December 9, 2021

JOIN OUR TEAMM

Local journalism has never mattered more.

The South Side Weekly is

seeking section editors to help guide our coverage

Lorem Ipsum

Applications due April 25 at 11:59 PM

To d o n a t e o n l i n e : Scan the QR code below

or visit s o u t h s i d e w e e k l y. c o m / d o n a t e .

To d o n a t e b y m a i l : S o u t h S i d e We e k l y, 6 1 0 0 S B l a c k s t o n e Av e .

Chicago, IL 60637.

Checks should be made payable t o o u r f i s c a l s p o n s o r, “Experimental Station”.

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 9, Issue 7 Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Serrato Interim Managing Editor Jim Daley Senior Editors Christian Belanger Christopher Good Rachel Kim Emeline Posner Adam Przybyl Olivia Stovicek Sam Stecklow Martha Bayne Arts Editor Politics Editor Education Editor Housing Editor Community Organizing Editor Immigration Editor

Isabel Nieves Jim Daley Madeleine Parrish Malik Jackson Chima Ikoro Alma Campos

Contributing Editors Lucia Geng Matt Moore

Francisco Ramírez Pinedo Jocelyn Vega Scott Pemberton Staff Writers Kiran Misra Yiwen Lu Director of Fact Checking: Kate Gallagher Fact Checkers: Grace Del Vecchio, Hannah Farris, Savannah Hugueley, Caroline Kubzansky, Yiwen Lu, and Sky Patterson Visuals Editor Haley Tweedell Deputy Visuals Editors Shane Tolentino Mell Montezuma Staff Illustrators Mell Montezuma Shane Tolentino Layout Editors Haley Tweedell Shane Tolentino Tony Zralka Webmaster Pat Sier Managing Director Jason Schumer Director of Operations Brigid Maniates 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: South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, contact: (773) 234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly.com

IN CHICAGO Veteran hospital suffers COVID outbreak Staff at Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, located in the Tri-Taylor area, are increasing protective measures against COVID-19 after more than eighteen patients contracted the virus and one died from it. Hospital officials have taken full responsibility for the outbreak due to an employee who was sick with COVID-19 continuing to work and exposing several patients. In response to the outbreak, the hospital is requiring all staff to wear N95 masks at all times in high-risk areas, as well as goggles and a face mask when entering patients’ rooms, and has stopped all inpatient visits except for end-of-life situations until further notice. The hospital also plans to schedule weekly COVID-19 testing of unvaccinated staff members.

New statewide rent relief On December 6, applications were reopened for the Illinois Rental Payment program, which will be providing nearly $300 million in assistance to landlords and renters based on need. Like past versions of the program, this will be a joint application started by the tenant and completed by the landlord, with funds going directly to the landlord—but if the landlord does not wish to participate, the money will go directly to the tenant. Priority for this round of funding will be given to households earning less than fifty percent of the area median income and to households with one or more unemployed persons. Overall, this round is expected to help more than 32,500 Illinois households. Learn more and apply!: illinoishousinghelp.org Enough warehouses In the spring, Mayor Lori Lightfoot moved to pass an ordinance that would regulate companies that release pollution into the air. With the support of City Council, the measure will require additional environmental impact and traffic reviews before approving zoning permits. City officials have come under intense scrutiny for allowing South Side developers such as MAT Asphalt, RMG/Southside Recycling, and Hilco to operate in or near residential areas.

Last month, professional and advocacy groups including the Chicago Lawyers Committee, Respiratory Health Association, the Illinois Environmental Council, the National Housing Law Project, and Natural Resources Defense Council, penned a letter to the City to request that it “desist from moving forward” with proposed Amazon warehouses in Black and brown communities and all diesel truck facilities seeking to expand their footprint.

IN THIS ISSUE public meetings report

A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level. documenters, scott pemberton, india daniels...........................................4 a ‘manda’ to la virgen de guadalupe

Nearly two decades later, La Villita artist returns to redo popular mural. jacqueline serrato................................5 una manda a la virgen de guadalupe

Mural de la Virgen de Guadalupe en La Villita continúa sanando a la comunidad.por jacqueline serrato, traducido gisela orozco......................6 no sé discos

An artist-run label based in Brighton Park is a hub for artists who are essential workers. sofia mcdowell......................................8 the university of chicago’s bubble

Local residents feel the University has created a divide between its campus and the local community. chima ikoro...........................................10 cps sees steepest student drop in pilsen and la villita schools

CPS students are leaving schools in predominantly Latinx neighborhoods. emily anderson.....................................14 $1 billion for affordable housing development

“Credit goes to all the community members that over the years have fought to make sure that we prioritize affordable housing.” peter winslow......................................16 cook county jail demolition: five fast facts

Contractors demolished two dormitories at Cook County Jail, filling surrounding Little Village with airborne pollutants. leslie hurtado, city bureau...............19 a litany of complaints

Chavez Siler, the officer who attacked a student last month, should have been fired for pistol-whipping a suspect in 2017. jim daley................................................22 calendar

Cover Photo by Jacqueline Serrato

Bulletin and events. south side weekly staff......................25

Public Meetings Report A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level for the December 9 issue.

BY DOCUMENTERS, SCOTT PEMBERTON, INDIA DANIELS

Nov. 29 Committee members made little headway on their frustrations with the ward redistricting process at a meeting of the City Council Committee on Committees and Rules. City Hall had yet to publish a finalized proposed map. Committee Chair Michelle Harris (8th Ward) chided supporters of the Latino Caucus map for creating a parallel process that resulted in a last-minute submission and not participating in City Hall’s most recent map-room negotiations. Latino Caucus members countered that they had not been invited to all map-room negotiations or did not feel that their interests were being adequately incorporated into the map. Council member Gilbert Villegas (36th Ward) said this was the “least transparent process ever.” Alderperson Carlos Ramirez Rosa (35th Ward) characterized the process as “gaslighting.”

Alderperson Daniel La Spata (1st Ward) asked how much time the public would have to view the map before the City Council votes. Chair Harris replied that it depended on how long alderpersons take to “get in the space” and reach an agreement.

Nov. 30 Ideas on how to use American Rescue Plan funds to reduce housing barriers were presented at an Illinois General Assembly Housing Committee hearing. The speakers represented organizations that advocate for affordable, equitable housing.

John Maki of the Alliance for Safety and Justice recommended that the amount of existing housing stock be increased. Richard Rowe, a senior program manager at the Coalition for Supportive Housing, shared the model of Returning Home Ohio.

That organization provides permanent supportive housing for formerly incarcerated individuals diagnosed with severe mental illness or HIV. Artist and researcher Laurie Jo Reynolds, coordinator of the Chicago 400 Campaign, pointed out that Illinois registry laws can make it difficult for people with convictions to get approved for housing.

People with disabilities can be prevented from using some facilities due to inadequate accommodations. She suggested that the State invest in research to understand the effects of housing policies on crime, public health, and other issues.

Dec. 1 The City Council missed the December 1 deadline set by Illinois law for adopting new ward lines, but its members received color copies of City Hall’s long-awaited ward remap proposal at a special City Council meeting. The map has the support of the Black Caucus but is opposed by the Latino Caucus, whose members argue it does not represent the growth of the Latinx demographic in Chicago as shown by recent Census results. The People’s Map, another proposed option, would create thirty4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ DECEMBER 9, 2021

ILLUSTRATION BY HOLLEY APPOLD

seven “minority-majority” wards, more than any other proposal. Alderperson Michelle Harris (8th Ward), who is responsible for shepherding the redistricting process, announced two public hearings for the week of December 6, with more to follow in the new year. The missed deadline means that groups of at least ten alderpersons may trigger a public vote on a competing map proposal. A compromise is still possible before the June primary elections. Alternatively, the public could vote on a proposal in the summer.

A $510.9 million 2022 budget was approved at a meeting of the Chicago Park District’s Board of Commissioners. The new budget represents a six-percent increase over the district’s 2021 budget. Budget Director Jeff Shellhorn acknowledged the effects of COVID-19 on district programming and predicted that revenue will return to pre-pandemic levels in 2022. Discussion about a new Office of Protection and Accountability took up most of the meeting. With a budget of $617,000, the new office would consist of a director, legal investigator, and assistant. Its role would be to review allegations of misconduct, including discrimination, harassment, violence, and child mistreatment, and provide training to employees to identify and prevent such violations. Commissioners questioned whether the funding would be enough to address a recently uncovered culture of abuse. The budget was approved as written.

