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The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

The Nation's Premier Civil and Human Rights Coalition
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights & The Leadership Conference Education Fund
The Nation's Premier Civil and Human Rights Coalition
CommUNITY 2000: Building Community in a Nation of Neighborhoods

Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities: Building Community Region Wide

As the oldest, largest and most comprehensive fair housing organization in the country, the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities was already at the forefront of the fight to end housing discrimination when it began its affiliation with CommUNITY 2000. This Chicago organization brought a wealth of experience and expertise to the project.

The Leadership Council embraced CommUNITY 2000's focus on building coalitions, which both enhanced and was in sync with its own efforts. Providing national support and resources, the project offered the group an opportunity to build or renew associations with religious leaders, law enforcement, politicians and civil rights activists throughout the Chicago region.

"You don't get very far in this sort of work without coalition-building," said Brian White, the group's director of community relations. "From our perspective, CommUNITY 2000 was about building relationships — fighting hate crimes and reducing tensions in housing by getting people together, then encouraging them to focus on these issues and do the work that otherwise would be very difficult for one organization to do alone.

"Relationships were just as important as results. Relationships got results."

The Leadership Council has been a driving force in the fight for fair housing for more than 30 years. It was founded as a result of Dr. Martin Luther King's 1966 campaign for fair, affordable and open housing. Chicago's segregated neighborhoods were the backdrop for Dr. King's campaign.

Since its founding, the organization's mission has been to eliminate discrimination and segregation in the housing markets of Chicago and surrounding suburbs. It is committed to the principle that choosing a home and neighborhood free of racial and ethnic discrimination, and free from the tensions that can result from an oppressive environment, is a fundamental right.

The organization operates a number of programs including legal action, housing counseling, education and advocacy. One of its most renowned and successful efforts was the Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program, which helped more than 7,200 families living in Chicago public housing move to more economically and racially diverse communities. The Gautreaux Program was founded by the Leadership Council in 1976. It took its name from the lead plaintiff in a successful federal lawsuit that claimed the Chicago Housing Authority practiced systemic racial discrimination by segregating low-income black people exclusively in inner city housing projects. The Gautreaux program, which ended in 1998 due to the expiration of its consent decree, established a model for successful relocation programs and spawned more than 60 similar programs around the country.

Despite progress made by the Leadership Council and other Chicago civil rights organizations, Chicago is nearly as segregated today as it was in the 1960s. Though Chicago prides itself on being a "city of neighborhoods," many of these are not welcoming, particularly to African Americans. While there are exceptions, the norm has been for groups to draw color lines around their neighborhoods, and discourage those who are racially different from crossing. The atmosphere in some of Chicago's surrounding communities is friendlier. Nonetheless, as city dwellers have dispersed into the suburbs they often have taken their racial prejudices with them.

The Leadership Council's agenda is more critical than ever. In order to fulfill its central purpose of creating harmonious, diverse neighborhoods throughout the Chicago region, the Council is doing all it can to educate and energize community leadership, and to bring together fair housing groups.

In its affiliation with CommUNITY 2000, the Leadership Council enlisted five area agencies as subcontracting local partners: Access Living, the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, HOPE Fair Housing Center, Interfaith Housing Center for the Northern Suburbs and the South Suburban Housing Center. These organizations worked together on many of the Leadership Council's CommUNITY 2000 projects.

Not everyone interested in fostering good will and diversity has the rich history, resources and community connections of the Leadership Council. Nonetheless, the organization's CommUNITY 2000 partnership is a model for establishing productive relationships with a wide range of community leaders and agencies. Most organizations with at least some presence in their communities could successfully replicate this model to suit their own needs.

Of its many efforts to build coalitions region-wide, one of the council's most successful was a carefully orchestrated event, "Congregations Building CommUNITY." Over the course of one weekend, religious denominations throughout Chicago worked to promote the causes of fair housing and racial justice.

"The religious community had a history of involvement with Leadership Council, dating back to 1966, when religious leaders were integral to Dr. King's fair housing campaign," said John Lukehart, vice president of the Leadership Council. "But in the intervening years, as a practical matter, the role of church leaders was much less than it had been. We saw .Congregations Building CommUNITY' as an opportunity to reconnect with the religious community."

Ever mindful of the strength that comes from collaborations, the Council asked the National Conference for Community and Justice (formerly the National Conference for Christians and Jews) to co-sponsor "Congregations Building CommUNITY." The Council and the NCCJ also formed a planning group of various faiths-based groups and denominational representatives.

The Leadership Council began by setting March 31-April 2, 2000, as its "Congregations Building CommUNITY" weekend. Once the dates were determined, the Council hosted a series of planning meetings for area religious leaders, discussing ways to best educate congregations. On March 2, the Leadership Council and the NCCJ held a "kick-off" press conference with leaders from 15 denominations. The purpose was to generate media interest in "Congregations Building CommUNITY," as well as encourage congregations to participate.

