May 27, 2020

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SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent non-profit newspaper by and for the South Side of Chicago. We provide high-quality, critical arts and public interest coverage, and equip and develop journalists, photographers, artists, and mediamakers of all backgrounds.

Volume 7, Issue 17 Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Serrato Managing Editors Martha Bayne Sam Joyce Sam Stecklow Deputy Editor Jasmine Mithani Senior Editors Julia Aizuss, Christian Belanger, Mari Cohen, Christopher Good, Rachel Kim, Emeline Posner, Adam Przybyl, Olivia Stovicek Politics Editor Jim Daley Education Editor Ashvini Kartik-Narayan, Michelle Anderson Literature Editor Davon Clark Nature Editor Sam Joyce Stage & Screen Editor Nicole Bond Visual Arts Editor Rod Sawyer Food & Land Editor Sarah Fineman Contributing Editors Mira Chauhan, Joshua Falk, Lucia Geng, Carly Graf, Robin Vaughan, Jocelyn Vega, Tammy Xu, Jade Yan Staff Writer

AV Benford

Data Editor Jasmine Mithani Radio Exec. Producer Erisa Apantaku Social Media Editors Grace Asiegbu, Arabella Breck, Maya Holt Director of Fact Checking: Tammy Xu Fact Checkers: Abigail Bazin, Susan Chun, Maria Maynez, Sam Joyce, Elizabeth Winkler, Lucy Ritzmann, Kate Gallagher, Matt Moore, Malvika Jolly, Charmaine Runes Visuals Editor Mell Montezuma Deputy Visuals Editors Siena Fite,

Sofie Lie, Shane Tolentino Photo Editor Keeley Parenteau Staff Photographers: milo bosh, Jason Schumer Staff Illustrators: Siena Fite, Katherine Hill Layout Editors Haley Tweedell, Davon Clark Webmaster Managing Director

Pat Sier Jason Schumer

The Weekly is produced by a mostly all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We distribute each Wednesday in the fall, winter, and spring.

Over the summer we publish every other week.

Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, contact: (773) 234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly.com

Cover illustration by Gaby FeBland

IN CHICAGO The state will start to reopen at the end of May, but the city is not ready Governor J.B. Pritzker has charted a path forward for the state to move to “phase three” of his five-phase reopening plan by May 29, when his stay-athome order expires, and issued detailed guidelines for how businesses like barber shops and restaurants might do so. But Pritzker’s plan uses statewide data that doesn’t accurately reflect the reality in Cook County, which remains a hot spot for COVID-19 infection. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said that the city is not yet able to predict the date Chicago might move to phase three, though she speculated it might happen in early June.

Pollution and real estate development are still happening during COVID-19 There was an explosion and fire at the General Irons metal shredder in Lincoln Park recently, the same one that's planning to move at the end of the year from the wealthy North Side neighborhood to the Southeast Side, a working-class industrial community with mostly Black and brown people that is usually City Hall’s afterthought. The city issued an emergency closing order after environmental groups and local aldermen called for General Irons to be shut down completely. Meanwhile, the mayor is failing to engage the Little Village community in a substantive way after Hilco's sloppy demolition of a closed coal plant smokestack engulfed the neighborhood in dust, and insists that demolition needs to continue during the respiratory pandemic. That’s why Little Village protesters showed up at her house in Logan Square to get her attention and managed to pressure her into delaying a second demolition.

25th Ward Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez has been supportive of protesters, as Hilco owns yet another closed coal plant in the Pilsen neighborhood. He recently called off the proposed designation of a historical district in his ward, stating that it only "protects buildings, not people," and in its place introduced an ordinance for a three-year moratorium on demolitions and deconversions, unless deemed necessary and only after obtaining public input.

Did you know about the Chicago River reversal?

In 1900, engineers reversed the course of the Chicago River, causing the river to flow from Chicago south to the Mississippi. For several hours a couple weeks ago, however, the river temporarily re-reversed, sending the city’s sewage into Lake Michigan. In other words: the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District’s $3 billion Deep Tunnel project, under construction since the mid-1970s, was overwhelmed with a few inches of rain. The Deep Tunnel is still under construction, and will more than triple its capacity by 2029. But as climate change makes downpours more intense and development converts more green space to asphalt and condos, there’s no guarantee the Deep Tunnel will work. For communities hit hardest by flooding, like Chatham and South Shore, alternative strategies—such as city support for permeable pavements and rain gardens—may be necessary in addition to the Deep Tunnel. Without more action, Chicagoans may be stuck with damp basements for decades to come.

IN THIS ISSUE q&a: mental health during covid-19 in black, indigenous, and people of color communities

“It is important to connect trauma to systemic inequality because at this point trauma is chronic due to powers and privileges that continue to exist.” jocelyn vega......................................................4 entrevista: la salud mental durante covid-19 en las comunidades afroamericana, indígena, y la gente de color

“Es importante establecer una conexión entre el trauma y la desigualdad sistémica porque a estas alturas, el trauma es crónico como consecuencia del poder y privilegio que existen”. jocelyn vega / traducido por gisela orozco...............................................................5 why are latinx neighborhoods in the southwest

side feeling the brunt of covid-19 diagnoses in chicago?

Because many are essential workers, they are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 susy liu..............................................................7 prayer in a pandemic

Churches struggle to keep their communities—and themselves—afloat madeleine parrish..........................................10 fresh food at a distance

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the deep cracks in the food system and the inequitable access to fresh and healthy foods for low-income households lucia whalen..................................................13 comic

A Year with Mayor Lightfoot matt ford.......................................................16 the contradictions of a progressive police chief

Newly-appointed CPD Superintendent David Brown left a complicated legacy in Dallas. Will he have his second chance in Chicago? kiran misra......................................................17 who gets solidarity?

Three new books examine the evolution of “labor” in Chicago through the twentieth century sam joyce..........................................................22 croSSWord, trivia

& coloring page

jim daley, martha bayne jennifer chavez..26

MAY 27, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

HEALTH

Q&A: Mental Health During COVID-19 in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Communities FLY Radical Therapy founder and Healing Jodonas co-founder Dorian Ortega discusses mental health, trauma, and collective healing with the Weekly

BY JOCELYN VEGA

(Trigger warnings: violence, shootings, trauma, racism, and institutional harm.)

D

orian A. Ortega is a licensed therapist who provides mental health services and grounds intentional conversations with community members. Ortega co-founded Healing Jodonas, which supports group therapy through poetry sessions for individuals to connect about healing. Additionally, she founded FLY Radical Therapy and is a member of the Honeycomb Network and Healthy Hood’s ‘Get Yo Mind Right’ Initiative. Her mission is to expand traditional therapy by rooting it in social justice values and addressing issues that undermine collective healing, such as gentrification and racism.

Ortega recently discussed mental health with the Weekly. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How do systemic inequalities connect with realities of trauma?

It is important to connect trauma to systemic inequality because at this point trauma is chronic due to powers and privileges that continue to exist in our system.

I don’t say it lightly: this trauma is terrorism. Terrorism is happening, and it feels very defeating to see this happen over and over again. I allow myself to have these tears because, if I don’t, I’m going to be numb.

And if I don’t feel, I won’t do anything about it. I don’t want to see continuous shootings against Black, Indigenous, and people of color [communities]. It’s hard to have pride living in this country because of what continues to happen. It’s very hard to build trust.

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¬ MAY 27, 2020

How could people continue to recover when they continue to be targeted? How can people heal? How can people heal when they’re constantly being wounded? I don’t have an answer for that. This is something that I struggle with. I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t exist, and I’m going to validate that it’s fucked up. We should be sad and angry that these things are happening.

We can see very plainly, and in our faces, that we are not being protected and that we better protect ourselves. Now, we’ve got to keep ourselves safe. We have to keep ourselves healthy, and that includes our physical health, mental health, and all our states of safety of our community. We should all remember how powerful we are as people and how resilient we are.

How can we manage difficult emotions during COVID-19?

It’s important to validate your feelings. I have a lot of people who are fighting anxiety right now. Anxiety means that you think something terrible is gonna happen. There are ways to minimize anxiety by validating it, saying, “I need to feel this and acknowledge that this is a real feeling.” Try not to judge yourself for feeling human feelings. Find some support systems that you can connect to.

How do we balance staying connected in our communities and staying safe during COVID-19?

A lot of people are struggling with not having affection. This is such an untypical time; we have to work on being safe. I know

there are expectations of hugging, kissing, and handshakes that are often part of our cultural values. It can be disrespectful to not hug grandma. My grandma looked at me like I was crazy when I told her I wasn’t going to hug her.

Put boundaries and respect your space, like not allowing people to come up in your house, if that makes you uncomfortable.

It does something to a relationship when a boundary is respected or not respected.

Everyone is in their right to check their boundaries and be able to respect others.

What are some barriers to mental health that are unique to Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities?

Trust is hard to build, and mental health isn’t always welcomed in Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities due to the stigma from the whole medical system. In general, for people of color, it’s hard to get to the doctor and take care of your physical health. There’s the stigma of not only access, but even thinking about mental health.

But, let’s say, you go into the health care system, and then you’re dismissed with misunderstanding, misdiagnosis, or misrepresentation. When I think about mental health services and trauma, it is an experience with how people access this type of health.

Some folks who have a history of witnessing violent behavior or violence in their community can develop what’s called chronic PTSD or chronic anxiety. But when they go for mental health services, what we’re seeing is the way that the mental health service systems are set up [to not support their experiences]. [For example] if

you present as aggressive or impulsive, some providers might think you’re presenting with bipolar when it’s really a traumatic response, like anxiety or depression.

I say that because when we look at trauma, as a person of color who has witnessed trauma and has experienced trauma, and has treated trauma and talked about trauma, I’m hopeful that there’s intentional, cultural understanding of how mental health presents itself for this particular community.

It’s really powerful that more people are able to change the way that the system is set up to access care with very different variety.

There are so many different types of therapy that work for people that I don’t think that just one thing works for everybody.

Final thoughts?

Learn how you can see yourself. How can you work on your healing? I want folks to know that they are not alone in this. If you are feeling a certain type of discomfort, you’re not alone. There is community that exists to make sure that you’re doing okay.

Folks want to be engaged and just don’t know where to find it. All people need to know they’re not alone. Engage and get your wellness on! Get your healing on, go for it— you deserve it.

For more information, contact Healing Jodonas at healingjodonas@gmail.com or sswk.ly/ Jodonas Jocelyn Vega is a contributing editor to the Weekly. She last wrote about the 2020 Census and undocumented and immigrant communities.

HEALTH

Entrevista: La salud mental durante COVID-19 en las comunidades afroamericana, indígena y la gente de color

“Es importante establecer una conexión entre el trauma y la desigualdad sistémica porque a estas alturas, el trauma es crónico como consecuencia del poder y privilegio que existen en nuestro sistema.”

DORIAN ORTEGA

Dorian Ortega, fundadora de FLY Radical Therapy y cofundadora de Healing Jodonas, conversó con el Weekly sobre la salud mental, el trauma y la sanación colectiva POR JOCELYN VEGA / TRADUCIDO POR GISELA OROZCO

(Avisos: violencia, tiroteos, trauma, contacto, afecto, racismo y daño institucional).

D

orian A. Ortega es una terapeuta licenciada que brinda servicios de salud mental y mantiene conversaciones intencionales con miembros de la comunidad. Ortega es cofundadora de Healing Jodonas, organización comunitaria que respalda la terapia de grupo a través de sesiones de poesía, esto para que los individuos se

vinculen con la sanación. Además, fundó FLY Radical Therapy y es miembro del Honeycomb Network y la iniciativa “Get Yo Mind Right” de Healthy Hood. Su misión es ampliar la terapia tradicional enraizándola en los valores de la justicia social y abordando cuestiones que dañan la curación colectiva, como son la gentrificación y el racismo.

Ortega conversó con el Weekly sobre la salud mental. La entrevista fue editada a fin de brindar mayor claridad.

MAY 27, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

HEALTH

Jocelyn Vega es una editora colaboradora del Weekly. Su reportaje anterior, fue sobre el Censo 2020 y las comunidades indocumentadas e inmigrantes.

SPOILER ALERT! SSW GAME KEYS

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South Side Architecture Trivia Answers!

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1. The Washington Park National Bank Building 2. Pullman 3. The Schulze Baking Company Factory 4. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 5. Streamline Moderne 6. Helmut Jahn 7. The Stephen Foster House and Stable at 12147 S. Harvard Ave. 8. Pilgrim Baptist Church 9. The South Shore Country Club 10. Jeanne Gang

¬ MAY 27, 2020

Para más información, ponte en contacto con Healing Jodonas en healingjodonas@gmail.com o sswk.ly/Jodonas ¬

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La confianza es difícil de construir, y la salud mental no siempre es bienvenida en las comunidades de color debido al estigma de todo el sistema médico. En general, para las personas de color, es difícil llegar al médico y cuidar de su salud física. Existe el estigma no sólo de acceso, sino incluso el simple hecho de pensar en la salud mental.

