The original Hull House on Chicago's Near West Side, the settlement whose name the business center carries. Photo: Elisa.rolle / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Owners and would-be owners on the North Side have a free option for business training this fall. The Hull House Small Business Development Center has scheduled three workshops in November, each aimed at a different stage of building a company.
The series opens Nov. 8 with Business Basics, an evening session from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. covering the groundwork of starting a company. A Saturday morning workshop on Nov. 11, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., focuses on how to start or expand a day care business. On Nov. 15, the center returns to evenings with Small Business Loan Options, again from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Why the topics matter
Financing tends to be the first hurdle for storefront businesses in neighborhoods like Uptown, where many owners start with personal savings and small loans. The loan session is designed to walk participants through the kinds of credit available to small firms and what lenders typically ask for.
The day care session reflects steady demand for licensed child care on the North Side. Starting a center or a home-based program involves state licensing rules, insurance and staffing requirements that can trip up first-time operators.
An old name in a new role
The development center is part of the network of programs that carries the Hull House name. The original Hull House settlement, founded on the Near West Side by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889, was built around helping newcomers find a footing in the city. Small business training is a modern version of that idea.
All three workshops are free. Details and registration are available through Hull House, which lists the small business program on its website. Owners who cannot make a session can ask the center about one-on-one counseling, which the network offers alongside its classes.
Marcus Hadley covers business, transit and real estate in Uptown.
