Community
We are informed by community. We work with community.
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.
- Kevin Sutton ( NLCC, Foundation for Homan Square)
- Haman Cross III ( Artist, UCAN, Urban Gateways, Douglas Park, Walk of Eden)
- Blanche Killingsworth-Suggs (North Lawndale Historical Society, North Lawndale Neighborhood Housing)
- Barbara Stewart (NLCCC Greeting Committee, Arts and Culture Committee, local artist and activist)
- Eileen Hines Rollerson, Phd, Evaluation and Research Services (Scholar)
- Eric Allan Hotchkiss (SAIC faculty, artist and designer)
- Jay Simon
- Jaclyn Jacunski
- Tanesha House
- 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.
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.
Options for Youth
3rd Floor
Options for Youth supports vulnerable adolescents in the Chicago area and helps them create positive options for their futures.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
North Lawndale Campus Partners