Pero, supongamos, que entras en el sistema de salud, y te niegan el servicio, hay un malentendido, te dan un diagnóstico erróneo o malinterpretado. Cuando pienso en los servicios de salud mental y el trauma, es más relacionado a cómo las personas acceden a este tipo de salud.

Algunas personas que tienen un historial de conducta violenta o violencia en su comunidad pueden desarrollar lo que se conoce como trastorno de estrés postraumático (PTSD por sus siglas en inglés) crónico o ansiedad crónica. Pero cuando alguien acude a los servicios de salud mental, lo que tomamos en cuenta es

A

Es importante establecer una conexión entre el trauma y la desigualdad sistémica porque a estas alturas, el trauma es crónico a consecuencia del poder y privilegio que existen en nuestro sistema.

Y no lo digo a la ligera: este trauma es terrorismo. El terrorismo está sucediendo y es muy frustrante ver que pasa una y otra vez.

Las personas que son afroamericanas, indígenas o gente de color, tienen que lidiar con muchos temas relacionados con la opresión, y esto simplemente por existir. A medida que vivimos la pandemia, son muy obvias las desigualdades sociales que existen para algunas personas y para las personas de color, específicamente para los hombres afroamericanos, que se convierten en blanco de ataques sin ningún motivo. El simple hecho de saber que eres una persona de color, te otorga una manera diferente de ver el mundo y cómo tienes que comportarte para sobrevivir. Y día con día, los sentimientos y pensamientos de algunas personas cambian y son desafiadas.

Poder decir “estoy triste”, es un privilegio en este país. Tener sentimientos es un privilegio. Como persona de color decir eso o decir “me siento enojado” es un privilegio. ¿Cuándo es que se nos permite tener sentimientos o estar al tanto de ellos?

Hay tantas personas de color que están tan acostumbradas a solo tener que sobrevivir que no pueden darse el lujo de sentarse y pensar sobre sus sentimientos. Esta pandemia es una época interesante: nos hemos visto obligados a hacerlo. Puede ser muy difícil para algunos, especialmente si

¿Cuáles son algunas de barreras que se presentan en la salud mental que son únicas para los afroamericanos, indígenas y las comunidades de color?

la manera en que se establecen los sistemas de servicios de salud mental [que no apoyan sus experiencias anteriores]. Por ejemplo, si se muestra como agresivo o impulsivo, algunos proveedores podrían pensar que se está mostrando como bipolar cuando es realmente una respuesta traumática, tal y como la ansiedad o la depresión.

Lo digo porque cuando trato un trauma, —lo digo como una persona de color que ha presenciado y experimentado un trauma, y tratado y hablado de trauma—, tengo la esperanza de que existe una comprensión cultural intencional de cómo es que se presenta la salud mental para estas comunidades en particular.

Es realmente poderoso que más personas sean capaces de cambiar la forma en que el sistema está configurado para acceder a diferentes variedades de atención.

Existen tantos diferentes tipos de terapia que funcionan para una persona, que no creo que sólo una cosa funcione para todos.

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¿Qué conexión existe entre las desigualdades del sistema y las realidades del trauma?

¿Podría describir algunas de las emociones que se viven tanto en las desigualdades sistémicas y COVID-19?

no cuentan con apoyo o están en un entorno violento. Vemos muchas cosas pasando a la vez, y es demasiado. Es mucho y nada al mismo tiempo.

D

Existen diferentes tipos de trauma. Existe el trauma físico. Cuando hablamos de salud mental, las personas también han experimentado trauma. Es mucho más común que un trauma de la salud física.

Es mucho menor el número de personas que han sufrido una fractura de huesos, que las que escuchan sobre una tragedia en las noticias o que han pasado por algo traumático ellas mismas.

Por ejemplo, un tiroteo en un barrio es una experiencia traumática colectiva; lidiar con la crisis nacional [del COVID-19], es una experiencia traumática. La gente tiene que lidiar con el trauma en diferentes niveles y variedad, pero la forma en la que lidiamos con el trauma es más compleja cuando es un trauma colectivo o un trauma consistente que ha afectado a una comunidad en particular.

El trauma es algo con lo que muchas personas se enfrentan en diferentes etapas de su vida, y la salud mental se ve afectada de diversas maneras a causa de esas experiencias traumáticas. La persona podría desarrollar ciertos comportamientos basados en esas memorias.

Tenemos respuestas de lucha o huida: nuestro cuerpo responderá preparándonos para huir o para luchar contra lo que está pasando. Algunas personas se congelan y no se mueven en absoluto y permanecen en silencio, esta es su manera de sobrellevar una situación. Puede ser que no sean capaces de reaccionar o sentir que les importa.

Muchos de nosotros cargamos un trauma intergeneracional de las generaciones anteriores. Tenemos que pensar en nuestros miedos y cómo es que hemos aprendido esos miedos, y cómo aprendemos a reaccionar cuando nos asustamos. Regresar a las raíces es la manera en que sanamos. Así es como regresamos y como evolucionamos el mundo.

Me permito llorar porque si no lo hago, sería insensible. Y si no siento nada, no haré nada al respecto. No quiero ver estos tiroteos en contra de la gente de color. Es difícil sentirse orgulloso de vivir en este país con las cosas que siguen pasando. Es muy difícil confiar en los demás. ¿De qué manera puede la gente recuperarse cuando es atacada continuamente? ¿Cómo puede sanar? ¿Cómo puede sanar si se les hiere constantemente?

No tengo una respuesta. Esto es algo con lo que lucho. No voy a fingir que esta realidad no existe, y voy a validar que es algo muy difícil. Deberíamos estar tristes y enojados de que estas cosas pasen.

Podemos verlo muy claramente y en nuestra cara, que no se nos protege y que es mejor que nos protejamos nosotros. Ahora, tenemos que mantenernos a salvo. Tenemos que mantenernos sanos, y eso incluye nuestra salud física, nuestra salud mental, y todas las medidas de seguridad necesarias en nuestra comunidad. Todos debemos recordar lo poderosos y fuertes que somos como personas.

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¿Qué relación hay entre la salud mental y el trauma?

HEALTH

Why are Latinx neighborhoods on the Southwest Side feeling the brunt of COVID-19 diagnoses in Chicago?

Hospital administrators share their views about healthcare in immigrant communities

BY SUSY LIU

PHOTO COURTESY OF ESPERANZA HEALTH CENTERS

I

f you look at a map of confirmed coronavirus cases in Chicago, the Southwest Side is very clearly suffering. Neighborhoods such as Pilsen, Brighton Park, Little Village, and Back of the Yards are colored in a deep, dark blue—on the South Side, both case rates and number of confirmed cases are the highest in the city, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. Many of these neighborhoods are over eighty percent “Hispanic,” following the national trend of hard-hit Latinx communities.

Citywide, almost thirty-five percent of those who have tested positive are Latinx, the largest of any racial demographic. The South Side Weekly tracker, based on data from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, shows Little Village is the Latinx neighborhood with most COVID-19 deaths, and ranks third among all neighborhoods.

ZIP code 60632, which covers the Brighton Park and Archer Heights area and is eightyeight percent “Hispanic,” has an overall positive test rate of thirty-seven percent, with sixty-five percent of those cases in the “Hispanic” demographic, according to IDPH. Nearby ZIP codes such as 60623 (which includes Little Village), 60629, and 60804 (in west suburban Cicero), have similar positive rates and numbers of confirmed cases and are found in majorityMexican areas. One predominantly Latinx zip code in the North Side, 60639, which covers Belmont-Cragin, is also dark blue on

the map. Meanwhile 60654, a ZIP code in the Loop, has a positive test rate of fourteen percent.

For those who provide healthcare to Southwest Side communities, the data is not at all surprising—they have seen the same numbers before. Dr. Evelyn Figueroa—a professor of Clinical Family Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the executive director of the Pilsen Social Health Initiative, and the founder and director of the Pilsen Food Pantry— said, “You see the same map over and over again in Chicago. It’s the same infographic for food insecurity, allocations per child per school, violence—the South and West Side have the worst of whatever the condition is.”

Health outcomes are often a result of structural social inequalities. As many Southwest Side residents are immigrants who may not speak English, they are more likely to have lower paying jobs and less likely to have health insurance. Chicago’s extensive history of redlining also limits access to health resources for Southwest Side residents. To reach Esperanza, the health center doing the majority of the Southwest Side’s coronavirus testing, half of the patients served at their Little Village location travel a short distance from south of the I-55 Stevenson Expressway.

So although no one was prepared for the onslaught of COVID-19, the Southwest Side, long affected by poverty and well known as a ‘health desert,’ was even less so.

MAY 27, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

HEALTH

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fter its first week of coronavirus testing, Project Vida, a community health organization in Little Village, found that eighty percent of those tested did not have insurance, with ninety percent of those tested identifying as Mexican or Latinx, they said. Lack of insurance, a large barrier to healthcare, is usually due to a second barrier: namely, legal residency, which prevents many immigrants from qualifying for public benefits such as Medicaid, or the act of seeking medical care itself, due to prohibitive costs and fear of being identified as undocumented.

As the political climate under the Trump administration worsens, undocumented immigrants have become even more reluctant to address their medical needs. Esther Corpuz, CEO of Alivio, a community health center in Pilsen founded to address the needs of undocumented immigrants, said, “With the public charge issue, [those in our immigrant communities] aren’t accepting any kind of public benefits because that could impact their path to citizenship. When Trump got elected we immediately saw our visit numbers go down.

People stopped coming—even after many PHOTO COURTESY OF ESPERANZA HEALTH CENTERS

years of coming to Alivio, they were just very fearful.”

The language barrier is another structural issue that exacerbates health disparity. Figueroa once volunteered during storytime at a CPS grammar school on the Southwest Side and was shocked to find that the learning was conducted entirely in Spanish, as the school could not afford an ESL curriculum. Although Chicago-born, the students were monolingual Spanish speakers. “This is systematic. This was at a CPS grammar school. It was mindboggling,” Figueroa said. Being unable to speak English limits the opportunities for Latinx Chicagoans, including access to health resources. “When people talk about navigating systems, they don’t understand how much you have to be able to read and speak to accomplish that.”

Structural inequalities feed health disparity and further cause chronic illness.

Some of the most common conditions health centers like Alivio and Esperanza see are diabetes, heart disease, obesity, hypertension, anxiety, and depression.

The distribution of health resources across the Southwest Side is, beyond

structural imbalances, also limited in number—according to Figueroa, insurance lapses, social issues affecting health, and English fluency make it difficult for healthcare providers to stay afloat.

Health providers that do choose to serve the Southwest Side are challenged by administrative burdens influenced by poverty and lower payments from public insurance such as Medicaid, as well as costs incurred by serving undocumented immigrants and hiring bilingual staff, interpreters or translation services.

Jim Sifuentes, CEO of Saint Anthony Hospital, said that finances are especially difficult for Saint Anthony as a safety net hospital, committed to serving anyone in the community regardless of their insurance status. When asked what Saint Anthony’s biggest challenge was, he said, “It’s not the people. It’s not the clinic. It’s not serving these people. It’s getting paid.”

While the revenue of an average hospital in the U.S. is around sixty-seven percent commercial payer private insurance payouts, Sifuentes said Saint Anthony’s is only four percent private insurance and nearly eighty percent Medicaid or Medicare,

with the remaining patients uninsured or undocumented. Saint Anthony filed a suit last month against the Illinois’ Medicaid program, saying that as of mid-February, the state’s six managed-care organizations— private insurers that are delegated to reimburse healthcare centers who see public insurance patients—owed the hospital $22 million. “We had to use all our money to pay the bills because we’re not getting reimbursed,” Sifuentes said.

Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) such as Esperanza and Alivio receive funding from the federal government, and can more easily accommodate their Latinx patients by charging for services on a sliding scale—those who are uninsured don’t pay at all. Even so, Esperanza still engages in private fundraising and applies for grants in order to cover uninsured patients. Furthermore, establishing new FQHCs and access points is extremely competitive and regulated, said Alivio CEO Esther Corpuz. And smaller healthcare providers such as Project Vida have even more trouble meeting funding prerequisites like administrative guidelines.

What is most frustrating to hospital administrators is that many of the Southwest Side healthcare providers are technically and culturally competent and well trusted by the community they serve, yet funding does not easily come their way. “You can't imagine the quality of the nurses, physicians, and even ancillary people,” Sifuentes said. “They could be working in other places. They choose to come here because... they believe that serving people that don't always get a break is number one.”

