January 26, 2023

Public Meetings Report

representing several of the nine infrastructure programs in the Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) initiative review their annual and five-year plans. The $12.8 billion program is “dedicated to building a world-class city,” according to the CIP website. Presenters reported on progress in programs covering aviation, water management, assets and information services, and transportation. Other areas include city space, economic development, lakefront-shoreline, municipal facilities, and neighborhood infrastructure.

The Community Development Commission approved four property purchases or negotiations by the Chicago Department of Planning and Development (CPD) at its meeting. The commission approved $4 million in City tax increment financing (TIF) funds for the United Yards mixed-use project at the old Goldblatt’s property on 47th Street and Ashland Avenue. It also approved the purchase of about 1.6 acres of land adjacent to the 18th & Peoria Development Framework parcel sites, which have long been slated for mixed-use affordable development. The approval to acquire three sites in the Madison/Austin Corridor TIF redevelopment area made use of a novel approach in which the City proposes a use for an area—in this case, a new grocery store within a mixed-use development–and then seeks developers. The traditional approach is to wait for proposals from developers.

BY DOCUMENTERS AND SCOTT PEMBERTON

January 6

At its meeting, the City Council Committee on Workforce Development heard conflicting views on a proposed ordinance about licensing crane operators. The ordinance would require operators using hoisting machinery with a 1,000 pound weight capacity or higher to be licensed and to be covered by commercial general liability insurance. The current law, which aligns with federal labor standards, sets the capacity at 2,000 pounds. One concern was that, if passed, the new ordinance could affect forklift operators at retail stores. Another was that the change should have been handled by the Chicago Building Trades, a group of local construction unions, not the City Council.

January 10

At its meeting, the City Council Committee on Housing and Real Estate received the first results from ChiBlockBuilder, a new program and web portal launched in November to facilitate the sale of roughly 2,000 City-owned vacant lots. So far, the portal has received 325 applications, reported Maggie Cassidy, program director at the Department of Planning and Development (DPD). The primary goal, notes the program’s website, is to “encourage the purchase and redevelopment of City-owned vacant land in partnership with community stakeholders.” Cassidy said that about half of the applicants want to buy a vacant lot to use as a side yard or open space. The remaining applications were either for commercial use or market-rate or affordable housing. Kathy Dickhut, deputy commissioner of DPD emphasized that increasing the city’s housing stock is an important goal. Committee members Pat Dowell (3rd Ward) and Roberto Maldonado (26th Ward) expressed concern that land-use applications from outside developers might be chosen over those of local residents.

During its meeting, the City Council Committee on Economic, Capital and Technology Development approved tax incentives for the Tierra Hermosa waste recycling center transfer station site in Brighton Park to make further development possible. In 2021, the City issued a $10.8 million building permit to Flood Brothers, a disposal and recycling services firm, to begin development by building a one-story recyclable material transfer in the area. The committee also heard City departments

January 13

Two public commenters at a joint meeting of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Committee on Finance, Audit & Budget and Board focused in detail on inconsistent CTA service, including “ghost” buses and trains that are scheduled on the CTA’s tracker app but don’t arrive. The commenters acknowledged CTA staffing shortages but emphasized that commuters and others are willing to, and even want to, take public transportation, in part because of anticipated convenience and of heightened concerns about climate change. In other words, the market is there but the CTA is not serving it well. The CTA reported that it is attempting to resolve staff shortages with job fairs and other initiatives. A pilot program with Amazon to install lockers for pickup and delivery of packages at CTA stations is continuing with adjustments documented in the form of “amendments” to a developing contract. There have been no security issues to date. Jeremy Fine, the CTA’s chief financial officer, reported that figures for November 2022 were about $12.4 million better than both the amended budget and amended budget basis. In an eighteen-minute closed-door session, the Committee approved a negotiated CTA settlement of $20 million to resolve a lawsuit brought by a pedestrian struck by a CTA bus at Fairbanks and Ontario in September 2019.

The City Council Committee on Budget and Government Operations approved a request from Latoya Vaughn, the City’s deputy budget director, at its meeting. The request was for $61,000 from a federal government grant for the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to support four programs related to, in effect, drunk driving. The request covers overtime to conduct twenty-four hours of sessions of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) standard field sobriety courses; sixteen hours of sessions of the advanced roadside impaired-driving enforcement course and twelve eight-hour sessions of the NHTSA’s standard field sobriety testing course refresher; continuing training for CPD Academy instructors on impaired driving enforcement; purchase of the Safety Administration standard field sobriety testing, training equipment, and supplies. The grant is administered by local authorities. The impaired driving training program is anticipated to serve roughly twenty to twentyfour participants per class, and reach more than four hundred CPD officers total. The approval of requested funds was passed by the Committee with no further discussion.

A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level.

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, artists, photographers, and mediamakers of all backgrounds.

Volume 10, Issue 9

Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Serrato

Managing Editor Adam Przybyl

Senior Editors Martha Bayne

Christopher Good Olivia Stovicek

Sam Stecklow

Immigration Editor Alma Campos

Community Builder Chima Ikoro

Contributing Editors Jocelyn Vega

Francisco Ramírez Pinedo

Scott Pemberton

Visuals Editor Bridget Killian

Deputy Visuals Editor Shane Tolentino

Staff Illustrators Mell Montezuma

Shane Tolentino

IN CHICAGO

Early voting begins January 26

Early voting for the February municipal election begins Thursday, January 26 and can be done at the supersite at 191 N. Clark St. and the office of the Board of Election Commissioners, 69 W. Washington St., 6th Floor, from 9am–6pm on weekdays, 9am–5pm on Saturdays, and 10am–4pm on Sundays. The supersite will additionally be open on Election Day itself, which is Tuesday, February 28. Starting February 13, residents can also go to early voting sites located across all fifty wards, and can choose whichever site is most convenient for them—it doesn’t need to be in their ward. From February 22–24, voters can also go to Chicago State University, 9501 S. King Dr., Northeastern Illinois University, 5500 N. St. Louis, and the University of Chicago, Reynolds Club, 1131 E. 57th St. The municipal election, which takes place every four years, will determine the next mayor, City Council, and the new police district council. Check out our coverage in the Election Issue that comes out February 6 and at southsideweekly.com to learn more about these races and the candidates. A full list of early voting locations can be found at chicagoelections.gov/en/early-voting.html

UIC faculty secure pay raises and resources for students after four-day strike

Interim Director of

Fact Checking: Savannah Hugueley

Fact Checkers: Grace Del Vecchio, Kate Linderman, Zoe Pharo, Emily Soto

Layout Editor Tony Zralka

Special Projects Coordinator Malik Jackson

Managing Director Jason Schumer

Office Manager Mary Leonard

Advertising Manager Susan Malone

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The Weekly is produced by a mostly all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We publish online weekly and in print every other Thursday.

Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to:

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IN THIS ISSUE

public meetings report

A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level.

documenters and scott pemberton .... 2

assault weapon ban draws praise from chicago anti-violence advocates

The Protect Illinois Communities Act is already facing lawsuits from Republicans.

jacqueline serrato and adam przybyl 4

all power to the people

A conversation with members of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party. debbie-marie brown, Chicago Reader 5

The faculty union at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) secured increased minimum salaries, annual raises, stronger job protections, and commitments for student resources after going on strike last week. The nearly 900 members of the UIC United Faculty (UICUF) union went on strike Tuesday after nine months of fruitless negotiations with administrators and working without a contract since August. At stake were the union’s demands for pay raises to match increased living costs, mental health support and learning disability assessments for students, and stronger job protections for non-tenure track faculty. The union suspended the strike after just four days and reached a tentative deal with administrators on Sunday, which guaranteed minimum salaries of $60,000 for non-tenure track and $70,000 for tenure-track faculty, equity adjustments to base salaries for faculty, and the demands listed above. In a statement, Nicole Nguyen, UICUF negotiator and associate professor of criminology, law, and justice, said, “The campus is thriving, but many faculty are not...We have spent the past three years scrambling to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, and our whole community—students and faculty—are exhausted. Management needs to invest in resources that strengthen our entire community.”

Street vendor robberies

Street vendors in Little Village, Pilsen, and Humboldt Park have experienced an increase in armed robberies since November 2022. These robberies, which have often put vendors in direct danger, have persisted into the new year. And yet, vendors continue to come out day after day to seek their livelihood and provide a vital service to their community. With many starting work at 4 am, some vendors have been pleading with the City and the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to provide police officers in the morning hours as a form of protection. But community members and organizers have been the ones to most reliably show up for them. When neighbors began looking for volunteers to watch over the vendors, a local chapter of Brown Beret members and other youth started waking up early to check on eloteras and tamaleras during their busiest hours. Local alderpersons and aldermanic candidates have held townhall meetings and press conferences to draw attention to the issue—many voters are paying close attention to their responses as they get ready to vote in February.

op-ed: anti-black and anti-immigrant racism reinforce one another. solidarity is the only way we win #SanctuaryForAll, including for long-term Black Chicagoans.

benji hart .............................................. 10

as investors buy more homes around the obama presidential center gentrification worries soar

“Gentrification is gradual right now but it is intensifying every year.” manny ramos, illinois answers project .......................12

affordable housing advocates push for co-ops

The City recently launched two pilot programs intended to support limited-equity cooperatives. grace del vecchio and sonal soni, city bureau 14

calendar Bulletin and events. south side weekly staff ...................... 18

Illustration by Julie Merrell

Assault Weapon Ban Draws Praise from Chicago Anti-Violence Advocates

The Protect Illinois Communities Act, facing legal opposition from Republicans, makes Illinois the ninth state to ban high-powered guns used in mass shootings.

