Woodstock Institute is turning 40!
Forty years ago Aaron and Sylvia Scheinfeld decided to take action since they were unhappy with redlining, predatory lending, and inequality in access to credit and financial services that plagued the Chicago region. Since 1973 Woodstock has lived by its mission to “create a just financial system in which lower-income people and minorities can achieve economic security and community prosperity.” Over the past two years, Woodstock has received funding from the MacArthur Foundation to further its mission, including a $400,000 grant in 2012 to help with community and economic development related to the following objectives: “post-recession lending and foreclosure practices, access to financial services, and retirement savings and asset building–and the development of a web-based data platform that will simplify the sharing of its database and research, and increase public access to its data.” Woodstock has partnered with the Chicago Fed on various initiatives, including a leading role in the Regional Home Ownership Preservation Initiative, a network of organizations that has worked tirelessly to address the Chicago metro area foreclosure crisis and its spillover effects for the last five years.
To celebrate the milestone, on October 2 and 3, 2013, Woodstock will host a 40th Anniversary Research Symposium and Bash ‘Babies, Boomers, and Beyond: Economic Security, Community Prosperity, and Equity Across the Lifespan.’ Three keynote speakers include Steve Antonakes, deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB); Lisa Madigan, Illinois Attorney General; and Dr. Fernando Torres-Gil, the director of the Center for Policy Research on Aging and professor of social welfare and public policy at the University of California-Los Angeles.
Happy 40th to Woodstock Institute!