Sifuentes said that while other safety net hospitals have been forced to close up services like pediatrics and speech therapy to make ends meet, Saint Anthony is extremely money-conscious and does whatever it can to keep services available. “Look at the needs of the community. There’s no way we can close [these services]. We not only kept the pediatrics department open, we have a neonatologist, which is rare—you would never see that in a community hospital, let alone in a safety net community. But that's how our commitment is.”

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he coronavirus pandemic has placed the healthcare challenges of both residents and healthcare providers on the Southwest Side, as well as the structural inequalities that produced them, under a magnifying glass. In many ways, COVID-19 has exacerbated the hardships 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 27, 2020

HEALTH

of living in a low-income, marginalized community at the center of a health desert, resulting in the explosion of confirmed cases among Latinx residents of the Southwest Side.

Because many Southwest Side Latinx residents are essential workers— overrepresented in job sectors like construction, food service, and transportation and material moving—they are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19. Some continue to go to work because they need the income, as many undocumented immigrants cannot receive relief checks and unemployment benefits, or because they fear eviction and other financial consequences.

Others work because they feel pressure from employers. Jerome Montgomery, the CEO of Project Vida, said, “We’ve had individuals that have told us they tested positive and that their employers are requiring them to come to work, which is against every Department of Public Health guideline I’ve ever been familiar with.”

Furthermore, cultural factors prevent Latinx Southwest Siders from adhering exactly to social distancing guidelines. As many live in multigenerational homes in close quarters, self-isolation is not always realistic. It may not be possible to sleep in a room alone or have one’s own bathroom.

Sifuentes said that it’s not uncommon to have three or four people from the same household be hospitalized for COVID-19.

Other challenges seem mundane, but are significant. “Some of our front desk people actually asked us if they could not wear their uniforms to work because they didn’t want to go to the laundromat as often because they were worried about getting COVID-19 there,” Esperanza CEO Dan Fulwiler said. “So little things like that, that people don’t necessarily think of when they have more money, are real stressors in our community.”

Communicating information to individuals about testing sites, health resources, and pandemic best practices is proving to be a great challenge in tackling COVID-19 in the Southwest Side. Misinformation inspires fear and endangering behavior. Figueroa said price gouging on items like plastic gloves misleads people into practices that don’t actually assure safety. “If you hear about hand hygiene, everything says wash your hands or use hand sanitizer, and yet when you're in the store… person after person, they’re wearing gloves, and that does not offer protection. COVID lives for three days

on plastic.”

And it is difficult for Latinx in the Southwest Side community to understand and access accurate information. “Highly educated people don’t understand COVID,” continued Figueroa. “So how are you going to tell someone who has a low literacy level to begin with, in Spanish, and then translate it into health information?”

At the same time, news that Latinx residents are most impacted by the virus continues to drive fear. “A patient will come into the ER like ‘Oh my God, I’m positive, I’m gonna die.’ And they believe it,” Sifuentes said. Saint Anthony Hospital’s wellness program is connected to about one hundred community organizations and tries to keep communication channels as open as possible in order to educate and reach people in need.

Media is an effective tool, and Corpuz said that Spanish-language media is likely the most powerful way to educate people, along with word of mouth. At Alivio’s testing site, healthcare workers patiently address fears and provide educational information on follow up calls with those who get tested.

Organizations like Esperanza, Alivio, Saint Anthony Hospital, Project Vida, and UI Health are providing coronavirus testing sites in majority-Mexican communities.

Although practice at each site varies, typically those who wish to be tested make an appointment, fill out necessary forms, and undergo a nasopharyngeal swab that is sent to a lab. The sites are drive-thru or walk-in, and are equipped with Spanish-speaking staff. Tests are free or completely covered by insurance, even for undocumented people who are not covered under the CARES Act, which waived all coronavirus-related healthcare costs. Results come back within anywhere from twenty-four hours to two days.

The testing sites see varying demand and each conduct between thirty and 150 tests a day. Most organizations have not had to turn people away, though Alivio reported frequent test kit shortages. Still, access to test kits is a common challenge.

Esperanza has had to source different test kit components from different suppliers, which Fulwiler attributes to the lack of a single, unified response to the pandemic.

Saint Anthony Hospital recently received technology from a donor for a more accurate test that takes only fifteen minutes, but has not been able to obtain the necessary testing reagents to use it. The struggle to obtain crucial resources for underserved areas even

"Because many Latinx residents of the Southwest Side are essential workers, they are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19." in the midst of a pandemic continues.

Some of the consequences of COVID-19 have yet to play out for health providers on the Southwest Side.

Fulwiler believes that the CARES Act did not allocate enough money to reimburse healthcare providers for the cost of testing and caring for uninsured COVID-19 patients. Corpuz worries about billing challenges with insurance companies and Alivio’s financial health. And Figueroa said that even though the CARES Act covers coronavirus-related costs for those who are uninsured, some hospitals are still billing patients, perhaps out of habit, feeding the uninsured population’s pre-existing fears of being charged.

For now, these community health organizations are focusing on how best to serve the Southwest Side during this crisis, actively reaching out to educate residents and provide crucial care.

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here could be a silver lining to an otherwise devastating pandemic.

As community health centers begin to tear down the barriers to healthcare for residents in the Southwest Side, they may be building a future where those barriers stay down. In light of present circumstances, healthcare workers can now get paid for telemedicine down to its most basic form of a voice call. Figueroa said that anecdotally, patients really enjoyed phone-based visits with doctors they already knew, although there are still barriers such as owning a phone or computer.

Additionally, healthcare centers like Alivio keep track of those who get tested, their medical history, and their primary care provider or lack thereof. Although Alivio has stopped general visits, it has transitioned to telehealth, provides home delivery for pharmacies, and actively checks in on seniors over sixty-five years of age, a group particularly vulnerable to the virus. “Rather than just swabbing them, we’re asking them, “Do you have a medical home? Do you have a doctor? If no, then consider keeping us as your medical home,” said Corpuz. “And

then we start to know the health issues that they may have.”

Beyond the new connections healthcare centers are making with patients, Latinx residents of the Southwest Side may become more proactive about their health concerns post-pandemic. “I think that [COVID-19] has frightened people to the point where they’re taking care of their healthcare issues with greater concern and trying to address them rather than putting things off,” Corpuz said.

During the crisis, state and local governments have also become more aware of disproportionately affected groups and the need to reckon with the structural inequalities that fuel their current hardship.

“The mayor had a press conference recently about COVID-19 among Latinx communities,” said Fulwiler. “And I was really heartened...They're actually moving to provide housing to vulnerable people [to] allow them to self-quarantine outside the house with their family, which is a huge cost.

That's really responsive.”

When asked how he thinks the pandemic will change the future of the Southwest Side, Montgomery said, “You know, I have my hopes. If I had it my way, it would draw more attention to the need for universal healthcare, regardless of citizenship status. It would give rise to understanding of the increase of minimum wage and for there to be a basic household income.

“It would bring more attention to the importance of the immigrant population to the very existence of the United States, and not only to our economy but also to who we are in the fabric of the United States. I would like to see that after COVID, people care more about each other and how their actions impact others. But in reality? I don’t know.” Susy Liu grew up in Boston and is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago studying economics and sociology. She last wrote in the Weekly about medical students practicing street medicine in the South Side.

MAY 27, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

Prayer in a Pandemic

PASTOR DEANDRE PATTERSON DELIVERS HIS FIRST ONLINE SERMON DURING THE INITIAL STAGES OF THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK ON FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 2020, AT MIRACLE OF REVIVAL CHURCH IN MAYWOOD, ILL. PHOTO BY GEOFF STELLFOX

Churches struggle to keep their communities—and themselves—afloat

BY MADELEINE PARRISH

“A

ll of our funds are basically going in and out toward helping everybody else,” said Pastor Corey Brooks of New Beginnings Church of Chicago. From providing mental health services to donating food and masks, South Side pastors have been working tirelessly to serve both the practical and spiritual needs of their communities in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. Yet churches are not immune to the effects of the pandemic: smaller churches, many of which are anxiously waiting to hear back from grant and loan applications, have been struggling 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 27, 2020

to pay their staff and to meet other parts of their budget. Despite these deep financial challenges, these churches are still dedicating what scant resources they have to continue to serve needs in their community.

New Beginnings, a nondenominational church located in Woodlawn, has lost at least thirty percent of their funding since the onset of the pandemic. The church has been forced to reduce pay for each of its eleven staff members in order to avoid laying anyone off. And the church’s nonprofit, Project H.O.O.D., which works to end violence and generational poverty in the

Englewood and Woodlawn communities, will likely have to miss its June fundraiser, which typically provides $500,000 to $800,000 of its budget.

New Beginnings is still waiting for a response from the federal small business loan program. Federal assistance to churches is controversial, and some advocates say the federal program violates the Constitutional prohibition of an “establishment of religion.”

Without external support, however, some churches have already had to make hard choices. Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church, a Bronzeville church known for

its gospel program, has had to temporarily furlough two of their three janitors while awaiting a response from the federal Paycheck Protection Program.

By contrast, churches that have been able to access federal support tend to be doing well. Saint Columbanus, a Catholic parish in Park Manor, has seen its financial situation stay stable, thanks to the small business loan and an increase in tithes and online giving. As a result, it has continued to operate its food pantry at the same capacity as it was before the pandemic, serving approximately 400-500 people per week.

HEALTH

Second Presbyterian Church, located in the South Loop, hasn’t been quite so lucky; before the pandemic, the church relied on building rentals for twenty percent of their revenue, averaging four rentals a day to community groups. While the loss of this stable source of income has been “very stressful,” according to Pastoral Assistant Leslie Deslauriers, and total giving has dropped by about twenty percent, the church has been able to retain all of its staff with no cuts in pay thanks to the support of the CARES Act. Without some financial support, some smaller churches may not make it through the crisis. Trinity Resurrection United Church, a Methodist church in South Chicago, is struggling to pay the bills.

The church only had about fifty members before the onset of the pandemic, and now that number has been reduced to twentyfive; some have stopped giving tithes, especially older members who are not used to technology like Cash App and PayPal, and some have passed away from COVID-19.

Many of their members are limited in the donations they can provide, and on the forefront of Minister Shirley Davis’s mind is just paying the church’s monthly bills: light, gas, phone, internet, and insurance. It has not been able to pay its staff. “We just can’t afford to,” said Davis. And if the church can’t continue to make improvements to its building to meet state and federal codes, it will have to close. While it has attempted to seek financial help, the church was denied for the SBA grant, which included PPE equipment; without these resources, it has been unable to reopen their food pantry.

Several churches have faced trouble paying their staff. The ten full-time staff members of Another Chance Church, a nondenominational church located in Roseland, are still working eight hours a day but are only being paid for four. Pastor Kenyatta D. Smith wonders how long he will be able to ask people to continue the work they’re doing for half the pay, but says they are driven by their desire to respond to a critical need in the surrounding community.

“We’re barely making it, but we’re doing it by faith because our community really needs help,” said Smith.

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continued focus on community service has defined almost every church the Weekly spoke to for this story. “It’s very arduous to see funding going to places that are not getting to our community,” Smith explained. “So we have seniors and displaced people that have not even gotten their unemployment in a situation now where they need help.”

Smith and her staff at Another Chance are particularly worried about seniors who live alone and may have no access to food; in one instance, a ninety-eight-year-old had not eaten for two days before they got in contact with him. Through their program Operation Feeding Families, which was created in response to the pandemic, Another Chance has given away about 300 boxes of food, each of which will last a family two weeks. “For our community, we’re the biggest source of help, especially for our seniors right now,” said Smith.

Other churches are pursuing similar efforts. Second Presbyterian has continued its lunch bag program, which provides an average of thirty-five people per day with food, masks, and hygiene products.

Its South Loop Community Table, which takes place on Sunday nights and used to include clothing, hygiene products, free haircuts, and doctor visits, has been reduced to a grab-and-go meal. But it is still able to serve about forty people per week, and this number has continued to increase.

Even Trinity Resurrection, one of the hardest-hit churches, still has volunteers working remotely to process Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program applications for clients from across Cook County. Prior to the onset of the pandemic, they were able to assist about 600 applicants.

Now that they are working remotely, they have assisted a little over a hundred people, and their phone continues to ring nonstop. The program will run until June 30, and they have begun working on Saturdays

“We’re barely making it, but we’re doing it by faith because our community really needs help.”

to increase the amount of people they can assist. “Our community depends on our services and without them, families will suffer. However, I'm afraid without grant support we may have to remove some of our services due to financial constraints,” said Davis, the church’s minister.

