The Record

• Increased summer youth employment by 55%

• Invested $120M+ in Community Violence Intervention

• Launched the youth-designed Peacebook program which employs youth as peacekeepers teaching their peers conflict resolution and de-escalation and connecting youth with community resources and supports

• Launched Take Back the Block to bring communities and government together to unite to prevent violence

• Vetoed the youth curfew ordinance which would have led to more youth arrests and criminalization without addressing the root causes of crime

• Launched the “Get Summer” Program with the Metropolitan YMCA, giving young people free access to YMCA facilities and summer activities regardless of their ability to pay

• Defeated federal efforts in the Supreme Court to deploy the National Guard in Chicago

• Led or joined 40+ legal actions challenging federal policies on SNAP, birthright citizenship, DEI, and protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ students

• Directed City resources to nonprofits, food pantries, and faith institutions responding to reductions in federal food assistance programs

• Created framework for CPD to investigate unlawful actions by federal immigration agents 

• Developed a national blueprint for protecting residents from Trump’s violent immigration enforcement tactics—pioneering executive orders in Chicago that have now been adopted by cities representing roughly 10% of the U.S. population

• Leads national coalition of Mayors dedicated to putting progressive values into action and protecting residents from harm radiating from Trump administration

• Passed the Social Media Tax, the first-of-its-kind tax on large social media companies to fund mental health services

• Increased taxes on large corporations through increasing the tax on digital leases heavily used by big tech companies, AI, and data centers

• Prevented new taxes on working Chicagoans by holding the line on property taxes and preventing increases in garbage fees

• Secured the largest TIF surplus in city history to fund schools, parks, libraries, and city services without raising taxes

• Reduced excessive police overtime spending and redirected those dollars across all departments from inefficient uses toward services and supports that directly benefit Chicago residents

Historic Reductions in Crime & Homicide

• Drove violence to historic lows by investing in youth jobs, mental health care, housing, and violence prevention — helping Chicago reach its lowest number of homicides in 60 years

• Raised Chicago’s homicide clearance rate to its highest level in more than a decade by strengthening and prioritizing CPD’s detective bureau

Root Cause Investments

• Created true alternative police response to mental health crises (CARE) by removing police officers from the response teams and expanding the program citywide

• Created year-round youth violence prevention jobs through the Peacebook Program

Supporting Re-Entry & Survivor Supports

• Launched a financial assistance program for survivors of violence and created a Safe Transfer program for survivors of Gender-Based violence in city housing

• Created a dedicated re-entry program where those returning to community life are supported with housing and employment support

Gun Violence Reduction

• Created the Office of Gun Violence Reduction to further tackle gun violence across the city

• Filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against Glock, seeking to hold the gun manufacturer accountable for designing and selling pistols that can be easily converted into illegal machine guns

Carjackings

• Sued Hyundai and Kia on behalf of Chicagoans for their faulty manufacturing, and with the proceeds has helped reduce carjackings by 50%

Improving Policing and Protecting Chicagoans

• Accelerated court-ordered police reform and accountability, making substantial progress toward bringing CPD into compliance with the consent decree and strengthening policies, training, supervision, and protections for Chicago residents

• Cancelled Shotspotter contract ending a program that was not shown to reduce crime ad led to more police violence

• Passed the largest bond in Chicago history that dedicates $1.25 Billion to housing and economic development, with $625 million in funding for housing including housing for people experiencing homelessness, homeownership, and affordable rental housing

• Passed the Green Social Housing Ordinance to invest a $135 million revolving fund to build permanently affordable, sustainable, mixed-income housing 

• Passed the Jackson Park Housing Pilot Ordinance and Northwest Side Preservation Ordinance to prevent displacement of families in two gentrifying communities 

• Passed an ordinance to create a centralized list for anyone trying to access affordable housing in the city

• Repopulating the south and west sides with our “Missing Middle” program that built 300 units in 2-6 flats for affordable homeownership

• Passed and made additional units like basement apartments legal citywide

• Launched the Cut the Tape Initiative which passed 100+ development reforms that make it faster and less expensive to build affordable housing in the city

• Passed the most expansive Paid Leave program in the country guaranteeing 5 days of leave and 5 days of sick time for 1.46 million workers

• Phased out the sub-minimum wage for 100,000, tipped workers by 2030 increasing worker earnings by at least $6,600

• Invested $7 million to raise wages for 3000 early childhood workers across 86 early learning centers

• Secured $18 million settlement with DoorDash for withholding tips from delivery workers

• Achieved labor peace by negotiating new contracts with police, fire, and teachers without a strike

• Reestablished and funded the Department of the Environment with the ability to enforce city environmental protections

• Transitioned all city operations to 100% renewable energy

• Created the country’s largest community air monitoring network through Open Air Chicago to track pollution in real-time to better react to climate disasters

• Launched the city’s first Cumulative Impact Assessment to measure and monitor environmental harms to communities

• Created Climate Infrastructure Fund that gave $6 million to 22 small businesses and non-profits to improve neighborhood’s responses to climate change

• Filed a lawsuit against 6 oil and gas companies for misleading the public about fossil fuels impact on climate change