Dec. 2 The City Council Committee on Special Events, Cultural Affairs and Recreation approved at its meeting the appointment of Erin Harkey as commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE). Harkey was appointed

by Mayor Lori Lightfoot in October after the retirement of Mark Kelly. Citing figures from Arts Alliance Illinois, Harkey reviewed the serious financial and creative challenges faced by the Chicago arts community. A $3.2 billion industry representing 85,000 before the pandemic, Chicago lost approximately $150 billion in sales and nearly a third of the industry’s jobs between April and July of last year. Some good news, however, is that DCASE received an increase of $26 million in the 2022 City budget. Alderperson Sophia King (4th Ward) commented on the communication issues within the committee. Vice-Chair Alderperson Andre Vasquez (40th Ward) said the issues would be addressed. This information was collected in large part using reporting from City Bureau’s Documenters at documenters.org.

A ‘Manda’ to La Virgen de Guadalupe Nearly two decades later, La Villita artist returns to redo popular mural of La Virgen de Guadalupe.

BY JACQUELINE SERRATO

C

ountless people have seen the enormous Virgen de Guadalupe street painting in Chicago’s La Villita neighborhood—a mural near 26th St. and Pulaski Ave.—that displays a young man kneeling in the foreground with his head bowed in prayer. Drivers and pedestrians can’t miss it, and people from out of state come to Chicago to see it.

The praying man in the mural is the painter himself, Héctor González, shown in his late twenties at the time it went up. Eighteen years later, he is returning to renovate the entire thirty-five-foot piece.

PHOTO BY JACQUELINE SERRATO

Over the years, he has driven by to see the mural or has sat quietly across the street from it, and said he has been moved whenever people taped flowers to the brick wall or placed candles on the pavement.

As he was busy repainting it in recent days, a woman stopped by to place a rose in a plastic water bottle in front of the unfinished mural. “She was like, ‘Hey, I want to be the first one to leave the rose for the Virgen,’” he recalled.

González was born in Mexico City and his family settled in La Villita when he was a child . He was exposed to the

arts after visiting the classic colossal murals found throughout the Mexican capital as a child. In Chicago, he joined an aerosol crew that did large-scale pieces on public walls across the city, leading to a career fabricating professional artworks and installations for artists all over the world.

All this time, González led a private life and seldom spoke about the public artwork despite its popularity. But now he’s opening up and sharing the story behind the Guadalupe mural, one that is also a story about himself.

He was already a renowned street

artist in the early 2000s, known locally by his graffiti name “Disrokone”—when he went through a catastrophic and transformational period in his life. His then-girlfriend, Gabby Martínez, was diagnosed with cancer and he was one of her caretakers until her last moments.

Before she passed away in 2001, he prayed fervently to La Virgen de Guadalupe, the most reverenced religious icon for Mexican Catholics. “Like Mom,” González described her. “She's like a motherly presence that has your back.

You know what I mean?”

He prayed for a spiritual intervention

DECEMBER 9, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

ARTS

to endure the imminent loss of his partner. “‘Give [me] the strength that I need to be there for her. And to survive this,’” he remembered praying. “‘I don't know what I can do, or how I can give this favor or blessing back to you,’” he’d tell the Virgen. “‘But I'll do whatever I can to bring people closer to you.’”

The muralist essentially made a religious vow: the equivalent of a manda, as it is commonly known in Mexico, to repay the Guadalupana for her protection during a time of extreme suffering.

In Mexican culture, mandas are usually “repaid” months or years later through a pilgrimage to a shrine— sometimes requiring a trip back to the homeland—that is usually accompanied by an offering of money or other symbolic artifacts for the religious entity that interceded.

About a year or so after Gabby’s passing, he remembered the vow he had made, and he felt the additional urge to give something back to the community that raised him.

He noticed that La Chiquita Supermarket had built a warehouse at its second location in the neighborhood and immediately thought the high-traffic, west-facing wall was perfect for a piece that would be larger than life.

Having had a working relationship with the store owner, Alfredo Linares, after painting the interior of his restaurant, he felt comfortable asking for permission to use the outside wall for something so deeply personal.

“I probably spent like two months painting the original mural, because I was still going through the grieving process.

And a lot of it had to do with me... reconnecting and keeping this promise,” he said. “And it was a form of therapy for me, basically. So I dragged out the project.”

Locals always wondered about the anonymous women in the sepia-toned portraits that González integrated into the artwork. “[That’s] my girlfriend's photograph, and her mom [who] also passed away from cancer,” he said. “And the girl below her, we met her while Gabby was in the hospital. We became very good friends with her and her 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

family. And then when Gabby died, she also died.”

The last portrait is of his late sister, who also passed away from health-related issues.

“The story was very behind closed doors. I mean, even La Chiquita would call me. For years and years, they would call me and they would be like, ‘Hey, Hector, the Catholic magazine wants to put that on their cover and they want to get in touch with you’. And I was like, ‘Nah, no, I don't want nothing to do with the press about this. I don't want to explain anything to anybody.’ You know, I just did that for me.”

The owner was always empathetic, and even when a part of the mural got tagged in recent years, he didn’t let anybody retouch the painting.

The muralist has overcome that difficult chapter of his life and now finds himself in a good place. “Life has moved forward. And I've learned from everything that I went through and... those challenges that I went through are now the things that motivate me to go forward and stuff, because I saw the preciousness of life, you know, and a lot of people don't get to see that,” he said.

He considers it a full circle that his current partner, his fiance Anna Murphy, a muralist in her own right, is assisting him with the renovation. His close friend, art instructor Grigor Eftimov, is also helping.

The new version of the mural includes much more color than the previous one: bright reds, greens, and golds.

González is planning a “blessing” of the mural on December 12, the official day of La Virgen de Guadalupe, at 10 a.m., with mariachi. Jacqueline Serrato is the editor-in-chief of the Weekly. She last wrote a photo essay about the removal of the Jackson Park trees for the construction of the Obama Presidential Center.

¬ DECEMBER 9, 2021

Una manda a la Virgen de Guadalupe FOTO POR JACQUELINE SERRATO

Artista de La Villita regresa al barrio para restaurar el mural de la tan venerada Virgen de Guadalupe que realizó hace casi dos décadas.

POR JACQUELINE SERRATO, TRADUCIDO POR GISELA OROZCO

C

ientos de miles de personas han visto el enorme mural de la Virgen de Guadalupe ubicado en el barrio de La Villita de Chicago—cerca de la calle 26 y Pulaski Rd.—que en primer plano muestra a un joven arrodillado y rezando con la cabeza inclinada. No hay manera de que los conductores y peatones lo pierdan de vista, e incluso, personas originarias de otros estados vienen a Chicago exclusivamente a verlo.

El joven que aparece en el mural es el propio pintor, Héctor González, como lucía a sus veintitantos años de edad cuando realizó la obra. Dieciocho años después, ha regresado al barrio para renovar la obra completa de 35 pies de altura.

Con el paso de los años, él ha manejado por ahí para ver el mural o se ha sentado en la banqueta al cruzar la calle para contemplarlo. Contó que

ARTE se conmueve cada vez que las personas han pegado flores a la pared de ladrillo o cuando colocan veladoras en el suelo.

En días recientes, mientras estaba ocupado pintándolo de nuevo, una mujer se detuvo a dejar una rosa en una botella de agua frente al mural, a modo de ofrenda. “Me dijo, ‘quiero ser la primera en dejarle una rosa a la Virgen”, recordó.

González nació en la Ciudad de México y cuando tenía seis años de edad, su familia se estableció en La Villita.

Durante su niñez, estuvo expuesto al arte al visitar los clásicos y gigantescos murales que se pueden encontrar en la capital mexicana. En Chicago, se unió a un equipo de artistas urbanos que realizaban con pintura de aerosol piezas a gran escala en las paredes públicas de toda la ciudad. Eso lo llevó a tener una carrera fabricando instalaciones profesionales de arte para artistas de todo el mundo.

Durante todo este tiempo, González mantuvo su vida personal privada y rara vez habló de su mural de La Virgen a pesar de su popularidad. Pero es ahora que se está abriendo y compartiendo la historia detrás del mural, que también es su historia.

A principios de la década del 2000 él ya era un reconocido artista callejero, mejor conocido localmente por su nombre graffitero “Disrokone”, cuando pasó por un período catastrófico y transformador en su vida. Su entonces novia, Gabby Martínez, fue diagnosticada con cáncer y Héctor se convirtió hasta sus últimos momentos su cuidador principal.