Apart from their service to the broader community, several churches have also been forced to dedicate extensive resources to pastoral care. A team at New Beginnings calls each of the 1,000 people within the congregation every week to ensure that everyone’s needs are being met, especially their senior members. To address the needs that were relayed through these phone calls, a team at the church has conducted over fifty grocery pickups and deliveries for members of the congregation. They also send out a text message every other day, reminding each person to call or email if they have a need. Saint Columbanus has a similar program, calling each of their parishioners, approximately 450 people, every week in case anyone has a need; in one instance they shared with the Weekly, they were able to deliver stamps to an older parishioner so that she could pay her bills. At New Beginnings, both Brooks and Pastor TJ Grooms provide counseling over Zoom. Ebenezer Baptist takes it a step further; besides traditional pastoral counseling, the church is also offering a virtual mental health counselor to provide support to members of the community.

At some churches, caring for their community just means maintaining a sense of normalcy. “People are very afraid. They’re scared, they don’t know if their family’s going to be impacted, they’re concerned about the disparities as relates to African Americans and the disease, there’s concern about national leadership. So we’re all working to try to be an inspiration to help people through this difficult time,” said Ebenezer Baptist Pastor Darryl N. Person. Ebenezer has focused on conducting worship services online and supporting the church’s famous musicians during the pandemic, allowing them to “provide something meaningful even in the midst of the distance, because the church, in a very real sense, is not about a building, it’s about the collection of people who have decided to partner in faith and develop spiritually.” But Ebenezer, like most churches, continues to do some of the old-fashioned community outreach: in partnership with nearby Metropolitan Community Church, it has donated a hundred masks to the University of Chicago Hospital.

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any larger churches like Saint Columbanus, especially those with pre-existing virtual infrastructure, have had an easier time transitioning. Their size and resources have helped avoid any serious financial trouble and have allowed them to explore new avenues of community support during the pandemic.

Apostolic Faith Church, located in Bronzeville, had both set up online giving and promoted it to its congregation long before the onset of the pandemic. As a result, their giving has been consistent. “I think that when your members know you’re still doing ministry, it’s easier for them, even if they’re struggling, to give and make sure they’re supporting the people who need it,” said Lauren Elrod, the church’s marketing director.

The church’s pastor, Dr. Horace Smith, doesn’t hold a doctorate in theology —he's also a hematologist at Lurie Children’s Hospital. He has used this unique position as both a pastor and a physician to inform other pastors and the church community about health and safety during the COVID-19 crisis. He has conducted nationwide church Facebook Lives with other pastors and ministers to help inform the religious community about the seriousness of the pandemic. “We’re giving people the faith reasons to stay encouraged but also the scientific reasons to be healthy,” said Elrod. The church has hosted Dr. Janice Jackson, the CEO of Chicago Public Schools, during Sunday service to discuss what parents and educators can be doing during this time.

Salem Baptist Church of Chicago, a large church located in Pullman, had the strongest pre-existing virtual infrastructure of all the churches interviewed by the Weekly. They had been on television for about fifteen years, streaming on their website for at least eight years, and using Facebook Live for about four years. They also have five staff members on the media team. “I know a lot of other churches who didn’t have the capability to go live, or the staffing. It was a lot more seamless for us in that area,” said Jasmine Meeks, the church’s marketing and communication director.

Prominent community and political leaders have been playing a crucial informative and encouraging role in this church’s efforts. Before the pandemic, Salem Baptist Church, whose pastor and founder is former state Senator James T. Meeks, had a broadcast every night on WJYS, MAY 27, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

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¬ MAY 27, 2020

which would play old sermons. It now hosts a program called Faith in Crisis, which broadcasts a live service every evening.

It has used this platform to both inform and comfort its audience, hosting Mayor Lori Lightfoot, U.S. Representative Robin Kelly, doctors, preachers, and therapists. The church also hosts Virtual Growth Night Classes via Zoom every night, including courses like “Understanding and Managing your Credit in a Pandemic” and “Staying Emotionally Healthy in a Pandemic.” There are over 1,000 people registered, significantly more than were able to show up in person.

On any given Sunday, there are over 2,000 people watching their service live through Facebook, YouTube, and their website.

“The people on our stream are a family,” said Jasmine. “If they don’t see someone checking in, they will notice that that screen name hasn’t checked in in a couple weeks and check in on them and make sure they’re okay. It’s special to see. They remember each other, they give follow ups and praise reports and prayer requests, they have a whole prayer chain that they have started by themselves, they will invite people to watch, just like someone would invite a visitor to come to church with them.”

Because of the strength of its existing virtual infrastructure and the size of their congregation and staff—it had approximately 4,000 weekly attenders and forty staff members—Salem Baptist has been able to thrive in the midst of this pandemic. This success has even allowed it to use its experience and resources to help smaller churches by assisting them with streaming and offering to host conferences or classes. It has continued to pay every staff member, even those who are no longer able to work. They have donated 1,000 masks to members of the Roseland community, and at the time of the interview were planning to partner with Dr. Willie Wilson to distribute thousands more. It was also planning to donate 500 food boxes to members of the Roseland community, and worked with local radio stations to host a citywide memorial to honor over 200 people who had passed away. The memorial was widely inclusive; they simply told people to submit names to their website and received submissions from some people who were not even in Illinois.

discuss what the transition will look like once they can begin to host in-person services again. While a handful of churches held services on May 17, most were fined for violating the stay-at-home order, and most others are waiting for official approval to resume services. They all emphasized the need for effective and abundant cleaning supplies. Representatives from Apostolic Faith Church and New Beginnings Church both suggested hosting services multiple times per week in order to keep the number of people in a building under fifty, and Apostolic Faith has also considered conducting service in the parking lot when everyone is in their parked cars. For churches with larger venues, the capacity for social distancing may make the transition a little easier; Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church’s facility can seat 1,100 people, and Salem Baptist Church’s facility holds 10,000.

Salem Baptist is even reconsidering the way they conduct church. “We are definitely adjusting our thinking. Now people are seeing how important technology is in the landscape of church today. I think every church is going to have to get on board with some means of technology to do ministry moving forward,” said Jasmine Meeks.

Despite the immense challenges that many of these churches are facing, pastors remain hopeful about the future. Brooks of New Beginnings hopes that this crisis may have a lasting positive impact on the church. “It's going to give us avenues that we have never used before to have to stay in contact with people, and so it’s equipping us in a way that we were not equipped before.

So hopefully when the pandemic is over, we can still use these tools to reach even a broader audience.” Deslauriers of Second Presbyterian believes that in the midst of handling these challenges, churches will realize “what ministries they’ve been doing really matter, and which ones they’ve been holding on to just for tradition’s sake.”

“We recognize that you have to be flexible and nimble enough to meet the challenges that you face,” said Person of Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church. “We know that we hopefully will be getting back in June, July, and should that happen we’re going to be ready and it’s going to be a wonderful celebration.” ¬

hile these churches have been working tirelessly to support their communities during this time of crisis, many have also begun to

Madeleine Parrish grew up in New Jersey and is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago studying political science. This is her first story for the Weekly.

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FOOD

Fresh Food at a Distance South Side farmers adapt to COVID-19

BY LUCIA WHALEN

M

ay marks the time of year when farmers all over the South Side pack up and sell fresh produce and other products beneath large tents at bustling markets throughout the city. But, of course, this year is different. Due to the COVID-19 public health crisis, farmers have had to rapidly adjust their operations to adapt to a sudden new world of virtual and socially distanced markets.

Stef Funk is the program coordinator at Plant Chicago, a nonprofit that provides public programming on sustainability and circular economies in Back of the Yards. Since 2015, Plant Chicago has run a monthly farmers’ market that sells produce from farms on the South Side, as well as premade foodstuffs and handicrafts.

The market, which drew regular crowds, has moved online since the beginning of Governor Pritzker’s stay-at-home order, with customers ordering online and purchases available for curbside pickup or home delivery.

“Markets for so long have sought out to be community spaces where people can learn and gather and enrich their lives. And now all of a sudden it's like a grocery store where you [wait in single] file. It’s just a really sharp turn,” Funk said.

Starting June 6, Plant Chicago will hold a soft opening of a retail space at their base at 4459 S. Marshfield Avenue. Funk said that Plant Chicago hopes to open a smaller-scale, in-person market with socialdistancing rules in effect this summer. For now the retail space will provide greater access to fresh food for Link card users and people living close by. Until recently, Link cards could not be used online. That will change for most grocery shopping starting June 2, as Pritzker announced May 20 that all existing Link card users will now be able to purchase groceries online. However, the program is still not viable for online markets or small farmers, as retailers must meet multiple requirements, many of which pose barriers for entry into the program.

In the interest of preventing crowds and contamination risks, non-Link customers

are encouraged to continue using the virtual market. The retail space will be open from 10am–4pm on Saturdays, from June through September, and masks must be worn by all visitors and vendors.

However, while Chicago farms may not reap the benefit of large crowds at farmers’ markets this year, Funk said that farmers are nonetheless experiencing a significant increase in customers. She attributes the surprising surge to the public’s desire to have more control over the sources of their food, as the experience of shopping at crowded grocery stores has become increasingly nerve wracking.

Stephanie Dunn is the owner of Star Farm Chicago, a Back of the Yards–based nonprofit farm that offers a community supported agriculture program (CSA) and a raised-bed installation service, and provides training and horticultural therapy for women, youth, and people with disabilities at the farm. Star Farm is one of the Plant Chicago farmers’ market vendors that has seen an uptick in business.

While Star Farm has had to put its community services on hold due to the pandemic, Dunn said that the farm has received a sizable increase in CSA orders, so much so that she is now planning to scale up operations by purchasing an additional cooler and vehicle for deliveries. Star Farm has also received more requests for raised bed installation, which Dunn attributes to the pandemic causing an increase in peoples’ desire to grow their own food.

Small farms have had to rapidly adjust their business models to the digital landscape of online markets. Before the pandemic hit, Closed Loop Farms sold a hundred percent of its produce to restaurants throughout the city. Once restaurants started to shut down, Closed Loop’s owner Adam Pollack had to rapidly change his business model by building a website and new customer base in order to sell to the public.

Sanitization practices have also changed operations, and the indoor farm space is sanitized regularly by workers wearing PPE. Pollack said that while he wanted to

“Markets for so long have sought out to be community spaces where people can learn and gather and enrich their lives. And now all of a sudden it's like a grocery store where you [wait in single] file. It’s just a really sharp turn.”

eventually branch out and sell to individual customers, he had no idea it would happen so quickly. Now that Closed Loop has expanded its business model, Pollack said the challenge will be reintegrating it with the old model once restaurants reopen.

“We don’t know how long [it will be] until restaurants reopen. We don’t want restaurants to reopen and not be able to service them,” Pollack said.

Closed Loop Farms is also located in Back of the Yards, at the Plant (not to be confused with the nonprofit Plant Chicago, one of its former tenants), and has both an indoor farm that grows microgreens and an outdoor farm that grows edible flowers and produce. The Plant is a closed-loop waste facility and home to multiple small food businesses, including Whiner Beer, Arize Kombucha, Tuanis Chocolate, and others.

While Closed Loop does not offer a CSA program, Pollack built his website to serve as an online market for all of the businesses at the Plant, and customers can order produce and products online and receive a no-contact delivery.

Among the many social and economic disparities the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed are the deep cracks in the food system and the inequitable access to

fresh and healthy foods for low-income households. Many farms are responding to the problem of food inequity through increased donation programs.

The Urban Growers Collective is a Bridgeport-based nonprofit working to create community-based food systems and increase access to fresh and healthy foods, with several farm sites on the Southeast Side. According to cofounder Erika Allen, production has massively increased at their sites, in large part to provide more emergency food for those impacted by food access challenges. “[We are working on] making the highest quality produce accessible to the communities impacted overwhelmingly by lack of nutrition. Of course with COVID-19, having a strong immune system is clearly something that is good for everybody, but especially for communities that are impacted by trauma and violence on a pretty consistent basis. [Trauma and violence] impact general health outcomes, but especially the immune system and stress response,” Allen explained.

The Urban Growers Collective currently donates 250 boxes to food-insecure families each week, and customers can purchase donation boxes through the farm’s website.

MAY 27, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

FOOD

Allen hopes to scale up operations to increase donation boxes and distribution.

Star Farm has a similar donation model. Customers can donate to subsidize part of the cost of a CSA share for a lowincome family and Star Farm matches the price of the donation to complete the full cost of a full season share. The farm is also working with the Experimental Station, home of the 61st St. Farmers Market, to offer a subsidized “Market Box” to Black, low-income, and Woodlawn-area residents. While Closed Loop Farms does not have a CSA program, Pollack said that extra produce has been going to the Port Ministries and the Casa Catalina food pantry, which is located around the corner from the Plant.