BY JACQUELINE SERRATO AND ADAM PRZYBYL

On January 10, Illinois Democrats passed the Protect Illinois Communities Act, which bans assault weapons, large ammunition magazines, and modifications that allow guns to shoot automatically.

Lawmakers moved quickly to pass the bill in the wake of last year’s July 4 mass shooting in Highland Park, and survivors of assault weapon shootings came out in support of the ban. Local gun violence prevention advocates have in general celebrated the passage of the law, which is similar to existing bans in eight other states and Washington D.C., while noting it’s just one step in the fight to end gun violence.

Assault weapons are loosely defined as automatic and semi-automatic rifles with large ammunition magazines capable of firing larger bullets at a higher rate and velocity than traditional handguns. Guns that fall under this category, like the AR-15, were originally designed for military combat and have been used more frequently during mass shootings in recent years, including the one in Highland Park.

Les Jenkins, a survivor of gun violence with an assault weapon who works with shooting victims for the Institute of Nonviolence Chicago, said he is “eternally grateful that they passed that [law] because it gives us hope to keep boots on the ground. I would hope to see that the mass shootings that happen in our communities be reduced tremendously.”

His department works hand in hand with street outreach workers from the

Institute of Nonviolence who aim to respond within an hour to every shooting and homicide in their coverage area of Austin, West Garfield Park, Back of the Yards, and Brighton Park.

Jenkins ensures a support system for community members that includes counseling, therapy, and workforce development. Over the course of twelve months between 2021 and 2022, the organization recorded 522 instances of gun violence that they responded to in the South and West sides, and 243 gunshot victims.

The law also bans auto sears or “switches,” small devices that can be attached to the back of a handgun and other firearms and modify them to shoot rapid fire without having to squeeze the trigger for every shot.

“If you just go back—you don’t even have to go ten years back—you can go back as early as last year when assault rifles were just appearing out of [nowhere]... and spiral out of control,” said Jenkins. “The magazines that they use, it doesn’t just come out as a single shot anymore. So you get a whole lot of innocent bystanders being affected.”

924.

Shootings involving extended magazines were twice as likely to have multiple victims as those without, the analysis found.

“Seeing the mass shootings that we seen, sometimes we don't even get to sleep,” Jenkins said. “Sometimes we leave the hospital, and we have to turn around and come right back due to [all the harm caused by] the magazines.”

This past December, the Illinois House held committee hearings that drew survivors, family members, activists, and intervention workers who spoke in support of the measure. With a majority of Democrats in the General Assembly, the proposal faced few hurdles.

For Chicagoans, the law doesn’t ban a whole lot that wasn’t already restricted before. Chicago banned assault weapons and large ammunition magazines in 2019, and similar restrictions have existed in Cook County for over a decade. Switches are already banned in every state and at the federal level.

The new law bans the sale, import, and purchase of a long list of assault weapons, including AK-47s, MAC-11s, and others. The law also bans large capacity ammunition magazines that contain more than ten rounds for long guns and fifteen rounds for handguns; these magazines can be attached to assault weapons but also authorized guns to increase the number of bullets fired at one time.

Chicago Police Department records of weapons that were seized in recent years show that switch-enhanced guns were first detected on the streets in 2018 but their availability shot up dramatically in 2021, with over 350 seized two years ago, according to an analysis by WBEZ and the <i>Sun-Times</i>. The number of extended magazines seized nearly doubled within the same timeframe, from 459 to

But the law would make it harder for Chicago residents to obtain these weapons and devices.

A 2017 report tracking the origin of guns recovered by Chicago police between 2013 and 2016 that were “illegally possessed, used, or suspected to be used in furtherance of a crime” found that seven out of the top ten sources were gun stores in the surrounding suburbs. Three of the

"Fundamentally, we need to focus energy on people who profit off of gun violence."

– State senator Robert Peters

ILLUSTRATION BY SHANE TOLENTINO

stores were in Indiana, where no such ban on assault weapons or large ammunition magazines exists.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) reported that in 2021, the majority of firearms they recovered in Illinois were purchased or obtained in the state, followed by Indiana, Missouri, Wisconsin and Kentucky. And those guns are overwhelmingly found in Chicago—nearly 10,000 of them that year. Meanwhile, Rockford, Springfield, and Peoria had about 400 firearm recoveries each.

“Fundamentally, we need to focus energy on people who profit off of gun violence,” said state senator Robert Peters in an interview with the Weekly. “Whether that’s people who sell, manufacture, or invest, [banning sales and manufacturing] is an important step in going at the problem from the high level, institutional, systemic side of things.”

Peters said that while more needs to be done to reimagine public safety and address the economic factors at the root of gun violence, his hope is that “we move away from penalty-enhancement strategies and go after the profit margins.”

The law faced opposition from many Illinois Republicans, who claimed it was unconstitutional. Several lawsuits have been filed by pro-gun activists to challenge the law. A judge downstate placed a temporary restraining order, but it only affected the 866 plaintiffs who signed on to the lawsuit. In a statement, Governor J.B. Pritzker said his office expected the lawsuits, but that the bill was drawn up with input from legal experts and mirrors bans that withstood legal attacks in other states.

Meanwhile, sheriffs in counties across the state, including in nearby DuPage, Kane, Kankakee, DeKalb, and LaSalle, have declared they will not enforce the law. DuPage Sheriff Thomas Mendrick said in a statement he will not “be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the state, nor will we be arresting or housing law-abiding individuals that have been arrested solely with noncompliance of this Act.”

Mendrick and other sheriffs received backlash from lawmakers, activists, and citizens about their refusal to uphold the law. Pritzker called these statements “political grandstanding” and that sheriffs will have to enforce the law or face consequences.

“Simply put, it is disturbing to hear that several law enforcement departments across Illinois will refuse to support the new gun safety measure signed into law this week. This legislation was not a symbolic act—it‘s a critical path to protect the lives of children and Black and Brown communities in our state,” said the Gun Violence Prevention Political Action Committee (G-PAC) in a statement.

Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart testified in support of the ban last year.

Pre-existing owners of now-banned weapons and ammunition magazines may be able to keep them, but will have to register with the Illinois State Police by January 1, 2024, after which it will be unlawful to possess an assault weapon without registration. The law also moves up the requirements for universal background checks on private gun sales to July and makes it easier to keep firearms from people identified by relatives as a danger to themselves or others for longer periods of time.

“This bill is right, it’s a move in a positive direction,” said Tara Dabney, the Director of Development and Communications at the Institute for Nonviolence. “But there’s other work that still has to be done [...] We hope the legislature will really dig into figuring out how to consistently make long-term funding changes and [pass the] policies that we need as a state to have a [larger] impact on reducing violence.”

The City spends about $35 million on violence prevention efforts, she said, and local groups may also count on county and state funds, in addition to private money. Still, Jenkins and Dabney said antiviolence programs are only reaching fifteen to twenty percent of the people they should be reaching. “Our horror and fear is that American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds are done at the end of Fiscal Year 2024,” Dabney said.

They called for more public funding for secondary victims, mental health services, affordable housing, and restorative justice for people who have been part of the carceral system. ¬

Jacqueline Serrato is the Weekly’s editorin-chief. Adam Przybyl is the Weekly’s managing editor.

All Power to the People

A conversation with members of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party.

BY DEBBIE-MARIE BROWN, CHICAGO READER

This story was originally published by the Chicago Reader on December 21, 2022. Reprinted with permission.

The Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland, California, in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale as a revolutionary organization that could effectively respond to the racial violence inflicted upon Black Americans by police and society. At that time, many young, Black organizers were becomingx disillusioned with Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophy of nonviolence, including those who would eventually establish the Illinois Black Panther Party Chapter in 1968: Fred Hampton, who had been a member of the NAACP in high school, and Bobby Rush, who was initially a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

The Black Panthers advocated for freedom from oppression by any means necessary, including armed self-defense. Political education was central to their initiatives. Panthers created many survival programs such as the Free Breakfast Program, the influence of which can be seen on the USDA’s national School Breakfast Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program. At its peak, the Panthers’ Free Breakfast Program in Chicago served 4,000 kids every day.

The survival programs were named as such because they were designed to help the Black community to survive until a revolution, which Panthers anticipated, radically changed the unequal arrangement of society. Social programs also served as the basis of the Party’s organizing activity and service to the public. The Illinois Chapter was organized by August 1968—with Hampton as deputy chairman and Rush as the deputy minister of defense—and recruited at schools and universities.

Unlike some other revolutionary Black nationalist groups at the time, the Panthers organized alongside nonBlack radical groups who were fighting the same issues of police brutality, poverty, and poor housing conditions. In Illinois, Chairman Hampton eschewed segregation lines in Chicago and successfully created the Rainbow Coalition, which allied Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Appalachian whites.