The kick-off was a success. "Congregations Building CommUNITY" received significant media coverage. Further, more than 200 congregations agreed to participate. The Leadership Council sent the leaders of these congregations resource materials, encouraging them to make the most of the spirit of "Congregations Building CommUNITY" in any or all of the following ways:

  • Speak with authority from the pulpit about your congregation's moral obligation to promote and support fair and open communities.

  • Ask your congregation's national or regional body for source materials promoting racial and social justice.

  • Organize exchanges with people and congregations of different races and ethnic groups.

  • Make sure your community has a fair housing ordinance, and an active human relations commission.

  • Support government policies that promote development of diverse housing stock, including sin gle-family homes, apartments, and housing options for moderate- and low-income families.

  • Establish relationships with several low-income families in your area, including families relocating from public housing, and help them make the transition to self-sufficiency.

  • Actively welcome people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds to your community, and speak out against hate crimes.

  • Make sure real estate professionals, bankers, and lenders in your community treat all potential buyers or renters equally, regardless of race or ethnicity.

"This event really raised awareness of the fact that race and housing are intertwined," said Bill Purcell, director of the Archdiocese of Chicago's Office for Peace and Justice. Sixty Catholic parishes participated in the weekend. "Where a person lives ties into the whole issue of race. Where does the moral authority come from to address this issue? It comes from the pulpit. That's where the status quo is challenged."

Soon after the weekend took place, organizers began making plans to reconvene "Congregations Building CommUNITY" as a federation to act as a meeting place for faith-based groups involved in housing and racial justice issues. The Leadership Council and others also began organizing a second annual weekend, to be held in May, 2001.

In addition to building on the successes of the first event, the second "Congregations Building CommUNITY" weekend offered participants the opportunity to get involved in a variety of faith-based activities throughout the year, said the Council's Brian White.

The organizers decided to secure a deeper commitment from participating congregations, even if that meant sacrificing the broad outreach that characterized the first year. As a result, about 120 faith organizations joined in the following year's event. While the numbers were down from the first year, the participating congregations' level of involvement was greater, based on a review of follow-up evaluations submitted by those who took part.

Not only was "Congregations Building CommUNITY" a success overall, the relationships that developed among the religious leaders involved contributed to the formation of two separate organizations — Interfaith Open Communities and RELATE (Religious Leaders Acting Together for Equality).

Interfaith Open Communities was created to encourage faith-based groups to continue promoting fair housing and racial justice issues year-round, and to keep them inspired by the "Congregations Building CommUNITY" ideal. It was co-sponsored by Protestants for the Common Good, the Archdiocese, the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, and the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago.

RELATE began as a loose affiliation of religious leaders from Chicago's affluent north suburbs, originally convened by one of the Leadership Council's CommUNITY 2000 subcontracting local partners, Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs. A hate crime brought the leaders together in July 1999.

North suburban native Benjamin Smith had gone on a racially-motivated killing spree that made national headlines. Soon after, many of these leaders participated in the "Congregations Building CommUNITY" weekend, and were inspired to create the formal organization that now is known as RELATE. It is dedicated to speaking out in unison to promote social justice and racial harmony. The leaders also decided to work for change on the North Shore in three civil rights arenas: housing, racial profiling and education.

"Our participation in .Congregations Building CommUNITY' was the reason RELATE could really take off," said Gail Schechter, director of the Interfaith Housing Center and one of the "Congregations Building CommUNITY" organizers. "It helped me, and it's helping the clergy on the North Shore, see that we're not alone up here, that we can and should speak out."

"Affiliation with RELATE reminds us, as clergy, to ask ourselves if we do enough to encourage municipalities to allow for more affordable housing, if we are being courageous in asking tough questions of our relatively well-off congregations," said Rev. Heather VanDeventer, RELATE chairperson and pastor of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Wilmette.

Additional efforts to foster a harmonious racial and ethnic environment throughout the Chicago region either were launched or enhanced during the CommUNITY 2000/Leadership Council partnership. They were:

The Lake County Anti-Hate Crimes Task Force

The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, a CommUNITY 2000 subcontracting local partner, asked the U.S. Attorney's Office to convene a meeting for public officials and law enforcement in the Chicago area on the subject of hate crimes. At the meeting, which was held in September 1999, Lake County State's Attorney Michael Waller expressed an interest in developing ways to prevent and/or respond to such crimes. Lake County's population is economically and racially diverse, but poorly integrated. While the number of reported hate crimes is not a significant percentage of overall crime statistics, some of the county's semi-rural, economically depressed towns long have been breeding grounds for white supremacists groups, according to the County Sheriff's Department.

With help from the Lawyers' Committee, the Interfaith Housing Center and local Lake County organizations, the Leadership Council developed a plan to accomplish the following: research hate crimes and hate group activity; educate youth, community members, police officers and prosecutors; and encourage hate crime reporting and recording.

