The Illinois Policy Institute’s Center for Poverty Solutions received national backing for a job co-op that will target Chicago’s most beleaguered neighborhoods. The effort will help communities liberate themselves from government dependence.
Chicago’s most underserved neighborhoods are taking an innovative approach to poverty alleviation rooted in work, not welfare, and the effort just received national recognition.
The Illinois Policy Institute’s Center for Poverty Solutions has been honored with the 2025 Pathways to Prosperity Prize for its “Community-Based Employment Co-op.”
The prize will help create a pilot program serving unemployed Chicagoans in the Austin and Englewood neighborhoods, helping them to find jobs and build lasting careers. It will be known as the Neighborhood Employment Co-op.
By working through trusted neighborhood networks anchored by block clubs, churches and supporting community-based programs, the co-op provides practical job placements to those left behind by traditional programs.
It’s about opportunity, not empty promises.
“This is an investment in the West Side and South Side of Chicago,” said Dr. Eddie Kornegay, the program’s director. “People want to work. They just need a way in, and block clubs are a first place to start.”
The support of the Pathways to Prosperity Prize will help make that a reality.
Decades of government programs have created generations of dependence and eroded personal dignity without reducing poverty, so the Center for Poverty Solutions seeks to fix that by applying free-market solutions. The center partners with established community groups to test and promote solutions, including the co-op, to see what will work to reduce poverty.