All the while, national media organizations spread incendiary images of armed Black Americans and attributed other groups’ violence to the Panthers in an attempt to discredit them. The FBI and Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office coordinated to infiltrate the group with informants. This culminated in the assassination Fred Hampton by Chicago police on December 4, 1969.

Last month, five members of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panthers

POLITICS

discussed their experiences in the Party with the Reader. Samuel Latson joined at eighteen and served as a field lieutenant who would roam the streets and educate people about the Party. Wanda Ross also joined at eighteen and was a key organizer of the Breakfast Program. John “Oppressed” Preston joined the Party at fourteen, and worked with a cadre responsible for distributing the Party’s newspaper. Billy “Che” Brooks joined at twenty and served as the chapter’s deputy minister of education. Ann Campbell Kendrick joined the party at twenty and served as acting communications secretary.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Joining the Party

[W]anda Ross: I was eighteen. It was my first year of college on Circle Campus, which today is UIC, and that was when I was exposed to a lot of groups. I heard Fred speak there, and I was impressed. We went by the office, and we were blown away.

The thing about the Panthers is that between eighteen and twenty-five we were very sure we were going to change the world. King getting killed was kind of the last straw. I remember as a kid watching them use the dogs and turning the hoses on to attack the marchers. I’ll never forget crying and jumping up and down because I was still in high school, and I couldn’t go down south on the freedom marches. And you look at people who came back, they came back bruised; some of them had been in the hospital because they’d been beaten up.

And then you said, “Wait a minute, we’re just regular people, we’re trying to go vote, but it’s in our lifetime that we are seeing a change coming.” After Martin Luther King got killed, we needed to speed the process of freedom up. The Panthers were part of a perfect storm of the protests of the times. And King’s assassination was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

John “Oppressed” Preston: And that was the thing: you began to understand a whole lot of things about the country itself. We experienced a lot of containment

in our own communities in terms of the mobility of people from the Black community. We couldn’t move around as a regular community. When the [King assassination] riots came, the people that lived in that parameter couldn’t leave up out of that parameter. The National Guard were there, the National Guard were along every bridge along the expressway. And then we couldn’t go past Madison Street. And then in terms of other people that didn’t live in public housing, you still couldn’t move around because you were subjected to the seven o’clock curfew. If

about the Black Panther Party. There were a lot of misconceptions about the Party in the beginning. We sold newspapers, we talked to people, and we organized. Those that were interested would come to the office and get recruited. I had to keep tabs on what was going on in the community, as far as violence, police violence, police brutality, or any other thing we knew we might be able to help people with. At first my area encompassed the south side.

As far as what I’m doing now, I am a bona fide Christian. I am very involved with the church. I do outreach, I go to the prisons, I go to the nursing homes, I go out in the community. And basically where there’s a need that I’m aware of, I try to meet that need where the people

Ann Campbell Kendrick: When I came into the Party, I was twenty years old; I was beginning my sophomore year at Chicago Teachers College at 69th and Stewart, and I met Bobby Rush and Billy “Che” Brooks. They were attending Wilson Junior College, which was right down the street.

Before the Party, a lot of us were involved in the Black Power movement. I think King’s assassination was the straw that broke the camel’s back; we had lost Malcolm, there were a lot of things going on. And it was like, “OK, what else can we do at this point?” We thought that some

Party and the things that we did, unlike so many parents of Panthers. A lot of people got put out of their houses once the parents found out that they were a

you were driving in a car, your car was subject to search. And the level of police brutality that was there too.

Samuel Latson: I was eighteen when I joined the Party. I ended up as a field lieutenant. My role was to go out into the community and let the people know

of the nonviolent approaches weren’t effective or working for us. So we got word that a chapter of the Black Panther Party was forming. They even had a few meetings at our house.

My mother, known as Mama Jewel, was very supportive of the Black Panther

which was another reason why we needed to have a Panther crib to go to.

When I joined the Party, I joined as a rank-and-file member. Iris Shin was our first communications secretary. When she left I became the acting communications secretary. We were responsible for doing reports weekly; maintaining the files and records in the office, answering phones, setting up press conferences, scheduling speaking engagements for the leadership. We did everything that we were asked to do. I worked in the breakfast program and at the medical center. I had to make calls and contacts with different medical supply companies trying to get supplies and things donated. We had a press conference, and Fred was telling me different things to point out about the medical center during the press conference. I also worked for the People’s Law Office because we did not have funds to pay the lawyers. As we grew and developed, so did the charges and the arrests and the harassment from the police, so the cost for legal fees mounted. So I would go to the People’s Law Office and work some of that off.

I was at the Party for about two years. I had to work and go back to

“There were a lot of misconceptions about the Party in the beginning. We sold newspapers, we talked to people, and we organized. Those that were interested would come to the office and get recruited.”

–Samuel Latson

school. Maybe a year later, I got married and had a son. I did go back to school and got my degree in education. I taught in the Chicago Public Schools for thirtyfour years. I retired in 2009. And even though I was not active in any particular organization, I always did what I could do to make my students in the classroom aware of, you know, some of the injustices and certain conditions.

But I can say that my relationships with my comrades have outlived some of the relationships that I had with other people. I’ve known these people for over fifty years, these comrades, my brothers and my sister. And that’s something that no one can take away from: the experiences that we managed to live

There was also a Heidelberg press that belonged to Students for a Democratic Society. They printed our weekly newsletters. They were about eight blocks down from where our office was. There were factions within SDS: the Revolutionary Youth Movement, the Weather Underground, and then there was another faction as well [Editor’s note: the third faction was called Progressive Labor]. And the Weather Underground was the one that actually owned that press, so once they went underground, we were able to acquire that press.

We started off with, you know, printing stuff with a stencil, with mimeograph machines, you know, writing stuff out and we were able to do flyers and then we were able to acquire a multi-lift press where we could print like eight and a half by eleven inch flyers and things like that. And that was all done by the Ministry of Information. So the distribution and information part was done through that particular ministry.

through. We survived.

Preston: And we’ve lost a lot of them along the way.

Political Education

Preston: There was a whole cadre that was responsible for distributing the paper throughout the midwest. I became one of the circulation managers. I was responsible for getting the paper printed here in Chicago and shipping the paper around the country as well as distributing it. At that time, the same printer that printed our paper in Chicago was also printing the Reader. It was a company called Newsweb, owned by Fred Eychaner.

Articles came from chapters and branches all over the country. A lot of the design was done through the Ministry of Culture. Emory Douglas was responsible for designing the paper. The information cadre would print the paper or choose what articles went into the paper that week. As the circulation department, we were responsible for not just the paper but for all of the literature that the Party produced: buttons, books, albums. I was responsible for going around the country, doing events, setting up events, and things of that sort. So I was young, but I got a lot of training from a lot of older brothers in the Party. I wasn’t some kid whiz junior genius. I was just a normal cat.

Sam Napier was our national circulation manager. We also had a national distribution manager by the name of Andrew Austin. So I served as a part of their cadre, and it was a very,

very vital cadre. Napier was assassinated during the Party’s schism in 1971. Have we made some strides and accomplishments? Yes. But the struggle has not ended. The struggle is ongoing. Period. And it’s going down from generation to generation. When I joined the Party, I thought that we were gonna overthrow the government and make change in about a year, and then everybody’s going home. And, of course, that was my childish idealism. The child in me is still there, but you have to evolve and understand what these conditions are and go back into history as well.

Billy “Che” Brooks: minister of education for the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party. I joined the Party when I was twenty years old in 1968. I was a student at the time at Wilson Junior College. The first time I went to jail, it was for participating in a tent-in demonstration against slumlords on Roosevelt and Pulaski, where I met Doug Andrews with the West Side

Organization, and Fats Crawford with the Negro Rifle Association. I didn’t get fully engaged in the struggle until ’68. April 4 was a critical point. The assassination of Martin Luther King had an impact on the entire city. The entire community was in an uproar.

And as deputy minister of education, my role was to ensure that all Party members knew and understood the TenPoint Program and Platform, which was more like a survival kit because it was the creation of sociali-stic programs within a framework that we utilized to organize people and empower people. It was a socialist framework: each according to their ability, each according to their needs. As an educational tool all ten points were taught. We were Marxist, Maoist, in that framework, trying to understand how to deal with solutions to concrete problems. As Huey [Newton] used to say, you know, that in order to understand, you got to do work, social practice, you know what I’m saying? That was how we

and it was important that Party members understood that. Every issue of the newspaper had a particular lesson that we would process. But most of the political education classes were taught by comrades who were in the cadre, you know, because I was in jail a lot.

“My relationships with my comrades have outlived some of the relationships that I had with other people. I’ve known these people for over fifty years, these comrades, my brothers and my sister.”

–Ann Campbell Kendrick

Billy “Che” Brooks

PHOTO BY JIM DALEY

Ann Campbell Kendrick

Survival Programs

Brooks: The point [of the survival programs] was to increase people’s conscious awareness of the type of things that needed to be done. We did this with the breakfast program, the medical center. All in all, we had over fifty survival programs: a free prison busing program, a free clothing program, and a free ambulance service. And if you look at the ten points of our platform, you’ll see the actual program emanated out of each one. We prided ourselves on being dialectical materialists, in terms of being able to look at the problem and actually come up with something that we could do to impact the problem. We put things into practice. We truly believed that social practice was the criteria for truth.

