Informe CCWBE

During this reporting period, The Resurrection Project (TRP) has been able to convene with our CCWB network partners, community stakeholders, cooperative housing members, existing cooperatives, and consulting as we furthered defined our scope of work and began to plan activities toward our proposed CWB goals. An important milestone was met in September when we hired Ray Arroyo as the Program Manager for Housing Cooperatives. We feel positive about the progress we have made toward our goals, which include the development of a housing cooperative share loan product and building a pipeline of buyer-ready cooperative candidates.

One major challenge we have identified is the lack of share loans and share loan resources in Chicago for cooperative buyers. Not only is there a lack of share loan lending, there are few people, organizations, and institutions that have expertise on the topic. To address this challenge, we have been resourceful and persistent in our search for information. We have tapped into the housing cooperative network, identifying key relationships and resources along the way. Additionally, the trend we have identified is the need for financial wellness education for prospective cooperative buyers. Folks are struggling to manage their income and need financial stabilization. Many interested folks also have zero to low percentage of credit history, which prevents them from accessing lending products. Ineligibility because of legal status is also another big barrier for folks who are undocumented or have not received their ITIN numbers or work permits. There is also a lack of community level resources for housing cooperatives, such as. These resources are grants, and supporting programs that can help address the financial challenges faced by potential cooperative housing participants.

We attended the launch gathering to meet our partners and collaborators in our network. We have also met with partners, including PIHCO, Fresh-Start, UHAB, and CWBE partner leads. We have also engaged with community partners and professionals who are experienced and knowledgeable in cooperative housing, including staff from CCLF. This engagement involved discussions, sharing of insights, and exploring potential collaboration opportunities. Finally, we are in the process of finalizing TRP’s HUD Community Project Funding grant, which awarded $1M to TRP for share loan capital and $1M to PIHCO for building acquisition. We look forward to executing that contract and incorporating those grant activities into our housing cooperative initiative.

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TRP has been expanding its network and engaging with various organizations, consultants, and partners in cooperative housing. Here is a breakdown of the connections and interactions pertaining to our CWB work: With our headquarters in Pilsen, TRP has been in relationship with PIHCO for many years, including a recent grant collaboration where TRP and PIHCO were awarded a $2M HUD Community Project Funding (CPF) grant. More recently, We met with PIHCO representatives for cooperative housing resources, advance our plan to develop share loans, and finalize our CPF grant. We have also established communication and networking with Sol House. This is may be another organization or entity with relevance significance to the cooperative housing field, and TRP is actively engaging and establishing 'communicationand networking with Sol House. This is another orgaanization with significance to the cooperative housing field, and trp is actively engagning and establish working relations with Sol House. TRP also consulted with Upside Down consulting for more information regarding policy and sharing tenant bylaws examples used in the city. TRP has also received various referrals from other partners and has established a contact base and check in with them. Additionally, we are working hard to activate other established relationships with housing cooperative players, including CCLF (David Feinberg), UHAB, Center for Shared Ownership, Chicago Rehab Network (Rachel Johnston), Shared Capital Cooperative (Mark Fick), and the Little Village Cooperative (Robin Semer), among others.

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David Feinberg, CCLF TA provider

TRP consulted with David regarding lending resource knowledge, guidance and connections to other key partners who will support us in identifying and formalizing a share loan product.

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5 extremely useful