This story was originally published by St. Louis Public Radio.
Illinois will distribute $31.5 million in grants over the next
year to local nonprofits, faith or community based organizations and
governmental bodies to address issues in historically underserved parts of the
state.
The money for these grants comes from 25% of the tax revenue the
state collects from recreational marijuana
It’s part of Illinois’ Restore, Reinvest and Renew program,
known as R3, which aims to fund local projects around civil legal
aid, economic development, re-entry from prison, violence prevention and youth
development.
This initial funding is one of the first indications of how
Illinois plans to help address longstanding issues in underserved communities,
which was key to the success of passing cannabis legalization.
“That’s the spirit of this program, to shift resources and power
back into communities that have suffered historically from the war on drugs,”
said Quinn Rallins, state director of justice, equity and opportunity
initiatives at a town hall about the program last week.
To determine where funding should go,
Illinois used data from rates of gun injury, unemployment, child poverty and
incarceration and areas of the state already identified as being
disproportionately affected by historic economic disinvestment. In the Metro
East, that’s areas in and around East St. Louis, Alton, Granite City and parts
of Collinsville.
The funding is flexible and centers on addressing the individual
needs of communities in the state, Rallins said. He added Illinois tried to
remove restrictions on how groups can use funding, as long as they’re
addressing at least one of the five areas the R3 program identifies.
“Our communities have the best understanding of their own need,”
he said. “We know that organizations have had ideas baked for a long time that
they necessarily didn’t have the resources for or got some funding but haven’t
been able to get to scale.”
Grant applications are reviewed by people who live in the same
community as the applicant. While applications are closed, the state is still
looking for local community members to
review them.
“The whole process of allowing a community to choose is the
genius of the program,” said State Sen. Chris Belt, D-Cahokia. “It allows
people in those communities who know where the pitfalls are in their home to
decide where the money should go for the programming.”
Emphasizing local involvement from the community sets this grant
opportunity apart from other kinds of programs or projects in the past, said
Wyvetta Granger, executive director of Community Lifeline in East St. Louis.
“It looks like this will provide some groundwork to start to
reshape some of the disparities that have formed in our community,” she said.
“So many times in impoverished communities, people have come in and tried to do
things to us, instead of doing things with us.”
Granger’s organization applied for an R3 grant to target legal
aid issues, violence prevention and youth development in the area. She
explained she wants to help young adults get to a place where they can find
fulfilling employment, which is often blocked by minor charges on their record.
“It’s not that other kids don’t do them or other populations
don’t have the same issues,” she said. “It’s that ours are recorded more. It
starts this pattern where it builds a record up against you.”
Addressing and correcting the issues that stem from systemic
disinvestment is challenging and takes time, Granger explained.
“It takes more than a year to three years to change mindsets,”
she said. “It might take us 10 years before we start to really see the
investment that’s been made.”
In the past, community development programs have seemed to end
before she could see if they were working, Granger said. R3 is also different
in this regard, because the state will continue to distribute money each year,
up to $125 million depending on the growth of the state’s cannabis market,
according to the program’s website.
That’s a good commitment but capital alone is not enough,
Granger said. She explained the people of the East St. Louis need to feel like
they have ownership over their community.
“In order to stop crime, in order to stop violence in our
community, the community has to own it,” she said. “They have to say, ‘We’re
part of this.’”