• Relaunched the Energy Benchmarking program which requires buildings to meet environmental standards on water and energy use

• Secured the largest federal support for flooding disasters, with new flood infrastructure on the westside, and scaling throughout the city

• Named the most climate resilient city in the world by the New York Times

• Signed an executive order to strengthen regulatory review for data centers and calls for a temporary data center moratorium

• Strengthened Chicago’s defenses against climate change by investing in trees, renewable energy, flood prevention, and infrastructure that better manages stormwater

• Expanded Chicago’s tree canopy through Our Roots Chicago, putting the City on track to plant 75,000 new trees across Chicago

• Tackled Chicago’s legacy of lead exposure at an unprecedented scale, undertaking the replacement of roughly 400,000 service lines to deliver safer drinking water to communities across the city

• Grew the Sustainable Community Schools program to 51 schools that provide extra supports to students and families

• Passed a $1 billion TIF surplus, the largest in Chicago history that directed more than $500 million to the Chicago Public Schools in 2026; invested over $1B since 2023

• Launched Diverse Learners Recovery Fund for students with disabilities

• Expanded access to the public libraries to 315,000 CPS students

• Created the Black Student Success Plan to ensure Black students are supported to excel and thrive in school

• Achieved a record high 84% graduation rate with an increase of 15% for Black boys

• Eliminated School Resource Officers in schools and created the Whole School Safety program to bring restorative justice programs to schools instead of zero tolerance policies

• Installed 100 new miles of protected bike lanes reaching 500 miles citywide

• Hired over 3,000 bus operators and trained and onboarded more than 400 rail operators

• Launched the Smart Streets ticketing initiative to prevent parking in bike lanes and CTA bus lanes

• Reopened the CTA Green Line station at Damen and Lake, closed since 1948

• Broke ground on the Red Line Extension, adding four new accessible stations and extending service to 130th Street

• Traffic fatalities dropped 46% since 2021, with 15 wards having zero deaths in 2025

• Defended Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance in federal court, successfully blocking the Trump administration’s efforts to force Chicago to abandon its sanctuary protections and turn local police into federal immigration agents

• Made Chicago a nationally recognized leader in immigrant inclusion, earning a 4-Star Certified Welcoming designation for expanding access, opportunity and civic participation for immigrant and refugee communities

• Established the Office of Immigrant, Migrant and Refugee Rights (IMMR), creating a permanent City office dedicated to protecting immigrant communities, expanding access to City services and coordinating Chicago’s response to federal immigration threats

• Increased support for non-profit arts programs by 340% through the City Arts Program

• Awarded Individual Arts Program grants across all 50 wards with 60% of recipients identifying as BIPOC

• Launched the $12 million Artist Relief and Workers Fund to support individual artists and arts organizations not eligible for federal relief programs

• Launched the Art is Labor campaign to bring attention to creative workers rights and to build partnerships to fight for more worker supports

• Expanded the Public Outdoor Plaza (POP!) Program that transforms vacant land into community spaces to help drive foot traffic to businesses to 12 sites

• The only mayoral candidate to reject all Corporate PAC Money because this government should be accountable to people, not billionaires or their lobbies.

• Protected Chicagoans’ right to vote through the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Sr. Fair Access to Democracy Ordinance, safeguarding election workers from doxxing and intimidation, strengthening protections for mail-in ballots, and creating a framework to defend safe and accessible elections from emerging threats

• Established Black Reparations Task Force to develop strategies for addressing past harms to Black Chicago

• Made co-governance a cornerstone of City Hall, bringing residents, workers and community organizations directly into the decisions that shape Chicago’s budgets, policies and priorities

• Appointed the city’s first LGBTQ+ Director, overseeing a sharp decline in HIV diagnoses this past year

• Mental Health Infrastructure

  • Reopened 2 mental Health centers and expanded mental services to Leger Library

  • Created a true alternative to police for mental health crises by expanding Chicago’s Crisis Assistance Response and Engagement (CARE) program citywide, sending mental health professionals — instead of police officers — to respond to people experiencing mental health crises

• Life Expectancy Gap

  • Hyper-local health programs drove an all-time high in Chicago’s life expectancy with the greatest increase among Black men.  

  • Chicagoans are living longer than ever, with life expectancy reaching a record 79.5 years and the gap for Black Chicagoans shrinking to 9.4 years — its first time below a decade since 2020

• Substance Use

  • Reduced Chicago’s opioid overdose death rate by 37% accelerating dramatically from the prior year’s 4% decline

  • Nearly 50% drop in overdose deaths among Black women of reproductive age since 2021

• Passed $1.25 billion housing and economic development bond to invest in housing, business, and job growth on Chicago’s south and west sides

• Provided $21.5 million in grants to small businesses and non-profits to support recovery

• Achieved record tourism in Chicago with 24.3 million passengers at O’Hare and $949 million in hotel bookings

• Launched program to make it easier to open a small business

• Invested over $4 million in shared ownership models, including worker cooperatives and shared housing models creating wealth building opportunities for working class Chicagoans

• Made Chicago the nation’s #1 metro area for corporate relocations and site selection