Community Organizing and Policy Advocacy
Little Village has spent decades fighting the industrial decisions that shaped this neighborhood without community input — and winning. That organizing history continues today through active campaigns across three focus areas.
Current Organizing and Policy Campaigns
Water & Climate Justice
Collateral Channel
The Collateral Channel is a contaminated waterway at 3100 S. Albany Avenue, directly across from La Villita Park. Built in the 1890s, the channel has accumulated decades of industrial pollution, leaving the water stagnant, heavily polluted, and a health burden for residents living nearby.
Since 2014, LVEJO has organized with residents living near the channel to document its health impacts and advocate for remediation. In 2023, LVEJO petitioned the United States Environmental Protection Agency to investigate the channel under the Superfund program for hazardous waste sites. We are currently awaiting the status of that petition. For more information, read the USEPA Preliminary Assessment Report.
If you are near Albany and 31st Street or the south end of La Villita Park and notice a foul smell, please report it to 311.
Responsible Development
Hazel Johnson Cumulative Impacts Ordinance
Decades of broken zoning and land use policies have concentrated toxic pollution in Chicago’s West and South Side communities. These neighborhoods have become “sacrifice zones” where industrial facilities spew pollutants with disastrous impacts on community health and the environment.
LVEJO is advocating for the passage of the Hazel Johnson Cumulative Impacts Ordinance, a proposed City ordinance that would require new or expanding heavy industrial facilities to go through a more thorough zoning process before receiving a permit, including a cumulative impact study to assess potential environmental and health impacts. Those studies would be reviewed by a new Environmental Justice Advisory Board made up of members from communities historically impacted by pollution.
The ordinance is named for Hazel M. Johnson, known as the “Mother of Environmental Justice,” who founded People for Community Recovery in Altgeld Gardens and spent her life exposing and addressing high cancer rates and pollution in her community. Read more about Hazel’s legacy here.
Cumulative Impacts Ordinance
Decades of broken zoning and land use policies have concentrated toxic pollution in Chicago’s vulnerable West and South Side communities. These neighborhoods have become “sacrifice zones” where chemical plants, heavy metal scrappers, and other industrial facilities spew pollutants right next to homes, parks, and schools with disastrous impacts on community health and the environment.
How Would This Ordinance Help?
- New or expanding heavy industrial facilities would have to go through a more thorough zoning process before receiving a permit.
- As part of that process, facilities would be required to conduct a cumulative impact study to assess potential environmental and health impacts.
- Those studies would be reviewed by a new Environmental Justice Advisory Board, including members from communities historically impacted by pollution.
Transportation and Mobility Justice
Warehouse Pollution Reduction Act
The Warehouse Pollution Reduction Act would establish annual emission reduction targets to mitigate air pollution from warehouses and diesel trucks traveling to and from the sites.
This legislation would support warehouses and diesel truck companies to make progress towards zero emission vehicles goals for Illinois and improve air quality of residents in frontline communities.
Transportation and Mobility Justice
Clean and Equitable Transportation Infrastructure Act
This legislation establishes standards to expand the availability of zero-mission vehicles, lower costs for families, and transition public fleets away from fossil fuels. It also expands charging infrastructure across Illinois, ensuring the benefits of cleaner transportation are shared across communities statewide.
Responsible Development
Make Polluters Pay
For decades the fossil fuel industry has contributed to worsening climate change impacts felt by Little Village residents through chronic basement flooding, extreme heat waves, and harsh winters.
The proposed Climate Change Superfund Act would create a state fund that requires the largest fossil fuel producers to pay their fair share of Illinois’ climate adaptation costs.
Read the proposed Climate Change Superfund Act HB4773/SB29821 and learn more about the national Make Polluters Pay Movement.
Responsible Development
POWER Act
Illinois is among the top five states in the country for data center proposals. Without regulation, these developments drive up household energy and water bills, deplete local water resources, and deepen environmental burdens in already overburdened communities.
LVEJO organizes with community members to advocate for the passage of the POWER Act (Protecting Our Water, Energy, and Ratepayers Act). This proposed Illinois legislation would require data centers to pay for their own energy and infrastructure costs, use renewable energy sources, report and manage their water use, and enter into community benefits agreements with the neighborhoods where they operate.
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