CPAH began as three independent nonprofit housing organizations:
The Affordable Housing Corporation of Lake County (AHC) was initiated in 1992 by a task force of the Lake County Board. AHC developed programs related to home buying and down payment assistance, housing counseling, home repair, accessibility improvements, foreclosure prevention, rental assistance, and the acquisition and rehabilitation of distressed properties. AHC provided services to hundreds of Lake County residents every year and acquired, rehabilitated and re-sold over 135 affordable homes.
Community Partners for Affordable Housing (CPAH) was created in 2003 by the City of Highland Park. CPAH was created as a Community Land Trust (CLT) in an effort to bridge the gap between wages and the high cost of housing in the community. During its 15 year history, CPAH developed over 90 permanently affordable homes, both ownership and rental, in Highland Park, Lake Forest, Evanston and Highwood. Those homes will remain affordable in perpetuity to assist over 1,000 households in the years to come.
Lake County Residential Development Corporation (LCRDC) was created in 1978 as an outgrowth of the Lake County Housing Authority. The organization is best known for developing affordable rental housing that serves low-income seniors, homeless families, special needs individuals, and other community members in need of affordable housing. LCRDC created, either by itself or with joint-venture partners, over 1,300 affordable rental and homeownership units.
How we came together:
Each organization was highly regarded in the community and our long history of working together created a deep well of respect and admiration for each other’s work. As time passed, the three organizations began collaborating even more.
Eventually, we came to understand that combining efforts would increase the efficiency and sustainability of all three nonprofits. More importantly, we realized that a merger would allow us to develop more affordable housing units and provide more and better services to our clients.
The three entities merged on January 1, 2019 keeping the name Community Partners for Affordable Housing because we believed it best represented our mission and strategy.
Although AHC’s programs merged into CPAH, AHC remains a separate nonprofit entity that serves as a project management arm for CPAH and for other nonprofit and government entities that are providing affordable housing.
CPAH now offers a continuum of housing services that clients throughout the northern suburbs can access with one phone call including rental assistance, rental housing, property management, HUD-certified housing counseling, down payment assistance, owner-occupied rehabilitation, accessibility improvements, foreclosure counseling, financial counseling, community land trust programming, inclusionary housing administration, housing rehabilitation, project management and new construction.