Our History and Future

Nearly twenty years ago, neighbors in Chicago’s Pilsen community began talking with new urgency about the blight, violence, and neglect they saw on their blocks.

Six of the community’s parishes helped residents turn the talking into action when they joined together and each contributed $5,000 in seed money to start a community organization to address these infecting problems – and The Resurrection Project, starting with one employee and a community full of concerns, was born. Now two decades later, TRP has turned that initial $30,000 into over $174 million in community investment in the form of homes for ownership, rental housing, and community facilities (including 2 child care centers) in its target neighborhoods of Pilsen, Little Village, and Back of the Yards.

 

TRP’s first steps in 1990 involved Community Organizing work that transformed community residents into empowered community leaders that stood up for their rights: rights to clean and peaceful streets, quality education, and safe, affordable housing.

Once the residents had won small victories such as bringing Streets and Sanitation out for street cleaning and closing down bars that attracted gang violence, they turned to the next issue:lack of safe and affordable housing.

In response to community concerns, some of the first activities taken up by TRP were small financial education classes taught by community residents and acquisition of lots that were turned into affordable homes for ownership and for rent.TRP’s Community Development initiative—three interdependent strategies that include Property Management, Real Estate Development, and Financial Services—had begun. Over time, initiatives that added value to Organizing and Development and fit into TRP’s mission to build relationships and challenge people to act on their faith and values to create healthy communities through organizing, education, and community development rounded our the organization’s Community Programs efforts.

As lead agency for Pilsen in LISC Chicago's New Communities Program, TRP has also convened over a dozen neighborhood organizations and agencies to form the Pilsen Planning Committee, whose Quality of Life Plan for Pilsen lays out a five-year revitalization plan for the community.  This plan aligns with our own strategic plan, which will propel us through 2010 with a vision to become a paragon of community impact, wherein we will accomplish as much between 2006 and 2010 as we have in our first sixteen.