The Resurrection Project (TRP) had a neighborhood celebration, last week, to mart the completion of a $13.8 million investment in the Back of the Yards community.  TRP used the investment to acquire 40 foreclosed properties and rehabilitate them into 75 units of quality, affordable housing for working families.

“Creating safe, quality homes that working families can afford is the first step in creating healthy communities,” said CEO of TRP Raul Raymundo.  “With investments such as this, we help area property values rise, we boost the local economy as new residents need more retail services, and we eliminate the blight that attracts criminal activity.”  In 2011, TRP worked with the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders (NALCAB) and Chicanos Por La Causa to secure $137 million in Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP2) funds to invest in communities across the country. TRP brought $13.8 million of those funds to Chicago and invested them in Back of the Yards, a community that has been hit especially hard by the foreclosure crisis.

TRP used the funds to acquire 40 properties that had been foreclosed, abandoned, and falling into blight. TRP hired contractors and construction crews to begin the rehabilitation of these properties into high quality but affordable homes for working families.  TRP’s investment created 150 jobs to turn those 40 abandoned properties into 75 units of quality housing and ten empty lots to be land banked for future investment.