Antes de que Gabby falleciera en 2001, Héctor le rezó fervientemente a La Virgen de Guadalupe, el icono religioso más venerado por los católicos mexicanos.

“Como si fuera mi mamá”, así la describió González. “Es como una presencia maternal que te respalda. ¿Sabes a lo que me refiero?”.

Le rezó para pedir una intervención espiritual que le ayudara a sobrellevar la inminente pérdida de su pareja. “‘Dame la fuerza que necesito para estar aquí para ella. Y para sobrevivir a esto’”, recordó que le oraba. “‘No sé qué puedo hacer, o cómo puedo devolverte este favor o bendición’”, le decía a la Virgen. “‘Pero haré lo que pueda para que más gente se acerque a ti”, recordó.

El muralista hizo esencialmente

un voto religioso: el equivalente a una manda, como se le conoce comúnmente en México al voto o promesa que se le hace a la Guadalupana u otro santo para así agradecer su protección durante un tiempo de sufrimiento extremo.

En la cultura mexicana, las mandas suelen “pagarse” meses o años después, a través de una peregrinación a un altar

sintió en confianza al pedirle permiso para usar la pared exterior para algo tan profundamente personal.

“Probablemente pasé como dos meses pintando el original, porque todavía estaba pasando por el proceso de duelo. Y mucho de eso tenía que ver conmigo… [necesitaba] reconectarme y mantener esa promesa”, dijo. “Y para mí

FOTO POR JACQUELINE SERRATO

—a veces requiriendo un viaje de regreso a la patria— que suele ir acompañada de una ofrenda, ya sea de dinero u de otros artefactos simbólicos a la entidad religiosa que intercedió.

Aproximadamente un año después de la muerte de Gabby, González recordó la promesa que había hecho y además sintió la necesidad de contribuir algo a la comunidad que lo vio crecer.

Se dio cuenta de que el Supermercado La Chiquita había construido una bodega en su segunda ubicación en el barrio e inmediatamente pensó que la pared viendo hacia el oeste sobre una calle de alto tráfico sería perfecta para una pieza icónica.

Gracias a que ya había tenido una relación laboral con Alfredo Linares, el dueño de la tienda, después de pintar el interior de su restaurante, González se

era una forma de terapia, básicamente.

Así que fui tomándome mi tiempo con el proyecto”.

Los vecinos siempre se preguntaban quiénes eran las mujeres anónimas que aparecían en los retratos en tonos sepia que González integró a la obra de arte. “[Esa es] la fotografía de mi novia, y su madre [que] también falleció de cáncer”, dijo. “Y la muchacha del retrato debajo de ella, la conocimos mientras Gabby estaba en el hospital. Nos hicimos muy buenos amigos de ella y de su familia. Y cuando Gabby murió, ella también murió”.

El último retrato es de su difunta hermana, que también falleció por problemas de salud.

“La historia era muy a puerta cerrada. Hasta los dueños de La Chiquita me llamaban. Durante años y años, me llamaban y decían: ‘Oye, Héctor, la

revista católica quiere poner el mural en su portada y quieren ponerse en contacto contigo’. Y yo les decía: ‘No; no quiero tener nada que ver ni hablar al respecto con la prensa. No quiero explicarle nada a nadie’. Lo hice para mí”.

El dueño del supermercado siempre fue comprensivo e incluso cuando hace poco una parte del mural fue rayada con graffiti, no dejó que nadie retocara la pintura.

El muralista ha superado ese capítulo difícil de su vida y ahora se encuentra mejor. “La vida sigue. Y he aprendido de todo lo que he pasado. Los retos que enfrenté ahora son los que me motivan a seguir adelante, porque vi lo precioso de la vida y no muchas personas tienen esa oportunidad”, dijo.

González considera que es un círculo completo el que su actual pareja, su prometida Anna Murphy, quien también es muralista por mérito propio, le está ayudando con la renovación. Su gran amigo, el maestro de arte Grigor Eftimov, también le está ayudando.

La nueva versión del mural es mucho más colorida, con tonos rojos brillantes, verdes y dorados.

González tiene planeada una “bendición” del mural el 12 de diciembre, el día oficial de La Virgen de Guadalupe, a las 10 de la mañana, acompañado por mariachi, como toda una serenata y ofrenda musical a la Virgen Morena. Jacqueline Serrato es la editora en jefe del Weekly.

DECEMBER 9, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

ARTS

No Sé Discos

An artist-run label based in Brighton Park is a hub for artists who are essential workers.

BY SOFIA MCDOWELL

PHOTO BY MARFA CAPODANNO

C

hicago, and particularly the South Side, is made up of artists, musicians, writers, painters–you name it. You see them participating in local art festivals, weekend fresh markets, local coffee shops and countless community events. They do it all for the love of art. Long hours go into their crafts and many times they go unrecognized, mistreated and not compensated. This is the unfortunate and common narrative of Chicago artists. One artist-run record label on the South Side is hoping to change that reality for artists in Chicago.

No Sé Discos, based out of Brighton Park, was born out of the need to provide a space for Black and Brown 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

artists, a space for those artists that are also essential workers and for those not afraid to push their artistic boundaries to create art that heals. “I’m Chicano. We’re Latinos. We are working class people— we have to do things differently. If we are gonna get any kind of love it's gotta be coming from that,” said Jorge Ledezma, one of the label’s cofounders.

In 2006, Allá, an art-pop band made up of Ledezma, their brother Angel, and Lupe Martinez, embarked on a musical journey that took them further than they could have imagined. The trio self-produced and self-funded their first album. “My idea was to make the best Chicano record ever made,” Angel said.

¬ DECEMBER 9, 2021

“The whole idea of Allá was a Chicano band; the title allá [means] between here and there, and when you are in Mexico you say Allá, and when you are here you say Allá.”

No Sé Discos translates to “I don’t know Records” in English. The name came as the trio found themselves constantly saying “I don’t know,” or “I don’t know what’s next,” or “I just don’t know.” The creation of the label was unlike that of a traditional label: they didn't follow the rules or the advice of the straight white man telling you how to run a label. “The name NO SE fits perfectly because we don't always know what we are doing,” Angel Ledezma said.

“Our music was too weird for most Latinos… [Allá was] accepted by white people, but we sang in Spanish,” Ledezma said. This led them to explore other avenues. The band reached out to a Belgian record label that loved their music and gave them a go. Then it came time to release their second album. This time around, the Belgian label was no longer interested. That took them back to ground zero.

In the meantime, they went back to their day jobs, Lupe and Jorge got married, had a child and continued creating what they know best to do: music. “We still wrote all this music…but we had no audience,” Ledezma said.

In 2018, Jorge was asked by longtime friend and musician CHEBAKA to help him produce his album. The trio agreed, not really knowing how things would turn out—but they knew they had to do it. “Then we had this album and…I’m going to try to get this to record labels,” Jorge Ledezma said. They couldn’t find any who would produce it.

During the struggle caused by the pandemic, they realized the best chance of getting their music out there was to do it themselves. No Sé Discos came to life.

“We were in the middle of the pandemic.

We were all essential workers…. These artists are trusting their music with us.

We can’t just put it out there because we know the business. We are older, or Black or Brown, our music’s a little different.”

Jorge, Lupe, and Angel took it upon themselves to make it happen. The pandemic ultimately catapulted their project and they hit the ground running with London-based Black artist Nayfo and Chicago rapper CHEBAKA joining the label.

Brothers Angel and Jorge are joined

by Jorge’s wife, Lupe, in the music. The label, brought to life, is now a family business.

The members of Allá briefly spoke about generational wealth and the importance of creating a legacy for their daughter. As essential workers, they understand the importance of creating long lasting roots for their family.

The pop group also spoke on their musical influences. Lupe explained her preferences depend on her mood, but she tends to lean towards 80s music such as New Order. Angel shared a more specific list of bands such as the Beatles, who he credits with teaching him how to listen to music, and Black Flag, who he says made him want to play it. As for Jorge, he is currently influenced by Sun Ra. “He was prolific,” Jorge said. “He was extremely independent and because he could not find anybody to release his music, he released his own music.”

It’s impossible to speak about the music industry without hearing horror stories, and, unfortunately, they have experiences they shared with me, but why

throw salt on the wound. Jorge reflects on what role No Sé Discos plays in today’s music. “I don’t like to use the word ‘scene,’ because scenes come and go. Community stays,” Ledezma said.

