Introduction

About eight years ago, on a Saturday in June, Diana Graham looked out the front door of her home in the Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side and saw a man murdered at her front gate. A drug-related shooting had erupted near the drug houses across from her, resulting in three men being killed in broad daylight.

“This is it,” Graham, now 82, said to herself. She decided something had to be done.

She called anyone in power she could reach to come and see for themselves the problem her community was dealing with. She ended up gathering an aide from then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office, police leadership, aldermen and streets and sanitation officials in the basement of her home.

Graham’s ask was simple: The row houses, which had become a hot spot for drugs and violent crime, had to be shut down.

Today there’s a vacant lot where those row houses were. While that may not be ideal, for now it serves if nothing else as a testament to the hard work and determination of one woman willing to take ownership of her community.

Graham attributes the experience of clearing that source of drugs and violent crime as a defining moment in shaping her role as a block club leader. Interviews with four other block club leaders on the South and West sides revealed similar experiences that led them to become block club leaders or lit a fire under the work they were doing to improve their communities. Their stories form the basis of this report.

What is a block club?

When families and individuals want to improve the social and physical qualities of the street where they live, they form a block club. Such groups are present in many cities across the U.S., but they have a special place in the hearts of Chicagoans, especially on the South and West sides.

In Chicago, block clubs spread in the early 1900s as a way to ease the transition of Black migrants coming to the city from Southern states.⁴ To this day, they remain a way for community members to take initiative in their neighborhoods in ways the government could not or will not. Block clubs register with the city once they’re formed.⁵ As of May 2025, nearly 700 block clubs had registered with the city since 2008, according to an Illinois Answers Project investigation, and the vast majority are on the South and West sides.⁶

Unlike homeowners’ associations, block clubs in Chicago are non-contractual organizations that have served as a means of enforcing behavioral norms and beauty standards for the physical environment and creating social cohesion among community members.⁷ They traditionally work closely with the Chicago Police Department to monitor and improve public safety in the area.

In his book “Bowling Alone,” Robert Putnam observed that, increasingly, “groups focus on expressing policy views” more often than “providing regular connection among individual members at the grass roots.”⁸ Block clubs buck that trend. They are hyperlocal, focusing on the immediate needs they see and feel among their neighbors. This enables block club leaders to build trust and rapport among those they work with, making a tangible difference in the community that a more distant government program could not.

While some research has examined how these block clubs have historically operated to improve the physical environment and neighborhood relationships,⁹ relatively little has been written about how they work to alleviate poverty through employment. By analyzing the experiences of block club leaders on the South and West sides of Chicago, we examined how they use trust to connect their neighbors to otherwise inaccessible job opportunities, create short-term employment that improves the community and engage with youth to break the cycle of poverty. We also examined how changes in city policy could make the work of block clubs even more fruitful in these communities.

Barriers to work: criminal records and transportation

Block club leaders on the South and West sides report a mix of barriers to landing jobs for their community. Two, however, are mentioned consistently: a criminal background and a lack of transportation.

Between June 20, 2024, and June 30, 2025, the Illinois Department of Corrections reported 2,186 people on parole on the South Side and 1,352 people on the West Side. This was far greater than in any other community zone, with the Near West Side in third place at only 356 people reported on parole.¹⁰

Transportation access poses another difficulty. In the communities of the block club leaders featured in this report, fewer cars are owned than in other parts of the city.

The American Community Survey estimates that 26.7% of households in the city have no vehicle available.¹¹ In Englewood, on Chicago’s South Side, it’s 44.7% of households.¹² In Austin on the West Side, 29.8% have no vehicle access.¹³

This may seem like only a minor setback. Chicago boasts a robust and relatively affordable transit system. However, having a criminal background can severely limit the kinds of jobs easily accessible by public transportation.¹⁴ For example, industrial jobs are frequently concentrated in areas outside the city.

