Building Community Through Voter Registration

Posted on by North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council

If you are interested in having your organization participate in voter registration, please email Valerie F. Leonard at consulting@valeriefleonard.com.  NLCCC has 500 motor voter cards and 250 absentee ballots. We also have a few signs you may post in your office or place of business.

Also, Michael Halbert, who is coordinating a registration drive throughout the community, is going door to door for voter registration starting next Saturday.  We will also be distributing NLCCC brochures in the process.  Michael will be working with Sheila McNary’s son to conduct classes for deputy registrars if there is an interest. If you are interested in participating, please let us know if you are interested in participating, and at what level.
Level 1. Becoming a deputy registrar
Level 2. Distributing Motor Voter cards at your front desk
Level 3. Going door to door for a couple hours on Saturdays

Alderman Michael Scott, Jr. Hosts Chicago Resident Housing Fair

Posted on by North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council

Alderman Michael Scott, Jr. will host a Chicago Resident Housing Fair on October 1, 2016, at the Douglas Park Cultural Center, 1401 South Sacramento Boulevard, from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. Workshops and affordable housing resources for property owners, renters and homebuyers will be available. Please encourage as many North Lawndale residents as possible to attend. The resources shared are intended to help first time home buyers and home owners purchase and maintain their homes. For more information, call Alderman Michael Scott, Jr.’s office at 773-533-2400.

housing

 

Building Community Through Literacy

Posted on by North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council

Literacy refers to our ability to understand and learn from what we read; think critically about what has been written and clearly communicate ideas through the written word. Literacy is the backbone of all of our learning, and helps us to participate fully in our communities, the workforce and the larger society.

An examination of national literacy statistics reveals a very sobering reality. There was no significant change in adult literacy rates between 1992 and 2003 (Institute for Education and Sciences). The United States ranks number 12 of 20 high income countries in literacy. Forty-four million adults in the U.S. can’t read well enough to read a simple story to a child. Over one million children drop out of school each year, costing the nation over $240 billion in lost earnings, forgone tax revenues, and expenditures for social services. (U.S. Department of Education)

On the income side, assuming a 45 year career, high school graduates can expect on average, to earn $1.2 million; those with a bachelor’s degree, $2.1million; and people with a master’s degree, $2.5 million. People with doctoral degrees earn an average of $3.4 million during their working lives, while those with professional degrees do best at $4.4 million. The average annual salary for high school dropouts in 1999 was $18,000, or $810,000 in a lifetime. (Robert Longley).

Sixty percent of America’s prison inmates are illiterate and 85% of all juvenile offenders have reading problems. Approximately 50% of the nation’s unemployed youth age 16-21 are functional illiterate, with virtually no prospects of obtaining good jobs. (Department of Education)

Drilling down to the community level, US Census data reveals that approximately 42% of North Lawndale families live in poverty, and the median income for the community was $18,342 in 2008. This is comparable to income levels of people who have dropped out of school. Given the relationship between poverty, education and crime, it comes as no surprise that many of North Lawndale’s schools are among the City’s lowest performing in terms of basic reading, math and science. Approximately 30% of students attending local neighborhood schools either dropped out or left CPS by the time they reached 19 in 2016, compared to the city wide average drop out rate of 22%. (CPS). Our community has one of the highest crime rates in the City. Indeed, North Lawndale is one of the top 6 communities to which ex-offenders return from state prisons. We are also one of a handful of communities that sends a steady stream of detainees to the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center.

Unless we make drastic improvements, our low literacy rates will continue to be a major barrier to developing the community to its fullest potential. As it stands, many employers are not willing to locate their businesses in North Lawndale because they are concerned about high crime rates and the low education and skill levels of community residents. It will take a village to make the necessary changes, but it can be done with all hands on deck. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Read to your children, even before they are born. This has a calming effect on the baby, increases healthy bonding between mother and child, and enhances brain development for the baby.

2. Read to your child every day from the day s/he is born, and make sure s/he learns to read before starting pre-school.

3. Limit your child’s time on television, video games and the internet to no more than 2 hours a day. Make sure the programs that s/he watches are high quality and educational. Avoid content that is violent or sexually explicit.

4. Insist that your child do at least one assignment in reading and one assignment in math every day, in addition to the homework s/he gets from school. Homework should be done before watching television, playing games or any other “fun” activity.

