Toni Preckwinkle’s chief of employees makes use of fairness fund to uplift Black, brown communities

Lanetta Haynes Turner will get choked up when she talks about household.

Turner, 45, the chief of employees for Cook dinner County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, is emotional when recalling her childhood rising up within the Illinois foster care system.

“My mom was the kind that might disappear … so my grandmother, aunts and uncles would step in and preserve us,” she stated.

However her grandmother obtained too outdated to look at over her and her three youthful siblings, then ages 6, 4, 3 and a pair of. “On the age of 6, I got here dwelling from faculty at some point, and there was a social employee ready for us,” Turner stated. “We had a trash bag filled with stuff. The 4 of us have been loaded right into a automobile. I bear in mind we have been all crying within the again seat.”

Turner stated it was a blessing that every one 4 of them obtained to remain along with their foster dad or mum. Sadly, that dad or mum was “extraordinarily abusive,” she stated. That abuse continued till she was an upperclassman in highschool, she stated. An investigation into the foster mom would get her license taken away and take away Turner’s three youthful siblings from the foster mom’s care. Turner went on to dwell with a household she used to babysit for whereas she completed highschool.

“From the age of 6, I’ve all the time been in an atmosphere the place it was about being very conscious of my circumstances and the stigma,” Turner stated.

Ever since, she has needed to combat for these in related situations and have become an legal professional to take action. She thought she was going to work on abuse and neglect instances for the general public guardian’s workplace when she graduated from legislation faculty at Loyola College. However for the primary a number of years of her authorized profession, she served as a litigator with the town of Chicago coping with impounded vehicles and household legislation. Then somebody requested her to step into the function of government director of the Courtroom Appointed Particular Advocates of Cook dinner County, a task she held for 5 years.

Turner made the transition from employees legal professional to coverage work and the general public sector, and she or he stated she hasn’t regarded again. Her newest combat facilities on the Cook dinner County Fairness Fund, a multimillion-dollar plan to deal with institutional and structural limitations to racial fairness — operations, insurance policies and practices — inside and outdoors native authorities.

Turner feels it’s her mission, as a lawyer and somebody who was within the foster care system, to serve communities the place disinvestment has run rampant. She is insistent on being an advocate for Black and brown communities the place disparities are many.

“The place are the well being disparities? The place are the academic disparities? The place’s the general public security issues? That’s not all of Chicago. We all know the place it’s,” Turner stated. “Why not be intentional about bringing (sources) the place they have to be — giving the fundamentals, to have a stage enjoying area. That’s what we’re attempting to create. For me, this (fairness fund) is the way forward for authorities.”

Preckwinkle established the Cook dinner County Fairness Fund in 2020 as a part of the county’s fiscal 12 months 2021 funds. It’s guided by the “Coverage Roadmap: 5-Yr Strategic Plan for Places of work below the President” and racial fairness device kits developed by “For Love of Nation: A Path for the Federal Authorities to Advance Racial Fairness, a Cook dinner County Fairness Fund Report,” launched in April with an funding of $50 million. The funds behind the initiative help applications and insurance policies really useful by a process power of over two dozen organizations charged with reworking techniques round justice, public security, well being, housing, financial alternative, neighborhood growth and social providers.

Preckwinkle’s workplace launched a progress report on the fairness fund’s trajectory in December, laying out implementation steps and timelines for key goals and actions within the areas of well being, financial growth, legal justice, environmental sustainability, public infrastructure and good authorities.

“April 2022 was the fruits of the duty power work since they began assembly nearly in 2021,” Turner stated. “We launched it in April after which we spent the steadiness of the 12 months speaking about how we’re going to implement it.”

That work entails constructing a extra resilient housing and shelter system for these experiencing homelessness in suburban Cook dinner County, which incorporates creating an incentive fund to encourage landlords to lease to residents who could have a earlier eviction on their document.

It contains establishing an Workplace of Behavioral Well being and Wellness, and designing and implementing the Promise Assured Earnings Pilot that started in December. This system will present over 3,000 households with $500 for twenty-four months to enhance their financial mobility.