Ross: I was in charge of the Free Breakfast Program. In most situations, I very seldom took money. Most of the time, I preferred to take the product. So, I’d get ninety dozen eggs once a week. I did not want to handle much money, and I didn’t want people to feel that we were soliciting for pocket money. We needed food; I would just go pick it up. Sometimes, if someone wanted to donate money, I would have them write a check to whoever we were picking stuff up from. We didn’t have a menu; we just cooked breakfast, which was sausage, grits, eggs, toast, and sometimes oatmeal. The Panthers would get to the site by 6am and start cooking. We would be open by 7am.

Latson: We didn’t realize that our programs were more of a threat to the system than talking about guns, because we were actually stepping out there meeting the needs of the people. People were afraid of us because of the guns. But the social programs that we set up, [the state] co-opted. They destroyed the Party, basically, and co-opted its programs because we raised the consciousness of the people as far as the services that the Black community was not getting.

The Role of Women in the Party

Brooks: The Black woman has always been in the forefront, has always been the bodacious ones, going all the way back to Harriet Tubman and Sojourner

Truth. I would say the role that the sisters played in [the Illinois] chapter enhanced every possible program that we had. The role that they played was critical in leadership. And we didn’t really process male chauvinism and sexism to a point where it became a concern. Initially it was. But Chairman Fred made it very clear that that was not something that we were gonna be processing here. You know, that’s a fact.

Ross: We still had to deal with the larger society that we came from. So yeah, there were Panthers that were chauvinist. But

at the same time, the type of doctrine that we tried to incorporate was: “this is an issue that we all need to deal with, if we’re going to be better people.” And the Black male population has been controlled either through war or through jail. And over the past thirty years, the amount of Black men in jail away from the community also breaks up the family structure, you know, and obviously, there must not have been a war that could take enough Black men off the street. But it’s something to realize that you’ve got a whole generation of young people 30 and under that had, and have been in jail.

The Rainbow Coalition

Preston: You know, a lot of times the Party evolved, and we evolved from the basis of Afrocentrism to understanding what the struggle is. And that’s why a lot of programs and a lot of initiatives that we came up with—particularly the Rainbow Coalition—was to expose and to educate people as well and to bring people into the fold. But these were things that Dr. King was doing all along when he was organizing. These, you know, these are things that Malcolm saw [when he came back from Mecca], so we all began to evolve into these things. And so we created that when we created that first original Rainbow Coalition, saying, “Hey, you got poor Hispanics, poor white folks, you got poor Black folks, and our struggle is the same.”

The Party and its ideals will endure through the ages. We’re not going to make no mistake about that. Sometimes I sort of get a little perturbed because when you speak to people nowadays, they speak about the Party in a historical or past tense. And that’s not the case. You know, I still consider myself a member of the Black Panther Party. I’m still a Party member; I’m not a former member. I’m still a current member. We have to understand that these conditions still exist. The Ten-Point Platform and Program is still as relevant today as it was when it was written. Because the conditions haven’t changed.

Brooks: The Rainbow Coalition came together because we had the same problems: housing, police brutality. That was the focal point that created the opportunity to have a conversation, in particular with the Appalachian community. At that time, Puerto Ricans were being pushed out of Lincoln Park. We had the Contract Buyers League and the whole redlining concept in Englewood, North Lawndale, East Garfield, West Garfield.

Chairman Fred had that innate ability to bring people together, and the commonality that we had was the housing situation, the police brutality situation. They bought into our Ten-Point Platform and Program, particularly the Young Lords. So it’s all about solidarity. It’s all about understanding the commonality

Among the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party’s many survival programs was a free bus service for people to visit loved ones in prison. COURTESY LEILA WILLS, HISTORICAL PRESERVATION SOCIETY OF THE ILLINOIS CHAPTER OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY

of our concerns and our problems. In 1970, when most organizations didn’t know anything about gay rights or the women’s rights movement, the Black Panther Party supported the gay rights movement, supported the women’s liberation movement. Huey always talked about the importance of allies. We need allies in this process, so that was the conceptual framework of the Rainbow Coalition.

It’s needed today, more so than ever. The whole push of white supremacy and privilege, which is manifested in this whole case up before the Supreme Court right now, where a state has the right to define what gerrymandering is. These were issues we fought then, and we were effective at fighting these issues because we were organized. There was a movement back in the day that processed the entirety of the situation, not single-issue things. And people came together in a collective, in a communal form and fashion, you know, because it was a worldview. We gravitated from Black Panther Party for Self Defense to

revolutionary intercommunalism: looking at poor and oppressed communities around the world, and whenever one of those communities gains their freedom, it helps us.

Latson: The system is never going to change. It’s based on, as Malcolm said, exploitation. White folks don’t want to give up their power under any circumstance. We’re getting to this point, as far as I’m concerned, where they’re trying to take us back. Now, if the masses of the people continue to allow this to happen, then we will go back. It’s in the people’s hands. But the system is not going to change. This struggle is gonna go on and on and on until people make up their minds that they don’t want to accept it. We, as a people, don’t understand politics, the political end of the system, how it functions. The masses of the people don’t understand. ¬

Open January 29

e Negro Motorist Green Book was created by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service in collaboration with Candacy Taylor and made possible through the generous support of Exxon Mobil Corporation.

e Negro Motorist Green Book is an exhibition that highlights the histor y of “ e Green Book” - the annual guide created in 1936 by Harlem postman Victor Green that provided African American travelers with information on restaurants, gas stations, department stores, and other businesses that welcomed Black travelers during the Jim Crow era.

Southside, Chicago, Illinois, 1941. Russell Lee. Farm Security Administration/O ce of War Information Photograph Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC - DIG - ppmsc - 00256.

Debbie-Marie Brown is a staff writer at the Chicago Reader.

The Black Panther Party newspaper reported on the police assassination of Chairman Fred Hampton. COURTESY LEILA WILLS, HISTORICAL PRESERVATION SOCIETY OF THE ILLINOIS CHAPTER OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY

Op-ed: Anti-Black and Anti-Immigrant Racism Reinforce One Another. Solidarity Is the Only Way We Win

BY BENJI HART

Last month, city officials announced—without any community input—that Woodlawn’s Wadsworth Elementary School would be converted into a shelter for asylum seekers. As an AfricanAmerican Woodlawn resident, and educator whose work centers around building multiracial movements for social justice, I have felt the justified rage of my neighbors in response to this announcement, but have also been heartbroken at how quickly that rage has been directed at immigrant communities. Woodlawn residents should be angry when we are left out of decisions about our own neighborhood, but we need to get clear on who is actually excluding us, and who is being excluded alongside us.

Wadsworth Elementary was closed in 2013 by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel as part of a targeted attack on public education and Black Chicagoans. The building has remained empty for ten years, even as Woodlawn residents have continuously demanded its transformation into a resource for the neighborhood, which struggles with gun violence, access to housing, and over-policing. My neighbors were understandably upset when, after promising our Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor it wouldn’t happen, Mayor Lightfoot decided to move forward with the plan to provide shelter for asylum seekers at the vacant school building.

There has been a recent influx of migrants to Chicago, arriving from the

southern border in buses sent by Texas Governor Greg Abbott in an attempt to punish sanctuary cities, which he accuses of driving migration. But contrary to Abbott’s anti-immigrant vitriol, many migrants—of whom a significant number are Black and indigenous—are fleeing the carnage U.S. policy has wrought in their homelands. From sanctions to U.S.-backed dictatorships to climate change, migrants have been displaced through manufactured instability, enduring unimaginably violent journeys through hostile territory, only to be framed as criminals by the very governments responsible for many of the conditions that forced them to leave home

in the first place.

As Black residents of the U.S. we know all too well what it feels like to be blamed for our own suffering by those who caused it. During the Great Migration, we too came to Chicago fleeing the racial violence of the Jim Crow south, seeking work that would pay a living wage, and housing that wasn’t controlled by our former enslavers. We were also accused of being a burden on the city’s resources, of stealing jobs, and of driving crime. This same rhetoric dogs us into the present, as more and more of us are pushed from our historic neighborhoods by gentrification, eviction, and the rising cost of living.

This is what makes it painful to hear my Black neighbors express the same bigotry toward recent immigrants—concerns about gangs, drugs, and falling property values—that we hear so often said about ourselves. What would it look like if we recognized the parallels across our shared battles, and offered compassion and support to our displaced comrades instead of hostility?

I grappled with this question alongside other Woodlawn residents at a meeting convened by Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) in early January. A grassroots organization operating in Woodlawn since 2004, STOP hoped to draft a letter in support of migrants arriving to our neighborhood in an attempt to combat the toxic antiimmigrant rhetoric overtaking much of the mainstream discussion. Even so, we had to collectively confront the injustice of the moment without slipping into old, racist tropes.

Some community members present insisted that asylum seekers should be vetted before being allowed access to the shelter, pointing out that if they themselves wanted to apply for public housing they would have to go through a background check. If local Black residents must demonstrate our fitness to receive government-sponsored housing, why shouldn’t migrants have to go through the same process?

