Our Priorities in Chicago

In 2016, the Chicago office refined and renewed our focus in the following priority areas:

Equitable Transit Oriented Development (eTOD)

Through our focus on eTOD, Enterprise works to foster equitable and vibrant communities with access to jobs, amenities, and schools via Chicagoland’s extensive transit system. We do this through public convenings and by targeting resources to eTOD cohort members each year. 

Enterprise Sustainability Exchange (ESE)

Through the Enterprise Sustainability Exchange, Enterprise works with our partners to create sustainable communities in Chicagoland and the Midwest. We do this through public conferences and trainings and by providing targeted resources to ESE cohort members each year. 

Health and Housing

Through our leadership role with the Lifetime Communities Collaborative, Enterprise helped to build the capacity of nonprofits and municipalities to holistically approach planning, development and coordination of services to create lifetime communities, communities that benefit people of all ages especially older adults. 

Preservation of Affordable Housing in Strong Markets

Enterprise works closely with community based partners to pilot and develop strategies to preserve affordable housing in gentrifying markets.

Lending & Investment in the Midwest

The following financial resources help us and our partners achieve our goals in Chicago and the Midwest.

Capacity building grants

• In November 2016, we awarded a total of $950,000 in Section 4 capacity building grants to twenty-one (21) housing and community development nonprofits the Midwest, including grants awarded in Chicago, Detroit and Twin Cities Metro areas.
• The grants we awarded in 2016 build on the success of our 2015 grant round, which provided $1.2 million to grantees in Chicago, Detroit and Twin Cities metro areas.

$633 million of loans and investment in the region through Enterprise’s family of financial companies in 2016

• Enterprise Community Investment invested $50.1 million in Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity, supporting new construction and rehab of multifamily housing in Chicago and St. Louis.
• Enterprise Community Loan Fund provided $15.4 million of short short-term to support multifamily and scattered-site affordable housing construction and rehabilitation across the Chicago, Detroit and the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro areas.
• Bellwether Enterprise provided $567 million in mortgages across Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin. Capital is being used to build affordable and market rate housing, as well as mortgages for healthcare, hospitality, industrial, office and retail construction.