Claretian Associates bring new affordable housing to South Chicago

Social justice news
November 2005

Anne Burke receives the 2005 U.S. Catholic Award
Catholic Relief Services launches new fair trade chocolate initiative
Claretian Associates bring new affordable housing to South Chicago
New York organizer receives CCHD award for leadership in social justice
Gutierrez: " Poverty is not a destiny"
Tariff fight threatens trade negotiation
Underground bishop arrested in China

Claretian Associates bring new affordable housing
to South Chicago
Casa Kirk Twenty-nine new affordable rental apartments have been put on the market in South Chicago, a South Side neighborhood that has long struggled with affordable housing and other problems associated with a long-term economic downturn in the community following the loss of good paying manufacturiung jobs. The new units were developed by Claretian Associates (CA), essentially the comunity's only remaining provider of new housing.

Casa Kirk, a complex of five six-flat apartment buildings, is the largest new residential construction in South Chicago since 1991, when CA opened Villa Guadalupe offering 53 units of senior affordable housing around the corner from Casa Kirk.

Built at a cost of $7 million (including $5 million from the City of Chicago Department of Housing), Casa Kirk joins CA’s other developments in South Chicago, including 26 new single-family homes through the City’s New Homes for Chicago Program and eight other rental units for low-income families.

“Just as we have provided safe, quality homes for our community’s seniors and helped create a rebirth of South Chicago with new homeownership opportunities, Casa Kirk represents our commitment to renters, an equally important segment of the neighborhood,” said CA Director Angela Vick. “Our newest apartments represent a new start for many of our Casa Kirk residents: two families displaced by Hurricane Katrina, as well as a third of our residents who are formerly homeless and have a family member undergoing substance abuse treatment.”

In addition to the new residents who fit those guidelines, according to Vick, the balance of the complex will be rented to families who earn 50 percent of the area median income. Rents range from $800 for a 2-bedroom apartment to $1,025 for a 4-bedroom unit. Casa Kirk also features a laundry room, secured parking lot, playground, and office space for on-site management.

Casa Kirk is named in memory of Father Martin J. Kirk, CMF, a Claretian priest and a founder of Claretian Associates who passed away in 1995. He was dedicated to the revitalization and unity of South Chicago. (The Claretians are publishers of this website.)

Funding for the project came from Chicago Department of Housing, Illinois Housing Development Authority, Federal Home Loan Bank, LaSalle Bank, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and The Allstate Foundation. The development team includes codevelopers Claretian Associates and Interfaith Housing Development Corp., Weese Langley Weese Architects, and contractor Linn-Mathes, Inc.

Claretian Associates builds community within the culturally diverse neighborhood of South Chicago by working with community leaders, residents, and organizations to provide affordable housing and related services for low- and moderate-income people. The agency’s energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly New Homes for South Chicago program recently won second place in The Home Depot Foundation’s National Award of Excellence and is the 2005 winner of the Richard H. Driehaus Award for Outstanding Not-Profit Neighborhood Real Estate Project sponsored by LISC/ Chicago.

Back to page top