A formerly-incarcerated community member pointed out that high rates

PHOTO BY SARAH JANE RHEE

Lightfoot’s decision to house migrants in shuttered Woodlawn school without community input should unite us in demanding real investments—not keep us apart.

of recidivism in prisons and jails are often the direct result of these vetting processes, barring those with criminal records from receiving the exact resources required to keep them out of lockup. How could we call for these measures to be used against migrants—who are already hypersurveiled—knowing the needless damage they cause in our own communities? In justifying and even participating in the policing of other groups, how do we imagine that we ourselves will ultimately be impacted?

The conclusion we reached in that meeting is the same one I hope all of my neighbors—and all Black Chicagoans, immigrant and non-immigrant alike— will come to: Anti-Black and antiimmigrant racism always reinforce one another, and always work to uphold white supremacy. Bigotry veiled as concern for safety should be denounced by us all, and renewed investments in surveillance and policing should be understood inherently as divestment from the resources that create true security. When we imagine our communities as separate, and allow them to be pitted against one another as the city is currently doing with Wadsworth Elementary, we echo the same rhetoric that we ourselves have spent generations fighting, strengthening the same harmful policies that, even if they are targeting our comrades today, will inevitably be used against us tomorrow.

Woodlawn residents have much to be furious with the city of Chicago about. The lack of transparency around this project piles on to the long history of the South and West sides being treated as an afterthought, and offering up Wadsworth without community consent is pouring salt onto a gaping wound that has never been given the chance to heal. But asylum seekers have had as little input in these decisions as local residents. Migrants should not be cast as the beneficiaries of government investment after being forced from their homes by U.S. political interests, having their desperation weaponized by a racist governor, then being tossed scraps by the city of Chicago.

Migrants didn’t close our schools and shutter our mental health clinics. Migrants didn’t rob millions of dollars from our neighborhoods to offer up as tax breaks to the ultrawealthy. Migrants aren’t building luxury condos and driving up the rent. The

righteous anger Woodlawn neighbors feel should be leveled at Mayor Lightfoot, real estate developers, the federal government, and U.S. policies that have made life unliveable for Black and brown people across the globe, including right here in

document declares #SanctuaryForAll, including for long-term Black residents. It demands Mayor Lightfoot follow through on her campaign promise to reopen the closed mental health clinics, and insists the city fulfill its commitment

Safety doesn't come from keeping people out, but from bringing resources in.” And that is the heart of the matter. The city, the federal government, and white supremacy itself, thrive on Black and brown, immigrant and non-immigrant communities competing with one another under the illusion of scarcity. But when we band together to collectively demand the investments from which we can all benefit, no one has to be left out. ¬

Chicago. These are the exact institutions that benefit when we misdirect our anger at other poor and marginalized people being targeted by the same systems which we ourselves are resisting.

What does it look like when Chicagoans come together from across the city and channel our fury toward the proper targets? We have countless examples in recent memory to draw from. In 2018, Black, brown, immigrant, and undocumented organizers came together to demand the Chicago Police Department erase its gang database, recognizing that surveilling and profiling poor and working communities is just as dangerous for recent immigrants as it is for long-term Black and brown residents. Between 2017 and 2019, a multiracial, youth-led coalition of over 100 organizations called #NoCopAcademy demanded the city halt a new $95 million investment in CPD, and reinvest those funds into the sorely lacking resources that actually protect and support young people. While all of these battles continue, these were moments where communities that are often segregated joined together with the understanding that as long as we are fighting each other, we are distracted from making meaningful demands of the larger structures that are exploiting all of us.

The original letter in support of asylum seekers issued by STOP on January 11th has since been expanded into a Black and Brown Unity statement, with organizations like United Working Families, the Chicago Teachers Union, and Organized Communities Against Deportations signing on in solidarity. The

to build new units of affordable housing on fifty-two vacant lots in Woodlawn. It calls for investments in multilingual education, community schools, youth jobs, and support for the houseless, not the failed strategies of policing and incarceration. These are the demands all our communities must uplift in unison. The statement puts it simply: “...

Benji Hart is a Chicago-based author, artist, and educator whose work centers Black radicalism, queer liberation, and prison abolition. Their words have appeared in numerous anthologies and been published at Time, Teen Vogue, The Advocate, and elsewhere. They have led popular education and arts-based workshops for organizations internationally, including the American Repertory Theater, Young Chicago Authors, and Project NIA. They have held fellowships with Yaddo, Trillium Arts, MacDowell, and are a 2023 Lab Artist with Chicago Dancemakers Forum. This is their first piece for the Weekly

What would it look like if we recognized the parallels across our shared battles, and offered compassion and support to our displaced comrades instead of hostility?

As Investors Buy More Homes Around the Obama Presidential Center Gentrification Worries Soar

BY MANNY RAMOS, ILLINOIS ANSWERS PROJECT

This story was republished from the Illinois Answers Project, a nonpartisan investigations and solutions journalism news organization. It was originally published on December 12, 2022.

For years, housing advocates warned of gentrification encroaching in South Side neighborhoods spurred by the incoming Obama Presidential Center, and those alarms are now ringing louder as recent data shows investors flocking to surrounding neighborhoods at higher rates than ever before.

“People should be afraid, they should be concerned about firms that don’t live in this community buying up homes,” said Dixon Romeo, a South Shore organizer with Not Me We, a group fighting for better housing and sustainability. “It’s very simple, the goal of every firm is to make profit, right? In terms of housing that means raising the rent, imposing unnecessary fees and effectively displacing people.”

Across the country corporate investors are buying larger market shares of homes, and that trend has only grown during the global pandemic. That trend is more pronounced in low-income and predominantly Black neighborhoods.

It is no different in Chicago where investors are converging heavily in the neighborhoods surrounding the incoming Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park as they snatch up nearly a third of homes for sale just in the third quarter of 2022, according to data provided by Redfin, a national real estate brokerage.

While some protections have been implemented in the Woodlawn neighborhood to set aside new affordable housing units—the closest neighborhoods to the center—not much has been done to protect the South Shore neighborhood, where housing is already vulnerable to market whims, Romeo said.

In the zip code covering much of South Shore, investors bought up thirtytwo percent of homes for sale in the third quarter of 2022—that’s tied for the most in the city, according to Redfin data.

That’s far more than the seventeen percent of homes investors bought in 2015 before Jackson Park was announced as the home of the center and more than double the fourteen percent of homes bought by investors in 2005 in the middle of the housing bubble.

Redfin categorizes an investor buyer if the name includes an LLC, Inc. or Trust Corp. and whose ownership code on the purchasing deed includes association, corporate trustee, company, joint venture or corporate trust.

And a home is defined as being any single-family, townhome, condominium or residential building with up to four units.

Linda Jennings, seventy-three, said she has been getting phone calls almost every day from people across the country trying to buy her South Shore condominium. She tells them “No thanks” every time.

Jennings said she and her family moved into South Shore in 1958, and they were one of the first Black families to integrate north of 78th Street. She said she

South Shore has experienced the largest share of homes for sale bought by investors than any other neighborhood in the city, raising concerns over housing affordability.

GRAPH COURTESY OF ILLINOIS ANSWERS PROJECT. DATA PROVIDED BY REDFIN, A NATIONAL REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE.

went to school in the neighborhood but went to high school in Hyde Park because South Shore High School wasn’t allowing Black students at the time.

“All of that and more is why I am not interested in selling the property—this is home,” Jennings said. “I’ve been living in this condo for the past eighteen years and the impact of the Obama Presidential Center has been on the minds of every homeowner I know and what that is going to mean for our taxes.”

Jennings said most of the homeowners she knows are on fixed incomes and with rising property taxes—and much needed repairs for some of the homes—she isn’t sure enough is being done to protect them.

“I live by myself and I can make ends meet by cutting down on food consumption, but my overall quality of life will change drastically and not for the best,” Jennings said.

This, Jennings said, is why the city should be working harder to protect renters and homeowners like her from being pushed out.

“Gentrification is gradual right now but it is intensifying every year,” Jennings said. “I would like the city to give us some sort of community binding agreement that can help stabilize this neighborhood and allow us to stay.”

Romeo, twenty-eight, said it’s not surprising that investors are buying more shares of homes in the neighborhood he’s called home his whole life. That is why, he said, it is more urgent than ever for the city to pass some sort of community benefit agreement with South Shore like it did in Woodlawn.

Not Me We is part of the Obama Community Benefits Agreement Coalition which successfully fought for the passage of the Woodlawn Housing Preservation Ordinance which puts aside $4.5 million of city money for affordable housing programs. It also establishes affordability requirements for thirty percent of new housing units built on fifty-two Woodlawn vacant lots.

Romeo said it is well past time the city commits to protecting affordable housing in South Shore—and across all vulnerable neighborhoods—as he already sees residents struggling with increased housing costs.

“I want the kids who live in The Parkways [apartment building] or in the Jeffery Towers that go to Parkside

[Community Academy], O’Keeffe [School of Excellence], South Shore International College Prep or Powell [Elementary School] to be able to live next to the center and say ‘I can be that, I can be president,” Romeo said. “They are not going to be able to do that unless they can afford it.”

“The Obama Center shouldn’t be like Disneyland; it should be a community centric thing that inspires the youth,” Romeo added.

Not Me We as well as the CBA Coaltion recently submitted 744 signatures to add a referendum onto the Feb. 28 ballot. If those signatures go unchallenged the referendum will ask voters if the mayor and alderperson support a community benefit housing agreement.

