Address 1740 Ridge Ave Suite 117, Evanston, Illinois 60201 Categories:  Advocacy, Community Services, Disabilities, Immigration & Refugees, Women's Issues Offers Opportunities Good For:  Adults, People with Disabilities, Seniors

  The mission of Open Communities is to ensure that housing in north suburban Chicago is fair and inclusive. We do this by educating, advocating, and organizing to eradicate housing discrimination, in all of its forms and against all persons, due to race, color, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, disability, familial status, or source of income. We fight for fair housing. We believe that where you live matters, and where you live determines how you live. All communities—especially communities rich in resources and opportunities—must be accessible to all people. Open Communities encourages fair housing practices through education, including landlord-tenant and foreclosure counseling services and community education to make our communities in the north and northwest suburbs of Chicago welcoming for everyone. All of our services are free and include Housing Counseling and Education, Fair Housing Investigations, Enforcement, and Advocacy. Open Communities is rooted in the Civil Rights Movement when local women and religious leaders organized the North Shore Summer Project to protest housing discrimination. The group culminated its activities with a rally on the Winnetka Village Green in 1965, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to a crowd of 10,000, his first civil rights rally in an all-white suburb. After a few years of informal collaboration, the North Shore Interfaith Housing Council was formally organized in 1972 by a group of congregations "to provide an ongoing vehicle for the religious expression of concern for more inclusive communities and the provision of housing for persons of moderate and low incomes." Over the years that followed, the Council created the North Suburban Housing Center in 1977 to provide supportive services and The Interfaith Housing Development Corporation in 1983 to develop needed affordable housing in the target communities. Upon the retirement in 1986 of founding director Rayna Miller, the Council and the Center merged to form the Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs, combining services and advocacy. The Development Corporation (now Housing Opportunity Development Corporation) remained independent. The organization continued to grow and expand in response to the evolving challenges facing the communities and, in 2012, changed its name to Open Communities.

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