History 
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Photo from our September 2007 membership meeting.
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The North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN) was established in 1997 after a five-year community planning process facilitated by the Steans Family Foundation. The Sinai Community Institute, another of our founding partners, served as our fiscal agent for three and one-half years until we gained our own 501c(3) status in February of 2000. We were also housed at the Sinai Community Institute until October 2003, when we relocated to our new community space, a rehabilitated duplex home at 3726 West Flournoy. This new location is owned by the Chicago Housing Authority and operated by one of our community partners, H.I.C.A. Corporation, a North Lawndale-based economic development organization.
A major NLEN accomplishment is our Resource Center. Opened to the public on April 1, 2004, it is designed to provide North Lawndale residents with resources to support independent job searches. It also serves as a point of entry for NLEN’s other programs and for referrals to outside programs and services. NLEN programs include a re-entry network for formerly incarcerated individuals; job development; a youth employment program; and capacity-building assistance for partner agencies. In addition to providing services, NLEN advocates for policy changes to help reduce barriers to re-entry for formerly incarcerated individuals and improve employment opportunities for under- and unemployed men, women, and young adults.
Prompted by the gathering of several community organizations that gathered together to respond to the growing unmet employment needs of formerly incarcerated family members, NLEN began offering services to formerly incarcerated individuals in August 2001 through the Ex-offender Employment Service Network (EESN). The program is offered at the North Lawndale-based United Baptist Church and began with a grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. In 2004, NLEN reassessed the EESN program design, improved the structure, and renamed it U-Turn Permitted.
NLEN’s flagship U-Turn Permitted program focuses on job readiness training and placement for formerly incarcerated individuals because of the very large numbers of these individuals living in the community. In 2001, 57 percent of North Lawndale residents were involved in the criminal justice system (Drugs, Crime, and Consequences: Arrests and Incarceration in North Lawndale, NLEN and Center for Impact Research, 2002). As these individuals return to North Lawndale, they must be able to rejoin their community as employable and productive individuals if the issues of unemployment, underemployment, and female-headed households are to be adequately addressed for the community as a whole.
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