5. Make a commitment to work more closely with your child, his/her teacher and principal to make sure s/he is on the right track. This includes making regular visits to the school in between report card pick up. These visits should be geared to keep the lines of communications open between you and the school, and not because there is a discipline problem.

6. Sponsor a book drive and donate books to schools, churches or community based organizations.

7. Start a tutoring program for children and youth, with a goal of increasing reading and math skills.

8. Sponsor a contest and offer a prize for the student who reads the most books within a 3 month period, as evidenced by a book report for each book read.

9. Sponsor a contest to offer prizes for the adult learner who makes the greatest gains in literacy.

10. Work with your local high school or elementary school to create adult literacy programs geared to increase adult literacy in the community and enhance parents’ ability to help their children with their homework.

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Valerie 2.pngValerie F. Leonard is an expert in community and organizational development who works with local organizations to create sustainable communities through technical assistance, specialized workshops and special projects. Visit Valeriefleonard.com for more information.

Free Home Repairs for 24th Ward Residents

Posted on by North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council

DEADLINE EXTENDED UNTIL DECEMBER 15, 2016!

We thank Claude Robinson, ‎Executive Vice President of Youth Development & Diversity at UCAN , for sharing the following message concerning free repairs for low income home owners in the 24th Ward.

I wanted to send a followup message to let you know that we are still plugging away at this wonderful opportunity. We need your help to get more applications so the FREE Rehab can be a success. We have applications at the front desk.

Let me know of any new ideas you have to further the application process.

Take care,

Claude

New Covenant CDC, Sunshine Enterprises West Side Community Business Academy Info Session

Posted on by North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council
When: Thursday, September 22, 2016
 
Time: 6pm-7pm
New Covenant Community Development Corporation
Where: 1111 S Homan Ave | Chicago, IL 60624
West Side Community Business Academy Cohort begins
 
When:Thursday September 29, 2016
Time:6pm-9pm
Where: Sankofa House
4041 W Roosevelt Road | Chicago, IL 60624

Sunshine Enterprises is excited to announce its partnership with New Covenant Community Development Corporation (NCCDC). NCCDC has demonstrated a commitment to theLawndale Community by fostering economic revitalization and financial empowerment. We are excited to join alongside the entrepreneurs of the West Side to further enhance business development!

To learn more about New Covenant CDC’s Work, click here.

More than Basic Business Training:

Sunshine Enterprises takes a comprehensive approach to helping businesses grow. We focus on neighborhood-centered entrepreneurs, giving them the critical tools for becoming sustainable. All those accepted into the program receive a $3,000 grant to cover tuition costs. Our program offers the following:

  • Small Business Lab – a unique environment where you gain hands-on experience in running a business under real world conditions.
  • Exclusive networking opportunities with some of Chicago’s top business and industry leaders.
  • One-on-one coaching for graduates
  • Opportunities for building credit and gaining access to capital
  • Additional workshops on marketing, finance, and technologyslide1

Subscribe to Our RSS Feed

Posted on by North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council

If your organization serves North Lawndale, please consider subscribing to the North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council’s blog feed. This will look similar to a Twitter feed on your website, depending on what widget/API you use. You can put it on a page, in the margin, or in the footer of your website, depending on your set up. You can also choose how many headlines will run, depending on your widget. If you need help setting it up, put me in touch with your webmaster. Here is the link to the feed. https://nlcccplanning.org/feed/ Copy and paste it into the RSS link widget. Looking forward to a more connected community.

Valerie F. Leonard, consulting@valeriefleonard.com

 

Ideas from the North Lawndale Neighborhood Start Fund

Posted on by North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council

Neighborhood Start Fund was founded by Lupe Fiasco and Di-Ann Eisnor to turn ideas into start-ups.  We need more diverse entrepreneurs bringing fresh ideas and new innovations to life.

So, they created a neighborhood-specific fund to support entrepreneurs and start-ups from underserved areas and of course so the best new ideas won’t go wasted. They provide access, network, workshops, mentoring and of course funding. Learn more here 

While the application is closed for North Lawndale entrepreneurs at this time, the North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council would like to highlight the ideas that were presented by budding North Lawndale entrepreneurs.  We are showcasing below a Power Point presentation that was presented by the team of Thom Alcazar, Bob Shaunnessey and Eric Pettersen with their funding application.  Thom is a member of NLCCC.

