(The Center Square) – Grants aiming to repair harm from the war on drugs are headed toward hard-hit communities in the Land of Lincoln.
Through grants, the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority is channeling $45 million in tax revenues from legal marijuana sales to local organizations helping heal cities and neighborhoods negatively impacted by the state’s campaign against the illegal drug industry, according to a state news release.
One of the grantees is Heaven’s View Community Development Corporation, a faith-based organization located in Peoria. Board Vice President and Pastor Clifford Parks says the south side of Peoria has seen higher instances of drug-related arrests and longer prison sentences.
“You remove someone from a home – a parent from their home for that period of time – you see a disintegration of the family, a disintegration of the community,” he told The Center Square.
This kind of disruption of a family unit leads to generational patterns of incarceration as children grow up to believe the only option available to them is a life of crime, Parks said.
Divided between two grants, over $2 million will go to help expand the organization’s Jobs Partnership program, which helps break cycles of incarceration through employment. The aim is to help the chronically unemployed by giving them the training and job skills necessary to get a family-sustaining job.
“Our hope is to take people that are living basically day to day, week to week, and allow them the opportunity to stabilize their family, stabilize themselves and become contributing members of their family and community, and to break some of the cycles that we see in families that struggle specifically in some of the more challenging areas of our city,” he said.
Parks says stabilizing a community starts with connecting people to jobs that offer a family-sustaining wage, which opens the door to economic growth.
“Along with family-sustaining wages, that means you have discretionary income within your community, that means that businesses can start,” he said.
Instigating a chain reaction of banks returning and commerce developing, he says, will ultimately lead to a safer community.