Their experience over the two-year span of CommUNITY 2000 was both exhilarating and frustrating, according to Brian White of the Leadership Council. "Our Lake County effort continues to suffer from insufficient community-based energy and infrastructure, though progress is being made," he said. "A significant amount of time and energy was spent simply building the capacity of the task force to do this kind of work." Among the successes were bringing the hate crimes issue to the attention of community leaders, and organizing seminars on hate group activity in Lake County and the metropolitan region.

"This project has been a real challenge," said Betsy Shuman-Moore, of the Lawyers' Committee, who, as of this writing, is continuing her work to keep the task force going. "One of our frustrations has been the difficulty in getting local leaders to take over."

Despite the lack of strong Lake County leadership or sufficient funding for programs, those who attended the task force's planning sessions wholeheartedly endorsed the concept. They also expressed the hope that the task force would ultimately broaden its base of support, and continue as a force for change in Lake County.

"I've been doing this work for 15 years, and I know hate crimes just don't get reported," said David Godlewski of the Lake County Sheriff's Criminal Investigation Division, who attended some of the planning sessions. "Either people are intimidated, or they don't understand their rights, or they don't trust the police, or they're just used to being treated poorly.

"But these groups are in Lake County, and they're not just rag tag bunches of kids. The National Alliance [a white supremacist group], for example, is very well organized, with a hierarchy. We've got to be organized to combat them. A group like the Task Force that can be a bridge between citizens and law enforcement is a good idea."

"I think [the task force] is worthwhile, but we're not there yet," said Pat Konicki, executive director of the Fair Housing Center of Lake County. "We need [to hire] staff to go out to groups and tell them what their rights are. Until people know what a hate crime is and recognize when they are being victimized, they aren't going to report these incidents.

"But people didn't see fair housing or domestic violence as issues [in Lake County] a decade ago, and now they do."

The Leadership Council, Lawyers' Committee, and Interfaith remain committed to the Lake County Anti-Hate Crimes Task Force beyond the parameters of CommUNITY 2000. Toward this end, the task force is planning for a year-long education and organizing effort in conjunction with Partners Against Hate, a joint initiative of LCCREF, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence.

Immigrant Fair Housing Roundtable

Aware that immigrant groups in the Chicago area experience many tensions around housing issues, the Leadership Council convened the Immigrant Fair Housing Roundtable in the fall of 1999.

The Immigrant Roundtable, which brought together advocates for immigrant populations, met quarterly throughout the CommUNITY 2000 project, and accomplished two primary objectives:

  • Produced a fair housing resource guide for organizations working with immigrants.

  • Identified municipal practices that contribute to community tensions involving immigrants, including discriminatory enforcement of municipal property maintenance codes.

Regional Exchange Congress in Oak Park

The Leadership Council co-convened the Regional Exchange Congress in Oak Park the weekend of September 20-21, 2000. Their purpose was to bring the leaders of diverse communities together with community leaders struggling to successfully integrate. Organized around a series of panel discussions, more than 300 participants from 33 communities shared information on ways to promote and sustain true racial and ethnic diversity.

Meeting the Challenges of Diversity Conference

The Leadership Council and the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission co-sponsored the "Meeting the Challenges of Diversity" Conference to explore ways for public officials to balance the economic and development interests of municipalities with the fair housing rights of an increasingly diverse metropolitan population. Held on April 7, 2000, the conference brought together more than 125 municipal, county, and state government officials; real estate professionals; and representatives from non-profit agencies to discuss the social and economic implications of the Chicago area's changing demographics. Participants also studied code enforcement and housing occupancy standards, and human relations programs that work.

Education Outreach

The Leadership Council helped sponsor events for high school administrators in Chicago's south and west suburbs of Chicago to learn about anti-bias programs. The two events attracted several dozen administrators; a handful of these went back to their districts, and put into place anti-discrimination training programs for their students and/or staffs.

Throughout the course of the CommUNITY 2000 project, the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities and its CommUNITY 2000 subcontracting local partners reached out to all manner of community leaders in the Chicago area. In advancing the project's ideal of creating diverse, harmonious neighborhoods, these partners were determined to move the region's leadership beyond the notion that enforcing fair housing laws is a form of obligation. The Leadership Council's mission was to inspire and encourage those in positions of power to take a positive, welcoming approach toward all that seek to live and work in their communities.

"Fair housing is not just about enforcing laws," said Gail Schechter of Interfaith, a subcontracting local partner. "What's the use of enforcement when a lot of people won't even consider moving into certain areas because they are so inhospitable?"

In the "Congregations Building CommUNITY" brochure distributed to religious leaders, the Leadership Council stated:

"While segregation has deep economic and political consequences that impact everyone's self-interest, overcoming segregation is, in the final analysis, a matter of the heart."

In essence, this was the Leadership Council's consistent message to all of the Chicago area's leaders.

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