of human rights and what we must do to achieve them.

“The plight of refugees is a global one, and we understand that it is not enough to just react,” Iryna said.

“We have to address the root causes of displacement – of war, injustice, environmental change. Ultimately, we have to ensure security for all people.”

Statement – Trump’s 2021 Budget: Deeply Misguided and Misaligned with Our Values of Equity and Opportunity

As a human rights organization dedicated to equity and opportunity for all, Heartland Alliance is dismayed to see the White House release a 2021 budget that, for a fourth year in a row, continues to slash vital programs and services, and proposes policy ideas that will do irrevocable damage to members of our community who are low income, immigrants, and people of color.

The proposed federal budget would slash billions of dollars in spending on education, health, nutrition, housing, and other basic needs that support families throughout the nation. The proposal would inflict deep harms to our immigrant communities, and is downright tone-deaf regarding the needs and rights of people returning from incarceration and people experiencing homelessness.

For example, the budget proposal:

Encourages increasing the involuntary institutionalization of people experiencing homelessness to get them off the street;
Guts the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid through one trillion dollars of funding cuts that would rip health coverage away from millions, devastate local hospitals, and exacerbate the health disparities rampant in our communities;
Continues proposing that people be forced to work in exchange for basic nutrition assistance, despite evidence that shows conclusively that this approach is ineffective, inequitable, and that it plunges people further into poverty by cutting off access to nutrition;
Provides for a funding increase for Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) to continue carrying out the Trump Administration’s damaging tactics of criminalizing immigrants;
Further exacerbates the racial inequities found in opioid overdoses and fails to center evidence-based interventions in addressing the nationwide opioid crisis;
Continues to propose to streamline, consolidate, and eliminate workforce programs that provide skills and opportunities to help people exit poverty; and
Promotes reentry programs but misses the mark on investing in programs and strategies that allow individuals and communities to heal from trauma and exit poverty.

The Trump Administration’s budget proposal will continue to hurt people who are struggling to make ends meet when they need support most and push our country toward further inequity. Alongside our program participants and partners locally, nationally, and abroad, we will continue to push back on these and other proposals that stand in the way of creating equity and opportunity for ALL.

Family Self Sufficiency Graduation Celebrates New Opportunities for 2020

“New year, new me.”

The adage is often thrown around for New Year’s resolutions and ambitions for the future. For many of the participants in Heartland Alliance’s Family Self Sufficiency (FSS) program, that “new me” is a little more concrete.

At the end of 2019, dozens of participants graduated from our FSS program, a savings program delivered in partnership with the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) that connects participants with asset development coaches and financial incentives to save money as they achieve their educational and career goals.

This class of graduates represents real change, as the group saved an accumulative $270,000 – building nest eggs, down payments, and real wealth. Now, these graduates are homeowners, business owners, graduates, and community leaders. For Rita Johnson, the program has been nothing short of transformative.

“This program helped me budget, build credit, and redirect my money into things that really matter,” Rita said. “I have a condo now. I used to live in CHA and now I actually work for them. All of this was hard work, but now I can say I’m finally able to do me and accomplish things on my own.”

Heartland Alliance’s Asset Building and FSS teams are dedicated to closing our city’s racial wealth gap, one of our city’s (and nation’s) greatest barriers toward achieving equity and opportunity for all people. Since the early 1980s, median wealth among Black and Latino families has been stuck at less than $10,000. Meanwhile, White household median wealth grew from $105,300 to $140,500, adjusting for inflation.

The FSS team is dedicated to providing the opportunities necessary to bridge that gap, from financial education courses to personalized Individual financial coaching sessions. At the onset, we help people set up their first savings accounts, find work, and ensure they have the tools and resources necessary to thrive. Later on, we’ll help them apply for mortgages or colleges. Most importantly, we help people understand the opportunities awaiting them – and provide the support necessary for them to achieve it on their own.

“Financial stability is a marathon, not a sprint,” said Tonya Edwards, former FSS graduate and current program coordinator. “Everything that these people accomplish, they are doing it themselves. That confidence moves with them, and they’ll be able to pass this wealth – and knowledge – on to their children.”

Ultimately, all of this work multiplies into something even greater. When you know you can save, when you know you can achieve these things, it changes you fundamentally – and spreads into the community. Every new homeowner, every skilled employee, and every new business slowly brings wealth to entire communities. We help individuals invest in themselves so that they can go on to invest in their neighborhoods.

