Heartland Alliance operates more than two dozen programs that incorporate housing as a key component, serving a wide variety of populations.  Our signature programs include:

• Partnerships with the Chicago Housing Authority
• Families Building Community
• Pathways Home

Partnerships with the Chicago Housing Authority

Where that massive ABLA public housing projects once stood in Chicago, a development of mixed-income residences—called Roosevelt Square—is being created, including rental properties for low-income families and qualified public housing residents. Heartland Alliance has worked as a partner with the Chicago Housing Authority  (CHA) on the project and another named Jazz on the Boulevard, developing more than 220 affordable residences at the two developments in 2007 alone.

Heartland Alliance's work with the CHA on its "Plan for Transformation" goes beyond development and property management, however. We provide social services to residents at more than half a dozen CHA developments, as well as scattered-site locations, and our Ambassadors of Change program helps prepare those who have moved into mixed-income housing. Our transitional jobs program, which helps those without a work history move to long-term employment, has a program specifically for public housing residents, and a self-sufficiency pilot helps residents save for their future.

Families Building Community

With the Families Building Community program, started in 1993, Heartland Alliance houses and provides support services to families thrust into homelessness, helping them obtain and maintain safe housing. The program finds and rents and apartment for the family, putting rental leases in a participant's name, an important step in establishing a rental history. With supportive services to help the family back on track, Families Building Community has proven to be a powerful model, with 93 percent of recent participants completing the program and 87 percent of those graduates maintaining housing for at least another year.

Pathways Home

Pathways Home, established in 2000, is a housing facility for the city's most desperate homeless men and women—those with co-occurring disorders of mental illness and substance use issues. Located in Leland Apartments, a welcoming six-story building that Heartland Alliance renovated in Chicago's dynamic Uptown neighborhood, Pathways Home offers residents an independent, safe environment where they can receive supportive services.

The Heartland Alliance team builds trusting relationships and encourages men and women living on the streets to utilize Pathways Home programs without qualifying conditions. The impact is clear: 97 percent of residents adhere to the psychiatric medications and 100 percent of those recently discharged remained housed 60 days later.