Suddenly a lack of transportation poses a major barrier. Someone released after incarceration can have a difficult time navigating these barriers. In a 2005 Urban Institute study of people returning home from Illinois prisons, 96% “agreed or strongly agreed that it was very important for them to find a job after their release,” but 59% said that they “generally expected finding a job to be pretty hard or very hard.”¹⁵ The unemployment rate for those released from prison in the state in 2021 was around 46%, according to the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority.¹⁶

Ending the cycle of poverty on Chicago’s South and West sides is a complicated challenge, but jobs are a key part of the puzzle. Research has found that Illinois ex-offenders employed a year after release can have a recidivism rate as low as 16%,¹⁷ while the state’s overall recidivism rate is more than double that, at just under 37%.¹⁸ Among those 16 and older who participate in the labor force, employees in Chicago face poverty rates of only 6.8%, while the unemployed face poverty rates of 39.7%.¹⁹

Block club leaders can help reduce poverty in their neighborhoods by closing the gap between their neighbors and stable employment. They do that with bridges of community devotion, investment and trust.

Community trust builds job opportunities

• Block club leaders vet residents before referring them to jobs, giving employers enough confidence to hire them despite criminal backgrounds.
• Short-term service work and small jobs created by block club leaders help residents prove reliability and earn money prior to accessing stable employment.
• The patience, upfront investment and leadership of block club leaders allows for creative community-driven solutions to barriers such as transportation.

The 600 Block Club on Lorel Avenue in the Austin neighborhood buzzed with activity. White tents decorated either side of the street, and children ran up and down the concrete road laughing. An outside observer might have thought they had stumbled on a block club party, but on closer inspection, something much more powerful was taking place that day.

The event was a jobs fair. Under those white tents sat employers — organizations including BMO, the Teamsters and Pace Suburban Bus — having initial conversations with potential employees and scheduling formal interviews for full-time employment. Each of the 10 employers present reported that 10 to 30 people visited their table. Nearly 40 second-round interviews were scheduled.

As the job fair came to a close, Pastor Dollie Sherman, the Austin block club leader who helped organize it, took the microphone. Despite losing her older sister two days before, she remained dedicated to ensuring the event was executed successfully. As she stood in front of the community, she said she felt she had to do what God had ordained her to do. “We are taking back our communities!” she boldly declared.

A key part of taking back the community is getting the people in it connected to work. Block clubs are doing that by using community resources to overcome the criminal background and transportation barriers. After serving his own prison sentence, Jeff Maxwell, a block club leader in the South Side community of Englewood, understood the challenges his fellow community members faced and wanted to help. While he started out by opening a food pantry and soup kitchen, he soon realized there was a gap.

“A lot of these people getting a handout could feed their own families,” he said, “if they were just given an opportunity to work.”

One day, Maxwell was approached by a man who had secured a warehouse job but needed a ride to and from the site. Maxwell agreed to help him for a little while, driving him roughly 45 minutes to work.

“I’m only going to be able to do this for two weeks … until you get your first check,” Maxwell recalled telling him.

That ride became the beginning of a much larger employment network the block club created. While Maxwell was driving the man to work, the warehouse’s human resources director asked the employee who was bringing him from Chicago. When she learned Maxwell ran a food pantry and soup kitchen, she asked to speak with him.

Their first agreement started with a simple ask from the HR director: Are there about 10 more people in your community you think would be a good fit for us? He sent those 10 almost immediately and the HR director gave them jobs. Their relationship continued, bringing more and more community members into employment.

Over the past 11 years and across about seven warehouses, Maxwell estimates his block club has connected around 3,000 people to jobs. He recalled running into one of the first men he helped place years later. The man reminded him of the warehouse job Maxwell had helped him get and said he had been promoted to supervisor at the same warehouse. “It just goes to show you, given an opportunity, the worst can be the best,” Maxwell said. That man’s opportunity wouldn’t have existed without the trust established by block club leaders like Maxwell through their close relationships and personal vetting.

Trust enables employment

Before referring someone to a warehouse, Maxwell said, he vets them by visiting about why they want to work.

“I always have a 15-minute conversation with anyone who calls me for a job,” he said. “I’m looking for the reason. Because if you don’t have a reason to stay, you’ll have 20 reasons to quit.”

He listens for explanations such as a girlfriend becoming pregnant, a mother giving someone two months to move out or a parole officer requiring employment.

The arrangement works well because it’s hyperlocal. Maxwell has lived in Englewood his entire life. He is embedded enough in the community to know who people are and who can be trusted enough to work in the warehouses. Because of this, the warehouses are willing to hire the men he refers despite the criminal history that comes back on their background check; they trust Maxwell’s judgment and vetting as a community leader.

Pastor Dollie Sherman reported using a similar vetting mechanism before referring people to the jobs she is connected to. She said she starts by inviting them to participate in small acts of service: going to the community gardens to work, supporting other neighborhood programs and doing small, short-term jobs.

