Last summer, 28-year-old Jordan Travis was facing housing insecurity in his hometown of Chicago. \u201cI was out there on the streets, trying to survive,\u201d he recalls. Through a mentor, he found out about a unique living situation designed for young men in vulnerable positions like his. An unassuming small bungalow on the Southwest Side would provide him a safe and stable place to live while connecting him to job opportunities, counseling and a support network of men who had navigated the criminal legal system.<\/p>\n
Travis moved in in July and is now employed by the Inner-City Muslim Action Network<\/a> (IMAN), the community organization overseeing the home. \u201cI came from not having a job, nowhere to stay,\u201d he says. \u201cNow I\u2019m trying to do right by my son, trying to change my life.\u201d<\/p>\n The Youth Leadership House is the result of a partnership between IMAN, a nonprofit founded in 1997 on the city\u2019s South Side, Chicago Beyond<\/a>, an impact investor founded in 2016 to ensure all young people have the opportunity to live a free and full life in Chicago communities, and Chicago CRED<\/a>, an organization founded by former Education Secretary and Chicago Public Schools chief executive Arne Duncan.<\/p>\n As a response to young men who urgently needed safe and stable housing, the organizations opened the safe home in 2017. IMAN has since developed a wraparound support network for the residents, led mainly by formerly-incarcerated men who\u2019ve also received services from IMAN.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s always been evident to us that it\u2019s not going to cut it to work with young people in a program,\u201d says Alia Bilal, IMAN\u2019s deputy executive director. \u201cThis model does not exist if it\u2019s not holistic and if it doesn\u2019t take into consideration how we address the full needs a person has, social, emotional, physical, communal.\u201d<\/p>\n In early 2017, Chicago Beyond\u2019s founder, Liz Dozier, ran into a young man she knew from her days as a high school principal. They were both at the wake of Jason Barrett, who Dozier mentored before he lost his life to gun violence. \u201cUp to that point, I had lost dozens of children,\u201d she says. \u201cLosing Jason hit me in my soul.\u201d<\/p>\n Dozier\u2019s former student, who was also Jason\u2019s best friend, was in a vulnerable spot, fearful he could be next and seeking justice for Jason\u2019s death. \u201cWhat it boiled down to was he was extremely sad, extremely traumatized, and he wanted something different,\u201d Dozier says. \u201cThat was really the genesis of the safe house \u2014 asking, where does this young man go?\u201d After extensive research for options even outside the state, \u201cthere was no place,\u201d Dozier found.<\/p>\n So a powerful partnership formed to create it. \u201cThe idea was a home for young men who were at these pivotal points of their lives \u2026 it was supposed to be a place of healing, respite, a place to start over and really begin again,\u201d Dozier says. Chicago Beyond and Chicago CRED provided funding. IMAN already offered housing for men leaving prison; this would be its first housing offering for young people. They opened the home up to young men later in 2017.<\/p>\n
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