Sidney, born and raised in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood, remembers first seeing neon work vests with the READI Chicago logo crop up around his neighborhood two years ago, worn by men he had grown up with.

Sidney said the READI Chicago work crews were noticeable because the neighborhood is generally marked by tension and conflict, not opportunity. Affiliations vary from street to street, and it is common for different groups to stay separate to avoid altercations—the kind of altercation that left Sidney himself recovering from having been shot seven times. Seeing men from across the neighborhood working together felt like a movement.

But North Lawndale was not always so divided, he said—Sidney remembers feeling safe growing up in his community. He spent his days outside riding his bike and playing basketball in the park, but he noticed a shift in the neighborhood dynamic as he got older.

These emerging dynamics are why READI Chicago relies heavily on the local expertise and the lived experience of community-based outreach organizations. READI Chicago outreach workers from Lawndale Christian Legal Center (LCLC) and UCAN use their experience and relationships to tailor their outreach in North Lawndale.

“In some areas of North Lawndale, people can’t venture off their block, and that’s a hurdle in itself,” LCLC outreach worker Napoleon English said. “Some of these territories change from block to block and even day to day.”

Napoleon, Sidney, and others blame this shift on the splintering of large organized gangs into an abundance of smaller informal groups, or cliques.

“You can’t label them all a gang, but they are cliques,” West Side community activist Rev. Robin Hood told the Chicago Tribune. “They’re still doing gang stuff, but it’s not over drugs. It’s over personal vendettas that start on social media.”

It’s little wonder that tempers are quick to flare in a generation that has grown up mired in trauma, poverty, and violence.

Since the 1950s, North Lawndale has seen a steady population decline as families who could afford it left, and since then the neighborhood has become increasingly isolated and segregated. By 1970, following riots in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., 75 percent of businesses in North Lawndale closed, and the neighborhood lost almost half of its available housing as property deteriorated or was abandoned.

Today, almost half of the neighborhood lives in poverty, compared with only 20 percent of all Chicago; the average household income is about $22,000, which is $30,000 less than the city’s average. Rates of violent crime are three times higher than Chicago as a whole and four times the national average, and property crime is twice as high as the rest of the city.

When a friend from the neighborhood introduced him to a READI Chicago outreach worker, Sidney finally learned what all the neon vests were about and eventually enrolled in the initiative. READI Chicago not only provides participants with a job, it actually offers hope for the entire community to move forward.

“We change when we come in here—it’s peaceful,” Sidney said. “There’s a hundred different personalities and groups in here, but we leave all that at the door when we get to READI.”

Now, almost a year in, Sidney said this is the longest he has ever held a job. In a neighborhood facing severe disinvestment and limited economic opportunity, Sidney said having his job coach and outreach worker pushing him to come to work every single day is a huge part of his success.

“I used to be nervous at jobs and interviews—I would mumble or say words I shouldn’t, and I didn’t even realize those things can keep you from certain opportunities,” Sidney said. “I have so many great role models now. It’s the fact that they want us to change—you can see they’re invested in us.”

While READI Chicago is about creating opportunities and setting people on a new path, it is also about something more than that—healing communities and building them up from the inside out. Part of that is about hiring people—like Napoleon—with lived experience from the communities they serve and flooding the neighborhood with the recognizable neon vests that indicate hope. The bigger part, though, is about Sidney himself and his peers—equipping North Lawndale’s young men to be the next generation of peacekeepers and rebuilders.

“After READI, I want to be back here as an outreach worker,” Sidney said. “I can help somebody change their life one day, like they did mine. Everybody deserves a chance.”