(Above) Chicago Loop Alliance Street Team Ambassadors assist a homeless Chicagoan last winter. Photo obtained from CLA. (Click on image to view larger version.)

December 23, 2015 – State Street, both sides of it, from Wacker Drive south to Congress Parkway, will continue to be in the care of Chicago Loop Alliance. The Chicago City Council will keep the “State Street Special Service Area” going through 2029.

“For nearly 40 years, the State Street SSA has unified property owners and businesses in the district to improve the economic and physical performance of State Street through local control, accountability, and targeted services,” says CLA president Michael Edwards (left).

The ordinance, passed at the city council meeting on December 9, terminates Special Service Area 1 and establishes SSA 1-2015. The SSA has a 2016 budget of $2,434,811, raised from a special “Services Tax” on property in the area, not to exceed 0.575 percent of a property’s assessed value.

Chicago Loop Alliance has a contract with the city to be the sole provider of services in the State Street SSA, which was established in 1977. These services include sidewalk cleaning and maintenance, “placemaking” campaigns to attract public attention and economic development, and “Street Team Ambassadors” that help pedestrians and tourists and connect the homeless to city services.

So far this year, according to CLA, its Street Team Ambassadors have helped nearly 22,000 visitors along State Street, interacted with panhandlers 9,114 times, and assisted the homeless 8,356 times.

Its “Clean Team” has collected nearly 30 tons of litter and shoveled more than 70 inches of snow from State Street sidewalks.

(Above) A Chicago Loop Alliance ACTIVATE event in Couch Place Alley, next to Chicago Theatre, on June 5, 2014. CLA estimates 16,000 people have attended at least one of these events.