The label is more than a label. It’s a community of artists working together to make great art. From visual artists to photographers to musicians, they are ready to help you bring the best out of you and your art. “You go and you make something extremely visceral and different. Think about what heals you, and then when you make that, let me listen to it,” Jorge Ledezma said.

No Sé Discos released their first record in October of this year: You are Essential, a compilation of the three artists in the label.

The label was intentional about creating a complete piece of art. McKinley park artist Natalia Villafuentes created the cover art. The label sourced vinyl locally and hand-folded record sleeves. Most of the album was recorded at Pieholden Studios in Chicago. The records can be found in Chicago record stores such as 606 Records, Shuga Records, Reckless Records and Pinwheel Records.

Although the future is uncertain, the label doesn’t plan on going back to normal. Rather, they are looking to navigate micro-events, artist pop-ups and secure a residency to feature a rotation of artists.

The label is already working on releasing their next album, which is a double album and the first full release for artist Nayfu. “There’s a lot of healing and sweat and blood. Working with these artists has been such a trip,” Jorge Ledezma said. If you are an artist looking for representation or want to learn more on the label, you can find No Sé Discos on Instagram @no_se_ discos) and on band camp.

Sofia McDowell is a freelance writer, blogger and marketing professional. She last covered the Bridgeport Community Canteen for the Weekly’s Best of the South Side 2021 edition.

DECEMBER 9, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

The University of Chicago’s Bubble

The University of Chicago has a long history of dividing itself from the community.

BY CHIMA IKORO

O

n November 9, Shao Xiong 'Dennis' Zheng, a recent graduate of the University of Chicago, was tragically shot and killed during a robbery in Hyde Park. The murder of Zheng, who was described as having had an “extraordinary impact,” sparked concerns about safety and the organization of protests and meetings about increased policing. The University held a virtual conference where administrators and officials detailed their new safety plans, but failed to engage local residents. The plans outlined include added surveillance and more police officers among other measures.

Assistant Vice President for Safety and Security at the University, Eric Heath, was among the University’s leaders that spoke at the virtual conference, along with CPD Superintendent David Brown, and President Paul Alivisatos. They said that the University had increased both University police (UCPD) and CPD vehicle and foot patrols. They also promised improved emergency communication, increased use of security cameras and license-plate readers, and increased “visibility of officers near campus.” The University also extended their Lyft RideShare program to every day of the week for the rest of the calendar year. A full list of these plans can be found on the U of C website.

The University of Chicago campus is located primarily in Hyde Park, nestled among majority-Black neighborhoods 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

like Washington Park and Woodlawn, which have often been subject to lack of resources, over-policing, and crime.

The UCPD patrol area extends south from 37th to 64th St., and east from Dusable Lake Shore Drive to Cottage Grove Ave., with the exception of Jackson Park.

Hyde Park and surrounding neighborhoods are already heavily surveilled. Technology like ShotSpotter, which uses audio surveillance to detect gunshots, have resulted in several live microphones and cameras being placed around neighborhoods. Hypersurveillance could not only invade the privacy of community members, community advocates say, it has been shown to heighten police presence as they are frequently falsely alerted.

These false alarms have led to unnecessary police stops, avenues for residents to be brutalized by the police.

Despite the fact that Chicago has one of the largest ShotSpotter systems, these alerts have not lowered crime or led to significant findings. According to a report released in August by the city’s deputy inspector general for public safety, only a little over nine-percent of the 50,000 ShotSpotter alerts from last January to last May have pointed to gun related offenses.

Local residents feel the University has created a divide between its campus and the local community, with the University of Chicago Police and CPD

¬ DECEMBER 9, 2021

patrolling the campus perimeter.

Incoming students are oriented to view the South Side as an unsafe place upon leaving the campus. Safiya Johnson, who graduated from the University of Chicago in 2014, grew up in Roseland on the far South Side. She is also the recruitment retention chair of the Chicago Association of Black Alumni.

She lived in Hyde Park for ten years, and she recalled that during new-student orientation, students were presented with hypothetical situations with racist undertones. Students were given scenarios such as encountering a person wearing a hoodie at night, she said.

“It’s like okay, is this dark, hooded figure a Black person? Who is this ‘dark figure’? It was a terrible question, the Black students really didn’t like it so the University started to change the question, and I think they no longer ask that question now to incoming students.”

Although the loss of Zheng's life was a genuine tragedy, it was not a new occurrence in the area. These neighborhoods have always struggled with gun violence and crime, and community members are not included in the University’s safety plans.

While some university students are perhaps rallying against gun violence for the first time in their lives as a result of Zheng’s murder, South Side residents have fought for solutions to gun violence that seldom gets support from most U of C students. GoodKids MadCity (GKMC),

an anti gun violence organization started by a group of young activists from the South Side, has been fighting for resources to promote community welfare since 2018. GKMC has been demanding that two percent of the Chicago Police Budget of $1.9 million be reallocated to fund mental health services and other community resources, as well support for their Peacebook Ordinance to oppose the Chicago Crime Commission’s controversial Gang Book.

The Peacebook would provide a directory of resources such as jobs, drug treatment centers, and mental health services to decrease gun violence and youth incarceration.

Around the time GKMC was formed, an updated version of the Gang Book was published and distributed to law enforcement and schools. The book, which profiles Chicago gangs with questionable accuracy, now features a section that includes real social media posts as examples, which could cause more constant surveillance of undeserving communities since people’s photos, names, and the entire book itself are publicly available.

Care Not Cops, an organization also founded in 2018, has been fighting for the abolition of U of C Police as the result of a U of C student, Charles "Soji" Thomas, being shot by UCPD during a mental health crisis. Their demands include the reallocation of funds for the benefit of Black students of the University as well as life-saving resources for the neighborhoods surrounding the school.

S

ome students, alums, and residents told the Weekly that Zheng’s murder could have been used as a moment to bridge the gap between the university and the community, yet it seems as though campus protesters were rallying against Black residents. At one protest, students held up signs that said “we are here to learn, not to die.”

Upon seeing a video captioned with this sign, Clarence Okoh, an equal justice works fellow at the NAACP legal defense fund who graduated from the University in 2014, tweeted, “This could’ve been a moment to mourn and grieve in solidarity with Black South Side families that have experienced the dual

ILLUSTRATION BY SHANE TOLENTINO

crisis of police violence and gun violence for generations…”

“Could’ve been a moment to understand that when a city sends police to wage war on Black people, to torture and kill Black children, to close mental health facilities, shut down schools and destory the social fabric-—that no one can escape the consequences even in the ivory tower.”

Okoh continued in a thread of tweets: “This stopped being about a particular tragedy and quickly transformed into a pageantry of racist propaganda to dehumanize Black communities. As an alum, I cannot express how furious I am at this shit.”

“The university intentionally orients

students to see Black people on the South Side as an ‘other,’ a community to be controlled rather than neighbors, as colleagues, as friends,” Okoh said. “So the moment that crisis hits, these narratives are so easily picked up by the student body that what we need now is to punish those people who are outside causing ‘us’ harm, rather than seeing the entire community as one community that has been failed by the University whose history has created these conditions.

Okoh studies the civil-rights implications of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. “Things like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and looks at it in the criminal legal space as well as

in the economic justice context,” he said.

“A lot of that revolves around this new surveillance and the ways in which mass surveillance and surveillance redlining are continuing to deny Black people their basic rights and human dignity.”

“Now, having gone through law school, it’s kind of horrific that you can have a private police force that is not democratically accountable to the jurisdiction that it polices,” Okoh said, adding that a private police department like UCPD may not have the same requirements of transparency public agencies like CPD do.

The University of Chicago safety and security site shares a daily crime log, traffic stop reports through the Illinois

Department of Transportation's (IDOT) traffic and pedestrian stop study, crime trends, descriptions of taser usage and more. Still, the law enforcement agencies that report to IDOT are solely responsible for the accuracy of that data.

U of C's efforts to be transparent still spoke to the concerns of Okoh and other Black students and community members.

For example, looking at the traffic stop report, UCPD will sometimes stop only Black/African-American motorists for weeks at a time, despite the fact that the University has more white and Asian students than Black students.

“Call it what it is,” Okoh said of the UCPD, “It’s despotism.”

DECEMBER 9, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

“Call it what it is,” Okoh says of the UCPD, “It’s despotism.”

