Ben Helphand

Chicago

For more than twenty years, Ben has focused on ways to help communities have a direct hand in the creation and stewardship of the built environment. He is the Executive Director of NeighborSpace, a nonprofit urban land trust dedicated to preserving and sustaining community-managed open spaces in Chicago. NeighborSpace shoulders the responsibility of property ownership for a network of flower, vegetable, and prairie gardens across the City so that community groups can focus on gardening and community building. In addition to his work at NeighborSpace, Helphand is Co-founder and President of the Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail (FBT), an all-volunteer, community-based organization that advocated for the conversion of the under-used Bloomingdale rail embankment into a public greenway from 2002 until the project’s completion in 2015. As the official Park Advisory Council for the Bloomingdale Trail, FBT now serves as its long-term community steward. Helphand has also served as a board member of the Active Transportation Alliance, the Mayor’s Pedestrian Advisory Committee, Grow Greater Englewood, and the Chicago Housing Trust. In 2012, he was awarded a Chicago Community Trust Emerging Leader Fellowship, and was part of Next City’s 2018 Vanguard class. Originally from Oregon, he holds a degree in the history of religion from the University of Chicago and studied at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.