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position; we’ve definitely been making more donations than usual,” Pollack said.

Stef Funk expressed hope that the surge in local food interest will continue once the pandemic is no longer a threat.

“I do think the world will always look different after this,” she said. "Now people are realizing ‘I want things to be close and local and safe and I want to know exactly where things are coming from.’ So hopefully this sticks afterwards. Hopefully people realize this is the better way to do things.” Lucia Whalen is a writer and multimedia journalist focused on health, science, and the environment; she is also a cofounder of Trashy Magazine. She last wrote about General Iron moving to the Southeast Side for the Weekly.

You can find her at @whalenlucia.

A window of time during a pandemic Troy Gueno | @troyfromchicago Back of the Yards

“Shot this at Pastor Jolinda Wade's church in Calumet City. Her church was giving away PPE and fresh groceries to anyone who needed it.”

People’s Media sswk.ly/submit

MAY 27, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

COMIC

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JUSTICE

The Contradictions of a Progressive Police Chief Newly-appointed CPD Superintendent David Brown left a complicated legacy in Dallas. Will he have his second chance in Chicago?

BY KIRAN MISRA

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n July 2016, when five police officers were killed by a sniper at a protest in Dallas, the city’s then-police chief David Brown rose to the national spotlight for his call for unity in a difficult time. A glowing profile in Texas Monthly, coverage in the New York Times referring to him as a “reformer,” praise from conservatives in The Atlantic and National Review, and more prompted some around the country to call for the chief to make a presidential run using the hashtag #DavidBrownForPresident. Former New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton said that Brown “represents some of the best progressive police leadership today,” and Brown himself said in an interview, “A gap has been bridged between the community and its police department.” Just two months later, in September, Brown resigned from his position in what looked from afar like the kind of graceful exit that many big-city police chiefs are unable to effectuate—he acknowledged in a 2017 interview that most Dallas chiefs before him were “run out of town”—and soon after, published a memoir, Called to Rise: The Power of Community in a Nation Divided, and signed on as a contributor to ABC News.

Nearly four years later, Brown is entering the world of policing once again.

He was confirmed as Chicago’s new police superintendent in a unanimous approval by Chicago’s City Council, replacing former

Superintendent Eddie Johnson, who was fired just weeks before his planned retirement.

Brown wasn’t the obvious initial favorite choice for the role. In addition to Brown, former chief of detectives for the Los Angeles Police Department Sean Malinowski, Chicago Police Deputy Chief Ernest Cato, and west suburban Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman were in the running, with a reported twenty others.

Malinowski seemed an early favorite for his big-city experience and success in managing a consent decree during his time in Los Angeles. He was also familiar with the inner workings of the Chicago Police Department, as a former consultant to the CPD following the release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video and the current director of policing innovation and reform at the University of Chicago Crime Lab, which works closely with the CPD. Cato had some community support, as the only finalist who was already a part of the Chicago Police.

Ziman had received praise for the Aurora Police Department’s response to the 2019 Henry Pratt Manufacturing shooting.

But there was little time to collect community input—and in a shock, Malinowski wasn’t even presented as an option by the Police Board. Just a day later, in the midst of a nationwide pandemic, Brown was picked by Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

The process of choosing Chicago’s next police superintendent is led—per city ordinance—by the Police Board rather than the mayor. However, Lightfoot, who served as the president of the Police Board the last time a superintendent was selected, publicly stated in April that she had been considering Brown for the job since December, far before his name appeared on the Police Board shortlist. Local activists and progressive elected representatives criticized the Police Board’s actions in releasing the names of the three finalists only after the mayor began her private interviews with top candidates, robbing community members of the opportunity to give feedback and conduct thorough research on those in the running.

29th Ward Alderman Chris Taliaferro, a former CPD officer whom Lightfoot appointed as chair of the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety last May, defended the selection process and contended in an interview that it included opportunities for public hearings in his Austin-based ward and that “[the process] does not preclude the mayor from looking herself.” He added, “Any insinuation that Mayor Lightfoot interfered in that process would be a wrong insinuation. It's very evident not just to me, but also all of my colleagues, that the mayor did a fantastic job in allowing the process to proceed in accordance with ordinance.”

As he was getting sworn in, Brown advised Chicagoans, “Buckle your seat belts, we’re headed to the moon,” outlining his goals for Chicago to have the lowest murders and shootings on record as well as “the highest level of trust in its officers from its residents,” a particularly lofty goal for a police force that has been plagued with corruption and cover-ups spanning the last several decades. When asked why the Dallas native would want to lead Chicago's police force, Brown responded, “Are you kidding

me? The city that produced Michelle Obama and elected Mayor Lightfoot. I volunteer.

Sign me up.” Notably, the superintendent position is far from a volunteer role. Brown will be getting paid $260,044 each year for his work.

B

rown's story is a moving one. Before his move to Chicago, Brown’s family had lived in Dallas for four generations. He attended South Oak Cliff High School, a prominent predominantly Black high school in the city, before enrolling at the University of Texas at Austin. He says in interviews that he left college and his dreams of being an attorney to join the Dallas police force as a patrol officer in 1983, dropping out of college to do so, after he saw the crack epidemic's effect on his Oak Cliff neighborhood.

Over the next few years, Brown moved up the ranks of the force, working in patrol divisions, the SWAT team, internal affairs, and more.

But just a few years into the job, tragedy struck when his partner and best friend was killed while on duty by a Dallas resident.

And a few years later, his brother was killed in a fight with a drug dealer in Arizona.

Brown was shaken but doubled down on his career. He returned to school to finish his bachelor’s degree and went on to get his MBA. In 2005, Brown became Dallas’s assistant chief of police and served for a year as assistant city manager. By May 2010, Brown had been sworn in as the city’s police chief, only the second Black chief in Dallas history.

Just a few weeks after he was sworn in, on Father’s Day 2010, Brown got a call.

His son, David Brown Jr., had been killed by police. While high on PCP, Brown Jr. had experienced a mental breakdown and shot a man named Jeremy McMillian, who was driving in a car near Brown Jr.’s home.

Brown Jr. then shot and killed police officer Craig Shaw, who had responded to the shooting, after which other officers on the force shot and killed Brown Jr. A few days later, Brown asked to meet McMillian and Shaw’s families, even attending Shaw’s funeral, which was reportedly right after his son’s services.

Later, in an interview, Brown reflected that the events of June 20, 2010 gave him, “the deepest empathy for people who suffer and families with people they love who have mental illness.” Two weeks later, Brown returned to work.

MAY 27, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17

JUSTICE

PHOTO BY LEE STRANAHAN

J

ust a few months after Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida, the Dallas police received an anonymous call about an armed kidnapping on the south side of the city. When officers arrived at the home of the alleged kidnapping, Dallas resident James Harper ran out the back door. His mother later explained that Harper feared someone was breaking in. Police officer Brian Rowden shot Harper, killing him.

Harper was unarmed, and adding to the injustice of the situation, the anonymous kidnapping tip ended up being false. The event would come to be known as ‘Dixon Circle,’ for Harper’s neighborhood.

Harper’s death catalyzed Brown’s public statement of a new slate of policing reforms to come. Brown publicly released the name of Harper’s killer and renewed his emphasis on de-escalation, promised to implement taser training and review the department’s chase policy, and stated that he would be releasing unprecedented amounts of data on officer-involved shootings to gain public trust in policing practices. He even committed to enlist the help of the FBI’s 18 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 27, 2020

Civil Rights Office to help him implement these reforms. Per the DPD’s website, all police shootings are referred to the FBI, but there’s no information on the outcomes of any FBI reviews.

Brown often credits his statement that night and his commitments to action with quelling riots that were threatening to erupt in Dixon Circle, as hundreds converged outside a nearby grocery store to protest.

In an interview conducted in the months before his retirement, Brown remembered, “without my holding a press conference by the next news cycle, it's likely that we would've been Ferguson before Ferguson was Ferguson."

John Fullinwider, co-founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality, has been organizing in the Dallas community since the 1970s and for reform within the Dallas Police Department since the 1990s. He first met Brown in the 1980s, when Brown was a new officer providing security at a local credit union. He explained, “Chief Brown is the best ambassador that a police department could you ever have... He presents the good

face to the police department, and he tells the story of the police department in a way that resonates with policymakers and the general public.”

However, he and other activists say that Brown’s plans and reforms often sounded better on paper than they ended up being for members of the Dallas community.

“He’s painted this story about himself as someone who’s for police reform… He’s not,” said Walter “Changa” Higgins, an organizer and the head of the Dallas Community Police Oversight Coalition, in an interview with the Weekly. “We have a very different picture from our side in the community than the picture that he painted.”

Holding Brown accountable was hard.

He was a local and the community was hesitant to push back against one of their own. “A lot of people knew him, he had roots, he had ties here, and he used that to his advantage. Because of that, people were less likely to attack him, because that's just the nature of Dallas,” Higgins explained.

“But people like the activists, organizers like myself, we had a really hard time getting

anything done with his office.”

Decades before, when Brown was a newer officer, he had done a stint with the police department’s community policing team. When he became chief, Brown made community policing a central tenet of his strategy to reform the Dallas Police Department, an effort to build trust between officers and neighborhoods that were overpoliced and under-resourced.

Terrance Hopkins, a member of the DPD at the time, remembered, “Chief Brown was instrumental in bringing community policing teams to Dallas to the point where the community just raved.

I mean, they rave about our community policing program.”

Activists remember the program a bit differently. “[Brown’s idea] of what community policing was is having a ‘coffee with the cops [event],” Alexander explained. At these events, the Dallas Police Department police officers and community members could meet over a cup of coffee to build relationships and discuss the community’s goals and concerns.

However, these efforts rarely seemed to reach the community members they were supposed to serve. “The people who are being impacted the most by bad policing, who bear the brunt of modern day policing, don't come to [events] like coffee with cops because they have no incentive, they have no reason to be there,” Higgins explained. As a result, according to activists, these and other community meetings came to be dominated by those who were already supporters of the police department. “It wasn’t welcoming for people who were critical of the department,” Higgins added.

Many of these programs were reportedly short-lived and the underlying factors driving crime and violence in the communities went unaddressed.

Activists remember the police chief engaging with and getting the support of community members like pastors who had little experience engaging in policy discussions about issues with policing in the area, but not those who had been working on these very issues for decades. “When it came down to meeting in a room… he would have those conversations with people who were not working on these issues. And then he come back to say, ‘well I'm already meeting with this group and, you know, why are you not part of this group,” Higgins remembered.

Dominique Alexander of the Next Generation Action Network, an

JUSTICE

organization founded by Dallas activists in the aftermath of the killings of Eric Garner and Mike Brown, agreed, explaining, “we tried to work with Chief Brown on real policy reforms and changes to the Dallas Police Department and every attempt at that, he came back with rejection.”

Higgins also soon found that the DPD under the leadership of Brown was not as transparent as it seemed. Brown is credited as the first police chief in Dallas to put public data about officer-involved shootings on the Dallas Open Data Portal. But soon after the portal was created, Higgins saw that the Dallas Police Department was reporting there were around a hundred officerinvolved shootings from a time period spanning from 2003 to 2012. Working with an organization he had founded called Dallas Community Organizing for Change, Higgins filed a public records request for DPD’s data and saw that the numbers didn’t line up with what was being reported on the website. “According to our [public records] request when we looked at the data, we found more like 157 in that time period,” Higgins shared. What Higgins found was that the Police Department was classifying deaths resulting from police interaction in such a narrow way that the numbers seemed far lower than they actually were, for example, omitting those who were shot by police and later died in custody.

Through that public records request, Higgins also found that nearly threequarters of all civilians who were shot and killed by Dallas police officers and around ninety percent of those involved in nonfatal officer-involved shootings were Black or Latinx. And though only about a quarter of Dallas’s population is Black, in the two decades preceding the 2012 data release, Black residents accounted for almost seventy percent of all deaths in police custody.

“In none of the fatal shootings was any officer ever charged, indicted, or lost their job over it,” explained Fullinwider.

“Occasionally, in a non-fatal shooting, where the victim can speak or where there was a video that showed discrepancy between the officer’s story and what happened, we did have a couple of officers charged.”

Brown disagrees with the characterization that he didn’t do enough to hold his officers for their use of force, saying in an interview with the Weekly, “During my tenure, we indicted and charged the first officer since 1972 for violating our deadly force policy. And we charged and terminated more officers than any police

chief in the history of both indictments and being charged and terminated.” (The Dallas Police Department is not responsible for charging officers with crimes, which is the jurisdiction of grand juries convened by the Dallas County District Attorney. The Weekly was unable to verify his claim that he had terminated more officers than any other police chief.)