“If they show up, I know they’re ready to work,” said Sherman, known as “Miss Dollie” or “Pastor Dollie.” Only then does she pass them along to job opportunities. “If you always have an excuse, you’re not ready,” she said. “I’m not going to give up on you, but I’m not going to ask someone else to trust you.”

The role of short-term employment

In addition to measuring reliability, these small jobs are a necessary bridge for residents who face barriers that might prevent them from entering the formal job market right away. Sherman described one man on her block who could not get his ID after incarceration and therefore was not working. Still, he came around to help her set up tables, chairs and tents for block club events and she paid him. She contacted an organization that works with people who have criminal records “and got him into a second-chance program. They were able to help him get his ID.” Once he had that, he was able to complete job training with the Chicago Transit Authority. “Now he works nights for the CTA.”

Short-term work can serve multiple purposes at once. It gives residents a way to earn the money they need, get connected to the community and demonstrate reliability while they work through barriers such as documentation, background checks or transportation. It also allows block club leaders to learn what kind of help a person needs before connecting them to a more stable opportunity.

Overcoming transit barriers requires community investment

In addition to finding jobs, Maxwell arranges transportation for the men to and from work. At first he funded it himself, buying a large passenger van and then a bus. As the operation grew, he began charging for the rides to the jobs in the suburbs. Those “fares” sustained the service and always left him with enough extra money to expand operations by adding more vans. Maxwell describes it as running “strictly from within,” without government intervention or subsidies — an innovative community initiative, “kind of like a rideshare.”

Not only does this solve the transportation problem for these men, it helps keep them employed. In 2025, the broader transportation, warehousing and utilities sector had a higher rate of workers leaving than the overall labor market, according to federal data.²⁰ But Maxwell said workers who ride with him are more likely to stay because they travel together and have reliable transportation.

“A person who’s in a van with us, they can’t just get up and leave because we have to go to the same place,” he said. That reliability benefits employers as well. “That HR director knew that if she hired people from me, she was going to have them for some months.”

In the West Side community of Austin, Kevon Williams is in the early stages of building something similar. He recently secured a logistics contract connected to five warehouses in North Aurora, about 34 miles away. Once he can consistently get workers there, the number of jobs could grow from a handful to hundreds, he said.

Like Maxwell, Williams has found that transportation is one of the key barriers between willing workers and available jobs. “My main guys that really work hard just don’t have cars,” he said. So, just like Maxwell, he invested the initial money for a van and arranged a central pickup point to transport Austin residents to the warehouses.

“My next goal is to fill the van,” he said with a smile. This process works only because Maxwell and Williams aren’t recruiting strangers through an online portal; they’re recruiting people they know. That can slow the process of getting started, but it creates long-lasting effects beyond what can be easily measured. In one case, a member of Williams’ team ran into a man from the area who needed work. By the next morning, Williams said, they had picked him up and connected him to the warehouse opportunity.

As they drove in the van, Williams recalled overhearing the man say on the phone, “How are you going to talk to me like that? I’ve got a job now.” The change in the man’s attitude demonstrates the necessity of work to restore personal and community pride.

While Maxwell’s work highlights the benefits that can come once a program like this is up and running, Williams’ experience highlights why these programs depend on dedicated leaders willing to financially absorb the early risks. The warehouse contract creates real jobs, but Williams said he and his partner have had to pay out of pocket for transportation, equipment and payroll before the contract pays out. Those costs don’t disappear when workers cancel the morning of a shift or don’t show up. Containers go unloaded, employers lose confidence and the community organizations supporting the operation bear the burden.

Still, Williams said, he has stayed with it because “most things start up hard,” and he knows that helping the adults who want jobs but might need more support to get and keep them will require a lot of patience on his part. Patience is the hidden infrastructure behind these employment pipelines. Before the model can become self-sustaining like Maxwell’s, someone has to front the money, make the calls, pick people up and keep trying when things don’t work out right away.

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Together, the block club employment fair on Lorel (sponsored by the Center for Poverty Solutions), Maxwell’s work in Englewood and Williams’ work in Austin show the same principle at different stages of development. Whether block club leaders connect residents to work by bringing employers directly to the neighborhood or by bringing residents to employers miles away, the model works because it is built on trust — trust from employers that the community leader knows who is ready to work, and trust from residents that the opportunity being offered is real. That trust can be built only by leaders close enough to the community to know its people, patient enough to work through the setbacks and committed enough to keep investing before the model pays for itself.

