About Us

Who We Are

48th Ward Neighbors for Justice is dedicated to supporting leftist causes and representing the political interests of the multiracial working class in Edgewater, Andersonville, Uptown, and neighborhoods across the city. Through direct action, issues-based campaigns, and electoral organizing, we believe in taking back power from entrenched political and corporate interests by building an alternative source of power within the ward.

An independent political organization (IPO) is a political action committee. IPOs exist to build political power independent of elected officials. IPOs are a uniquely Chicago mechanism that bring people together for political campaigns, and seek to meet the material needs of their neighbors.

What We Do

We organize residents toward shared goals and build community within our ward boundaries. We want to create a space where people feel comfortable advocating for specific causes, and also feel comfortable to just hang out and meet their neighbors. We want to make politics something that everyone feels comfortable participating in, and keep it firmly based within a community that values trust and caring for one another above anything else.

48th Ward Neighbors for Justice started in the summer of 2019 as a group of neighbors who’d gone through all existing channels to fight for change in our ward, but were stymied by Alderman Harry Osterman’s lack of commitment and opposition to important issues, such as #NoCopAcademy (the campaign to stop a $95 million police academy from being built on the West Side), CPAC (an ordinance that would grant community control of the Chicago Police Department through a democratically elected board), and affordable housing. 

We organize around police and prison abolition, immigrant rights, environmental justice, education, housing justice, disability rights, electoral campaigns, and more. If you’ve got an idea for an organizing project to make the ward a more just and equitable place, we want to hear it!

Steering Committee

The steering committee is a group of seven elected individuals who commit around 10-20 hours of their time per week making sure that the organization is healthy and functioning.

Treasurer

Dave Pitak

Members-at-Large

Mary Difino

Andrew Carr

Joel Thorson

Cait Guerra

Vino Mazzei

Nathaniel van Wienen