D

espotism: the exercise of cruel and oppressive absolute power.

Robert Johnson, a second-year law student and president of the Black Law Student Association at the U of C, spoke about the fear this sort of despotism can cause for Black students.

“Immediately [after news broke of the shooting] I saw what seemed to now be a real concern from the administration about what to do about safety translate into the posting of armed officers and security presence in places where they had not been. That made me personally feel uncomfortable,” he said.

Robert Johnson is from the South Side. His parents lived in Woodlawn, not too far from the University, and Beverly.

He recalls that his father felt a sort of safety from the UCPD when they lived in Woodlawn because of frequent robberies that they’d been victims of. Despite this, there was still an understanding that they weren’t welcome on the University campus.

Having listened to the town hall meeting after the incident, he thought back to the safety measures Superintendent Brown suggested. “Part of one of the things he suggested [was] increasing the communication about suspicious personnel reports,” he said.

He said ‘that’s not going to be racial profiling, but it’s going to be increased communication about these things, increased enforcement of these laws that are on the books.’”

“But we know what that means in practice, right? We know who tends to fit this suspicious character profile. I’ve got twists [in my hair]. If I’m walking around on campus in sweats because I’m tired and it’s finals and I’m just wandering around and it’s dark outside, am I now the suspicious person? That’s my immediate thought.”

12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

“I’ve seen that even in my own neighborhood growing up in Beverly. I know what that looks like, when it’s your space but it’s not really your space.” He said community members are under a magnifying glass of over-policing as they try to go about their lives.

Just as Okoh and Safiya Johnson remember being oriented in fear of the surrounding neighborhoods, although Robert did not attend the University for undergrad, his friends who did also had a similar experience. They were told, for example, not to go past Cottage Grove or further south than 61st.

“There seems to be this clear understanding that you don’t take the Red Line, you don’t take the Green Line, and you take the Six [bus] to get back to campus at night. Then U of C started having more shuttles. Now U of C has a Lyft rideshare program.” Safiya said.

The University also has a portion of its site dedicated to safety advice for students where they offer tips, a Safe Zone at the UCPD headquarters, and barcodes for electronic items so they can be tracked if stolen. The University also offers self-defense classes to students, staff, and faculty, but not community members.

“I think the University bred this sense of fear amongst students,” Safiya Johnson said.

Safiya worked in the admissions office during Donald Trump's presidency and when former President Trump continued to make negative remarks about Chicago, the University saw a decrease in applications.

“As an admissions counselor, you have Black students coming with different concerns. I had a mother stop me [and] ask me ‘this is my Black son, what can you tell him, how should he navigate safety on campus? This was after the Laquan McDonald video came out, so I knew what this mother was referencing.

She was asking how can her son not be another Laquan?”

Safiya told that her son needed to keep his student I.D. on him at all times.

She also advised him to wear U of C clothing and paraphernalia.

“Even that doesn’t stop you from being harassed by UCPD. I know plenty

¬ DECEMBER 9, 2021

of Black boys who have been stopped and questioned by UCPD just for being Black in the neighborhood,” Safiya said.

“They have had students report them as being suspicious, and now they don’t believe in just sitting outside, they have to always be moving. They prefer to only meet up with you if you’re already at the location because the [way] the University polices them.”

O

koh recalled that when he was in student leadership roles, many conversations he had with University administrators were about the need to rethink their relationship with the surrounding communities. “And the University’s talking points were ‘look, we understand the need to be more thoughtful neighbors...we have all of these resources that are designed to try and engage with [the] social problems that plague the South Side…’ and it was just completely ignoring what community folks were telling us.”

“When I was young the big struggle was around healthcare and access to a level one trauma center.” Okoh said.

The U of C trauma center was closed in 1988 because the university was losing money by treating uninsured community members. They did not have a level-one trauma center again until 2018.

Lacking a trauma center meant that although members of the surrounding communities were often victims of gunshot wounds, they could not be treated at the University and hospital that occupied a large chunk of their neighborhood.

“So you had a very clearly articulated community demand, you had young people from the South Side coming to the University, holding these protests, engaging with student groups, talking to us, saying this is what we need of the University of Chicago,” Okoh said. “And it took years.”

Okoh recalls that, ironically, in 2010 an activist named Damian Turner in 2010 he was shot around the corner from U of C, but the ambulance could not take him there because they did not have a level-one trauma center. Turner might have lived if he didn’t have to be taken all the way to Northwestern, where

he was pronounced dead. Northwestern is roughly eight miles from the U of C Hospital, a drive that can take thirty minutes or more. It can take as little as five minutes for a gunshot wound victim to bleed out. Research shows that a person is over twenty percent more likely to die if they are shot more than five miles away from a hospital with a trauma center.

Members of the communities surrounding the University of Chicago could not afford the care they needed when they were victims of the inevitable violence that was out of their hands, so instead they paid for it with their lives for thirty years. Within the first month of opening the trauma center, the University treated 274 adult patients.

As these alumni and students share similar thoughts, it may seem the University of Chicago views what is required for safety much differently than its Black students and the members of the surrounding communities. “You’re protecting property, you’re protecting white people, you’re protecting students who pay a lot of money to go here,” Safiya Johnson said.

Local communities often view U of C as a bubble that insulates itself and has caused others to feel alienated and targeted. Chima Ikoro is the Community Organizing section editor at the Weekly. She last reported on Artists from Roseland.

Enjoy this story?

The Weekly is a nonproot newsroom supported, in part, by readers like you.

Consider becoming a supporter today.

JOIN OUR TEAMM The South Side Weekly is

seeking a managing editor to help lead our team.

Applications due December 31 at 11:59 PM

Learn more! bit.ly/ssw-job

EDUCATION

CPS Sees Steepest Student Drop in Pilsen and La Villita Schools

Although Latinx students continue to represent the largest racial group in Chicago Public Schools, they had the highest number of students leaving in the past year.

BY EMILY ANDERSON

S

ince she began teaching at Irma C. Ruiz Elementary School in the Pilsen/Heart of Chicago community four years ago, special education teacher Paula Barajas has seen the student body shrink by nearly a third.

The loss of students at Ruiz Elementary is part of a larger pattern of enrollment loss at schools throughout Pilsen and La Villita. Over the last five years, more than one in five students has disappeared from these schools.

With this decline, a number of Barajas’ students, many of whom require individualized education plans (IEP), have relocated and started over at new schools. The IEPs are developed by her, other educators, and the child’s parents to meet the student’s needs. According to Barajas, she should keep these students for three years to help them follow through with their IEPs, but some of them have left in the middle of this.

“Students leave because they've had to move more southwest or more south because they cannot afford the rent in this area,” she said.

The trend has continued into this year, according to testimony at a Chicago Board of Education meeting in October.

Compared to the district’s three-percent overall decline in enrollment this fall, there were between six percent and seven percent fewer students at schools in the two historically majority-Latinx neighborhoods. And although Latinx students continue to represent the largest racial group in Chicago Public Schools (CPS), they had the highest number of students leaving in the past year at 5,232.

In a district that primarily bases 14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

its schools’ budgets on headcounts, the smaller numbers don’t bode well for Pilsen and La Villita. As the student population goes down, the likelihood of cuts to faculty and extracurricular programs goes up, raising the probability for future school closures and creating a cycle that exacerbates the student exodus.

According to 2020-21 CPS data, there are 7,902 more seats than students enrolled in the Pilsen and La Villita region, with only sixty-three percent of elementary school seats filled and seventy-seven percent of high school seats filled.

“When you start cutting teachers, chances are it winds up being teachers who do art, music,” said Barajas, who sits on a teacher council, an advisory board that was formed by the alderperson in the 25th Ward last year to discuss causes and impacts of enrollment losses. “I think every parent wants to send their students to a school that has a wide range of extracurricular opportunities for their child.”

Of the 443 teachers who were laid off this summer, Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey noted in a June 22nd press release, the highest number

by ZIP code taught at schools located in North Lawndale and La Villita.

In the past year, Ruiz Elementary saw a fifteen-percent drop in enrollment.

Other elementary schools in Pilsen, La Villita, and North Lawndale with a ten-percent drop or more in enrollment over the past year include: Zapata, Gary, Cardenas, Madero, Hammond, Pickard, Orozco (which lost over a quarter of its students), Pilsen, Walsh, Crown, and Johnson.

