Over the next 10 years, the Trust plans to build 1,000 “FIT (Finding Innovation Together) Homes” on vacant lots spread across the City of Chicago. The full FIT Homes Initiative can be found at www.fithomes.org.
For its first two homes, the Trust will solicit cost-effective and innovative housing design proposals through a design-build competition. At the end of 2014, the Trust secured funding from Strides for Peace, a non-profit dedicated to reducing gun violence in Chicago, to build these two houses in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood as part of its proof of concept. The Trust’s desire is to harness the best and brightest minds in the architectural, art, finance, construction, and real estate development community to propose housing designs that are innovative and cost-effective so that they can meet the housing market buying power in these neighborhoods. The Trust plans to work with the City of Chicago to use City-owned vacant lots to help lower the cost of building for the new construction homes. Long-term, the Trust also has the potential to work with private developers who own vacant lots.