For graduate and business owner Steffon Gladney, this graduation is only the beginning of something big.

“We want to take better care of ourselves and each other, and this program – these people – have given us exactly what we need to get started,” Steffon said. “A bow and arrow doesn’t just shoot. You have to pull it back first, and that takes work. We’ve pulled our bows back, and now it’s time to fly.”

Celebrating Chicago’s Progress & Promise in Reducing Gun Violence

This month, Senior Director Eddie Bocanegra spoke alongside other violence prevention leaders, local government, police, community organizations, and participants as part of Chicago CRED’s Violence Reduction 2020 event.

Eddie Bocanegra with Chicago CRED Managing Partner Arne Duncan

Chicago CRED, READI Chicago, Metropolitan Family Services, and other violence prevention advocates came together to commit to reducing violence in Chicago by 20 percent in 2020. This 20 percent decrease would bring the number of homicides below 400 for the first time since 1965.

“We know it’s ambitious, but we also know that it’s possible through citywide collaboration and investment in our communities,” Eddie said. “Every shooting we prevent not only saves lives, but saves money, restores hope, and brings us one step closer to breaking the cycle of violence and trauma. Our data is showing us that this can work.”

Since a dramatic spike in homicides and shootings in 2016, gun violence across Chicago has dropped by 35-40 percent, a decrease that police attribute to an increased use of technology among violence prevention organizations and advocates, and to a collaborative partnership between these organizations and community outreach workers.

For the first time, Chicago is investing more than $11 million to support violence prevention programs this year, up from about $1.5 million last year, and while READI Chicago applauds this investment, the philanthropic community has provided roughly $75 million in violence prevention funding in the past three years.

The coalition that gathered at the Violence Reduction 2020 event is urging Chicago to invest up to $50 million annually in violence prevention programs, and asking the State of Illinois to invest up to $100 million annually, while committing to continue raising private funds. At the same time, we are requesting that business leaders invest in communities facing high rates of violent crime and hire young men at high risk of violence involvement who need a pathway into the legal economy.

“Jobs are important; therapy is important,” Eddie said. “But we need to be advocating for resources because at the end of the day, our young men have to go back home to their communities. We as Chicagoans need to be leaders in this, to build new models for our own people and save lives.”

CBT: Creating the Space Between Impulse and Action

Shootings and gun homicides are often the result of split-second decision-making—people react automatically in tense, high-stakes situations, and derail many lives in the process.

“When I speak to people who are incarcerated, I always ask them what they would change if they had the chance to go back,” READI Chicago Senior Director Eddie Bocanegra said. “The number one response I get is the moment that person pulled the trigger.”

That’s what READI Chicago is trying to do—use evidence and data to identify the men most likely to pull the trigger, or to be shot, and provide them with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to slow down their response times.

READI Chicago hires job coaches from the communities they serve to administer CBT to participants. There is a significant gap in access to clinicians and mental health care in Chicago—in the Gold Coast, for example, there are nearly 4.5 clinicians for every thousand people, whereas on the Southwest Side, there are only 0.1 for every thousand people.

“Black men in Chicago don’t get the same opportunities,” said Taj McCord, a READI Chicago job coach for the Greater Englewood community. “We need help and guidance from people who understand where we’ve been, so that we as black men can be looked at differently and create different, safer spaces for ourselves.”

READI Chicago job coaches receive extensive training in the implementation of a unique curriculum that is modeled on research from the University of Cincinnati Corrections Institute and the South Carolina-based Turning Leaf Project. READI Chicago aims to provide participants with a baseline of 200 hours of CBT over an 18-month period. Components of CBT are embedded in every aspect of READI Chicago, so much so that staff end up incorporating CBT skills and coping mechanisms into their own lives outside of work.

“A lot of times, my CBT group is where participants don’t feel like they need to be a different person,” said Kevin Holifield, a READI Chicago job coach for the Austin and West Garfield Park communities. “They let out exactly how they feel, and that’s the kind of space I try to create for them. I don’t want them to come in and be stuffy and try to impress me with what they think I want to hear. I want them to give me how they feel in the raw.”

Most importantly, participants are beginning to absorb the skills and lessons from the CBT curriculum and apply them in their everyday lives to de-escalate stressful situations and avoid violent confrontations.

