UPTOWN — Before ONE Northside's Chicago for All Campaign, which fought to preserve and improve the city's Single Room Occupancy housing stock, Robert Rhodenberg became homeless when his SRO was converted to market rate housing.
But the community organization, which Rhodenberg now volunteers for, made “SRO tenant organizing" a vital part of their work and helped pass the Single Room Occupancy Preservation Ordinance in November of 2014. The ordinance has helped six SRO developers preserve affordable units for current residents, according to the ONE Northside website.
"It took many meetings, actions, and persuasion to convince alderman and city officials that saving SROs was better for Chicago than getting rid of them. That preserving SROs for the senior citizens, people with disabilities, veterans, and working poor who lived in SROs, was better than increasing homelessness, increasing segregation, and increasing rents in Chicago's neighborhoods," said Rhodenberg of the fight to save what is often described as the "housing of last resort" in the face of homelessness.
Under the ordinance, SRO owners have to ask the city's permission to convert SRO buildings priced for the poor to market rate housing, and can only gain that permission if they agree to keep a percentage of the units as affordable housing or pay a fee for the loss of affordable units.
A little more than a year after its passage, the ordinance is working, Rhodenberg said: "Since the ordinance, all but one SRO put up for sale is on a path to being preserved by affordable housing developers.”
Last Thursday, ONE Northside, 4648 N. Racine Ave., was awarded the Woods Fund Chicago Power Community Award at the 22nd Annual Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards, for their Chicago for All Campaign. The award recognizes "the value of community organizing, community engagement, and advocacy as important and effective ways to transform neighborhoods or empower communities that have experienced significant social or economic inequities," according to a press release for the event.
The Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards, which was founded by Local Initiatives Support Corporation Chicago in 1995, honored nine local organizations for "their achievements in community development and architectural design."
The ceremony brought together more than 1,500 community developers, architects, business leaders, elected officials and neighborhood advocates "to recognize and celebrate Chicago’s top real estate development and architectural design projects in the city’s neighborhoods," the press release said.
The awards “celebrate the committed network of community development professionals and not only recognizes Chicago’s neighborhoods, but honors the outstanding achievement in neighborhood real estate development, community engagement, neighborhood planning, and building stronger and healthier communities,” said Caroline Goldstein, Interim Executive Director of LISC Chicago.
“Community development work has never been easy or fast, but the people and organizations that strive to make our neighborhoods better, many of which attend CNDA, show tangible signs of progress and CNDA honors this impact and all those that come together to make our neighborhoods thrive," she said.
During the ceremony, six community development awards and three Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Awards for Architectural Design in Community Design were given to nine local organizations. Two individual personal achievement awards were also awarded and all award submissions were reviewed by a team of judges.
“For the past two decades, the Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards has grown in popularity, attendance and recognition, and is the largest and most venerated celebration of the creativity and accomplishments that transform neighborhoods across the city,” said Deborah Bennett, jury chair of the Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards.
Northeastern Illinois Univeristy's El Centro campus, at 3390 N. Avondale Ave. designed by JGMA was the first place winner of the Driehaus Foundation Award, which "recognizes best practices in community design, landscape design and architecture." Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative designed by Landon Bone Baker and Town Hall Apartments, at 3600 N. Halsted St., designed by Glenser were awarded second and third place respectively.
The awards are given to "architects who have created outstanding designs in housing, retail or institutional settings that are sustainable, architecturally significant and that match form to function to meet community needs." All projects, which have been completed in the last five years, are located in or predominantly serve low- to-moderate income communities in Cook County, the release said.
The architects work serve the community and also build on "Chicago’s rich architectural tradition," said Kim Coventry, executive director of the Driehaus Foundation. “We're all familiar with Chicago’s architectural heritage. The modern skyscraper evolved here. The nation's first comprehensive urban plan was created here. The many different architectural styles of Chicago — its historic, cultural fabric —endow this city with a particular sense of place."
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