OUR MISSION
We are an independent political organization of Northwest Side Chicago residents who believe our community deserves politics that work for working people. We bring our neighbors together to build political power, strengthen our public institutions, and to fight for the common good and material improvements in people’s lives on the Northwest Side and across the city. We’re committed to advocating for everyone’s fair share of opportunity, dignity and economic stability.
OUR VALUES
We believe in the fundamental equality of all people and the necessity of working collectively toward systemic change and social justice. We respect and celebrate the full range of passions, capabilities, and experiences of our members. We strive to provide accessible, open, and dynamic platforms for our work that meet the diverse perspectives and needs of our community. We share a commitment and responsibility to the ongoing work necessary to build and sustain an antiracist organization centered on equity and inclusion. In the broadest sense, our principles are democratic, our processes are inclusive, our policies are redistributive, and our politics are populist.
OUR SCHOOLS
Strong public schools are the building blocks of strong communities and strong democracies. We support Chicago’s public school system, its students, teachers, staff and related labor unions. We believe Chicago’s public schools should be governed by an elected representative school board and funded using evidence-based formulas that promote equity citywide. We support our public schools’ efforts to connect deeply to our communities through engagement with local school councils and efforts to create Sustainable Community Schools that offer wraparound services to students and their families. We work to ensure all students are protected from discrimination as secured by the Illinois Human Rights Act, that students with disabilities receive Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE), and that English language learners have the academic support they need. Our schools should provide an education that is culturally responsive, inclusive, unbiased, and supports students academically, socially, and emotionally. We oppose all forms of school privatization, policing in schools, and any efforts to censor curriculum and resources.
OUR HEALTH
Healthcare and healthy environments should be a human right. We oppose environmental racism that has allowed polluters to degrade the air and water in our communities without repercussions. We will fight for a citywide approach to industrial development and remediation that prioritizes people over profits. We support policies that improve the quality of life for our neighbors of every age, including the establishment of a single payer healthcare system, increasing available mental health resources, the protection of reproductive autonomy, increased access to health options for people with disabilities, and efforts to realize a Chicago Bike Grid
OUR HOMES
Housing should be a human right. Policy must be aimed toward securing the long-term stability and affordability of our homes and our communities, and housing those of us without a home. To these ends, we support the construction of new affordable and accessible housing, the empowerment of tenant unions, and the enactment of rent control, property tax reform, and the effort to Bring Chicago Home. We oppose housing discrimination and believe that, especially in times of crisis, measures to provide rent and mortgage relief, as well as eviction and foreclosure prevention, are essential. Together, these policies give us a shot at securing stable neighborhoods where we can grow up and grow old together.
OUR LABOR
Democratize the economy, particularly the workplace. We recognize the importance of labor unions as the historic backbone of stable communities and are alarmed by the current corporate efforts to degrade our labor and power. We join the ongoing fight for safe working conditions, living wages, and equal pay for equal work. We support efforts to defend and expand hard-won gains related to the minimum and prevailing wage, paid sick days and family leave, public pensions, a fair workweek and fair scheduling. We must protect workers’ right to organize a union and strengthen rules that sustain good jobs and strong communities.
OUR GOVERNMENT
We demand accountability, honesty, and transparency from our elected officials, including rejecting corporate political contributions and bringing the people most impacted by policies to the forefront of the decision-making process. Corporate control over our political system has led to disinvestment, austerity, and privatization: our schools are underfunded and the public safety net is in tatters. Let’s renew and rebuild the public sector through progressive revenue and ending corporate subsidies and loopholes. Reforming programs and systems that lack transparency, such as tax-increment financing (TIF), police oversight, and school governance, are essential.
OUR SAFETY
We are experiencing an ongoing breakdown of our social fabric. United Northwest Side strives to reverse this trend so communities can thrive. True safety requires access to affordable housing, health care, and environmental justice. True safety cannot be achieved by repeating our past mistakes of more militarized police, harsher sentencing, and increased surveillance. United Northwest Side supports efforts to reallocate public funds toward non-policing forms of public safety and community support, including public mental health services and non-police crisis response efforts. We support efforts to bring the Chicago Police Department under democratic control, and the work of our local civilian-based police district councils. No human being is illegal, and we will work to ensure the safety and stability of immigrants in our community by fighting against unjust deportations and discrimination. We support restorative justice programs and robust mental health services in schools, over the presence of police officers, which harms the safety, security and the educational experience of students, particularly students from marginalized groups. “We keep us safe” is not just a slogan, it is a commitment to each other that we will continually reaffirm through our work.