¬ DECEMBER 9, 2021

Martha Herrera, the president of the board of directors for community advocacy organization Pilsen Alliance, said she felt the toll of declining enrollment during the two decades she spent teaching kindergarten at Whittier Dual Language Magnet School in Pilsen.

When she started at the Pre-K-8 school in the late 1990s (which was then Pre-K-6), Herrera estimated that approximately 800 students attended Whitter. Within a few years, there were noticeably fewer students at the school, she said. By the time Whittier implemented a dual-language immersion program in 2009—in part an effort to draw more students to the school—the student body was half of what it was when Herrera began.

As enrollment continued to decline, there were fewer and fewer teachers on staff when school began each fall. Herrera was the only kindergarten teacher at Whittier during the last few years she taught prior to her retirement in 2018, forcing her to take on classes larger than thirty some years.

“Nobody can teach like that,” Herrera said. “I don't care how good of a teacher you are, you have different levels [of student progress], especially starting in kindergarten. So the enrollment dropping, mostly it is, you know, gentrification, but it's [also] the resources that schools get.”

On the twentieth day of school this year, there were 178 students enrolled at Whittier—twenty of whom were kindergarteners.

S

ince last school year, 3,129 students left CPS for nonpublic schools in Chicago. Nearly six times as many, however, transferred to a school outside of the city.

“The vast majority of the students that we see leaving are leaving Chicago,” said CPS CEO Pedro Martinez at the October board meeting. “It does beg a lot of questions for me.”

Overall, there are fewer children in these communities.

According to the most recent available data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, five-year estimates ending in 2014 and 2019 showed 5.8 percent fewer households with one or more people under the age of eighteen in ZIP code 60608, which primarily covers Pilsen.

ZIP code 60623, which envelops most of La Villita and North Lawndale, during that same period lost 8.1 percent of its households with children, leaving it at 41.2 percent. More than half of that decline took place between five-year estimates ending in 2018 and 2019.

In Pilsen, 25th Ward Alderperson Byron Sigcho-Lopez pointed to gentrification and housing affordability as some of the primary causes of families fleeing the neighborhood. Paying rent became more difficult during the pandemic due to job loss, he added, contributing to families moving to less costly areas.

“The City is not investing nearly enough in what is important for affordable and public housing,” SigchoLopez said.

As of 2019, approximately 62.7

LOW RATES. LOW DOWN PAYMENTS. GREAT SERVICE. ILLUSTRATION BY EVA AZENARO ACERO

percent of residents in ZIP code 60608 were renters. The median rent there has increased at a faster rate than the rest of Chicago, according to Census Bureau data. Between five-year estimates ending in 2018 and 2019, the median rent in Chicago went up by 3.2 percent, but in Pilsen’s ZIP code, it rose by 5.8 percent.

Enrollment losses continued to rise over the course of the pandemic due to a higher number of barriers to accessing the increasingly expensive housing in the neighborhood, said Pilsen Neighbors Community Council Executive Director Juan Soto.

“When families or individuals lose their job because of a pandemic, then they can't pay their rent or their mortgage payment,” Soto said, “and then that puts them even at a further disadvantage.”

Alderperson Michael “Mike” Rodríguez, who represents the portion of La Villita contained in the 22nd Ward, said that although gentrification is seeping into the eastern edge of the neighborhood, the loss of students there is rooted in other causes.

Aside from declining birth rates that are impacting the entirety of Chicago, Rodriguez suggested population changes are a result of “the Westernization of Mexico … and people moving to major urban centers in Mexico versus coming as immigrants to the United States, and hence to La Villita, the Mexican capital of the Midwest. In addition, there's been racist and xenophobic federal policies to build walls and exclude immigrants.”

The Census Bureau estimated that as of 2019, over a third of La Villita residents were born outside the U.S. Nearly all stakeholders are worried that the drop in resources available at

schools that have been hit hardest by enrollment declines is exacerbating the problem. Barajas hopes that the 25th Ward teacher council can begin to assess to what extent this decline in resources is impacting low enrollment schools in CPS this year.

“I believe many aldermen (and parents) would be interested...to know what is being offered at different schools,” Baraja said. “And what is a solution so that we can actually offer more of those programs at different schools with a decreasing budget?”

School board member Lucino Sotelo said at the October meeting that moving forward, CPS needs to engage local aldermen and community members in its approach to addressing enrollment loss.

The district must be proactive instead of reactive and make sure that “policymakers are actually also taking a look at this and see what we need to do … systemically,” he said.

At press time, CPS had not responded to requests for comment.

“Now is the opportunity for us to really move forward with this idea of (listening to) different stakeholders and their voices,” Barajas said. “We're just going to continue to have a steady decline, which is not going to work.

It's not working for the district, it's not working for administrators, it’s not working for teachers and it's not working for the families.” ¬

15 YR FIXED: 2.250% | 2.580% APR* 30 YR FIXED: 3.000% | 3.188% APR* Contact us today for your FREE MORTGAGE CONSULTATION!

630-324-5799 EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corp. (NMLS ID # 2551 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org) IL:MB.0004263) an Illinois Residential Mortgage Licensee located at 1431 Opus Place, Suite 200, Downers Grove, IL 60515. Telephone 630-376-2100. Regulated by IDFPR located at 100 West Randolph, 9th Floor, Chicago, IL 60601. Telephone 312-814-4500. © 2021 Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corp. All Rights Reserved. 04600-13 12/2021. * annual percentage rate Rates current as of 12/06/2021 and based on a $200,000 loan for the purchase/rate-and-term refinance of an owner-occupied home with an 80% loan-to-value and a borrower FICO score of 740. Contact your DKMC loan officer for current rates. Interest rates and annual percentage rates (APRs) are estimates and not to be construed as exact quotes but a reasonable approximation for informational purposes only, are subject to change without notice and may be subject to pricing adjustors related to property type, loan amount, loan-to-value, credit score and other variables. Actual APR may differ depending on borrower’s credit history and loan characteristics. Other programs are available based on the individual needs of the applicant. This information does not constitute a loan approval or commitment and is not an invitation to extend credit as defined by section 226.2 of Regulation Z. All information presented is subject to change, and all programs are subject to Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corp.’s underwriting guidelines.

Emily Anderson is a freelance journalist and graduate student in Northwestern University's Medill Investigative Lab who most recently worked as an education reporter at the Standard-Examiner in Utah. This is her first story for the Weekly.

DECEMBER 9, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

HOUSING

City Announces $1 Billion for Affordable Housing Development Pilsen and a number of other neighborhoods will see dollars pour into affordable housing development and preservation in their communities.

BY PETER WINSLOW

O

n Monday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago Department of Housing (DOH) announced that the city’s affordable housing infrastructure will get more than $1 billion in the coming calendar year—the largest in Chicago history.

The DOH selected twenty-four new developments in which to create or preserve 2,428 affordable rental units across the city. Eighteen of the twenty-four developments are Equitable Transit Oriented Developments near CTA stations, and sixty-seven percent of those are located on the South and West Sides. The Chicago Housing Authority will add 426 affordable units across five separate developments.

The selected proposals are now entering a matrix of project underwriting, design review, zoning approvals and City Council approvals for public subsidy, according to a press release the mayor and DOH issued Monday. The release stated that the City anticipates that closing on the projects will occur within the next eight to eighteen months.

This surge of investment 16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ DECEMBER 9, 2021

ILLUSTRATION BY HALEY TWEEDELL

stems from the Chicago Recovery Plan and Mayor Lightfoot’s freshly passed budget, and is more than doubling the number of developments awarded and units built compared to the state’s 2019 Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) round of funding.

The LIHTC is a federal tax credit that was created to incentivize private developers to create affordable housing rental housing.

The City hosts application rounds every two years for developers to have access to the tax credit.

“Something that's unique about Chicago is that we get our own allocation of tax credits, most cities don't,” said Marisa Novara, the commissioner of the DOH. “We have a unique opportunity here in Chicago where we have an incredible amount of control over how we dole out these resources as our biggest single source of funding for affordable rental housing.”

The LIHTC accounts for approximately ninety percent of all affordable rental housing nationwide, according to the Illinois Housing Development Authority, and is Illinois’s largest funding source of affordable housing, No-

HOUSING vara said.

“Developing (and) building affordable housing is what's needed,” said John Bartlett, executive director of the Metropolitan Tenants Organization. “A billion dollars is great, but we probably need ten or twenty times that…. It was good to invest this much, it just needs to be on a regular basis.”

