Enrich the vibrancy of West Side communities by investing in people and local businesses.
Due to the current and historical effects of racial discrimination such as redlining, predatory lending practices, and restrictive covenants, West Side residents have not had the same access to economic advancement as other Chicago residents. A lack of local jobs and opportunities for economic advancement have inhibited residents from retaining money in their local communities. Despite these challenges, West Side neighborhoods also have a strong and vital small business presence, demonstrating great opportunity for economic vitality in the area. Many locally-founded non-profit and community-based organizations work to fill these economic gaps as well. Because we know that economic stability and positive health outcomes are inextricably linked, many of our initiatives focus on the economic wellbeing of the west side.
WSU promotes economic vitality through strengthening local hiring, purchasing, and investments in West Side workers and businesses.
- A & L ENVIRONMENTAL LLC
- BLK Building Solutions LLC
- BUTCOLLC
- Buy The Numbers Accounting LLC
- BYNDOM ESTATES REALTY GROUP
- Cedric Mitchell
- Chicago's Real Estate Agency
- Cleanology Crew Corporation
- Complete Mechanical Piping
- direction tour marketing
- Elevate Services, Inc.
- Elin Contract
- Cleaning Corp
- Emerje Inc
- Excel Bookkeeping & Tax Service Inc.
- F & C Consulting Corp
- Foundation of Life & Development Services LLC
- Gladys E Johnson
- GR Engineering
- Hadley Gear MFG Company
- JOE JAXX CONSTRUCTION LLC
- Leavitt Laundry
- Manuel Lopez DBA
- Manny's Cleaning and Maintenance
- P Winbush Glass & Ornamental LLC
- Philomathy Digital Media Marketing
- Photonix Technology Ltd
- Pretty Counts LLC
- Rid Alert Inc
- S.A.M.S Cleaning & Janitorial Services, LLC
- Shine Bright CPA LLC
- Shot By K, A Media Company LLC
- Strewn LLC
- Tax Strategy
- Tecnicentro Automotriz Inc.
- The Goodie Shop
- These Taxes
- Think Genius LLC
- TIDY UP EXPERTS LLC
- Viveca Ford
- Webb Tax Service LLC
Trouble viewing the data table? Click to view on the Tableau website.
WSU tracks the progress of our initiatives; we also track changes in community-level data to monitor progress towards our overarching goals and inform our actions and projects on the ground. We selected 3 Economic metrics from our comprehensive measurement framework to highlight key areas of focus. For more information about our comprehensive framework, please click here.
In our metrics dashboard, we are tracking:

Sanita Lewis

Mariah Van Ermen
To learn more about supporting economic vitality in our 10 communities, please email WSU at: mvanermen@westsideunited.org