2025 Chicago Prize Recipient
Reclaiming Chicago
A Major Investment in Chicago Lawn and Reclaiming Chicago’s Revolving Loan Fund
Chicago Prize 2025 announces a significant investment in Reclaiming Chicago, supporting affordable homeownership efforts in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood and beyond that will build individual wealth, activate vacant lots, and add density — all contributing to healthier, more vibrant neighborhoods.
The recipient, Reclaiming Chicago, is a coalition of community leaders, developers, and organizers with an ambitious longer-term mission: to build 2,000 new for-sale homes across four South and West Side neighborhoods. The coalition is convened through United Power for Action and Justice.
Reclaiming Chicago aims to achieve this bold goal through a coordinated approach that pairs community organizing, policy reform, and a revolving loan fund that will strive to reduce construction costs, increase government support and accelerate construction timelines.
The goal of this approach is to create more affordable homeownership at scale, opening pathways to greater prosperity for working families while strengthening Chicago’s housing ecosystems.
A focus on Chicago Lawn
The Chicago Prize award will support a large-lot strategy at 74th & Talman in Chicago Lawn. The Reclaiming Chicago coalition will partner to develop an entirely new community of single-family and 2-flat homes, one of the largest clusters of new homes built on the South/Southwest Side in more than 20 years.
Chicago Prize funds and other capital will be used to acquire the site and construct roughly 125 for-sale homes, most of which will be affordable to families earning 80-120% of the area’s median income.
After new homeowners move into the Chicago Lawn community, Chicago Prize funds will be added to the Reclaiming Chicago revolving fund to support more construction and homeownership in other South and West side neighborhoods.
We are excited to invest in both the Chicago Lawn site as well as Reclaiming Chicago’s strategic vision to reduce the cost of home ownership in order to increase affordable housing throughout Chicago. Together, this positions Reclaiming Chicago to achieve its ambitious five-year goal of 2,000 homes, helping working families build generational wealth while revitalizing historically disinvested communities.