Wealth Our Way Grantee Chicago Quilombo
December 11, 2025
Chicago Quilombo acquired a mixed-use building with ten apartments and over 5,000 square feet in commercial space to create a community hub for young adults in South Shore. Wealth Our Way funding will be used to catalyze the development of the building’s commercial units, including program offices and a marketplace for local entrepreneurs. Future phases of the project will include a full-service restaurant, upgrades to the building’s residential units, and community amenities.
Quilombo Chicago was founded to address the need for safe spaces, high-quality amenities, and affordable living for young Black people in South Shore and adjacent communities. Quilombo provides programming and housing for Black young adults (ages 18-35) and will ensure that its board composition is always a majority young adult and a majority local (live within a two-mile radius of the building). This framework ensures that the decision-making process for the development is always in the hands of the community.
The community control is crucial to ensure that residents have input on the ownership of their neighborhood and a voice in the businesses and amenities available to them. Previously, the building was owned by an out-of-state owner who had minimal interaction with tenants and neighbors. Now, Quilombo is hosting regular community meetings to get local input on the vision for the building’s commercial space.
The name Quilombo comes from Brazil, where escaped slaves and their descendants formed communities of resistance and self-sufficiency called quilombos. Quilombo Chicago envisions a space guided by this legacy. Its core values – Community Care, Transparency, Embodiment, Restoration, and Izwe-Lethu (cooperation) – will serve as the leading principles for the redevelopment of their building.
Interview with Chicago Quilombo
What does community wealth building mean to you?
Community wealth building means that you no longer must leave your community to gain access to the things that you need. We strongly believe that the community should fully hold the wealth garnered by this project. This is why our salaries are capped with the idea that true community wealth means putting the money back into the resources offered by the community center.
Which aspect of this project are you most excited about?
We hope that other organizations can leverage the framework we built as a sustainable strategy to develop similar programs and tailor them to their communities. With Quilombo existing as a national organization, we wish to teach other chapters how this work can and should be done.
What impact do you hope it will have for the South Shore community and beyond?
We hope to motivate owners to invest in the communities that molded them, so that they can in turn, mold the future of their community. In doing this work, we have faced plenty of discrimination and presumptions about our capabilities due to the various identities we possess in this space. We hope to change the narrative while teaching young Black people in other Chicago neighborhoods what is possible.