“Now, with the things I think and say, first I sit back instead of taking an immediate action,” said Mark, who has been a participant in READI Chicago for several months. “I sit down and think first before I do anything. I’m getting a lot out of CBT. It gives me a chance to interact with people from different gangs or neighborhoods, and it gives us a chance to all come together. That’s a pretty cool thing out here.”

Uniting Across Communities

READI Chicago staff from all five community areas gathered this month for our quarterly all-staff retreat to share best practices, celebrate all the progress made this year, and recognize frontline staff and their critical contributions to working with READI Chicago participants. Staff also took a moment to acknowledge members of READI Chicago who have been with the initiative from its very beginning in September 2017.

With more than 110 staff across six partnering community organizations, coming together to share what each of our organizations is learning is crucial to helping us grow and to the overall success of READI Chicago. Each community presented on different ways to engage men at the highest risk of violence involvement, and outreach and transitional jobs partners shared how they work together or prioritize safety for staff, participants, and communities.

In addition to the learnings from READI Chicago staff and partners, the retreat also featured a presentation by Mark Sanders, of the University of Chicago and On the Mark Consulting, who discussed the effects of trauma, ways trauma affects both our participants and staff, and how frontline staff can practice self-care to avoid burnout and prioritize their own mental health.

Support the Fair Tax Today!

This is our moment to truly make a difference for Illinois residents
Heartland Alliance applauds the members of the House Revenue and Finance committee for taking a step towards creating a fair tax system and investing in our communities by passing the Fair Tax constitutional amendment. Heartland Alliance strongly supports a fair tax with higher rates for people with higher incomes and lower rates people with lower incomes.

Not only will the Fair Tax cut taxes for 97% of Illinoisans, it will also raise more than $3 billion a year for programs and services our communities need, including health and human services, schools and public safety.

The constitutional amendment now moves on to the full House. We urge every House Representative to stand up for the 97% of Illinoisans who will benefit from the Fair Tax by voting yes to put the Fair Tax constitutional amendment on the ballot.

Illinois has not only one of the most regressive tax system in the country, but the programs and services that make communities strong have been stripped to the bone, and the state has been carrying an embarrassing load of back bills for years—failing those who partner with the state, people experiencing violence and poverty, and others. Even before the budget crisis, Illinois was reeling from years of cuts to the programs and services that mean the most to its residents.

This is our moment to truly make a difference for Illinois residents. At Heartland Alliance, we believe that ALL of us benefit when everyone has a fair chance at success, and everyone has the equal opportunity to participate, prosper, and reach their full potential. A Fair Tax is a beginning step in that journey. We urge the General Assembly to pass the Fair Tax constitutional amendment today.

Call Your Representatives at
888-412-6570 and ask them to support the Fair Tax

READI Chicago Celebrates Thanksgiving

The READI Chicago family looks for reasons to come together and celebrate each other, and Thanksgiving is always a favorite for us to celebrate the hard work and success of the people we serve.

This holiday season, the READI Chicago Austin community came together to give thanks, celebrate participant successes, and honor everyone who has been a part of this journey.

Heartland Human Care Services and the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago hosted the banquet-style Thanksgiving celebration, joining participants and their families for food, music, and thanks. During the celebration, staff recognized participants for gaining job skills and reaching cognitive behavioral therapy milestones, and staff also presented honors to the mothers of those we have lost throughout the year.

Celebrating Thanksgiving Across the Alliance

The Heartland Alliance family looks for reasons to come together and celebrate each other, and Thanksgiving is always a favorite for our staff and participants. Many find the holiday a special time for service and community, making several of our program sites perfect gathering spots. We’re bringing together refugees and immigrants to celebrate the holiday for the first time. We’re ensuring that people don’t go hungry during the holiday. We’re celebrating the hard work and success of the people we serve. It may look a little different across all of our programs, but each celebration is grounded in our commitment to achieve equity and opportunity for all.

Vital Bridges Food Pantry

The north side branch of our Vital Bridges “Groceryland” food pantry network has a lot to be grateful for this season. This November, Lori Cannon and her crew of volunteers are celebrating the 25th anniversary of its operations. With a primary focus on serving individuals living with HIV/AIDS, the pantry’s strong support from the LGBTQ community has been out in force – handing out turkeys and all the fixins to our grateful participants.

