Opportunity Chicago Collaborative

Various cross-sector interests have converged to tackle the challenges of engaging employers, coordinating resources, and delivering effective workforce development services to Chicago residents facing formidable barriers to employment and career advancement. The nexus for convergence is the transformation of public housing.

This five-year initiative began in January 2006. Key partners are developing the rationale to extend Opportunity Chicago for eighteen to twenty-four months to assist a larger number of residents, provide more time for outcome tracking and analysis, and solidify some systems changes expected to emerge from the initiative.

Under the city’s 15-year Plan for Transformation, Chicago is replacing high-rise public housing—emblematic of failed public policy that concentrated and isolated the poor—with thriving, mixed-income neighborhoods. The $1.6 billion plan is the nation’s most ambitious such initiative, involving the construction or rehabilitation of 25,000 units of subsidized housing. It also offers an historic opportunity to improve the lives of thousands of Chicagoans.

Funding Collaborative

Opportunity Chicago is a collaborative of business, civic, and philanthropic leaders supporting workforce development in neighborhoods undergoing extensive change through the city’s plan. Funders include: The Chicago Community Trust, Bank of America Foundation (Employer Engagement), ComEd, an Exelon Company (Employer Engagement), The Joyce Foundation (Evaluation), The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (Evaluation, TA), Lloyd A. Fry Foundation (Employer Engagement, Evaluation), McCormick Tribune Foundation, Polk Bros. Foundation (Employer Engagement), Peoples Gas, Illinois Housing Development Authority, Chicago Housing Authority, and Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development.

Opportunity Chicago is guided by the Strategic Advisers Group, which formed in January 2006 to set the initiative’s strategy, oversee implementation, consider new proposals for services, tools, and resources to advance its goals, and advocate for public policy and systems change.

A subcommittee of the advisors who are most involved in implementing the initiative’s strategic plan works collaboratively to integrate systems and leverage all available resources to expand the employment of Chicago Housing Authority residents. The public agency partners consist of governmental and quasi-governmental agencies, including the CHA, the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development, the City Colleges of Chicago, the Chicago Workforce Board, and the Chicago Departments of Human Services and Children and Youth Services.

Opportunity Chicago employs a process and structure that involves careful financial oversight while incorporating best practices, utilizing workforce development expertise through a committee of strategic advisers, pools resources through the collaborative funding structure of the Partnership for New Communities, and developing resources that are more flexible than most government sources.

Key Strategies and Interventions:

The strategic priorities are to:

• Develop and expand sectoral workforce partnerships to provide intensive employment skills and training programs;

• Engage employers in the workforce partnerships’ training program and strategic goal development, with a particular focus on high-growth industry sectors;

• Continue developing employment opportunities;

• Provide technical assistance that builds the sectoral workforce partnerships infrastructure and enhances the knowledge base of the workforce development network staff;

• Advocate for public policy changes;

• Expand and enhance the existing service delivery system to maximize employment and advancement opportunities for CHA residents by considering and adopting innovative program models that exemplify best practices; and

• Evaluate and document the initiative’s effectiveness and determine its applicability to other low-income communities and populations.

Opportunity Chicago develops workforce partnerships in five industries/occupational clusters that offer employment opportunities at a range of skill levels and are in sectors that match public-housing residents’ self-reported employment interests. The sector strategy leverages the skills of several high-level, industry-savvy professionals and organizations to involve employers in the design and implementation of sectoral partnerships and training tailored to specific job opportunities.

Labor Market Analysis

The following powerpoint provides an analysis of the Chicago regional labor market.  The analysis is intended to provide a picture into overall employment conditions and structural changes in this local economy, focusing on the period from 2001-2007.  Though this data does not capture changes associated with the  recent 2008 recession, it should still provide useful insights into medium-term demographic and employment changes.

The data analyzed here comes from two major sources:  The American Community Survey 2007 (and 1990 & 2000 Decennial Census for some charts) from the U.S. Census Bureau; and the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For a full guide to the data content, structure, and how it might be used, please listen to the June 16, 2009, recorded webinar available here.

Chicago_Data.zip

Chicago_Region.ppt