What is the best way to invest in neighborhood housing without displacing current residents? The Steans Family Foundation has awarded a $200,000 grant to three DePaul University research groups to collaborate on a framework to explore this question. Researchers in computer science, housing and data visualization are teaming up on the project.
DePaul’s SPARK Center, Institute for Housing Studies and the Visual Informatics and Data Analytics Group will measure the potential social and economic effects of the foundation’s investments and partner projects in Chicago’s North Lawndale community. Steans has been working for years to support equitable and sustainable housing revitalization in North Lawndale.
This is the first partnership between DePaul’s SPARK Center and a nonprofit organization. The SPARK Center leverages data and predictive analytics to inform community development strategies while making research more accessible to empower local communities.
“From new development to rehabilitations, home repair programs, and more, there are multiple proven and competing strategies for pursuing housing development at the neighborhood level,” said Jeff Sternberg, research director at the Steans Family Foundation. “Through our partnership with the SPARK Center, we hope to carefully identify the foundation’s most impactful mix of strategies that are ‘best fit’ for North Lawndale and best serve its current and future residents.”
Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood is a historically significant and transformative community with roots in the civil rights movement. It was home to major 20th-century companies like Sears Roebuck & Co., Zenith and Sunbeam. Today, it remains a culturally rich neighborhood with strong community leadership and organizations. At the same time, the community is confronting systemic challenges such as unemployment and economic inequality.
The Steans Family Foundation is deeply invested in North Lawndale’s economic development, and housing is one of its focus areas. Taking a data-driven approach to decision-making, their goal is to improve the neighborhood’s housing stock for current residents while avoiding the unintended consequences of gentrification.
The SPARK Center convenes cross-sector partners to ensure decisions are collaborative rather than siloed, drawing on DePaul’s unique resources such as the Institute for Housing Studies and advanced analytics to support informed decision-making at the Steans Family Foundation.
“Our goal is accessibility,” said LeAnne Wagner, the center’s director and a professional lecturer in DePaul’s School of Design. “We want these tools to be just as useful for decision-makers as they are for community members.”
The project will include community conversations with developers and local leaders to gain insight. It will culminate this fall with the rollout of public-facing tools, such as interactive data visualizations, scenario-planning dashboards and data storytelling.
DePaul’s Institute for Housing Studies will bring decades of neighborhood-level housing data, while the SPARK Center will lead coordination and data visualization.
The Visual Informatics and Data Analytics Group, led by director Daniela Stan Raicu, a professor in the School of Computing, will conduct research in predictive modeling, using data analysis and advanced analytics to help inform future housing strategies. Their findings will be translated by the SPARK Center into practical tools that can be used by the foundation and the broader community.
“The Institute for Housing Studies is excited about the opportunity to partner with the SPARK Center and the Steans Family Foundation to create data products that inform the development and implementation of affordable housing strategies in North Lawndale and beyond,” said Geoff Smith, executive director of the institute.
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