As the year draws to a close, we are taking a moment to reflect on all we have accomplished this year. We know we may be facing some unprecedented challenges in the months and years to come, but that makes it all the more important to take time to celebrate what we have and express gratitude for our community.
In 2024, ONE Northside grew by leaps and bounds
We grew our staff. This year we added 4 new organizers to our team giving us more capacity to organize tenants, build relationships with our service agencies, engage in elections, and train our members.
Our community-based programs also expanded to meet the immediate needs of members of our North Side neighborhoods. This year we onboarded three new members of the Violence Prevention team. Together, this team is exceeding all expectations for managing violence prevention, across a huge area that encompasses three community areas. This year, they have:
– Graduated 60 people through their financial empowerment program;
– Provided services to 74 victims of violence, helping bring healing after deep trauma
– Conducted over 400 mediations, helping to interrupt the cycle of violence.
– Hosted over 20 community events, including their annual Turkey Giveaway, where they shared over 300 turkeys with families who needed them.
Meanwhile our Parent Mentor team provided much needed support in our North Side public schools. This year, we expanded to EIGHT schools! We trained and facilitated placement for over 60 people, the vast majority of whom are Black and Latina women, to provide much needed support to teachers and students in the classroom.
With so much growth, we finally outgrew our space! In late 2024 we signed a lease for a new, larger office in the Institute of Cultural Affairs building at 4750 N Sheridan Road. We’ll move into our new office in early January 2025. The new space will allow us to offer in-house trainings and large meetings for the first time, and give us room for all our staff and teams to grow and feel at home.
In 2024, we invested in leadership training
This year we launched our training program. Across the summer, we trained 50 of our core leaders in the foundational concepts of community organizing and power building, in two sessions of “Fundamentals of Organizing.”
We trained 60 members in why voting matters and the process of voting.
We revamped our leadership ladder, and worked one on one with many of our leaders on new leadership growth plans.
In 2024, we grew our power one by one
This year we went back to basics and worked hard to build stronger relationships in our community. We listened to people through a deep canvass campaign to understand how people feel about the migrants who arrived from the southern border and to understand how we might ultimately come together to build solidarity and power in order to take on the greedy corporations and individuals who are working to divide us. They want us to fight each other rather than fight the top .01%; but it’s hard when resources are scarce.
We also grew our power in 2024 by investing in our members and growing our dues-paying membership base. We built a group of 15-20 congregations that stretch from Rogers Park to Lincoln Park that are deepening their involvement in our campaigns and organization. We convened a Faith Leader Table to meet regularly and build the strength of these organizations as they connect with each other and our larger membership.
We also invested in the growth of our Individual Membership program. At our December Membership Council we passed the milestone of 100 dues-paying members! Individual Members invest in our mission through dues (on a sliding scale), and commit to building power with us. This builds our organization in incredible ways.
In 2024, we organized powerfully around our issues
2024 began with us running a robust voter education program to try to win the Bring Chicago Home campaign. While this did not pass on the ballot city wide, we did win it in the wards where our volunteers worked. We talked to thousands of people about the need to tax the rich in order to end homelessness and we mobilized hundreds of volunteers to get that work done.
Coming off the heels of the Bring Chicago Home loss, we learned about an affordable housing building that was purchased by Becovic who immediately terminated everyone’s leases. Working with the brave women in this building, we formed the first ever tenants’ union in a Becovic building and they organized and won their demands! They won an extra month to stay in the building, they won 3 months rent free which allowed many of them to save a little money for the expensive process of moving, and we got Becovic to drop the evictions he’d filed against two tenants. Organizing works! We know there is still so much more to do to stop the rapid displacement of working class and poor people from the Far North Side.
Over the course of the year, we also organized tenants in the Leland Building, an affordable building in Uptown that is in foreclosure. In addition, we organized hundreds of Uptown neighbors to mobilize in support of keeping this building affordable, with over 100 people taking action on a sweltering day in July. We haven’t secured a final victory yet, but we are cautiously optimistic that we will be able to save this building and keep the tenants in their homes.
In September we organized a powerful Town Hall event that highlighted many of the issues we organize around and brought ten of our North Side elected officials into the room to call them to be accountable to us. Three-hundred people attended this event!
Finally, we joined a new coalition and launched a new campaign to win healthy, green schools meaning schools without mold and asbestos, schools with solar panels on the roofs which lower utility bills and lead to more funding for the learning in the classrooms.
What’s next for ONE Northside?
We’re excited to welcome our community into our new office starting in 2025. (You can help us make it a welcoming space for all by contributing to our Welcome Home Fund.) 2025 will be a year of choosing new fights we want to take on to improve the lives of our members. In the first half of 2025, we’re going to focus on listening to North Side neighbors and our members in order to understand their greatest concerns and bring them into our organization to help us choose the fights we take on next.
We know that our communities are facing major attacks from the next president and from state and city budgets that plan to cut funding to critical programs. We live in dark times. Many of us are feeling worried or anxious about the future and our loved ones. Our commitment and resolve for 2025 is to work with our members, allies, and partners to navigate the challenges we face together and to protect the most vulnerable members of our community. We know we are facing some trouble ahead but we are stronger together, and together we will win.