Programs
Vaccine Squad

Through a grant from the Michael Reese Health Trust and working with Partners in Health, we worked to help the city reopen and keep hospitality workers and their families safe by increasing vaccination against COVID-19. As hospitality workers, we knew that many of our friends and family were hesitant to receive the vaccine or did not have access to it.

Our team worked one on one with hospitality workers and their families to connect them to the vaccine – whether that meant logistically connecting them or helping them overcome their hesitancy. Our team visited over 100 worksites across Chicago and spoke to thousands of hospitality workers ultimately connecting over 1,000 of hospitality workers and their families to the vaccine. We additionally worked with Chicago Public School lunch ladies to proudly advertise that they had been vaccinated to help encourage trust of the vaccine in the school communities.
Hotel Worker Right to Work Ordinance – Chicago’s “Comeback Law”
During the pandemic, many hotel workers lost their jobs through no fault of their own. We advocated for a policy that required all Chicago hotels to bring back workers as business returned.



New Arrival Legal Support

EQUITY For All of Us partnered with UNITEHERE Local 1, Working Families United, Chicago Federation of Labor, IUOE Local 399, the AFL-CIO, SEIU Local 1, and the Labor Council for Latin America Advancement to hold a series of free legal clinics to help new arrivals apply for Temporary Protective Status, work authorization and fee waivers.

The demand for this help is overwhelming, as this application process is complicated and not one that can be done without legal help, which is often insurmountably expensive for new arrivals. Following the legal clinics, we are working to connect newly arrived immigrants with family-sustaining jobs in the hospitality industry. During the three clinics we helped over 200 people, including many families, submit these applications.
Hospitality Worker Assistance

During the pandemic we helped hospitality workers with finding resources during periods of lay-off. We delivered over 5,500 grocery gift cards to more than 800 hospitality workers and their families – totaling $157,000 in direct food assistance. We connected more than 70 hospitality workers with over $230,000 in rent and utility assistance.
Accessible Healthcare for Women in Hospitality
We teamed with the Chicago Foundation for Women to help women in the hospitality industry find primary care providers who they trust: someone who speaks their language, looks like them, understands their life, neighborhood and experiences. Regular preventative care is an enormous factor in preventing major lifelong health problems, but not having a pcp one trusts is a major obstacle to receiving preventative health care. For several reasons, women in hospitality are often unlikely to have a pcp they trust. Our team worked with hundreds of women to help them connect to and find a primary care provider they could trust and set them on track for a lifetime of preventative care.