If you, or anyone you know, has presented an idea for submission to the Neighborhood Start Fund, please feel free to contact Valerie F. Leonard at consulting@valeriefleonard.com, to have your idea posted on this blog.  We are presenting these ideas to show other North Lawndale residents what is possible.  We have used a photo from the Neighborhood Start Fund website to emphasize that point.  Enjoy!

Five Reasons You May Still Need Life Insurance After Retirement

Posted on by North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council

We thank Herman Davis, Regional Vice President for Liberty Bank, for sharing content from The Liberty Line, a publication of Liberty Bank.

Every stage of life has its own unique financial planning and insurance needs and retirement is no different. If your life insurance policy hasn’t changed in twenty years, the coverage it provides may no longer be well suited to your stage in life. That doesn’t mean you should drop all life insurance but you may want to revise it.

Transferring a Policy? Don’t Wait Too Long

If you intend to transfer your life insurance policy for the purpose of reducing your estate tax, you might not want to wait too long.

Here’s why: Life insurance transfers made within three years of your death are disallowed for federal estate tax purposes. In other words, the proceeds of the policy will still be included in your estate.

To effectively eliminate the proceeds from your estate, you must give up all rights of ownership. So give the decision careful thought. Suppose you transfer the policy to your spouse and later get divorced. You won’t be able to take back ownership. Transferring a policy means you no longer have the right to:

  • Name a beneficiary, or change the current beneficiary.
  • Borrow against the policy or cash it in.
  • Cancel, surrender or convert the policy.
  • Decide how payments to the beneficiary will be made — in a lump sum or installments.

Keep in mind that even in retirement life insurance can be an important component of a sound financial plan.

Here are five reasons why you might still need life insurance:

  1. Funeral expenses – According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the average funeral (including the vault and casket but not cemetery costs, tombstone or miscellaneous costs such as flowers and obituaries) is $7,755. This amount can easily go much higher and pose a heavy financial burden on your survivors. Paying for the costs associated with death is a crucial role of life insurance.
  2. Health care expenses – If you incur large medical bills before you die, life insurance can help pay these bills so they don’t get passed on to your loved ones.
  3. Estate taxes – Depending on the size of your estate, your heirs could be responsible for paying federal and state estate taxes. Life insurance can be used to cover this tax burden. And if your estate is made up primarily of a business or real estate, insurance can prevent your family from being forced to sell the assets to pay the tax bill
  4. Caring for dependents – Life insurance can help a surviving spouse continue to enjoy a comparable lifestyle especially if he or she will not receive your full retirement income, pension or Social Security benefits.
  5. Charity – Some people choose to give life insurance policies to not-for-profit organizations so they can help their favorite charities and collect tax breaks. Generally, the tax deduction for a life insurance policy gift is equal to the premiums you paid minus any dividends you received.

If you are interested in this type of gift, however, make sure the charity is a qualified organization that will accept a policy. Some organizations are not equipped to go through the necessary processing to handle these types of donations and others can do so only if an insurance policy is structured in a specific way. You can deduct claim deductions if you name the charity as the irrevocable beneficiary. Charitable gifts of life insurance can pose problems if they aren’t structured properly so seek advice.

 

How Do I Know What My Home is Really Worth?

Posted on by North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council

We thank Herman Davis, Regional Vice President for Liberty Bank, for sharing content from The Liberty Line, a publication of Liberty Bank.

The market value of your home will be an important consideration in several decisions you might make, including refinancing, borrowing against the home’s accumulated equity, putting the home up for sale, estimating homeowner’s insurance, estimating annual property taxes, estimating the return from remodeling jobs, estate planning, and so forth. Remember, how much was paid for the home when it was first purchased is irrelevant to its current market value.

It’s a good idea to use several different sources for information-gathering to allow you to make fair comparisons. Here are five suggestions:

1. Contact a real estate agent. You might not be ready to sell immediately, but most agents will do a comparable market analysis for you now so that they can obtain your business when you do decide to sell. The analysis will show the prices of both sold and still for sale comparable, local homes. A seasoned agent can give you a good approximation of what your home would be worth in current local market conditions and in consideration to its condition and size.

2. Pay for an appraisal. A professional appraisal won’t likely be free of charge. In fact, it’s likely to cost a couple hundred dollars. That said, it could be worth it when you consider how many decisions are based upon the value of your home. The appraiser uses the information he/she obtains from physically inspecting your home and other data he/or she obtains from the market to issue an appraiser’s report. The report will include what criteria was used to arrive at the appraised value and a full description of your home.