Youth employment as poverty prevention

• ïBlock club leaders see youth employment as a way to prevent poverty, violence and incarceration before they become the default paths for young people.
• ï Paid work cleaning up the community, helping in gardens and doing other small jobs helps young people earn money and feel a sense of ownership in their neighborhoods.
• ï The personal relationships block club leaders establish with young people encourage them to see themselves as skilled workers and providers rather than limited by existing poverty or neighborhood violence.

Historically, block clubs have been particularly concerned about young people. In her scholarship on the subject, Amanda I. Seligman highlights how block clubs created opportunities for young people in Chicago, engaging them in beautifying the neighborhood.

The same practices continue today, but for many block club leaders, the work is deeply personal. “We have kids growing up without moms and dads. Our kids go to more funerals than birthday parties,” Williams said, choking up as he explained the vast challenges that face young people on the West Side so early on in their lives. “My nephew lost his father, my nieces lost their mother to gun violence, and I have friends whose babies’ fathers are dead. So much help is needed from so many angles. It’s definitely a battle.”

He paused and nodded his head. “But we’re getting there. We’re making an impact.”

That grief is part of what drives leaders like Williams to invest so much time and resources into the community. Their personal connection to the challenges faced by those in the neighborhood is what facilitates a bond with young people that can lead to respect and mentorship and pull them away from a life of violence toward something better.

In Englewood, Maxwell describes youth employment as central to his block club’s broader effort to rebuild neighborhood life. As they worked to clean a playground overrun with trees and trash recently, Maxwell said young men from the neighborhood would wander by. His response was never to avoid them, but to recruit them.

“We don’t run from the young men, we run to them,” he said.

He and other organizers collected their information, connected them to a job-readiness orientation and planned to place them afterward in work such as car washes, cleaning efforts and other local employment opportunities.

Sherman is creating jobs that benefit and beautify the community to engage youth in work early on. “We have two community gardens that need work — that’s a job. We also have seniors on the block that cannot cut their own grass, so young people cut their grass for them and clean up their yard — that’s another job.”

Similar to how more traditional employers are willing to hire people referred through block club leaders because of the trust they’ve forged, neighbors on the block are willing to hire young people endorsed by those leaders. “The seniors can trust them because they know they’re Miss Dollie’s children,” Sherman said. “They know they have to be respectful.”

Kirk Moses, a South Shore block club leader, described a similar model growing out of his block club’s alley cleanups. What began as a few neighbors cutting back brush behind their homes has expanded into a recurring cleanup effort across multiple blocks. Moses said he wants to begin intentionally bringing young people into that work as paid participants. Through the Lift Them Up Center, the nonprofit his mother founded in Champaign and that he now hopes to expand, Moses wants to provide stipends to young people who help clean parks, alleys and vacant areas.

For Moses, the cleanup work is connected to a larger workforce-development vision. He wants to create a program in which young people learn basic tools, home repair and construction skills while working in vacant-property rehab and building housing. The young people need to understand “that a clean environment creates a whole different perception of our society and our mental state” and “increases value to our community,” he said.

Changing the way young people think

Youth employment and engagement are about more than just keeping young people busy or helping them make money; it is about changing the way they see themselves and their neighborhoods. So many block clubs are concerned about the physical look and feel of the block because pride, dignity and responsibility can flow from the physical environment. Williams put it simply: “A clean community is not a poverty community.” For him, cleanup work teaches ownership. “We are all responsible for this area because this is where we live and we care about it,” he said. “You only clean when you’re taking pride in something.”

The same is true of employment. The goal is not only to place young people into jobs, but to help them understand the value of developing a skill they can carry for life, Williams said. He recalled talking with a student who wanted to become a plumber. Williams encouraged him to see plumbing not just as a job but as a source of independence and service to others. “Once you become a plumber, you have this skill set now where nobody can take it from you,” he said. With those skills, the young man could work for a company, help his family when things went wrong, start his own business or train others in the community.

That, for Williams, is the larger purpose of youth employment: helping them see themselves as producers, owners and future leaders of the neighborhood.