Fullinwider warned, “There's no question that transparency becomes an exercise in PR for the police department… everything that's in the official database is cleared by the perpetrator [of police violence], the department.”

Eventually, the DPD corrected the data on their site in line with what Higgins and other activists had found through their public records request, they said. The DPD did not respond to the Weekly’s queries by press time.

At the same time, community members felt Brown was undermining his own stated intent for transparencies through policies like the ‘seventy-two-hour rule,’ which Brown implemented in 2013. Under this rule, police were allowed to refuse to answer questions for seventy-two hours after an officer-involved shooting. Activists campaigned for the end of the policy and Brown later publicly stated that he had ended it. Years later, when then-DPD officer Amber Guyger killed Botham Jean in his own apartment, community members were surprised to learn that the policy was still in place and that Brown had simply made the policy discretionary, rather than removing it. Eventually, Brown’s successor ended up proposing to repeal the policy for good in 2018.

Despite all this, after 2012, officerinvolved shootings did fall—though it is difficult to read much into year-to-year data, and the numbers did increase again in 2016. And Brown was working on changing the DPD’s confrontational culture and modernizing officer education with deescalation, taser, and chase training focused on creating time and space for officers to avoid turning to force.

But despite the new education initiatives, it was evident many officers weren’t internalizing the changes.

In June 2014, just months before Mike Brown was killed in Ferguson, Dallas police officers John Rodgers and Andrew Hutchins responded to a 911 call at a home in the city. Officers had been to the home dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of times before and

“We have a very different picture from our side in the community than the picture that he painted.”

this time, Shirley Harrison answered the door, explaining that her son Jason Harrison was experiencing a bipolar schizophrenic episode and had asked for help getting Harrison to the hospital in her call. As Harrison followed his mother out the door, playing with a screwdriver between both of his hands, officers shot him five times, twice in the back, killing him. Both officers had tasers and batons, but neglected to use them. “Those officers were back on duty before Jason's autopsy was even released,” remembered Fullinwider.

Just two months later, twenty-six-yearold unarmed Andrew Gaynier was killed by off-duty officer Antonio Hudson while apparently asking a driver for directions, in violation of the policy against solo foot chases by officers that was put in place after the Dixon Circle incident. (Brown walked this policy back in 2015.) “Antonio was back on force before we got the autopsy released and is a Dallas police officer today,” Fullwinder said. “During Brown’s term, the police used deadly force more than a hundred times. And between forty and fifty people were killed…

He wasn't able to rein in his officers on the major issue of the day, which was police use of deadly force,” explained Fullinwider.

“And even if they had deadly consequences, nothing happened to the officers.”

In November 2015, the Dallas Police Department released statistics indicating that complaints of excessive force against officers were down, but the process of filing a complaint against the police in Dallas was complicated and confusing, preventing the city from accurately collecting data on citizen’s satisfaction with their encounters with police, an Associated Press report found. When Brown retired, Dallas was ranked third in the country for rate of fatal police shootings.

Fullinwider said, “Chief Brown, you give him the benefit of every doubt, he still was not able to implement [many of his changes]... His reforms did not stick.”

W

hile Brown was facing pressure from community activists, he was reported to be facing even more unrest within his own police force.

Though Brown repeatedly publicly stated that crime had been steadily decreasing during his tenure, his office had stopped recording many instances of shoplifting in its crime data, making the actual drop in crime unclear. Brown told the Weekly that he “appreciates people being skeptical” of his department’s crime classification methodology, but emphasized that the DPD had two independent audits conducted of the city’s crime statistics. The two independent audits “reveal we were significantly correct in the way we collected our crime statistics,” according to Brown.

By early 2016, overall crime in Dallas, especially homicides, was steadily increasing.

In an attempt to combat the increase in violence, Brown tried to reassign hundreds of officers to high-crime neighborhoods and move more officers to the evening and night shift. According to Fullinwider, these actions were based on a fundamentally incorrect view of what drives crime. “The paradox of policing, really, is that the overpoliced areas are the high crime areas and they remain the high crime areas,” he said.

In 2016, Brown created the Violent Crime Task Force, an attempt to bring a version of hotspot policing—utilizing, as Brown referred to them, “bundles” of technology, including surveillance cameras, license plate readers, and bait cars—to Dallas, despite the practice of hotspot policing having been proven to have little value in preventing crime or making citizens feel safer. “What they do is they just flood the hotspot with police. It's a temporary fix, the crime rate goes down for a little bit,” Fullinwider explained. (A version of his technology “bundle” idea already exists in Chicago, in the form of University of Chicago Crime Lab-staffed Strategic Decision Support Centers.)

MAY 27, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19

JUSTICE

The irregular schedules and restriction of their policing territory, combined with Brown’s high-profile firing of many officers during his tenure and the DPD’s low pay, led to a sense on the force that Brown’s strategies were preventing officers from doing their jobs. Towards the end of Brown’s tenure, officers were quitting so quickly that the department reportedly couldn’t even process the paperwork. The local Black Police Association called for Brown’s resignation.

So did the Dallas Police Association and Dallas Fraternal Order of Police.

Terrance Hopkins was a member of the Black Police Association at the time and now serves as the organization’s president.

He likened Brown’s relationship with his officers to that between a parent and a child, explaining that Brown often had to make decisions that were unpopular with his force for their own good. “He had to make some tough calls and sometimes those calls and not always the calls that the officers are going to agree with,” Hopkins explained.

He characterizes the calls for Brown's resignation as a result of personal vendettas within the force, rather than Brown’s capability as chief. “Chief Brown had fired a few people who were well-liked, popular people police officers [with] large followings. It was ‘you did something bad to my buddy and I don't like that’ type of stuff.

But when that took place and the Black Police Association called for Brown to be fired, I can honestly tell you that that wasn't the group as a whole,” he explained.

Hopkins also said that morale wasn’t as low on the force as reports made it seem, recalling, “a lot of that was just played up to see if they can get the man removed. And, again, no dice.”

He added, “[Brown] brought a very disciplinarian type of style to the department... [but] I don't think it was any improper disciplining.”

But activists had some concerns about Brown’s record with police discipline. "There were a lot of Black and brown officers that he was heavy-handed over punishment and terminations with, as opposed to white police officers.” Higgins noted. “If you look at the termination and disciplinary action, there’s far more for African American and Latino officers… yeah you're firing officers, but you’ve terminated Black officers and you're not touching the white guy.” A Weekly analysis of data obtained from the DPD showed that, though the change in terminations year-over-year was negligible, the amount of reprimands and suspensions 20 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 27, 2020

that Black officers received was higher than white or Latinx officers for most of his tenure.

A few months later, when Brown rose to national fame for his response to the 2016 shooting of several DPD officers, community members were frustrated that no one seemed to be talking about the fact that thousands of people had gathered that day to protest police brutality in forces like Dallas’s. “We weren't protesting just because Philando Castile and Alton Sterling died.

People were fed up and thousands of people came out that night because it was happening here in Dallas, every day, and it was going unnoticed, there was silence,” Alexander remembered.

“The attacks in July 2016 had the effect of throwing a blanket over criticism of the police,” Fullinwider added. While those watching around the country felt comforted

by Brown’s words, many in the city felt that his comments to protesters critical of police brutality to “put an application in” to the DPD was condescending and showed a lack of understanding for their demands to radically change the way the police department operated in communities of color.

L

istening to him talk about his plans for the CPD, one gets the sense that Brown believes these changes are all within reach, with his enthusiasm and ambitious goals for reform. “I like to start off with believing you can achieve historical lows in violent crime. I think you can't skip that step, it’s really important to set the standard really high, excellence being the standard,” he told the Weekly. “[I’m] not expecting to do the same thing and have a different result.”

Of course, Brown has his eye on Chicago’s consent decree, a court order mandating significant police reform in the city. In addition to aiming to achieve neverbefore-seen levels of community trust in policing, Brown wants to ensure that key deadlines in the consent decree process are met, something the city has struggled with in the last six months. “I feel like I'm on the clock,” Brown said. “I love the idea of the consent decree and the monitoring and oversight with the Police Board and COPA… with the goal of achieving above and beyond the requirements of the consent decree so that we are viewed independently as being transparent.” (Having independent city oversight will be new to him; Dallas just appointed its first Police Oversight Monitor

this year, and the city’s Citizen Review Board, created in the 1980s, was longsidelined by officials, including Brown.)

He also wants to expand partnerships with nonprofits working in communities with the CPD’s gang outreach group.

“Police are much more effective when they collaborate with communities,” he said in a May interview with WBEZ, describing plans to bring police resources to the most low-income neighborhoods. However, some of these plans sound very similar to those of increasing police presence in low-income areas that Brown implemented in Dallas, which proved unpopular and, at times, ineffective.

Brown believes outreach to young people holds the key to reducing violent crime and explains that until social distancing regulations are lifted, he’s working on learning how to play the video game NBA 2K to challenge kids on the West Side to games and build relationships until these meetings can be had face to face. “That's what parents do with their kids, they play games with them to make a connection,” Brown explained. “We all are responsible for these young people, we all have a role to play.”

He intends to lead by example, expressing that he wants his conduct and actions to provide an example for all officers on the force, but no matter how good of an example he sets, Brown still has to gain the buy-in of his officers in order to improve police accountability and comply with the decree. And the challenge will be steep. The new FOP president-elect, John Catanzara, is a noted critic of the decree.

He has also begun publicly floating the idea of rapid response units not assigned to any particular district, roaming the city to address crime spikes in certain neighborhoods. This isn’t the first time Chicago has seen this type of roving police team. A decade ago, the CPD ran similar teams which were eventually shut down when officers on one of the teams were found to be committing robberies and home invasions, among other abuses.

Brown differentiates his plan by explaining that it would be focused on community engagement and combined with a community service requirement for officers to form relationships with community members outside of their role as law enforcers, something he brings with him from Dallas. Once again, Catanzara believes the idea is unrealistic.

Perhaps most ambitiously, Brown

wants to bring Chicago’s homicide rates down to 300 or lower a year, a significant decrease from the current rate of around 500 annually. Encouragingly, the homicide rate in Chicago has declined in recent years, but according to the Sun-Times, the last time Chicago’s murder rate was as low as Brown hopes for it to be was in 1957. Brown may or may not end up successful on that front.

During his time in Dallas, the homicide rate fluctuated, both rising and falling during his tenure. The year Brown left office had a higher murder rate than the year he entered, but some of the intervening years experienced a decrease.

“I'm very real and relatable to people who live on the West Side and South Side.

I grew up in a similar neighborhood in Dallas, I grew up poor in a high crime area,” explained Brown. “I have this deep empathy that I've been able to use in my public service and I say Chicagoans will be a beneficiary of how I view the world as related to not only violence, but connecting to people with respect and empathy.”

Brown, who was sworn in on April 22, has already been tasked with the unprecedented expectation of enforcing a statewide stay-at-home order. For many, the pandemic has laid bare the structural failures that drive rising COVID-19 death rates, crime, and poverty in Black and brown neighborhoods. Yet the city has increased its police presence in neighborhoods already hit hardest by COVID-19. Chicago is already all too familiar with the paradoxes of progressive policing. While it’s very early in Brown’s tenure, it is clear that in order to fulfill his promises, he must face his own contradictions. Joshua Falk contributed data analysis to this story.

Kiran Misra is a writer for the Weekly primarily covering criminal justice and policing in Chicago. She last covered issues facing people on home electronic monitoring during the pandemic in April.

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LABOR

Who Gets Solidarity?

Three new books examine the evolution of “labor” in Chicago through the twentieth century

BY SAM JOYCE

“L

abor,” in the Chicago context, is often spoken of as a singular entity. Headlines from the Tribune’s archive illustrate this use: “labor steps up,” “labor needs to,” “Big Labor’s expectations.” Even the Weekly isn’t immune: our story last year about the 125th anniversary of the Pullman strike was titled “Remembering Labor’s History.”

Three recent Chicago-focused books complicate that usage, reminding us that the collection of unions we call organized labor has evolved through history. Who has the right to be a part of the labor movement has often been a contentious question. Union leaders often disagreed, sometimes violently, with each other and with their membership about the direction of the labor movement, and these conflicts shaped what we now simply refer to as “labor.”

The Ordeal of the Jungle, from David Bates, an assistant professor of history at Concordia University Chicago in the west suburbs, chronicles the Chicago Federation of Labor’s efforts to build a multiracial coalition in the stockyards of 1910s Chicago. The Long Deep Grudge, by labor historian and activist Toni Gilpin, is a project both academic and personal: Gilpin is the daughter of a Farm Equipment Workers Union (FE) organizer and wrote her PhD thesis on the union, later adapting that thesis into her book. Living and Dying on the Factory Floor, a memoir by University of Illinois at Chicago urban planning and policy professor emeritus David Ranney, paints a grimmer and more personal picture of labor, discussing his time working in factories on Chicago’s Southeast Side between 1976 and 1982.

