Housing Choice Partners of Illinois

HISTORY

HCP of Illinois, Inc. is a private non-profit organization created in 1995 by the Chicago-area fair housing community with an initial mission of promoting racial and economic diversity in the housing choice voucher program in suburban Cook County. Fair housing advocates noted the extreme poverty concentrations and racial segregation developing in the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program in southern Cook County, a pattern similar to that in the city, and the group sought a resolution to the problem. (Click here to see the Racial and Locational Patterns of Subsidized Housing in the Chicago Suburbs by Paul Fischer detailing the discriminatory patterns of subsidized housing in the Chicago suburbs.)

The solution was an HCP administered “mobility” program for the Housing Authority of Cook County. HCP operated the program for eight years after which the program was moved in-house. Over 800 families moved to opportunity areas as a result of the program.

MISSION

HCP's mission is to promote racial and economic diversity in housing generally and in the six-county Chicago region specifically. Expanding housing choice for very low income minority residents from high poverty and racially segregated areas to areas of opportunity is the goal; to be sure that all residents have a chance to participate in the economic vitality of the region, become self-sufficient over time, and provide their children access to better performing schools.