Early engagement with youth, and particularly youth employment, is central to the benefits block clubs provide in South and West side communities because it can help break the cycle of poverty. Maxwell argues that block clubs are most effective not when they clean up after community harm but when they are able to intercede before the violence, incarceration or illegal work become the default options.

He recalled one man who’d sought out a job because he needed to pay child support. After he’d received his first paycheck, he came to Maxwell and thanked him.

“When I got my check,” the young man said, according to Maxwell, “I was able to buy my daughter something for the first time without money I’d made selling drugs.”

“That same young man could’ve easily been in prison for selling drugs,” Maxwell said, “but we got in front of him.” If that young man continues to pursue the opportunity Maxwell created, his baby girl will grow up not only with her father in her life but with an employed father. Both of those factors have been shown to improve socioeconomic outcomes.²¹ Multiply that across a neighborhood and slowly but surely, the research indicates, things can turn around.

Block clubs do what government programs cannot

• Government programs can lack effectiveness and credibility because of historic mistrust and their disconnect from residents’ daily lives.
• Block club leaders, on the other hand, are able to guide behavior, reduce disorder and create positive changes through their relationships because of their long-term presence, trust and proven care.

These kinds of community operations could not be replicated by a government program, primarily because they rely on the trust that emerges from shared experience and the dedication and personal investment displayed over long periods of time.

“Many of us are from the streets ourselves,” Maxwell said, saying the young men were more willing to trust and engage with the block club because those running it had been through the same experiences they had.

In her own way, Diana Graham commands a similar respect. She has not been incarcerated, but she has lived in the community for 57 years and is known as someone who can both confront disorder and love the people causing it. They know she isn’t afraid to step onto her front porch with a .38 when a young man selling drugs refuses to leave. She recalled that instance with a smile when asked why the young people in her community had so much respect for her. She said they also knew she would have jobs for those who wanted them, often paying wages out of her own pocket, and would open her home to someone who needed a place to stay or a meal. “How could I be afraid of them?” she said. “They grew up with my kids.”

Diametrically opposed to the trust that youth and community members place in block club leaders is the distrust they have in the government, rooted in both historical and personal experiences. “There’s a lot of mistrust in this community because of past events, hurts or disappointments,” Sherman said when asked why block clubs could do this work better than a more formal city program could. “We have the relationship.”

Kirk Moses made a similar observation. “Government programs come from people who are not directly connected to the block,” he said. “They’re not boots on the ground; they’re boots in the office.”

The ability of block club leaders to intervene with employment opportunities and youth engagement illustrates what Robert Sampson defines as social control.²² It’s “the capacity of a group to regulate its members according to desired principles — to realize collective, as opposed to forced, goals,” he writes. The “capacity of residents to control group-level processes and visible signs of social disorder is thus a key mechanism influencing opportunities for interpersonal crime in a neighborhood.”

The respect these leaders command in the neighborhood, not through force but through devotion to the people around them, changes the neighborhood — and the people in it — for the better.

Policy recommendations

The city legal environment in which block clubs operate influences their effectiveness. Two policy recommendations emerged from speaking with block club leaders:

1) Reduce barriers to using and acquiring vacant land, such as permitting processes that can make it challenging to create work from community beautification opportunities.

2) Reduce barriers to work imposed by licensing requirements that can keep otherwise skilled people from employment.

Vacant Land and Permitting

Over the years, Chicago has maintained several programs that allow residents to buy city-owned vacant lots. These have included the Large Lots program, which ran as a pilot from 2014 to 2018 and aimed to help “property owners, block clubs, and non-profit groups in select Chicago neighborhoods … purchase city-owned land for $1 per parcel.”²³ A similar program was relaunched in November 2022, this time on a portal called ChiBlockBuilder.²⁴ The city intermittently accepts applications for certain parcels, saying that depending on location, applications will be accepted “for 45 or 90 days.”²⁵ Residents could apply on the site for lots with a plan to create housing, a side yard, commercial development or community open space, such as gardens or parks.²⁶

Focus groups with those who got the $1 Large Lots revealed that this resident-led beautification helped create a sense of place attachment and a sense of community. Improving land use in this way in Chicago has reduced crime, poverty and unemployment and has increased property values.²⁷ For block club leaders who use vacant lot beautification or community garden labor as short-term employment opportunities, having access to vacant lots for development is important to their success.