This includes funding home repairs, property tax relief, eviction protection, a ban on application and move-in fees, among other measures. It would appear in ten precincts in the 5th Ward.

Romeo said the referendum is nonbinding but will at least show the mayor’s office how important these measures are to the 5th Ward.

Michelle Gilbert, legal and policy director with the Law Center for Better Housing, said it is difficult to say the Obama Presidential Center is the definitive reason why investors are buying more shares of homes in those neighborhoods because it is a trend that is happening across the country.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason to be concerned.

Investor landlords tend to raise rent and impose fees while also moving quickly to evict renters without just cause, Gilbert said. That’s a big issue for South Shore considering it has had the most eviction filings than any other community area every single year since 2010, according to the law center’s data.

“It’s somewhat cyclical because if there are more evictions there are going to be more buildings that are less economically stable and those are going to be the homes more ripe for investors to pick up,” Gilbert said.

But it is not just South Shore where investors are buying a higher share of homes for sale.

In Woodlawn’s zip code, where some affordable housing protections have been implemented, twenty-five percent of homes were bought by investors. That’s up from 15.8% in 2015 and 16.8% in 2005.

In zip codes covering most of the

Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood, investors accounted for thirty-one percent of homes bought which nearly tripled the 11.6% purchased in 2015 and doubled the 15.8% in 2005.

Investors have also gone as far west as the Englewood neighborhood where they purchased thirty-two percent of homes being sold—tied for the most in the city with South Shore. In 2015 that share was just 12.5%.

Sofia Lopez, deputy campaign director for housing with the Action Center on Race and the Economy, called for federal action to support of renters in written testimony before a U.S. House committee holding a hearing on the issue in June.

“At the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, institutional landlords emphasized that their rental portfolios had proven recessionresilient during the foreclosure crisis, suggesting that their recent [single-family rental] investments were similarly resilient investments during the COVID-19 crisis,” Lopez said at the hearing. “Thus, 2020 saw tens of billions in fundraising committed to [single-family rentals] from various institutional investors.”

The country is at a crossroads, Lopez told the Illinois Answers Project, and it is disappointing that little is being done to help renters.

“There is a pattern with private equity and investors buying these homes, and they are targeting Black communities at a much higher rate than ever before,” Lopez said. “They are really preying on this legacy of disinvestment where people can’t buy homes at favorable rates and so many people are just locked out of homeownership.”

While there isn’t much a city can do to intervene in private transactions, there can be things done at the national and state level to protect renters, Lopez said. A policy that doesn’t allow landlords to evict people “without just cause” is one and another is some form of rent control.

But the lowest hanging fruit, she said, was to have some sort of registry in place that would make it clear who owns what property instead of keeping it hidden through LLCs. This will not only identify bad actors but also let renters know who their landlords are.

“Everybody needs a place to live and buying more and more homes as an investor is a big issue because it’s not like buying a car—it’s not a luxury good,” Lopez said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that for

investors housing is a commodity and a means of building a portfolio which is in direct tension to all of us who need a place to sleep and call home.”

A spokesman for the city, Ryan Johnson, said South Shore is in a different situation than Woodlawn where the city doesn’t own “large swaths of vacant, contiguous land” near the Obama Presidential Center. This makes it difficult for the city to replicate the signature action in the Woodlawn agreement like setting aside fifty-two vacant lots for affordable housing.

The city has made strides to strengthen affordable housing specifically in South Shore. In March, the Department of Housing announced a pilot fund project which would provide financial assistance to owner-occupants.

This grant would help with homeowner association fees and needed repairs.

There is also the Troubled Building Initiative and the Micro Market Recovery Program which provides homeownership opportunities in South Shore.

“As we talk with South Shore community leaders and elected officials, we hear a need for a variety of interventions on behalf of renters and homeowners,” Johnson said. “We will continue looking for ways to build off of the existing South Shore initiatives, such as the Invest South/ West multifamily rental development and recent affordable homeownership efforts.”

The city has also stepped in to help residents struggling to make rent with its Emergency Rental Assistance Program which has handed out 1,050 grants totaling $8.5 million in South Shore—more than any other zip code in the city.

But for Romeo, these measures aren’t enough.

“It’s not just renters who are at risk here because as the value of homes go up, so does the property tax,” Romeo said. “People who are on a fixed income, who are probably older, won’t be able to afford a jump in taxes so they have two options: sell or become delinquent. The latter would mean losing your house and equity built over years just for an investor to swoop in and purchase your home for pennies on the dollar.” ¬

Manny Ramos is the accountability and solutions reporter at the Illinois Answers Project.

Affordable Housing Advocates Push for Co-Ops

Co-op members, City officials, and housing organizers weigh in on whether limited-equity housing co-ops can provide affordable and sustainably priced housing.

BY GRACE DEL VECCHIO AND SONAL SONI, CITY BUREAU

This story was originally published by Bureau. Printed with permission.

Mcommon and the city’s disinvestment in the neighborhood was painfully apparent.

In the 1970s, Turner started looking for a new apartment after police called her one night asking and informing her about a man who had been killed outside of her unit. She later heard from a friend about the Pierce North Apartments, just down the street. When she first laid eyes on the building, the state of the property was less than ideal. But Turner was determined to be in a new apartment building. Cockroaches scurried across the floor, and after she set off a dozen bug bombs she moved in. Turner settled in in the building, which in 1982 became the WoolmanWashington housing cooperative with Turner as a co-founder.

"I feel good, I feel safe,” said Turner, ninety-three, who still lives there today and has seen the building go through multiple rehabs and renovations. She sat in her apartment, gray hair swept up on her head, beside her fellow co-op member and granddaughter, Kimberly Turner. The elder woman has trouble hearing, so her granddaughter helped her through the interview.

Co-op members at WoolmanWashington don't pay rent to a landlord; instead, they are partial owners of the property. Kimberly Turner is the board’s

collective decisions on maintenance requests, approving new applicants, and more.

As the neighborhood gentrified, new buildings emerged and housing costs increased. Woolman-Washington, however, offers limited-equity units, meaning that co-op members are limited in how much they can profit from the

likelihood of displacement by keeping properties affordable for community members who otherwise may be priced out.

If a shareholder sells their share (their unit), they are allowed to remake the amount they initially put in, but they can’t charge more than they paid—and they can’t sell to, say, developers who might

Inflation, increased housing demand, rising property taxes, and a recent pullback on pandemic-related rental support have exacerbated the city’s affordable housing reports that average rent in the city has increased around nine percent since 2021. As the cost of living steadily rises, so does the need for affordable housing options, especially on Chicago’s South and West Sides where the city is increasing investment in economic

The City recently launched two pilot programs intended to support limitedequity cooperatives. Though some housing co-ops have struggled, City Bureau spoke with co-op members, city officials, and organizers over the course of eleven weeks about whether limited-equity housing co-ops have the potential to provide affordable housing for low- to middleChicago’s first housing cooperatives were built along the northern and southern shores in the 1920s after World War I, as the nation endured housing shortages and increased rent prices. Many uppermiddle-class white residents owned these co-ops because they wanted to enjoy home ownership at a cheaper price and “handpick” their neighbors, as a 1927 Tribune article stated.

The Great Depression bankrupted over seventy-five percent of Chicago’s

Kimberly Turner and her grandmother, Marion Turner, at the Woolman-Washington housing cooperative, where they both live in separate apartments. Marion, 93, was a part of the original cohort that started the cooperative in the early 1980s.

PHOTO BY GRACE DEL VECCHIO/CITY BUREAU

co-ops, according to The Encyclopedia of Chicago. After World War II, housing shortages combined with new policies — like Federal Housing Administration insurance of blanket mortgages on cooperatives and new types of subsidies — helped spark a new era of housing co-ops. Co-ops sprung up across the city: senior co-ops, luxury co-ops, middle-income coops and limited housing equity co-ops.

While white co-ops often excluded Black Chicagoans, Black residents saw the cooperative model as a more accessible pathway to home ownership. In 1960, the Chicago Defender published an article calling co-ops the best opportunity for Black residents to become homeowners. The story mentioned the growing number of interracial co-ops in Chicago, specifically the Pioneer Cooperative on Dorchester in Hyde Park-Kenwood.

South Shore native Deborah Harrington returned to Chicago in the 1970s after working as a government researcher in Washington, D.C. She was in her twenties and wasn’t interested in moving back into her parents’ home. She wanted to own property.

Buying her own house was too expensive, and her mother, a local block club organizer, suggested that she look into housing cooperatives as an alternative. A friend who lived in a co-op in South Shore invited Harrington to check it out in person. Harrington remembers being drawn to the “splendor” of the environment, especially the lakefront views and the ornate architectural details of the building. Although the co-op was majority white, she could envision herself living there as a Black woman. When a vacancy opened, Harrington said she jumped at the opportunity.

Harrington, who had an interest in real estate (and would later go on to get her real estate license), said she drafted a lease agreement and paid for the unit in cash. While she had the funds and the qualifications to become a shareholder in the co-op, Harrington said the board denied her request to join. “It rocked my world,” said Harrington. “I really didn’t expect that.”

By that time, South Shore had become a majority Black community, but the neighborhood’s most historic co-ops still reflected the mostly white makeup of

its original shareholders from sixty years prior. Harrington said the all-white board wasn’t interested in changing that.

