The challenge

The Chicago community of North Lawndale, with a median income of $18,342, has a 45 percent
poverty rate and an unemployment rate of 27 percent. Between 1970 and 2000, this predominantly African-American neighborhood experienced a dramatic decrease in affordable housing units. Much
of the remaining housing is in poor condition, leaving area families burdened with a high rate of violent crime, drug and gang activity, under-performing schools, and a frightening incidence of lead poisoning
in children.


Seeds of commitment

Richard Townsell was born into poverty in a basement apartment on the West Side of Chicago. His mother was a single parent who had moved to the city in 1956, leaving behind a sharecropper’s existence in Tennessee. In 1968, the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. spawned violence that left much of the neighborhood burned to the ground; Townsell, his two brothers, and his mother moved to public housing. Then, when Townsell was in seventh grade, his mother suffered a stroke, consigning her to a wheelchair existence. Townsell was a high school student when he first walked through the doors of a local church, where he requested permission to use the weight machine in the foyer. The pastor told him that if he wanted to lift weights, he had to attend services. Townsell says he “grudgingly agreed.”

The religious grounding that followed took him in a positive direction. Townsell won a scholarship to Northwestern University but was unsure about his future. His pastor, however, had a plan; he began to push Townsell and his peers to come back to the neighborhood after graduation to help rebuild the community. And during a summer internship at the church, Townsell “caught the vision,” as he puts it.

He read books about community development, visited local agencies, saved his money, and taught summer school. And he did return home: following a five-year stint as a suburban high school teacher, he assumed the directorship of the Lawndale Christian Development Corporation (LCDC). He was just 26, with no organizational or real estate development experience. But he had what he calls a clear religious calling. “Justice,” he says, “is God’s intention.”


Accomplishments

In 1997, LCDC organized North Lawndale citizens to successfully lobby the city of Chicago for $9 million in improvements to their streets, sidewalks, gutters, sewers, and schools. Under Townsell’s leadership, LCDC has subsequently restored 19 single-family homes and 22 condominium apartment buildings for low- and moderate-income households, and 115 affordable rental apartments for low- and very low-income residents. The organization also has developed a $3.4 million multi-service center, which in turn has created 50 new jobs and now provides subsidized care to 217 children.

LCDC has provided educational enrichment to over 600 youths through three programs. The first is the Lawndale College Opportunity Program, which boasts an 85 percent matriculation rate of its graduates to four-year colleges. The second is the Tech Center, which has provided 450 youths with computer training and Internet access since opening in 2000. Third is Young Legacies, an after-school academic enrichment and computer-training program for kindergarten to seventh-graders, which began in 2002

LCDC also has forged successful collaborations with other organizations. It is a founding member, for example, of United Power, which includes 300 Chicago-area churches, mosques, synagogues, labor unions, hospitals, business, and civic groups. The coalition procured 125 city-owned lots and subsidies for an affordable home-ownership program; construction of the first ten homes began this year.

LCDC and the Resurrection Project, a Latino community development corporation, have further partnered to build two bilingual child-care centers, in North Lawndale and a neighboring Latino neighborhood. Staff and students come from both communities, helping Townsell to realize another goal: helping African-American and Latino children grow up without preconceived notions about each other.


His Leadership style

“The key to rebuilding the black community is capturing the men,” says Townsell. “Right now, the gang and drug subculture has a hold on them.” He says he believes that area churches could be the vehicles for rebuilding the lives of the young, turning them “from preying on the community to praying for the community.” He elaborates, explaining how he sees the churches as institutions uniquely situated to liberate the African-American community from its social, economic, and political malaise. “From its founding, [religion] has been a place of refuge for oppressed people,” he says.

He lauds the close ties of his organization’s staff to the North Lawndale most call home. “We treat every community meeting, parent meeting, tenant meeting, awards ceremony, any public event as an opportunity to develop leaders.” He has also reached out to the Latino communities that border North Lawndale. “It is rare for Latinos and African-Americans to cross Cermak Avenue into each other’s neighborhoods,” he says. “But we have built bridges of trust and mutual respect.” To forge more links, Townsell serves on civic organization boards other than LCDC and United Power and is an adjunct faculty member in the urban studies programs at Wheaton College and North Park University. “Leadership development is about creating space and tension so that people, particularly young leaders, can champion their own ideas and dreams. Building relationships of mutual respect, trust, and accountability is at the heart of my approach,” he says.


The future

Thanks to LCDC’s success in real estate and community development, the local housing market has begun to improve. But to counteract the down side of gentrification—residents priced out of the neighborhood—Townsell wants LCDC to buy all available land parcels, to ensure their affordability. In coming years, he says he hopes to inspire young people to stay put and choose community development as a career. He wants to help rebuild public schools and bring back sustainable businesses, many of which he hopes will be community-owned. Townsell also plans to create skill-training centers so that residents living a marginal existence can find meaningful, living-wage work.


More about Richard Townsell and LCDC

“Richard Townsell [is] a radical social activist with sound business sense. ...His vision is realistic to the most conservative of marketers and business investors. He has credibility because he shows results….He doesn’t lose people’s money.”
— Stephen Roberson, Organizer, United Power for Action and Justice

“The very purpose of our church — one started 25 years ago by 11 teenagers and four adults — was to be a church for people at the margins, for everyday people … It was in this church that I learned about God’s heart for the poor, the fatherless, the widow and the alien. It was in this church that I learned that justice is God’s intention. ..This was the ‘good news’ for me.”
— Richard Townsell