The books focus on different industries and periods of time; the FE got started more than a decade after the epilogue of Bates’s book, and winked out of history more than two decades before Ranney left the University of Iowa for the Southeast Side.

But each highlights different approaches to a fundamental question that continues to 22 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 27, 2020

dog the labor movement: how to convince workers, divided by lines of race and ethnicity, that they have a common interest worth fighting for?

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he Ordeal of the Jungle, first chronologically, investigates the Chicago Federation of Labor’s (CFL) attempt to solve that age-old problem. Through archival documents chronicling the perspectives of union leaders and rank and file workers, as well as their opponents, Bates documents the impact of race on efforts to organize Chicago’s great steel plants and stockyards in the late 1910s.

The CFL seems to have genuinely wanted to organize a union that included both Black and white workers, and made substantial progress toward that goal.

Bates quotes CFL attorney Frank Walsh proclaiming that “the white man’s unions are going to show that they are as loyal to the rights of the [B]lack man as they are to a white man.” Bates, however, takes care to demonstrate that this was not just the product of a newfound concern for civil rights: his first chapter recounts a 1904 stockyards strike that came to be defined by "violent reprisals" against Black strikebreakers, despite as much as eightyfive percent of strikebreakers being white.

Uniting stockyard workers across racial lines would break down what Walsh called “the last barrier in [the stockyard bosses’] defense against the American working men.” Over the objections of the American Federation of Labor, its parent organization, which objected to any organization that included unskilled workers, the CFL organized the packing workers, Black and white, under the banner of the Stockyards Labor Council (SLC).

But the organization of the SLC would ultimately prove to be its undoing.

Unskilled workers were organized by “neighborhood-based organizations,” which Bates describes as “local unions with ties to

the workers’ ethnic and ward communities.”

These neighborhoods allowed the CFL to move beyond the traditional boundaries of craft unionism, uniting workers across their specific units in the stockyards. They also allowed the union to expand its presence beyond the shop floor: Local 651, the union representing workers from the Black Belt, also opened a cooperative store in the neighborhood to strengthen ties between workers and the community.

By organizing workers along neighborhood boundaries, however, the CFL had effectively created a segregated union. Although Local 651 was theoretically equal to any other neighborhood local, it represented a segregated Black neighborhood—now part of Bronzeville— and quickly became known as Colored Local 651. The union was soon considered a “Jim Crow local,” a reputation that, first and foremost, undermined its efforts to organize Black workers.

Packing bosses were more than happy to exploit this reputation in order to subvert the union’s organizing efforts. The packers sponsored Black community institutions such as the Wabash Avenue YMCA, hired Black “agitators” to promote anti-union sentiment among workers, and possibly sponsored the creation of a rival labor union, all with the goal of making sure that, despite the CFL’s efforts, the Black workforce would remain largely non-union.

Tensions came to a head with the race riot of 1919. Many Chicagoans are familiar with the story of Eugene Williams,who swam across an invisible line dividing what was then the 29th Street Beach and was stoned and drowned by white beachgoers. This sparked more than a week of racial violence, which ended in thirty-eight dead and more than five hundred injured. Following the riot, Black workers (still mostly non-union) went back to the stockyards under the eye of police and state militiamen, provoking ire—and a wildcat strike—among white union members, who harbored both racial

resentments and bitter memories of past instances of police violence against striking union workers. Black workers were largely happy to have police protection after the riots, and were pushed away from unions by the CFL’s eventual support for the wildcat strike. In 1920, the CFL estimated that “the percentage of the organized colored workers has been very insignificant.”

By the early 1920s, the CFL’s efforts to organize Chicago’s industrial workers had collapsed. A steel strike in 1919 and a stockyards strike in 1921-22 followed a familiar pattern: white workers went on strike, bosses broke the strike with Black strikebreakers, and the result was a defeat for the union. In the stockyards, the eight-hour day was lengthened to ten hours, and both steel and packing would remain effectively non-union professions into the 1930s.

Bates concludes by contrasting the CFL’s failures with the success of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which successfully pursued a campaign of interracial organizing in Chicago’s steel mills and packinghouses in the 1930s. The CIO, Bates writes, “viewed civil rights and racial justice as a central part of its mission,” which resulted in a successful interracial union (with some help from the federal government).

B

eyond the stockyards, only two other Chicago companies employed more than a thousand Black workers during the CFL’s first interracial organizing campaign: Sears, Roebuck and Co., and International Harvester. The progressive, interracial union movement that failed to take root in 1910s Chicago would find considerably more success through an organizing campaign at the latter, the subject of Gilpin’s The Long Deep Grudge.

The book draws its title from Nelson Algren’s Chicago: City on the Make, and its telling of the history of the United Farm Equipment and Metal Workers (FE) begins at the focal point of Chicago’s labor history: Haymarket. The road that led to the Haymarket massacre began with a campaign for an eight-hour day at the McCormick Reaper Works, which would eventually become International Harvester (IH). That history would inspire the men who eventually organized an independent union at IH in the 1930s; banners bearing the last words of anarchist leader August Spies, executed following the events at Haymarket, proclaimed that the “time when our silence is more powerful than the voices

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you are strangling today” had finally come.

Succeeding where the Haymarket martyrs and generations of other union organizers had failed required a new kind of union, and a new approach to organizing.

John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers and founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), called organizing at IH “the hardest job I know of,” in part because the McCormick family were pioneers of union-busting. IH was one of the first companies to introduce “works councils,” company unions that offered a taste of workplace democracy while never directly opposing management.

This façade of democracy was not so much shattered as co-opted. In the early 1930s, a handful of Communist Party activists at McCormick’s Tractor Works connected with a group of dissatisfied members of the plant’s works council, eventually developing the council into an independent union, the FE, that joined the CIO in 1937. In 1938, an election overseen by the new National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) saw an overwhelming victory for the FE, creating FE Local 101. The new union quickly grew, relying on what Gilpin calls a “rank-and-file structure” and a pledge

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS

to “advocate for skilled jobs for Black workers” to make inroads with workers at other IH plants. By the fall of 1941, the FE represented 20,000 IH workers, including employees at IH’s West Pullman plant and the company’s “toughest plant,” McCormick Works. In May of 1942, the company signed a national contract with the FE, securing wage increases, a grievance procedure, and a union shop agreement.

Signing the contract wasn’t the end of the struggle for the FE. Director of Organization Milt Burns declared that “the philosophy of our union was that management had no right to exist.” This combative attitude, especially apparent when contrasted with unions that valued productivity growth and a positive labormanagement relationship, meant that this philosophy appeared on the shop floor as “a different conception of what effective dayto-day union representation looked like.”

The FE challenged management at every turn, and in doing so won “the fierce and sustained loyalty” of the rank and file.

As we saw with the CFL, the views of union leadership alone cannot make a successful integrated union; the best designs of progressive leaders can be undermined

HAYMARKET BOOKS

by the lack of any substantial buy-in from rank and file members. The FE, however, was different: by winning the confidence of the membership, they were able to overcome the prejudices of the workforce in order to develop a vision of a fair workplace that was appealing to both white and Black workers.

While the FE was born in Chicago, their most impressive interracial organizing came 200 miles south, in Louisville. The largely non-union South offered IH an opportunity to escape the FE while taking advantage of the “Southern differential,” the lower manufacturing wages prevalent throughout the region. IH also took an additional step to ensure the loyalty of their workforce: IH CEO Fowler McCormick declared the plant an “experiment in biracial industrialism,” hiring Black workers throughout the plant. In a city where, as eventual FE organizer Sterling Neal wrote, it was rare “for Negroes to hold any position above the status of janitor or laborer,” this progressive policy made IH genuinely stand out as one of Louisville’s better employers for Black workers.

Attempting to organize a union that included both newly-empowered Black workers and workers who FE organizer

Jim Wright, who is Black, described as “real racist, I mean real racist” would prove to be the FE’s biggest challenge yet. One option would have been downplaying race, as the CFL did in Chicago, treating Black and white workers as workers facing the same challenges. Instead, the FE consciously “built a commitment to racial equality into the DNA of the local.” The FE was competing with the United Autoworkers (UAW) and American Federation of Labor (AFL) to represent plant workers, but the FE was the only one of the three to prioritize interracial organizing. The other two, an FE pamphlet wrote, were “‘organizing’ in the traditional southern fashion … calling the white workers aside and promising them that as soon as they won bargaining rights, the Negroes on machines would be put back on brooms ‘where they belonged.’” The FE, by contrast, believed that “the only way to beat Harvester’s low wages was to unite the Negro and white workers." The union hired a Black organizer in Louisville and, in 1946, elected two Black members to the union’s eleven-member executive board. In the summer of 1947, the FE bested both rivals, forming Local 236 to represent workers at the Louisville plant.

MAY 27, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 23

LABOR

Within two months, the FE was on strike in Louisville. The demand was an end to the “Southern differential,” challenging their status as “second-class citizens” in Harvester’s vast network of plants. While they didn’t win all that they asked for, the union was victorious in raising wages for plant workers, cementing their place in Louisville. Only a handful of white workers, and no Black workers, crossed the picket line.

This display of unity, and the everyday confrontations between the union and management, helped build interracial solidarity as “not an abstract construct but a daily practice that delivered tangible and immediate benefits to the union membership.” Gilpin quotes civil rights activist Anne Braden as writing that every Local 236 meeting was marked by someone talking about “the reason we’re so strong and we can win… is because we stick together, Black and white. Let them, they attack a Black worker and we’re there to do something, we’re going to walk out of the plant—this is the reason we’ve got the strong union.”

This solidarity extended beyond the doors of the plant. Unlike in 1910s Chicago, Black and white workers weren’t just part of the same union—they saw their struggles and fortunes as linked together. Braden observed that “it was the usual thing to see Negro and white members sitting together… many of the same white men visited in the Negro unionists’ homes, and the Negroes went to white members’ homes.” Wright ascribed this to “a religious feeling of them sticking together.” This feeling pervaded beyond the walls of the factory: interracial contingents of FE workers picnicked in segregated parks, visited the lobbies of segregated hotels, and marched to end segregation in hospitals as part of what was referred to as a “constant campaign” for equality.

For all their success, larger forces would collaborate to undermine and destroy the FE. The decline began when the union defied Section 9(h) of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which required union leaders to sign affidavits that they were not communists in order to enjoy the protections of the NLRB. The UAW launched an organizing drive at an FE-represented Caterpillar plant in Peoria, and since the FE wasn’t in compliance with the NLRB’s rules, the options in the election were the UAW or “no union.” Almost immediately, they lost a quarter of their membership. One year later, the CIO expelled the FE and a handful of 24 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 27, 2020

other left-leaning unions.

The next year marked an ideological defeat: “The Treaty of Detroit,” an agreement between the UAW and General Motors, laid out an alternative model of unionism. UAW leader Walter Reuther committed the union to a “politics of productivity,” accepting management’s right to exist and focusing on negotiating a contract that delivered substantial wage and pension benefits. In exchange for a contract that largely met their demands, the UAW agreed to “a long stretch of well-compensated peace,” rather than the walkouts and slowdowns that were a regular feature in FE plants.

Despite the FE’s accomplishments, it was the much larger UAW that eventually carried the day. A disastrous 1952 strike undermined the FE’s claim that a “strong picket line is the best negotiator,” and with its influence and capacity waning, the FE admitted defeat. Despite some resistance from the rank and file, the FE merged with the UAW in 1955.

It was the UAW’s attitude toward unionism that prevailed through 1976, when Ranney left a tenured professorship in urban planning at the University of Iowa to work in the factories of Southeast Chicago, as he chronicles in Living and Dying on the Factory Floor. Ranney initially moved to Chicago to volunteer at a pro bono legal clinic, the Workers’ Rights Center. At the time, he was also involved with a small left-wing group known as the Sojourner Truth Organization (STO) that placed an “emphasis on political work with those in the factories,” believing that workplace actions would escalate into the eventual overthrow of capitalism. For Ranney himself, however, it was less ideology and more financial necessity, his savings having dried up, that led him to apply for work making everything from shortening to paper cups to railroad cars.

Ranney’s book is explicitly written “not as a memoir.” It’s written in the first person and in the present tense, and is meant simply as an “account of life and even death on the factory floor.” Much of it reads like a novel, a radically different form compared to the academic labor histories of Bates and Gilpin. Ranney’s personal account of the factories, however, serves to underscore many of the themes raised generally by the other two authors. It is one thing to hear from Gilpin about unions making a turn toward collaboration with management, for instance, and quite another to read a first-person account of what that looks like twenty years afterwards.