She resolved to join the co-op whether they wanted her or not. Harrington said she sued the co-op for discrimination, won, and moved in.

A few years later, Harrington said she earned a spot on the co-op’s board, and she remained a co-op member for another decade before moving nearby to The Coastland, another historic lakefront

involved co-op members are within their own properties and surrounding communities. She also recognizes that making collective decisions can be challenging.

“It does give one a sense of agency because you're not like a condominium with your unit and your deed,” Harrington said. “You're forced, so to speak, to govern collectively.”

Linda Greene worked for the Neighborhood Institute, a South Shore

the project led her to apply for a unit at the Rocky Ledge co-op, a market rate housing cooperative in South Shore. She’s lived there ever since. Although more expensive than a limited-equity co-op, Greene said Rocky Ledge was more affordable than

She was also organizing around housing cooperatives in the late 1980s when the city was losing interest in supporting them after some failed and had to shift their ownership structure.

“It got to the point that the City, the State, nobody wanted to fund any new housing cooperatives,” Greene said. She added, “Well a lot of rental projects don't do well either … [The City is] not saying ‘I'm never doing those again,’ but as soon as a co-op fails, [they] can't do that

In the early 2000s, some established cooperatives continued to operate successfully while new ones sprouted up across Chicago. Despite the mounting evidence that housing co-ops could be a sustainable and affordable housing model, co-op advocates said the City has not supported them at the levels they would like to see.

The role of government

Diane Hodges, a longtime resident of the Genesis Housing Cooperative, was intrigued by the limited-equity model and purchased her share in 2009.

As both a board member and a resident, Hodges said it’s important to look for resources to maintain the co-op, especially since many South Shore co-ops from the ’80s failed. To her, being a member of Genesis means being a caretaker and steward, not just of the twenty-one-unit building but of South Shore and the legacy of Black community members who have contributed to its growth and character.

co-op, which she has called home for the past thirty-one years.

Harrington has lived solely in market rate co-ops, which allow her to sell her unit at the highest price someone is willing to pay. Harrington said she admires how

nonprofit in the 1980s. Greene was part of the group that helped create what is now the limited-equity Genesis Cooperative Housing.

Though she did not join Genesis herself, Greene said her involvement with

Hodges said that one of the largest issues surrounding housing cooperatives in Chicago is that residents don’t know they’re an option. She said the City has some responsibility to educate residents on their options and, in turn, connect them to resources.

While the City has launched pilot programs to support existing co-ops and help fund new ones, Hodges said co-ops need more long-term investment. She’s

Dianne Hodges has been a resident of the Genesis Cooperative in South Shore for more than 10 years. She said she believes that co-ops like Genesis can be community anchors on their blocks.

PHOTO BY MAX HERMAN/CITY BUREAU)

“While white co-ops often excluded Black Chicagoans, Black residents saw the cooperative model as a more accessible pathway to home ownership.”

HOUSING

also skeptical of the City’s new initiatives, which are expected to provide funding to organizations that support limited- equity co-ops and eventually to the creation of limited-equity co-ops.

The City’s South Shore Condo/Coop Preservation Fund Pilot is a $15 million program slated to support existing condos and co-ops in South Shore with needed maintenance repairs. The Community Wealth Ecosystem Building (Community WEB) Program is another $15 million pilot that intends to help limited-equity housing co-ops on the South and West sides by providing outreach, education, legal and governance support to securing assets and property.

But Hodges takes issue with the fact that co-op members need to front the money themselves and wait for City reimbursement, rather than receiving funds that they can spend. “They dangle carrots,” Hodges said. “If you have the grant monies [and] the paperwork, and we have whatever we need to show… why should we have to be reimbursed? We don't have money in the first place.”

Nneka Onwuzurike, who leads the wealth building initiative, said she hears the criticism and is thinking of ways to help with cash flow. Technically, she said, those accepted into the program are City contractors, which is why they are not being paid up front but rather through reimbursements.

“I know a lot of people have had frustrations with [the reimbursement method] and understand the need for that to change," Onwuzurike said.

Onwuzurike said the City’s renewed interest in investing in housing cooperatives stems from Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s desire to fix inequitable economic development. People from the mayor’s office and City departments proposed solutions to address the issue.

When Onwuzurike joined the team in June 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic and amid the calls for racial justice after the murder of George Floyd, she centered their strategy on the phrase “community wealth building.” “Community wealth [is] all about shared wealth,” Onwuzurike said. “So not just the sum of wealth of multiple households in the community, but how are multiple of those households coming together to coown an asset?”

Onwuzurike said the initiative focuses

specifically on limited-equity housing cooperatives because not only do they benefit residents financially by keeping living costs permanently affordable, but they also generate neighborhood stability, political power and act as an antigentrification tool.

For the predominantly Black and Latinx communities on the South and West Sides, "the folks that actually live there don't own the neighborhood,” Onwuzurike said. “They don't own the commercial real estate. They don't own the land, the businesses, [most] of the housing there.”

Onwuzurike recognizes that some residents may be skeptical about the pilot program and question the City’s role in supporting shared ownership. She said the program centers and listens to community

equity ones. He said that the kinds of properties that developers are looking for are often the same kind of properties that a limited-equity housing hub would be interested in.

“The way we purchase housing is really in kind of direct competition with not only other folks who have more resources,” Arenas said, “but, more importantly, developers who don't even have to think about, for example, what interest rates are for loans and so on because they have the kind of cash on hand to be able to quickly purchase a property that they feel is valuable.”

For PIHCO’s first and biggest property, the owner chose to sell directly to the co-op and then join it himself. That meant PIHCO didn’t need to get a loan from a bank or credit union. Instead, they

about the services through word of mouth.

Jeff Leslie, the clinic’s director, said that to implement co-ops as a mainstream housing option, advocates should not reinvent the wheel. Instead, they should advocate to add co-ops to established programs, like the Chicago Housing Authority’s Choose to Own Homeownership Program, which provides qualified public housing and Housing Choice Voucher residents with subsidies to buy a home, as well as monthly mortgage assistance.

“If those agencies did include coops in those programs, people who are thinking about transitioning from renting to homeownership would learn about coops,” Leslie said.

Laura Garcia, an organizer at the Metropolitan Tenants Organization, which is made up of tenants, tenant organizations, and community members working to increase access to and maintain affordable housing in Chicago, said that the lack of investment and education of affordable housing options is a part of a bigger culture that fails to value and prioritize the rights of renters.

voices, and intends to provide a range of resources to residents, from education to financial assistance.

“For low-income, low-wealth folks— many of whom might feel like their future is being a renter for life, but have aspirations of wanting to own a home and build assets [and] wealth—I think this is just a viable option. But it's not well known,” Onwuzurike said. “And then for those who it is well known for, it's then not well supported by the City.”

Uplifting co-ops as a critical option

Pilsen Housing Cooperative (PIHCO) is a limited-equity cooperative that helps keep rent low and longtime Latinx residents in the neighborhood. The cooperative’s mantra is “quédate en Pilsen,'' or “stay in Pilsen.”

Iván Arenas, a PIHCO member, organizer, and associate director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago, said there are many challenges to starting a housing cooperative, especially limited-

got a loan from the building seller who joined the co-op.

Arenas said that while the City has many programs in place to support different types of housing, cooperatives are often excluded because of a lack of awareness.

“[These policies] weren't designed to be punitive against co-ops,” he said. “They just weren't designed with the thought of co-ops in mind.”

The University of Chicago Housing Initiative Transactional Clinic offers pro bono legal advice and support to people interested in developing affordable housing, including co-ops. The clinic’s lawyers help with a number of legal steps—crafting bylaws, acquiring property, finding funding—that make the co-op process intimidating. They also advise on pricing and monthly rates to ensure that the co-op is able to function while remaining affordable.

The clinic is a vital resource for current and potential co-op members and, like many resources available for co-ops, those who may be interested tend to find out

“We tend to classify renters as less than those that have been able to afford or purchase a home and become a landlord,” Garcia said. “Somehow [they] have more rights and are entitled to more than renters, which … shouldn’t be the case.”

Both Garcia and the tenants who work alongside her want something that they can call their own, and strongly believe that those who desire to own a home should have all options made available to them. “We celebrate that ‘bootstrap mentality,’ but we fail to take into account that there's a lot of things working against these very communities,” she said. “Tenants want something stable.”

Making it last

Since there isn’t one hub of information for those looking to create a co-op in Chicago, people have relied on established co-ops to show them the ropes. But co-op advocates say the City should do more and point to New York City as an example.

The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) was created in New York City in 1973 to combat the worsening conditions of neighborhoods that had been subjected to redlining. Today,

“It does give one a sense of agency because you're not like a condominium with your unit and your deed. You're forced, so to speak, to govern collectively.”

UHAB works toward “democratic community control” of housing through the creation and sustaining of housing co-ops, granting first-time homebuyer loans and strengthening tenants unions. The organization is supported by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the New York City Council as well as banks and land trusts.

Chicago can help by actively supporting local organizations similar to UHAB and by establishing a streamlined process for creating or joining a coop, according to co-op residents and advocates. In the meantime, organizations like the Center for Shared Ownership and Chicago Co-op Convergence, and co-op members are filling that role.