T

he City also announced the acquisition of more than six acres of vacant land in Pilsen at 18th St. and Peoria St. and will create a minimum of 280 affordable housing units, according to the press release. However, a timeline for breaking ground has not been confirmed.

“We're starting that whole process right now,” Novara said. “It'll take another several months before we are officially through with all of our processes with Plan Commission and Community Development Commission and City Council … then there will be a process where the land will need to be remediated.”

Development at this location has long been a hotbutton source of debate. Pilsen, a predominantly Latinx and working-class neighborhood, continues to deal with gentrification, and in the past residents have called for more investment in affordable housing options.

Alderperson Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th Ward) calls this a historic day, and one to celebrate in the community.

“Credit goes to all the community members that over the years have fought to make sure that we prioritize affordable housing,” Sigcho-Lopez said. “This is a clear example that when we organize, we can win.”

“We anticipate that it will be a bit of time before there's actually shovels in the ground, but during the time that it’s being remediated we anticipate we will be going through a robust community planning process for that site,” Novara said.

This comes after two anti-displacement measures were passed by the City Council earlier this year.

“These measures ensure that longtime residents in areas experiencing gentrification and the possibility of displacement can actually remain in their home and share transformative improvements that are occurring in their communities,” Lightfoot said at Monday’s press conference.

O

n Monday, the Department of Housing also opened a second round of applications for its Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP). This round includes $102 million from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, according to the press release. It will offer up to $2,500 per month for up to eighteen months of past or future rental and utility assistance for tenants and landlords.

The DOH is prioritizing applicant households that earn fifty percent or less of the area’s median income.

Applications will not ask tenants for Social Security numbers, said Dr. Eugenia Orr, director of public affairs of the department. The second ERAP application round will close December 18.

I

n 2020, the City initiated the nation’s first Racial Equity Impact Assessment (REIA) on the LIHTC program to recommend racially equitable strategies that ensure building community wealth through the Department of Housing’s Qualified Action Plan. During the pandemic, the DOH visited current LIHTC affordable housing developments to speak with residents and conducted focus groups, Novara said.

“We realized we have been silent on the question of who was actually developing affordable housing in addition to who actually lives in them at the end of the day,” Novara said. “That finding is exactly why you see…a call in our Qualified Allocation Plan to say we want to ensure that there is BIPOC lead or material participation from BIPOC developers in the team.”

Ten of the twenty-four developments are BIPOC-led and all developments will have BIPOC developer participation, according to the release.

A total of fifty-one applications were submitted between May 24 and July 2 were vetted through an interdepartmental review process, said Managing Deputy Commissioner Byran Esenberg.

“As a matter of the review, the Department of Housing does the financial underwriting and construction compliance assessments,” Esenberg said. “We work in collaboration with the Department of Planning and Development on the zoning and the design reviews, as well as the Department of Transportation for any type of requirements we need for streets, roads and infrastructure.”

The LIHTC funding for affordable housing creation and preservation was channeled into four different tracts: Opportunity Areas, Redevelopment Areas, Transitioning Areas and Preservation areas.

Opportunity Areas prioritize City-owned land in highly resourced areas and proposed development projects that provide units for the lowest income tenants whose household incomes are at or below thirty percent of the area median income.

• Redevelopment Areas are often low or moderate income that contain census tracts with ongoing revitalization initiatives or plans, such as the INVEST SouthWest planning area.

• Transitioning Areas are those that have data indicating media rents, household incomes and home sale prices have increased by twenty percent over the last three consecutive years.

• Preservation areas use incentives like the four percent LIHTC and tax-exempt bonds to encourage the recapitalization of existing afford-

able housing projects. *(All bullet points according to the 2021 Qualified Action Plan) These are the 2021 LIHTC awardees listed in the press release:

• • • •

Tract 1: Opportunity Area 2907 W. Irving Park Apartments, Irving Park 4715 N. Western Apartments, Lincoln Square Lathrop Homes Phase 1D, Lincoln Park Practice District Apartments, Near South Side

• • • • • • • •

Tract 2: Redevelopment Area 43 Green Phase II, Grand Boulevard Austin United Alliance, Austin East Morgan Park Commons, Morgan Park Imani Village Senior Residences, Pullman LeClaire Courts A, North, Garfield Ridge Legends South A3, South Chicago The Regenerator, Englewood Thrive Englewood, Englewood

• • • •

Tract 3: Transition Area 1237 N. California Apartments, West Town Boulevard Apartments, Humboldt Park Parkside 4 Phase 4, Near North Side Winthrop Argyle Apartments, Uptown

• • • • • •

Tract 4: Preservation Albany-Gaines Redevelopment, East Garfield Park Archer Avenue Senior, Bridgeport Churchview Supportive Living Facility, Chicago Lawn Island Terrace, Woodlawn North Town Village 1, Near North Side Prairie District Apartments, Near South Side

Peter Winslow is a freelance journalist and investigative journalism student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He last wrote about backlogs at the Social Security Administration for the Weekly.

DECEMBER 9, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17

BEST

CHILDREN’S HOSPITALS

DON’T WAIT.

Schedule your child’s COVID-19 vaccine today. » » » »

COVID-19 vaccine is free for all children.

Appointments for kids ages 5 and older can be scheduled anytime.

Schedule your child’s first- and second-dose appointments with just one phone call.

Flu shots are available.

Call Comer Children’s COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic at 773-834-8221 to make an appointment for your child at an available location.

Cook County Jail Demolition: Five Fast Facts In June, contractors demolished two dormitories at Cook County Jail, filling surrounding Little Village with airborne pollutants.

BY LESLIE HURTADO, CITY BUREAU

L

ongtime La Villita resident Natividad Martinez wakes up every morning to tend to her plants just outside her front door. But by 7 a.m., she said, dust from the demolition of two Cook County Jail dormitories about a mile east forces her back inside as her eyes begin to flare up. She boils fresh chamomile and then moistens a cloth to wash her eyes with the herb, a natural healing remedy taught to her by her mother from Puebla, Mexico.

“Because my eyes are infected, the dust is what bothers me the most because I feel like I have garbage inside my eyes, and they puff up a lot,” Martinez said in Spanish. “I have always had puffy eyes, but now, with the [demolition], it is worse.”

In late June, demolition contractors began to tear down the two dormitories, which are located along 26th St., to make room for a recreational area in the next year. And Little Village residents, like Martinez, say they are experiencing

NATIVIDAD MARTINEZ RUBS THE LITTLE TEARS SHE HAS FROM HER EYES INSIDE HER HOME IN LITTLE VILLAGE. (SEBASTIÁN HIDALGO/CITY BUREAU)

respiratory issues believed to be linked to high levels of contaminants.

Martinez informed her doctor that dust from the Cook County Jail demolition flew into her eyes, that she experienced discomfort in her throat and that she had trouble breathing. Her doctor said if she experienced throat pain after the demolition occurred, toxic particles may have entered her nose.

Her son described her vision to be similar to a kaleidoscope––a vivid vision of multi-colored patterns of sequences, objects or elements. She also accumulated styes because of the constant bacteria entering her eyes.

“Ever since this demolition happened, I [am experiencing symptoms] similar to a cold, but it is not a cold,” Martinez said in Spanish. “The doctor prescribed me to [cleanse] my nose with a nasal spray and [lubricate] my eyes with eye drops.”

Cook County officials stated that

their contractors would not use explosives to destroy the dormitories and that demolition work would follow a selective process where sections of the buildings would be dismantled “piece by piece.”

They used a similar method to demolish the jail’s Divisions 3 and 17 in 2016-2018.

This is notably different from the botched Hilco Redevelopment Partners implosion of a former Crawford coal plant last year, in which contractors demolished a large smokestack with explosives, blanketing the surrounding Little Village neighborhood in dust.

City officials hired air technicians to provide daily air monitoring on the site, as requested by environmental advocates and Little Village residents, to prevent a similar occurrence of what happened at the former Crawford plant.

Yet some residents who live near the jail say dust still resettled outside of their homes, causing them to experience dizziness and contract respiratory illnesses

including asthma, throat inflammation and irritations surrounding the face.

Members of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) say they believe more demolitions and the proliferation of pollution-generating industries in Little Village are in conjunction with residents having respiratory diseases along with other health conditions.