However, block clubs can face difficulty when seeking to develop vacant lots because of “aldermanic prerogative,” the longstanding tradition in Chicago that generally allows aldermen to veto development plans in their wards.²⁸ For example, an alderman who hopes a store will be built on a vacant lot rather than a community garden might not allow a block club leader to buy the lot, even if no plans for a store exist.

Luckily, Maxwell and his block club have not run into that issue. They have managed to navigate the necessary political processes to secure the right to use the land they need for their initiatives. Still, having to do so can slow things down. Maxwell compared it to buying a car: You go to a lot, pick the one you want from the seller and buy it. “I don’t have to call the alderman and say, ‘Hey, I’m about to buy the car.’” In a similar way, he says, it would be easier if all vacant city-owned lots had a price tag and a tax tag, and that was that.

“Once a person purchases it, it will generate tax revenue for the city, so we all know it’s advantageous,” he said. “So things would be faster if we didn’t have to get all of these permits and go through all of these meetings.”

Simplifying the process would also make it easier for block clubs like Sherman’s on the West Side that have to operate amid uncertainty because their work falls outside any official process. On the street where she hosted the jobs fair, there are two community gardens. Those lots used to be vacant and attracted dangerous behavior. “There was grass growing up, people were throwing bottles and needles there, doing their drugs, running from the police straight through there,” she said.

Rather than trying to navigate the city’s processes to handle the land, she said, they just did what they felt was necessary by turning the lots into gardens. “It’s on my block,” she said, “and it was bringing negativity to my block. It was unsafe for the children, so we had to do something about it.” It’s an unofficial solution but one no one has challenged so far. “I’ve been doing it for about 10 years, and nobody has said anything to us about it.”

Creating a fast-track permitting process for block clubs would help alleviate roadblocks to development such as community gardens. Aldermen hesitant to allow a plot of land to be used for beautification that may be wanted later for another use could implement, by city ordinance, four-year stewardship agreements with block clubs. That would acknowledge the potential redevelopment that might happen later down the line but allow block clubs to adopt and steward the vacant land in the meantime rather than leaving it to languish. Because so many block club leaders are providing work through community beautification, the development of these lots would not only help prevent crime, but provide more residents — particularly young adults — the opportunity to work.

Licensing restrictions

City licensing rules can limit the number of small projects available to workers who already live in the neighborhoods where the work is needed. Graham said she often sees city-funded projects come into Austin with crews that do not always reflect the community. In her view, one reason is that larger city projects require licensed and bonded contractors, which can exclude skilled local workers with experience but without formal credentials.

“When you create large projects with your city, the city is only going to hire licensed professionals,” Graham said. Such people “might not be in your neighborhood.”

She said residents often notice when work is being done in their community but few of the workers are Black or from the area. “How come they can’t work on projects that the city sent into your community?” she asked. Under the current system, she said, many local workers are shut out because they lack the required licenses.

Graham does not dismiss the purpose of licensing, which helps protect residents and the city if something goes wrong. But she also sees how the cost, time and educational requirements needed to become licensed can keep capable workers from getting formal work.

Her observations have been documented across the nation. Using data from 2016 to 2021, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis reported that Black people were less likely to be licensed than white people (about 20% vs. about 25%).²⁹ Some research has even pointed toward these regulations having discriminatory origins.

A lack of licensure does not automatically mean a lack of skill, as Graham experienced firsthand.³⁰

“I had a guy that did a lot of work in here for me,” Graham said, referring to her home in Austin, “but he wasn’t licensed.” Because of his lack of credentials, the work had to happen under the table. She said that two years ago, the man’s son helped him finally get licensed, but he had been working for about 28 years before that without one. Once he got licensed, she said, his opportunities expanded dramatically.

That story illustrates the problem. For decades, he had the skill to do the work, but not the credentials to participate fully in the formal economy. During that time, homeowners like Graham could hire him under the table, but he was limited in the jobs he could take, the warranties he could offer and the public or city-backed projects he could access.

One solution to this would be a lower-barrier pathway for neighborhood projects. The city requires a permit for work such as putting up a fence, interior alterations, installing temporary structures and more. One of the explicit purposes of the permit requirement is to “prevent work by unlicensed and unqualified contractors.”³¹ One way to maintain safety while also encouraging work would be if the city provisionally certified local workers to perform limited, low-risk work under a simplified approval process, especially for block clubs, beautification projects, minor repairs and other small-scale community improvements.