Rev. Bernadine Harvin has been a member of the limited-equity Chatham Park Village Cooperative for four years. She said the collectivist culture of cooperatives has been harnessed by Black communities for generations, as both a means of survival and care.

“If you're looking at just collective economy, collective resourcing, collective surviving, that's why we're here,” she said. “Because our ancestors survived.”

Four generations of Marion Turner’s

family live in Woolman-Washington. It’s not the only multi-generational family to call the co-op home. Her granddaughter Kimberly Turner, as board president, attends networking events and connects with all types of co-ops around the city to see how they operate. Throughout her time living at Woolman-Washington, she’s witnessed organizers in the co-op space become increasingly connected.

“We are focused on keeping cooperatives [affordable] for people,” Kimberly Turner said. “That's the difference from apartment buildings. We have the opportunity to keep things a little bit more reasonable than what apartment buildings may do.”

Marion Turner thinks things are running smoothly. After recently visiting an open house for a home next door, she was shocked to learn how much rent in Wicker Park is today. She hopes Woolman-Washington survives.

“I hope it lasts, I hope it continues to last,” she said. “I hope it don’t fade away.” ¬

Grace Del Vecchio and Sonal Soni are 2022 Fall Civic Reporting Fellows. Jerrel Floyd, City Bureau’s engagement reporter covering economic development and segregation in Chicago, contributed to this report.

Rev. Bernadine Harvin and her husband, Bishop Mark Harvin, have lived at the Chatham Park Village Cooperative for four years. Bernadine said living in Chicago can be expensive, so living in a co-op became a good option to keep costs low.

PHOTO BY MAX HERMAN/CITY BUREAU

BULLETIN

West Side Mayoral

Primary Forum

The Kehrein Center For The Arts, 5628 W. Washington Blvd. Saturday, January 28, 12 PM–2PM. Free.

This mayoral forum is presented by the Chicago West Side branch of the NAACP in partnership with Chicago Metropolitan Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., South Austin Neighborhood Association, Kehrein Center for the Arts, and Catalyst Schools. All candidates were invited. (Jackie Serrato)

South Side Mayoral

Candidates Forum

Trinity United Church of Christ, 400 W. 95th St. Sunday, January 29, 1:30 PM–4 PM. Free. bit.ly/crs-mayor-forum

Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC) and Community Renewal Society (CRS), both respectively steeped in an enduring history of social justice and service, also share a longstanding tradition of hosting candidate forums for those seeking public office. For those attending in person, masks are required. It will be livestreamed. (Jackie Serrato)

Mayoral Forum on Early Childhood Education

David & Reva Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Wednesday, February 8, 6:30 PM–8:30 PM. Free.

Child Care Advocates United (CCAU) is a non-profit that supports childcare providers and early childhood educators in the State of Illinois. The purpose of this forum is for candidates running for the office of Chicago mayor to discuss and answer questions pertaining to resources, funding, and relevant services needed to ensure high-quality early childhood education in Chicago. (Jackie Serrato)

Food Justice Mayoral Forum

UIC Student Center East, 750 S. Halsted St. Friday, February 10, 4 PM–5:30 PM. Free. bit.ly/foodmayoral

All mayoral candidates were invited to publicly respond to questions about how they will prioritize food justice issues during their potential mayoral term. Spanish translation and American Sign Language interpretation will be available. Limited in-person seating is available, but the event will be broadcast to a virtual platform. Please only request an in-person ticket if you are confident you will attend in person. (Jackie Serrato)

EDUCATION

12th Annual Developmental Differences Resource Fair

Chicago Children’s Theatre, 100 S. Racine Ave. Friday, February 11, 12 PM–4 PM. Free. bit.ly/developdifferencefair

The Neighborhood Parents Network is hosting their 12th annual development differences resource fair. Come to chat with speech, occupational, physical and ABA therapy providers and schools; learn about fun extracurricular options and more at the exhibitor booths; attend a session about CPS; take part in activities with the Chicago Children’s Theatre Red Kite Project, a series of programs for children on the autism spectrum and their families, or take a break in the staffed Calm Room provided by Twenty-One Senses that provides respite from the potential overload of crowds, sounds and smells. Enter their free raffle to win prizes or pick up goodie bags for the kids too. (Zoe

Pharo)

FOOD & LAND

West Side Garden Collective

Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N. Conservatory Dr. Saturday, January 28, 10 AM–12 PM. Free, but RSVP required. bit.ly/WestSideGardens

The West Side Garden Collective is hosting its inaugural planning meeting. Their current goals are to: build community; chat about gardening, ethics, soil, food, etc.; plan and trade crops to grow; trade seeds and/or start a neighborhood seed bank; visit other neighborhood gardening group projects; learn from each other and the land. There will be some cookies, but feel free to take snacks or beverages to share. All ages welcome. Meeting point near gift shop.

(Jackie Serrato)

ARTS

La Candelaria at OPEN OPEN Center for the Arts, 2214 S. Sacramento Ave Chicago, IL, 60623. Friday, February 3, 4 PM–6 PM. Free. bit.ly/CandelariaOPEN

OPEN Center for the Arts is proud to announce that we, in collaboration with parent leaders from Kanoon Elementary School, Saucedo Scholastic Academy, Spry Elementary Community School, and Hammond Elementary School, will be hosting the 5th annual series of traditional Mexican Events. After having hosted La Posada and La Rosca, the last of the series is La Candelaria. There will be tamales, agua de jamaica, and art workshops! The event is open to the public.

(Fernando

Aburto,

OPEN Center for the Arts)

Vintage House Chicago at Epiphany Center for the Arts

Epiphany Center for the Arts, 201 S. Ashland Ave. Sunday, February 5, 11 AM–5 PM. Free. bit.ly/VintageHouseMarket

Vintage House Chicago is hosting a Valentine’s Day market at Epiphany Center for the Arts with over 50 handmade makers and vintage vendors. Everyone with RSVPs will be entered into a raffle to win $50 to spend at the sale with any vendor of their choosing. Open to 21+ or those younger and accompanied by a parent. (Zoe Pharo)

South Chicago Dance Festival

South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. Shore Dr. Sunday, February 5, 5 PM–6:30 PM. Free. bit.ly/southchicagodancefest

Attend the fourth annual South Chicago Dance Festival for performances featuring youth ensembles throughout the Chicagoland area including Bri’s Dance Place, Hyde Park School of Dance, Jones College Prep, Kenwood Academy High School, Korean Performing Arts Institute of Chicago, Praize Productions, Inc. and Yin He Dance. (Zoe Pharo)

University of Chicago

Folk Festival

University of Chicago, Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th St. Friday, February 10–Friday,

February 11, 8 PM–7:30 PM. Tickets are $30 for regular admission, $20 for seniors and $5 for students. bit.ly/UChicagofolkfestival

The University of Chicago is returning in-person for their 63rd annual twoday folk festival. Located at the U. of C.’s Mandel Hall, attendees can enjoy traditional and folk music, with seven bands from a variety of genres like Blues, Bluegrass, Bulgarian Folk, Irish Folk, Louisiana Cajun, Mexican Son Huasteco and more. Free music and dance workshops will take place on Saturday from 10am to 5pm at Ida Noyes Hall.

(Zoe Pharo)

A Musical Celebration of Black History Month

Compassion Baptist Church, 2650 E. 95th St. Tuesday, February 14, 7 PM–9 PM. Free. bit.ly/musicalBlackHistoryMonth

Join the South Side Jazz Coalition for a free concert celebrating the legacy of jazz in Chicago (with chocolate thrown in ) this Valentine’s Day! Featuring Charlie Johnson on keys, David Scott on guitar, Micah Collier on bass and Greg Artry on drums. With guest vocalists

Felena Bunn, Theophilus Reed, Devon Sandridge and Lashera Moore.

(Zoe Pharo)

“Mercy, Mercy Me”: How African American Artists Addressed the Environment

Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N. Central Park Ave. Wednesday, February 15, 5:30 PM–6:30 PM. Free. bit.ly/mercymercyme

Artist Juarez Hawkins will explore the myriad ways several artists addressed the environment in their work, from earthworks to recycled art, spotlighting an increasing number of African American artists who have turned their creative energies to exploring the earth, its resources and issues of sustainability and social justice: focusing on Martin Puryear, Chakaia Booker and Chicagoborn Candace Hunter. Hawkins is cocurator of gallery programs at Chicago State University and has organized exhibitions around Chicago. She is also a members of Sapphire and Crystals, a collective of African American women artists. (Zoe Pharo)

Shape Literature and Art in Illinois!

Virtually, over the course of multiple dates. Wednesday, February 15, 6 PM–7 PM. Free. luckyjefferson.com/lj-focus-groups

Current (and past) Chicago residents are invited to shape literature and the arts in Illinois! The publishing industry still struggles with representing underrepresented communities on a

national level. And with support from Illinois Humanities, Lucky Jefferson, a nonprofit publisher, is surveying Black, African, and African-Americanidentifying writers and artists residing in Chicago's North Side, West Side, and South Side neighborhoods to better evaluate needs and interests of local creatives. Attend a virtual focus group or complete a self-guided digital survey on your own time! Digital Survey at bit.ly/ LJxILHumanities and registration at bit. ly/FocusGroupReg23

(NaBeela Washington, Lucky Jefferson)

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