The Albany Park Neighborhood Council (APNC) is a membership based community organization comprised of 27 member institutions including religious institutions, schools, service agencies, and universities from the communities of Albany Park, Irving Park, North Park, and West Ridge. These areas encompass the most diverse communities in the city of Chicago according to the 2000 Census. As a result of their diversity and large immigrant populations, these four neighborhoods face a unique set of issues and problems, and well as needs common for working class and low-income neighborhoods.

APNC is based on the premise that residents themselves hold the solutions to the problems that face their communities. APNC’s organizing approach involves training and developing local leadership, identifying common issues, creating collective and strategic ways to address those issues, and systematically strengthening institutions. It is APNC’s mission to create a safer community, improve the quality of education, provide a voice for youth, preserve affordable housing, increase access to affordable health care, and sustain a mixed socioeconomic and ethnically diverse community in Albany Park.

Some highlights of APNC’s recent accomplishments include:

• In the past year, APNC has convened 10 cohorts of 75 6^th through 9^th grade teachers during Chicago Public Schools’ professional development time to collaboratively brainstorm and plan around easing middle to high school transitions through the Greater Albany Park Education Coaltion.
• Secured $100,000 in state funding for after school programs in Albany Park during a time in which lawmakers have cut important community-based programs across the state.
• Organized over 2,000 residents to take part in a public meeting around immigration reform with Congressman Rahm Emanuel and took over 50 Albany Park residents to Washington D.C. to educate elected officials around the importance of a comprehensive immigration reform policy.
• Met with local developers in the 33^rd ward to secure 20 affordable housing set-aside units marked down from $300K to $145K-$155K. APNC leaders also won a city-wide affordable housing ordinance requiring a mandatory set-aside of 10% for affordable units in new developments across the city.
• Through the New Americans Initiative, APNC assisted over a 1700 legal permanent residents with their citizenship application process over the past year.
• Organized a community congress with over 800 people in attendance and representatives from local, county, state, and federal officials to address issues of housing, health care access, and citizenship delays.
• Won commitments from Congresswomen Schakowsky and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to work with APNC leaders to address the severe backlog issue found in the process to become a citizen.
• Won commitments from Cook County Commissioners Claypool, Suffredin, and Maldonado to work with APNC leaders to improve access to free and reduced emergency room care to low income residents in the county’s non-profit hospitals.
• Through the Compassionate Care Network (CCN), area doctors provided free screenings to over 1,000 residents for blood pressure, diabetes, heart risk, dental, and other medical check ups. CCN enrolled over 900 low-income residents in its affordable health care program with area doctors.
• Engaged over 150 young people at Roosevelt, Von Stueben, and Mather High Schools in a participatory action research project around a city wide High School education reform project called VOYCE: Voices of Youth in Chicago Education