We are located in Rogers Park, one of the most racially, ethnically, and economically integrated communities in Chicago and the nation. Of its 65,161 residents, 30% are Caucasian, 30% are African American, 32% are Latino and 7% are Asian/Pacific Islander. Close to 40 languages are spoken here and residents come from over 80 countries around the world.

We operate a comprehensive network of progressive, innovative programs that respond to short and long-term issues of poverty in Rogers Park. These include hunger, the shortage of affordable child care, low educational achievement, limited work experience and skills and health-related problems including lack of access to primary and preventive care.

Rogers Park contains pockets of severe poverty:

• More than 21% of all households report annual incomes of less than $15,000.
• 96% of the children who attend our two neighborhood elementary schools come from low-income families. 
• Nearly 47% of all Rogers Park children under the age of five live at or below the federal poverty level.

Youth who attend our public schools struggle to achieve good academic performance:

• In our two local elementary schools, only 59% and 58% of students met or exceeded the state’s learning goals in 2008.
• Over the past five academic years, only 48% of students who entered the neighborhood public high school graduated.
• In 2008, only 16.5% of the high school's 11th graders taking the Prairie State Achievement Exam had scores that met or exceeded state learning standards. This rate is worse than the average for the Chicago Public Schools where 28% of students met or exceeded the standards.
• The chronic truancy rate for the public high school is 12.5%, significantly higher in comparison to the city-wide rate of 4%.

Many adults in this community have low educational achievement and need employment skills:

• 1 of 4 individuals age 25 and older report having no high school diploma or equivalency.
• 23% of Rogers Park residents are not proficient in the English language.  

Rogers Park is considered significantly medically underserved:

• Of the 77 community areas in Chicago, Rogers Park has the
  lowest percentage of pregnant women receiving prenatal care during their first trimester.
• It ranks 7th in the number of deaths from HIV/AIDS.
• It ranks 2nd highest in influenza and pneumonia deaths.
• It ranks 3rd highest in lower respiratory disease deaths.

The strategic intent of our comprehensive scope of programs is to motivate and provide the tools that will empower people to become agents of change in their own lives.

Clients transform, and even begin their lives, with the tools we provide, becoming productive members of their communities wherever they choose to live.

For more information on Rogers Park, please visit the Rogers Park Health Assessment on our links page.