The most compelling part of the book is an account of a wildcat strike at Chicago Shortening, a small, majority-Black plant where Ranney worked as a welder for about a year and a half. The plant has a union, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters, but that means little for the workers; when the union’s business representative stops by to announce the union is renegotiating their contract, the response is uniformly hostile. Unlike the FE or even the CFL, this union is an antagonist.

One of the workers explains that the last contract was “shit,” that “the company pays off the union just like they pay off everyone else,” and that the union and company are both an elaborate front to launder money for the mafia. The mafia ties remain unclear, but the corruption doesn’t: despite none of the workers admitting to voting for the union’s new contract, it passes nevertheless.

The workers agree unanimously to strike if the contract isn’t canceled. Ranney is called up to the company president’s office, where a union business rep accuses him of “stirring up” the Black workers, then assaults him. The workers respond with a spontaneous walkout, and the strike begins.

It drags on for ten weeks, notching a handful of victories—Charles Sanders, one of the strike’s leaders, persuades a railroad engineer delivering a load of shortening to respect the picket line—but ultimately collapses.

Binding arbitration is a farce, with the union and company lawyers working with each other while ignoring the complaints from the workers. It ends on a tragic note: Sanders, hired back because he had been on disability leave when the strike began, was stabbed to death by a scab.

The picket line is the site of some unusual alliances, similar to the unprecedented integration at the Louisville FE local.

Puerto Rican nationalists and a group of Iranian student activists make appearances; one worker notes that the Shah of Iran “sounds like a bigger motherfucker than the guy we got to deal with.” Perhaps the most intriguing character on the line is Heinz, a self-proclaimed Nazi who wears a leather jacket with swastikas and Confederate flag patches. Despite this, Heinz becomes one of the most militant strikers, at one point threatening to shoot out the tires of the tanker trucks that supply the factory.

The shortening plant was informally segregated: the Black workers take their breaks in the locker room, the Mexican workers sit near the fill line, and the handful of white workers have a separate, betterfurnished locker room. Ranney takes breaks

with the non-white workers, and finds that the Mexican workers “think the [B] lacks are lazy drunkards,” while the Black workers “believe [the Mexican workers] are all ‘illegals’.” As the strike winds on, however, those barriers break down; workers (including even Heinz) picnic in the Indiana Dunes over the Fourth of July, mixing freely.

It’s a callback to the FE’s strategy, where a militant labor movement can become a common cause for Black, Mexican, and white workers, social barriers can break down. At the same time, the ultimate failure of the strike demonstrates how much things have changed since the FE ran the show.

The book continues through a handful of other factories with names like Mead Packaging and Thrall Car, and includes a failed unionization drive at Solo Cup. That story ends with a chance encounter at a party hosted by a UIC professor, which results in Ranney returning to academia.

A brief but moving chapter follows when Ranney returns, thirty-five years later, to a South Chicago that now feels abandoned.

The steel mills are gone, the restaurants are closed, and many residents have lost their homes after the housing crash. One of the plants where he used to work is now an EPA Superfund site.

Ranney then goes on to explain his impetus for writing the book: frustration with politicians’s promises to “bring back middle-class jobs.” He notes that the decline in manufacturing that produced this devastation was “a deliberate strategy on the part of corporations around the world” to increase profits through automation and offshoring. Ensuring that people can make a living wage, therefore, will require more than just relocating a few factories—it requires “mov[ing] beyond capitalism.”

Some indication of how we might get there comes through the strike at Chicago Shortening. The unions Ranney experienced had “traded labor peace for a share in the post–World War II prosperity,” and were unwilling to fight for the Black, Latinx and women workers largely left out of that bargain. Racism and racial resentment, encouraged by the company, structured the relationship between workers. Once the strike began, however, that faded away; “the meaning of class and the potential of class solidarity became self-evident.” While Ranney doesn’t lay out a blueprint, he does mention the tantalizing possibility that, “had the struggle prevailed, new ‘permanencies’ would have governed day-to-day behavior.”

“A broader struggle for a new society,” he

LABOR

suggests, could affect human nature in a similar manner.

While each of the three histories addresses a different time period, industry and location, all of them highlight different approaches for the labor movement in seeking to install a sense of solidarity in a divided workforce. There is a clear line from the halting and ultimately unsuccessful efforts of the Stockyards Labor Council to the aggressive militancy that both built and ultimately undid the FE, leading to the complacent unions that feature in Ranney’s book. If there is a theme that unites all of them, it is the importance of a sense of solidarity in the rank-and-file, which undid the CFL’s campaign just as effectively as it energized the FE’s work and empowered the wildcat strike at Chicago Shortening. All three books provide a valuable perspective on labor organizing and Chicago’s history, and each hints, in its own way, at a viable path forward for the labor movement. ¬

David Bates, The Ordeal of the Jungle: Race and the Chicago Federation of Labor, 19031922. $29.50. Southern Illinois University Press. 268 pages

Sam Joyce is the nature editor of the Weekly. He last covered the election for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.

Watch an author talk with David Ranney hosted by UIC’s Great Cities Institute at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum recorded by CAN TV last April at sswk.ly/ LivingAndDyingTalk

Listen to David Bates discuss his work on a February episode of the Steel Revolution’s Podcast at sswk.ly/OrdealOfTheJungleTalk Toni Gilpin, The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor, and Class War in the American Heartland. $21.95. Haymarket Books. 425 pages Watch an author talk between Toni Gilpin and Lake Forest College history professor Cristina Groger, hosted last week by Chicago DSA, Haymarket Books, and Pilsen Community Books, at sswk.ly/LongDeepGrudgeTalk David Ranney, Living and Dying on the Factory Floor: From the Outside In and the Inside Out. $15. PM Press. 160 pages

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MAY 27, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 25

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34 "My baby don't mess around" Outkast song 35 Regret 36 Bebop record label Blue ____ 37 Trumpets and shofars 38 Journalist Ifill 39 1984 album by Hamiet Bluiett 40 Good or bad fate 41 Inexperienced 42 CTA bus routes #49 and #49B; or High Noon and Rio Bravo 44 Large, angry wasp 45 Bronte heroine Jane 46 Unable to hear 47 Tennis star Andre 50 With "South," CTA #34 bus, or the lake 54 Cosmos creator Sagan 55 Finnish steam bath 57 European river 58 Actor Idris 59 Beginning 60 Flowery necklaces 61 Soap "____ of Our Lives"

¬ MAY 27, 2020

52

53

57

62 Paris cathedral, with "Dame" 63 PhDs and BAs (abbrev) DOWN 1 1970s Alan Alda TV show 2 Shepard Fairey brand 3 It can be made of glass or sweat 4 CTA #60 bus, for short 5 Chairwomen, e.g.

6 Advice: "If _ ____ you" 7 Cave of the Bad Seeds 8 Civil Rights leader ___ Phillip Randolph 9 CTA buses Jump, Local, and Manor Express 10 Linear punctuation 11 Printer load 12 Scandal suffix 13 Toreador cheers 21 Ads about forest fires, seat belts, and drunk driving 23 Tabula ____ 25 Los Relampagos Del Norte singer Cornelio

26 Connector of muscle and bone 27 Photoshop brand 28 Seated yoga pose 29 Crimps and finger waves 30 Aussie animal lover Steve 31 Nine (Spanish) 32 French existentialist Jean 34 Jazz vocalist Lena 37 CTA #7 bus, or ninth U.S. president 38 CTA #55 bus, or a cartoon cat 40 Singer Alicia 41 Ark-builder 43 Cybertrucks and Model Ys 44 Greek goddess of witchcraft 46 It may be Greek or Tom's 47 Nailed, as a test 48 Fundraising party 49 Purveyor of roast beef sandwiches 50 Have to 51 Mirth 52 "It's not _ ___ deal!"

53 Untouchable Eliot 56 Year (Portuguese)

South Side Architecture Trivia

By Martha Bayne 1) What classical limestone building at the corner of 63rd and Cottage Grove has been a site of hot debate between preservationists who want to save the facade and developers who argue that in a former life the building helped perpetuate racist housing practices and should be demolished?

2) What “company town” on the far South Side, designed in the 1880s by Solon Spencer Beman, is now preserved as a National Historic Monument?

3) What vacant Art Deco-inspired building at 40 E. Garfield Boulevard features elaborate terra cotta detailing and is slated to be rehabbed and turned into a data center?

4) Which celebrated modernist architect designed Illinois Institute of Technology’s Crown Hall?

5) The landmark First Church of Deliverance, at 4315 S. Wabash, is an example of what rare-toChicago architectural style?

6) What German transplant to Chicago designed both the playful Thompson Center and the austere black Lakeside Center at McCormick Place?

7) What far South Side Frank Lloyd Wright house is for sale for the low low price of $145,000?

8) What landmark Bronzeville church, designed as a synagogue by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler, is widely credited as “the birthplace of Gospel”?

9) The Mediterranean Revival South Shore Cultural Center at 71st and S. South Shore Drive was originally built for what function?

10) What contemporary star of Chicago architecture designed the Eleanor Boathouse for Bridgeport’s Park 571?

Answer Key 1) croSSWord key: pg. 6 2) Architecture Trivia key: pg. 6

COLORING PAGE

Coloring Page Illustration by Jennifer Chavez

MAY 27, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 27

1007 East 53rd Street 773-582-1500 View virtual walk-throughs of all our terrific properties at www.melioraregroup.com

Meliora means better VIRTUAL OPEN HOUSE SATURDAY 1-3

1364 E 49th Street

Stately home across from Kenwood Park, five bedrooms, 3 full and one half bath. Beautiful designer kitchen, updated baths, central air on 2nd and 3rd floor, bright and airy, lovely layout. New roof, new windows, newer mechanicals. Move right in. Please visit our virtual open house on Saturday 1-3.Text or call 7738186318 for FaceTime, or book zoom through mgerbaulet@melioraregroup.com $995,000.

NEW LISTING!

NEW LISTING!

4737 S Kimbark

5301 S Greenwood

Unique and rare opportunity to purchase lovely Queen Anne on quiet cul de sac in South Kenwood PLUS build-able lot next door (4725 S Kimbark).The home features a wonderful layout and a wealth of original woodwork and details. Five plus bedrooms, two and a half baths, recent luxurious DeGuilio kitchen with high end appliances, rented coach house, greenhouse and parking pad. Unfinished attic could be turned in to fabulous master suite or play room area.

Corner home steps from campus and all the shops and restaurants on 53rd Street. Five plus bedrooms (one on the first floor), 3 full and one half bath. Living room with fireplace and sun porch, formal dining room.

Home has newer mechanicals and windows, just freshly painted. Beautiful garden oasis and rented coach house. $1,175,000.

NEW LISTING!

VIRTUAL OPEN HOUSE SATURDAY 1-3

Madelaine Gerbaulet-Vanasse

Madelaine Gerbaulet-Vanasse

4701 S Woodlawn, house D

5216 S Dorchester #3

Top floor, totally redone 3 bedroom, 2 bath condo with stunning kitchen, central air, laundry in unit. Large private deck and common back yard makes this a perfect home in the heart of Hyde Park. $ 379,000.

Mary-Ellen Holt

5321 S Woodlawn #3

Three bedroom, two bath spacious condo with parking! Updated baths and kitchen, new stainless appliances, Corian counters, laundry in unit, hardwood floors throughout, lovely front sun room and rear deck overlooking garden area.

Well managed association with significant reserve. $360,000.

"Looking for better property management?

Look no further, contact us today.

Amy Gelman

www.melioramgmt.com

Extremely well maintained Kennicott Place free standing home. Three bedrooms (fourth bedroom has been turned in to a walk in closet), 2 and one half bath. Wonderful updated eat in kitchen opening to great back yard. Family room with fireplace, living room with porch and parking for 2 cars. $525,000. Call Amy for FaceTime + 1 (773) 454-1020 or register for zoom through agelman@melioragroup.com

Amy Gelman

Contact our team: Madelaine Gerbaulet-Vanasse 773-818-6318 mgerbaulet@melioraregroup.com

Amy Gelman 773-454-1020

Tijana Velarde 847-630-1022

agelman@melioraregroup.com

tvelarde@melioraregroup.com

meholt@melioraregroup.com

cchatman@melioraregroup.com

kmartin@melioraregroup.com

pgerbaulet@melioraregroup,com

Mary-Ellen Holt 312-560-6566 Kandis Martin 847-687-4721

Corey Chatman 312-414-9928

Phil Gerbaulet-Vanasse 773-406-9831