The Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs serves as a comprehensive resource for issues related to housing justice in Chicago's northern suburbs.
Interfaith promotes its mission through:
- Services that help individuals case-by-case or collectively; and
- Advocacy, education, and organizing to effect policy.
Services:
- Fair Housing Enforcement: Interfaith investigates fair housing complaints and works to eradicate systemic housing discrimination by deploying trained volunteer testers, monitoring advertising, and evaluating local ordinances. Interfaith also files administrative complaints with appropriate governmental bodies.
- Foreclosure & Predatory Lending Prevention: Interfaith provides community outreach, education on options, referrals, loan document review, and negotiation with lenders to help prevent homeowners from losing their homes.
- Homesharing: Interfaith matches residents who have room to share with renters who need a safe and affordable living space.
- Landlord/Tenant Complaint Investigation: Interfaith provides information and referrals to tenants regarding security deposits and helps resolve disputes around repairs and evictions. Where concerns are building-wide, Interfaith organizes tenants to collectively assert their rights.
Advocacy/Education/Organizing:
- Affordable & Fair Housing Advocacy: Interfaith works with local and regional groups to advance fair and affordable housing programs and policies, and facilitates grassroots support for bricks-and-mortar developments that create or preserve affordable units.
- Community Education: Interfaith conducts public education programs to promote understanding and support for fair and affordable housing among governmental bodies, real estate agencies, religious congregations, other local groups, and the general public.
- Community Organizing: Interfaith organizes at a variety of levels:
- Low-income or otherwise disadvantaged individuals threatened with displacement;
- Residents of all income levels and backgrounds into civil rights and affordable housing advocacy groups;
- Religious and lay leaders; and
- Community, civic, and religious groups into a unified voice for housing justice.
For details on each program, use the menu to the left. Contact us for more information or to get help with a specific housing issue.
