Our History
Founded by Bud Ogle, Good News Partners began in 1976 as our Rogers Park youth and other interested members of our community aspired to a better future. Together, we learned about the struggles of poverty and racism, but also courage and resilience.
We realized that for our youth to thrive, our entire community needed to be a place of support and resource. We began then to seek ways to make hope tangible. In 1980 we purchased the Jonquil Hotel, once a haven for drugs, prostitution, and gangs. Since then, we have rehabbed hundreds of units of housing, and established a shelter, rental housing, homeownership cooperatives, as well as jobs, tutoring, and youth programs.
Since our founding, Good News Partners’ mission has remained constant.
To create safe, affordable, reliable housing, and to help build community simultaneously.
The Need
One of the biggest barriers to economic stability for families in the United States struggling to make ends meet is the severe shortage of affordable rental homes.
280,301
80,384
Extremely low-income renter households in Chicago, 52.3% of all renters.
Individuals experiencing homelessness in Chicago.