About us

Mission

Our mission is to build an independent political organization in the 39th ward that fights for racial, social and economic justice. Through advocacy, direct action, and education, we advance progressive legislation and support grassroots movements that improve the lives of the people in our community, while understanding our connection to all residents in the city of Chicago. 

Values

Anti-racism
We ground our work in anti-racism and recognize our responsibility to dismantle white supremacy, along with Chicago's legacy of segregation, particularly on the northwest side of the city where our ward is located.

Equity
We recognize the impacts of systemic oppression in our society. We advance efforts that ensure people are heard and have what they need to thrive, particularly Black people, Indigenous people, People of Color, immigrants, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, and women.

Accountability
As a group, we strive to hold each other and our elected officials accountable to the goals that we have identified are important to our community. We advocate for transparency in the decision-making process of our elected officials as well as our own group. Decisions will be made democratically, and those who are most impacted will take part in the decision-making process.

Platform

Economic Justice

Our economic system relies on income inequality and the exploitation of working people by the rich, who hoard their wealth instead of funding the public services and goods we all need. Systemic inequity must be addressed. 

We fight for workers rights, living wage jobs, progressive taxation, and building an economic system that is rooted in fairness and equity. We reject corporate handouts, pay to play politics, and backroom dealing that enriches the few while robbing our communities.

Community Safety

Violence and crime are public health issues rooted in systemic inequality and oppression. A comprehensive response must prioritize meeting the basic needs of residents and disrupting the cycles of violence that are a direct result of austerity budgets, racist policing, and inhumane public policy. A reliance on policing and incarceration has failed to keep our communities safe and has drained resources from services that could do so.

We believe that police must be held accountable for their actions. We fight to invest in community-based public safety strategies and critical social services that serve to strengthen our communities. We demand reallocation of funding from a bloated police budget toward mental health services, affordable housing, substance use disorder treatment, public infrastructure, living wage jobs, and other evidence-based approaches to reducing violence and crime that exist outside of the institution of policing, the carceral state, and the prison industrial complex.

Community Health

The true measure of a community's health is whether or not its residents have what they need to thrive. Immoral public health policy, privatized healthcare, and structural inequity steal desperately needed resources from our communities and hand them over to the richest of the rich, while everyday people are criminalized for trying to survive.  

We advocate for universal healthcare, free at the point of service, providing a comprehensive range of care to every person in the country. We fight for adequate funding for public health services, particularly in the wake of the disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We demand an end to both the environmental racism that results in disparate health outcomes for communities of color and the criminalization of drug use that is so often wielded to target them. We reject any attempt to impose restrictions on bodily autonomy, in particular those related to abortion, reproductive rights, and gender-affirming care. We assert that sex work is work and must be decriminalized. And finally, in the absence of this protection from our governments and institutions, we work together as neighbors to fill those gaps, build strong bonds, and keep each other safe.

Public Education

Access to well resourced public education is a basic human right, and that education funding should be equitable and adequate. Chicago Public Schools should have an elected school board representing the wants and needs of their community. We must end the school to prison pipeline, which disproportionately affects children from black and brown communities

We fight to decouple school funding from property taxes to create an equitable funding system, to remove police from schools, replacing them with social workers and nurses. We call on the city to create an elected school board, so that the needs of the community are represented, and oppose all forms of privatization of public education, including charters, vouchers, and closure of neighborhood schools.

Immigrant Rights

All immigrants are human beings and deserve to be treated with dignity.  Deportation, family separation, and the caging of children are inhumane and immoral actions that have no place in the world.

We fight to end deportation, family separation, the caging of children, and all forms of immigrant detention. ICE must be abolished. We call for a path to citizenship for everyone in the country, regardless of their current status. Chicago must expand its sanctuary rights, allowing undocumented immigrants to live freely and without fear.

Housing and Homelessness

Safe and affordable housing is a human right. We believe that our ward lacks sufficient affordable housing options for our current and future residents, limiting diversity and increasing both evictions, developer profit, and homelessness.

We take action to support increased rehabilitation and construction of affordable housing in our ward, to maintain and increase diversity in our community, to prevent and end housing insecurity and homelessness, and to ensure that all families in our ward and our city can afford a safe place to live. We fight against evictions and gentrification and put a stop to developers profiting off displacement, landlords monetizing on hardship, and property tax hikes that allow the rich not to pay their fair share.

Climate Change and Environmental Justice

Climate justice is one of the most pressing issues facing our ward and our city. Structural racism and inequity when addressing climate change creates devastating disparities. Residents in White communities benefit from clean air, clean drinking water, beautifully maintained parks, and accessible transportation while black and brown communities are forced to shoulder the burden of climate catastrophe, leading to health complications, shorter life expectancies, and an overall lower quality of life.

We must take action now to combat climate change and environmental racism. This includes promoting clean and renewable energy in our ward and our city; removing lead and other toxins from our water, our homes, and our schools; ensuring equitable access to public transportation; improving and expanding our communities’ parks and riverways; reducing waste; and ensuring that our recyclables are really recycled.

For media inquiries please reach out to contact@39thwardneighborsunited.org