3. Visit open houses in your neighborhood. You’ll get the opportunity to see for yourself how comparable homes compare. You may also learn some valuable information as you inevitably chat with attending local real estate professionals. You should, however, be mindful that the listing price doesn’t necessarily reflect a real market value. This is because many people find it hard to be objective about their own homes’ value and will price them how they personally value them, even against their real estate agent’s advice, instead of how they should be priced in relation to the market.

4. Research home valuation online. There are an array of websites offering either free or for-fee information on home valuation.

5. Price-per-square-foot is a common real estate valuation tool, especially online. However, don’t forget that there are plenty of other factors that contribute to a home’s value aside from square footage, as tiny, costly apartments in New York can attest. In other words, be sure to consider factors like whether the home is move-in-ready, recent updated, where it’s located, and other non-personal factors. Another consideration is how the square footage is calculated — with or without detached buildings, garages, and other typically non-living spaces.

Miscellaneous Itemized Deductions: What You can and can’t Deduct

Posted on by North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council

We thank Herman Davis, Regional Vice President for Liberty Bank, for sharing content from The Liberty Line, a publication of Liberty Bank.

Most taxpayers are very familiar with itemized deductions related to home ownership, medical expenses and charitable donations. But many are less familiar with miscellaneous itemized deductions. If, for example, you must belong to a trade or professional association to carry out your job responsibilities, yet your employer doesn’t cover the dues, you may be able to claim a deduction on your tax return.

This is just one of a number of available miscellaneous itemized deductions.

Miscellaneous itemized deductions are divided into two broad categories. The first includes those that can be deducted to the extent that the total exceeds 2% of your adjusted gross income (AGI). The other group, not surprisingly, consists of deductions that aren’t subject to the 2% floor. Do you know what miscellaneous expenses you can deduct — and what you can’t?

Deductions Subject to the 2% Floor

The IRS further classifies deductions subject to the 2% floor into three groups. One is unreimbursed employee expenses. To qualify for the deduction, the expenses must be ordinary and necessary, such as business liability insurance premiums and dues to chambers of commerce, trade and professional associations or
civic organizations.

Home office expenses incurred by employees can also qualify, so long as the space is used regularly and exclusively for work and is a requirement of your employment. (Self-employed taxpayers can deduct qualified home office expenses directly from their self-employment income; the expenses aren’t treated as a miscellaneous itemized deduction and thus aren’t subject to the 2% floor.)

The second group of expenses subject to the 2% floor consists of fees for tax preparation and tax advice. You can deduct these expenses for the year in which you pay them. So, on your 2016 return, you can deduct fees paid in 2016 for preparing your 2015 return. This can include the costs of tax preparation software as well as any charges for filing your return electronically.

The third group that’s subject to the 2% floor includes a variety of “other expenses.” Among them are:

  • Expenses you might have incurred to produce or collect the income that’s included in your gross income,
  • Costs incurred to determine, contest, pay or claim a refund of any tax,
  • The cost of any help — whether professional or clerical — needed to care for your investments, and
  • Any fees you were charged to collect interest and dividends.

Keep in mind that you’ll need to keep track of such expenses in order to get a deduction on your tax return.

What’s not Subject to the 2% Rule

There’s a range of expenses that can be taken as miscellaneous itemized deductions regardless of whether they exceed 2% of your AGI. These expenses can include casualty and theft losses from income-producing properties, such as stocks, bonds, works of art and vacant lots.

They also include the federal estate tax attributable to “income in respect of a decedent.” This is gross income a deceased person would have received if he or she hadn’t passed away and that you, as a beneficiary, include in your gross income.

Expenses that can’t Be Deducted

Some expenses that you might think would qualify as miscellaneous itemized deductions actually don’t, such as:

  • Brokers’ commissions,
  • Burial or funeral expenses,
  • Commuting expenses,
  • The cost of meals eaten while working late or with co-workers,
  • Personal legal expenses, and
  • Professional accreditation fees.

The Best Source for Guidance

Determining which miscellaneous expenses are deductible and which aren’t can get confusing. For instance, license and regulatory fees you pay to state and local governments for your trade, business or profession are deductible, subject to the 2% limit. However, professional accreditation fees, such as bar exam fees paid to secure initial admittance to the bar, aren’t deductible.

Your tax attorney is the best source for guidance on what miscellaneous itemized deductions you may be eligible to claim.