Additionally, on larger city-managed projects, skilled but uncredentialed workers could be hired with more supervision for tasks with lower risk. For projects or tasks above a certain risk level, full licensing requirements could still apply.

Reducing barriers to employment on skilled projects would give block clubs, homeowners and the city more opportunities to hire locally while creating stepping stones into licensed work. Chicago could reserve strict licensing requirements for higher-risk work and create an easier path for projects that help residents gain experience, earn money and build toward formal credentials in their community.

Conclusion

Sociologists have found that racial and economic exclusion can lead to a perceived powerlessness.³² Put more simply, poverty, which starts as a lack of access to certain resources, can morph into a mindset that colors all other experiences and prevents people from seeing opportunities available to them. In communities where poverty is prevalent, it can manifest as a spirit of hopelessness. Well-intentioned government programs that focus solely on supplementing resource gaps with handouts can further exacerbate that hopelessness by fostering a culture of dependence.

Block clubs and the leaders who run them push against these patterns by connecting residents to jobs, helping people overcome transportation barriers, creating short-term work through beautification projects and engaging young people before violence, crime and incarceration become the default path. In Austin, Englewood and South Shore, block club leaders use their relationships, reputations and local knowledge to identify who is ready to work and connect them with small job opportunities or formal employers.

On Chicago’s South and West sides, barriers to employment can be difficult to face alone: criminal records, lack of transportation, limited access to formal credentials and a lack of mentorship. Block clubs are uniquely positioned to help overcome those barriers. They know the people who need help, the young men who need direction, the seniors who need their yards cleaned, the vacant lots that need attention and the employers that may be willing to hire if someone they trust can vouch for a worker. Because employment is one of the clearest pathways out of poverty, the work block clubs can do in this regard is paramount.

Block club leaders connect their neighbors with what they need to take their futures into their own hands, whether through access to regular jobs (such as warehouses) or single instances of employment. Additionally, their efforts to connect with young people through work opportunities and beautification efforts can change the trajectory of those in their neighborhoods by shaping how young people think about their future careers and the pride people take in where they live.

Chicago needs more of this work. If the city wants to reduce unemployment and fight poverty on the South and West sides, it should recognize block clubs as a vital part of the solution. That means making it easier for block clubs by expanding access to vacant-lot stewardship and removing unnecessary obstacles that keep skilled residents from participating in the formal economy. More block clubs would mean more trusted leaders connecting more residents to work, more young people learning responsibility through paid service, more vacant spaces turned into productive community assets and more neighborhoods where residents believe they have the power to improve the place they call home.

“I dream of a community that’s not reliant on government,” Kevon Williams said. That reality, free from poverty, requires people to have work, ownership, trust and — perhaps most importantly — hope. On Chicago’s South and West sides, block clubs and the leaders who manage them are building all four of those elements and, through them, a brighter future.

Endnotes

^{1 Chicago Health Atlas, “Poverty,” accessed June 11, 2026, https://chicagohealthatlas.org/indicators/POV.}

^{2 Chicago Health Atlas, “Unemployment,” accessed June 11, 2026, https://chicagohealthatlas.org/indicators/UMP.}

^{3 Chicago Police Department, “Block Club Registration,” https://www.chicagopolice.org/block-club-registration/.}

^{4 Claire Zulkey, “The History and Power of Chicago’s Block Clubs,” Chicago Magazine, Sept. 7, 2016, https://www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/september-2016/chicago-block-clubs/.}

^{5 City of Chicago, “Registration – User Details,” Block Club Registration, https://webapps1.chicago.gov/blockclub/registration.}

^{6 Jim Daley, “Jobs, Block Clubs, Investment: How Chicagoans Are Interrupting Violence at Its Roots,” Illinois Answers Project, May 27, 2025, https://illinoisanswers.org/2025/05/27/jobs-block-clubs-investment-how-chicagoans-are-interrupting-violence-at-its-roots/.}

^{7 Amanda I. Seligman, Chicago’s Block Clubs: How Neighbors Shape the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).}

^{8 Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.}

^{9 Seligman, Chicago’s Block Clubs.}

^{10 City of Chicago Office of Reentry, First Year Report, 2025, https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/sites/reentry/pdfs/45619-37-ReentryReport_C.pdf.}

^{11 Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, Chicago Community Data Snapshot. July 2025, https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/Chicago.pdf.}

^{12 Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, Englewood Community Data Snapshot, July 2025, https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/Englewood.pdf.}

