History

In 1983 HODC was founded as the Interfaith Housing Development Corporation (IHDC) by community leaders who sought to establish a fair housing organization to fight against racial inequality in the suburbs following Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech in 1967 on the Winnetka Village Green.

In response to the decline in federally assisted housing in the Chicagoland area, IHDC and Open Communities (formerly Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs) created a task force to study how to increase the supply of affordable housing in the northern suburbs. As a result of the recommendations of the task force, members of both organizations created a community-based nonprofit affordable housing corporation to focus on increasing the housing stock available to limited-income households in the northern suburbs. This gave rise to what is now known as the Housing Opportunity Development Corporation.