The Resurrection Project’s (TRP) large-scale Casa Veracruz preservation project— encompassing 15 apartment buildings with 155 units and scattered across three communities—has provided quality and long-term affordability for over 500 families. The buildings, known collectively as Casa Veracruz Apartments, are in Pilsen, Little Village and Back of the Yards. The units range from studios to four-bedrooms and were built or rehabbed between 1997 and the late 2000s to provide low- and moderate-income housing for households earning 60 percent Area Median Income (AMI) or below. Sixty-four percent of the buildings are in Pilsen, where housing affordability, gentrification and displacement of longtime residents are major issues.

The Casa Veracruz Apartments include vintage walkups, former industrial buildings adapted to residential use and a mixed use building that features TRP’s offices on the ground floor and residential units above. Residents have access to TRP’s in-house services, including educational programs, workforce readiness and multiple healthcare and childcare centers.

Since The Resurrection Project was founded in 1990 as a faith-based, community development organization by a coalition of churches and concerned residents of Pilsen, it has created nearly 850 affordable housing units and invested over $537 million in homes for ownership, rental housing and community services throughout Chicago’s Southwest neighborhoods and the Western suburbs. As the needs of residents and the demands of the market have evolved through projects like Casa Veracruz, TRP continues to act on its faith, values and ideas to create healthier communities.