READI Chicago Celebration

READI Chicago outreach and transitional jobs partners Institute for Nonviolence Chicago and Heartland Human Care Services hosted a Thanksgiving celebration for the READI Chicago Austin community. READI Chicago staff from across the agency joined participants and their families for food, music, and thanks. During the celebration, participants received awards for job readiness and cognitive behavioral therapy milestones, and READI Chicago staff presented honors to the mothers of those we have lost throughout the year.

Marjorie Kovler Center Cooking Group

Kovler Center’s International Cooking Group began in 2005 as an outgrowth of a French-speaking women’s group that met for mutual support. Now the group’s monthly Friday evening meals are a vibrant mix of participants from all over the world designing a meal from their home country and leading other participants in the preparation. The participants, volunteers, and staff that form the Kovler Center family come from more than 60 different countries across the globe. At any given time, you will hear five or more languages being spoken in our activities, including during cooking group. We wouldn’t have it any other way! Happy Thanksgiving! Feliz Dia de Accion de Gracias!

Refugee and Immigrant Community Services – RICSGiving

Our refugee resettlement team loves to celebrate their annual tradition, where new Americans from around the city gather to eat, connect, and enjoy the holiday season – with some enjoying Thanksgiving for the very first time! Taking a break from ESL and employment training, groups came together for art and food, and to share what they’re grateful for – ultimately placing their thanks in the feathers on our “Gratitude Turkey.”

The Refugee and Immigrant Community Services (RICS) team is particularly thankful for their longtime partner and supporter, East Bank Club. The River North fitness club has been a longtime employer of numerous new Americans, providing them the opportunity necessary to rebuild their lives in Chicago. Every Thanksgiving, the team at EBC give their employees the option to donate their Thanksgiving Day turkeys to our resettlement programs – which go to some very happy families!

Economic Opportunity Initiatives

Our partners initiatives are vast and include dedicated partners, because we know that we can’t do this work alone. That is why our work is centered in equity and inclusivity so that every community we serve has a voice. Through our initiatives, we have been able to create research, programs, and coalitions that are working to break down barriers and connect communities to healthcare, financial equity, employment, safety, food supports and more. Explore our project and initiatives to see how we are innovating and collaborating to make change.

The National Center on Employment and Homelessness (NCEH)

The National Center on Employment and Homelessness (NCEH) seeks acknowledgement and commitment by providers, policies, and systems, at all levels and geographies, that employment in quality jobs that pay a living wage is a key element for ending homelessness. NCEH seeks to ensure that providers have access to, and understanding of, best practices and evidence-based employment interventions for people experiencing homelessness and that they have the tools and resources to implement them. NCEH seeks to educate and influence decision makers in order to open doors to employment for people experiencing homelessness through all relevant federal legislation, appropriations, and programs. Learn more.

NCEH and the Connections Project are generously supported by the Oak Foundation and Melville Charitable Trust.

NCEH Projects:

The Pathways Forward Challenge

Illinois Asset Building Group (IABG)

A diverse statewide coalition committed to increasing access to the tools people need to build financially secure futures for themselves and their children. Our policy agenda has expanded to include work on the creation of a statewide Children’s Savings Account program, retirement savings accounts for all Illinois workers, protections from predatory financial products, and access to quality banking products tailored to meet the needs of lower-income individuals. Our work across these issue areas includes examining barriers and solutions to the growing racial wealth gap.

IABG is lead by Heartland Alliance. .

Learn More

Every Dollar Counts

Every Dollar Counts is a pilot program designed to improve economic stability for residents of Illinois. Individuals who participate in the program will receive cash assistance gifts of $50 or more every month for 3 years. Participants can spend the money however they choose.

Learn More

Cost of Living Refund Campaign to expand and modernize EITC

Learn More

SNAP Advocates

Heartland Alliance works with SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) advocates across Illinois, and the country, to work to maintain access to food nutrition for individuals and families. Through our work, we have compiled the following resources to support this vital program. These materials include a variety of resources – informational pieces about the basics of SNAP, tools that advocates can utilize when communicating with decision-makers, and a number of fact sheets sharing the impact of this critical support.

Learn More

NCEH Projects:

Illinois Asset Building Group (IABG)

Every Dollar Counts

Cost of Living Refund Campaign to expand and modernize EITC

SNAP Advocates

EQUITY. OPPORTUNITY. FOR ALL.