Community

We are informed by community. We work with community.

Homan Square Community Members posing with their artwork.

SAIC has made a long-term commitment to Homan Square.  Creating connections with dialogue and participation is the best way we support and express we care for our neighbors.

SAIC Lawndale Community Arts Advisory Council

The Homan Square Community Advisory Board serve as a voice for the community reviewing and advising SAIC’s work in North Lawndale. They provide input on SAIC design, course work and procedures working to ensure that our strategies acknowledge and respect the values and cultural/ethnic differences among the school and the neighborhood. Our board representatives of local agencies services our programs, community leaders, scholars and artists.

  1. Kevin Sutton ( NLCC, Foundation for Homan Square)
  2. Haman Cross III ( Artist, UCAN, Urban Gateways, Douglas Park, Walk of Eden)
  3. Blanche Killingsworth-Suggs (North Lawndale Historical Society, North Lawndale Neighborhood Housing)
  4. Barbara Stewart (NLCCC Greeting Committee, Arts and Culture Committee, local artist and activist)
  5. Eileen Hines Rollerson, Phd, Evaluation and Research Services (Scholar)
  6. Eric Allan Hotchkiss (SAIC faculty, artist and designer)
  7. Jay Simon
  8. Jaclyn Jacunski
  9. Tanesha House
  10. Jordan Ross

Nichols Tower Partners

The Nichols Tower at Homan Square has been renovated and repurposed as a platform for collaboration between local and citywide organizations in complementary spheres of arts education, workforce development, economic enterprise, and community revitalization. Collaborations with North Lawndale, Nichols Tower Partners and Homan Campus Partners are animated by an agenda of equity, where all people have the ability and right to earn an income and care for their families, experience the arts, grow as individuals, and feel hopeful about the future. The Nichols Tower will serve as a beacon of opportunity on the West Side of Chicago.

Homan Square Logo

Foundation for Homan Square

2nd Floor

New partnerships have formed to transform the Tower into a hub for arts and multimedia education, youth leadership development, job training, and urban farming. These new programs will expand, compliment, and benefit from the existing schools and health and social service programs already on the Homan Square Campus. Community floor with pantry and conference room available for rent.

Homan Square

Options For Youth Logo

Options for Youth

3rd Floor

Options for Youth supports vulnerable adolescents in the Chicago area and helps them create positive options for their futures. 

Options For Youth

Lawndale Business Renaissance Association

Lawndale Business Renaissance Association

4th Floor

Lawndale Business Renaissance Association's mission is to revitalize businesses, both industrial and commercial, in the Lawndale community. The focus of the organization is to bring new businesses to the area and the retention and expansion of existing businesses. Through this focus existing and new jobs will be created making the overall community healthier. This task will be accomplished through the use of city, county, state and federal programs and incentives. 

LBRA

Neighborhood Housing Services

Neighborhood Housing Services

4th Floor

Neighbor Housing Services of Chicago (NHS) is a nonprofit neighborhood revitalization organization committed to helping homeowners and strengthening neighborhoods throughout Chicago, South Suburban Cook County & Elgin.  NHS Mission is to create opportunities for people to live in affordable homes, improve their lives, and strengthen their neighborhoods by educating and preparing new homeowners for success, lending to help people buy, fix and keep their homes, sustaining homeownership through foreclosure prevention services, preserving, rehabbing and investing in housing, and building powerful and enduring community partnerships. 

NHS

Turning the Page Logo

Turning the Page

6th Floor

Turning the Page engages public school parents as educators in resource-rich programming within schools in North Lawndale, helping parents become active participants in their children’s education. Turning the Page programs builds on each other, helping parents become more prepared to support their children’s and schools’ success and helping teachers access the resources they need to become more successful engaging parents and the community’s resources. 

Turning the Page

North Lawndale Employment Network

North Lawndale Employment Network

7th & 8th Floors

The North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN) will expand its workforce development and financial coaching programs, along with its award-winning social enterprise, Sweet Beginnings, LLC, to Homan Square. The Tower will host NLEN’s Center for Working Families, its Resource Room, including a computer lab, and its administrative offices. Sweet Beginnings, which employs citizens returning from incarceration as beekeepers to produce raw, urban honey and honey-infused natural skin care products, will also operate an onsite apiary. 

NLEN

Free Spirit Media Logo

Free Spirit Media

5th, 9th  & 11th Floors

Free Spirit Media will pursue its mission of cultivating diverse youth voices to transform media and society at the Tower by offering hands-on, project-based media training programs for teens, with a digital media studio and post-production lab space.. The Tower will also host Free Spirit PRO, a social enterprise production arm that provides a professional media training ground for advanced youth and young adults. 

Free Spirit Media

North Lawndale Campus Partners