It additionally contains evaluation and cleanup of contaminated and deserted properties in disinvested communities and collaborating with the Regional Transit Authority and transit service boards to set up discounted transfers between completely different service businesses.

And it will increase county investments in housing helps to create a Cook dinner County reentry providers community for the previously incarcerated. The Cook dinner County plan seeks to deal with gaps in sources, and assist organizations construct a extra sturdy continuum of take care of reentry providers.

“Yearly, we’re going to be offering updates … including to it by way of surplus (funds), grants and financial savings that we could need to reinvest again into communities to make them extra equitable,” Turner stated. “A few of the items of the fairness fund have rolled out as we have been constructing. … A giant win already is the assured revenue pilot. That’s the way you begin closing the racial wealth hole.”

Turner stated the fairness fund is meant to be long run. Simply as inequitable techniques and limitations took years to erect, it’ll take years to repair them, she stated. However the fairness fund lays the inspiration and speaks to the county’s intentions to work with those that try to interact with authorities, she stated.

Of the over two dozen fairness fund initiatives, what’s prime of thoughts for Turner is reforming the property tax system, reentry work, and creating an equity-centered grant-making technique for grassroots BIPOC-led organizations to ship providers in marginalized communities.

“We’re attempting to put aside funds to assist them with technical help teaching, so they’re stronger organizations and authorities can ship stronger providers and applications to those that want it,” she stated.

Turner has been within the coverage and authorities area for 18 years. She likes to make things better, take into consideration what might be, and maintain individuals’s toes to the hearth. She’s previous speaking about it, and all about being about it. Whereas the town of Chicago is centering work within the fairness area, Turner stated there’s not a lot overlap with the county’s fairness plans. Sure, the problems are the identical, however Turner stated the town is concentrated on neighborhood-level work and the county is addressing fairness issues from a systemic stage.

“Authorities historically has been investigation, not innovation. There’s room for that. Compliance is vital, however so is creating area the place we will suppose exterior of the field,” she stated. “You’re spending two hours, taking three or 4 buses to get downtown to work? That’s ridiculous in a worldwide metropolis like Chicago and Cook dinner County. And Harvey’s and Dixmoor’s water infrastructure, these are issues that may’t be accomplished alone, and we’ve got to work with them and discover the cash from federal, state, wherever to repair these issues. That’s fairness.”

Turner likens her job to that of an air-traffic controller. Her telephone is all the time ringing and she or he’s persistently occupied with bringing authorities, enterprise and philanthropy collectively for public security. For the final decade, she’s been on the desk planning and being that bridge for collaboration, for the betterment of many.

Turner got here into Cook dinner County authorities main the Justice Advisory Council, which coordinates legal justice reform inside the county. Preckwinkle stated Turner has been supervisor and a considerate particular person. Preckwinkle credit Turner’s management for making a framework and a map for sharing the American Rescue Plan Act funds in an equitable method.

“Your employees makes or breaks you and that begins together with your chief of employees,” Preckwinkle stated. “I’ve been blessed to have some nice people who find themselves keen to tackle this problem and I’m significantly grateful to Lanetta for her imaginative and prescient and laborious work.”

Turner stated she leads with compassion in her work as a result of she understands what it’s prefer to not have a lot — as a foster baby, she didn’t have the issues others took with no consideration — and the stigma connected to that. Turner nonetheless sees it as her duty to ensure her siblings are OK and get by way of the day-to-day given the techniques in place. It’s a duty she extends to all who dwell in Cook dinner County.

“I do what I do, not only for me, however for my household,” Turner stated. “The fairness fund … not all people’s gonna learn it. I simply need to ensure that individuals perceive the why. It’s the outcomes: Higher colleges, higher communities, individuals not simply saying that violence has been diminished, however feeling secure. Individuals having choices, with the ability to get on the prepare and know you could get from level A to level B in a dependable, correct, cost-effective commute. That’s the fairness fund — attempting to do higher in these techniques and join these techniques to get higher providers for the individuals who matter, who’s us.”

drockett@chicagotribune.com