^{13 Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, Austin Community Data Snapshot, July 2025, https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/Austin.pdf.}

^{14 The Law Offices of David L. Freidberg, P.C., “The Limited Job Options for Convicted Felons in Chicago,” Chicago Criminal Lawyer Blog, https://www.chicagocriminallawyer.com/blog/the-limited-job-options-for-convicted-felons-in-chicago/.}

^{15 Urban Institute Justice Policy Center, Returning Home Illinois Policy Brief: Employment and Prisoner Reentry, prepared for the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, August 2005, https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/42881/311215-Returning-Home-Illinois-Policy-Brief-Employment-and-Prisoner-Reentry.PDF.}

^{16 Jessica Reichert, Ryan Maranville and Eva Ott Hill, “Employment of Individuals After Release from Illinois Prisons: Employee Characteristics, Occupations, and Wages,” Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, Sept. 1, 2023, https://icjia.illinois.gov/researchhub/articles/employment-of-individuals-after-release-from-illinois-prisons–employee-characteristics-occupations-and-wages/.}

^{17 Hillary Gowins, “Illinois Lawmakers Pass Record-Sealing Expansion,” Illinois Policy, May 30, 2017, https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-lawmakers-pass-record-sealing-expansion/.}

^{18 Ben Bradley and Andrew Schroedter, “Illinois State Prisons Can’t Compute Recidivism Rates,” WGN-TV, Sept. 8, 2025, https://wgntv.com/news/wgn-investigates/illinois-state-prisons-cant-compute-recidivism-rates/.}

^{19 Bryce Hill, “Center for Poverty Solutions: How to Better Assess Poverty in Chicago and America,” Illinois Policy, Sept. 26, 2023, https://www.illinoispolicy.org/reports/center-for-poverty-solutions-how-to-better-assess-poverty-in-chicago-and-america/.}

^{20 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Table 20. Annual Average Total Separations Rates by Industry and Region, Not Seasonally Adjusted,” Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, March 13, 2026, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t20.htm.}

^{21 David Bass, “The Two-Parent Privilege and How It Helps Families Escape Poverty,” Georgia Center for Opportunity, Oct. 28, 2023, https://foropportunity.org/the-two-parent-privilege-and-how-it-helps-families-escape-poverty/.}

^{22 Robert J. Sampson, Stephen W. Raudenbush and Felton Earls, “Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy,” Science, Vol. 277, No. 5328, 1997, pp. 918-924, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.277.5328.918.}

^{23 City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development, “Large Lot Program,” https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dcd/supp_info/large-lot-program.html.}

^{24 City of Chicago, “ChiBlockBuilder Home,” https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/block-builder/home.html.}

^{25 City of Chicago, “Apply for Lots,” ChiBlockBuilder, https://chiblockbuilder.com/apply/.}

^{26 City of Chicago, “Application Guide,” ChiBlockBuilder, https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/block-builder/home/application-guide.html.}

^{27 Li Chen and Maria M. Conroy, “Vacant Urban Land Temporary Use and Neighborhood Sustainability: A Comparative Study of Two Midwestern Cities,” Journal of Urban Affairs, Vol. 46, No. 10, 2024, pp. 2084-2108, https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2023.2168551.}

^{28 Katarina Karac, “What Is the Aldermanic Prerogative?” Birchwood Law, https://birchwood.law/what-is-the-aldermanic-prerogative/.}

^{29 Tyler Boesch, Katherine Lim and Ryan Nunn, “How Occupational Licensing Limits Access to Jobs Among Workers of Color,” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, March 11, 2022, https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2022/how-occupational-licensing-limits-access-to-jobs-among-workers-of-color.}

^{30 Josh Bandoch and Larry Han, “Unlocking Opportunity: How Occupational Licensing Reform Would Promote Equitable Empowerment in Illinois,” Illinois Policy, Oct. 16, 2024, https://www.illinoispolicy.org/reports/unlocking-opportunity-how-occupational-licensing-reform-would-promote-equitable-empowerment-in-illinois/.}

^{31 City of Chicago Department of Buildings, “Express Permit Program,” https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/bldgs/provdrs/permits/svcs/express-permits.html.}

^{32 David R. Williams and Chiquita Collins, “U.S. Socioeconomic and Racial Differences in Health: Patterns and Explanations,” Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 21, 1995, pp. 349-386, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2083415.}