“The air around us needs to be seriously considered or looked at through a health and environmental justice lens, so that we can make sure that we're a little bit more responsible about these [demolition] projects,” said Karen Canales Salas, LVEJO’s environmental justice education coordinator. "We have residents that cannot breathe and are engulfed in a cloud of dust.”

As demolition continues into 2022, here are five facts you need to know about how it’s being done:

DECEMBER 9, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19

Why did Cook County move forward with demolition?

In 2016, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart announced that the board would initiate a public safety reform to demolish several county jail buildings to reduce the jail’s capacity and build an exercise facility.

The demolition project, which included the destruction of two jail divisions in 2016 through 2018 and is supervised by the Cook County Bureau of Asset Management, would allow the state to cut over $3 million in building operating costs and $188 million in capital costs, projected over a decade.

The jail dormitories that are currently being demolished, labeled Division 1 and 1A, have operated since the early 1900s with a deteriorating structure that officials called “costly to operate.”

“As we see declines in the number of detainees, it is logical and fiscally responsible to reduce the number of divisions at the jail,” Preckwinkle said in the 2016 press release.

While it is not clear how much the recreational building will cost, demolishing other sections of the jail cost over $2.5 million each, according to officials.

Officials stated reducing the population at the jail has been carried out by the creation of mental health services, intervention programs and electronic home monitoring. In public meetings held this year, officials said the jail population dropped by half, which it has, from around 10,000 in the early 2000s to around 5,000 people currently incarcerated there.

How were the buildings demolished?

Contractors are not using explosives to remove the buildings. They are using machines called industrial grapplers to demolish the site in parts. Water cannons are positioned

on the building to spray down any dust and debris.

PM10 refers to airborne particulate matter that is often visible, like dust. In a printed bulletin, officials wrote that work would cease when PM10 levels equal or exceed 0.150 mg/m^3—the federal air quality standard—and when winds are higher than fifteen miles per hour or gusts were over twenty miles per hour. According to air technicians, the demolition site is well within those standards.

The final remediation plan—to ensure dust control and safe removal of toxic airborne particles like lead and asbestos—was prepared by a contractor and checked by an environmental engineer consultant to ensure compliance with the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA), and other standards. It was reviewed and approved by the County before the start of demolition, according to Cook County’s Bureau of Asset Management.

In a statement provided to City Bureau by email, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Asset Management wrote that High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter machines were used to contain any runaway particles within the work area during asbestos remediation. Asbestos materials were watered down and stored inside two layers of disposal bags. Damaged lead paint on surfaces were also disposed of, but intact lead paint surfaces remained on site.

Contractors did not find contaminants in soil samples; therefore, they did not implement a removal plan. Since August, the soil remains on site and is covered with a soil cap.

Non-hazardous recyclable materials such as copper and steel were sent to recycling centers and other nonhazardous materials were sent to landfills.

Were residents informed about the demolition?

A STUDENT PASSES BY THE COOK COUNTY JAIL, ON 26TH STREET, AS DEMOLITION TAKES PLACE. SEPT. 8, 2021. MIST FROM THE WATER CANNONS SPRAY DOWN THE BUILDING IN AN EFFORT TO LIMIT DUST FROM ESCAPING THE OUTSIDE THE COUNTY WALLS. (SEBASTIÁN HIDALGO/CITY BUREAU)

20 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ DECEMBER 9, 2021

The Cook County Bureau of Asset Management hosted virtual community meetings and sent bulletins to homes within an area mostly bounded by Cermak Rd., California Ave., 31st St. and Kedzie Ave. The department sends a monthly email newsletter that gives an overview of demolition activity. By August, about 260 residents had subscribed for the newsletter.

“We are trying to reach as many people as possible to not just educate people that this demolition is happening, but to hopefully instill trust in this process and answer the community’s concerns around their safety,” said Audrey Jonas, a public information officer of Cook County’s Bureau of Asset Management.

Jonas explained that residents can view the information on the Cook County site if they did not receive a bulletin or subscribe for the newsletter.

But that adds a barrier: Latinx residents are less likely to have a computer or internet access at home.

Calling Cook County’s demolition information line at (847) 378-1704 can also be difficult. When City Bureau called the line several times throughout the week, the call went straight to voicemail.

ENVIRONMENT What is being detected so far?

PHOTO BY SEBASTIÁN HIDALGO

The operator said to wait twenty-four hours for a response.

“At first, [residents] could not leave messages because there wasn’t an automated message before,” said Edith Tovar, a LVEJO organizer, who also called the hotline.

“We have heard from folks that there is not an actual person picking up the call.”

Tovar said a parent was calling the line because they witnessed dust spreading through her block but was not able to get a hold of someone.

“They give us this number, and we're calling, and the voicemail tells us to wait [for a response] within twenty-four hours,” Tovar said. “Well, the emergencies are happening now.”

How is the air being monitored?

According to the data, PM10 particles were recorded exceeding 0.150 mg/m^3 for short periods of time throughout some demolition days. The most concerning day was July 23, when air monitors detected PM10 levels nearly doubled the standard number to 0.291 mg/m^3 The number dropped significantly in a matter of minutes only to rise again later in the day.

In another emailed statement, an air technician recorded the number 0.291 mg/ m^3 and wrote down that dust was not escaping the site. The technician concluded that the brief spike was probably caused by a water mist machine that was spraying toward the downwind air monitors. Because the levels peaked for only five minutes, work continued.

But in order for particle levels to exceed the NAAQS standard, significant levels must be present for twenty-four hours, experts say. Monitors are not taking measurements for twenty-four-hour periods.

Monitors also only measure PM10, not smaller particulate matter like PM2.5.

“Measuring PM10 is a sledgehammer approach to measuring air pollution,” Brian Urbaszewski, a director at the Respiratory Health Association, said. “The chunkier stuff [PM10] could cause bronchial irritation––coughing and sneezing. But the really small [particulate matter, like PM2.5] are the dangerous ones. The really small particles actually make it into the bloodstream. And that's what’s associated with things like heart attacks and deaths.”

Regardless if PM10 levels exceed the standard number, prolonged exposure can still draw health concerns for many residents who live nearby.

“None of it is good,” Dr. Shelby Hatch, assistant professor of chemistry at Northwestern University, said. “That's still a significant amount of particulate matter in the air. [The standard number 0.150 mg/m^3] means that it's not as problematic.

But it could still be problematic for [vulnerable groups]–people who already have asthma, partially due to breathing in the polluted air for so long.”

Independent studies, environmental justice groups, and the City's own 2020 Air Quality and Health Report often point to Little Village as a community struggling with the worst air quality, high asthma rates, and other social vulnerabilities.

For decades, residents like Martinez, have had to rely on creative solutions to mitigate the harm caused by pollution. “Who is going to help me [recover] from this [illness]? [The City] doesn’t care. They throw away dust, and we breathe it,” Martinez said.

City Bureau will follow up with a second story on this issue. If you are experiencing similar issues, email publicheroesandsecrets@Gmail.com.

Leslie Hurtado is a former 2021 City Bureau fellow, and a multimedia journalist who is currently a producing fellow at WTTW Chicago. She is focused on covering stories on communities, race and immigration. This is her first time writing for the Weekly.

Cook County is providing daily air monitoring readings on a public Airtable. They hired environmental health agency Carnow Conibear and Associates to conduct air monitoring of the jail. Air technicians are required to provide readings on days of demolition work, which are then uploaded onto the County’s site.

The monitors are placed between 5.5 and six feet above the ground on tripods with a post above, and air monitors will detect all PM10 particles including dust, mold, pollen and more.

These air monitors read when demolition days begin until when work stops, usually around 3:30 p.m. Air quality measures are not taken for a full twenty-fourhour period. According to a statement from County officials, demolition work does not always start at 7 a.m.

Occasionally, air monitors move depending on weather conditions and when the wind changes direction.

DECEMBER 9, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 21

POLICE

A Litany of Complaints

Chavez Siler, the officer who attacked a student last month, should have been fired for pistol-whipping a suspect in 2017, COPA found.

BY JIM DALEY

C

havez Siler, the Chicago police officer who was involved in a physical altercation with a student at George Westinghouse College Prep in November, was recently investigated by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) for a brutal arrest that occurred in 2017 at a gas station. In that incident, Siler held his handgun to a suspect’s head and pistolwhipped him until he appeared to lose consciousness, according to documents obtained by the Weekly.

On March 30, 2021, COPA recommended Siler be fired. It is unclear why he was still working at the school eight months later.

A cell-phone video of the November incident at Westinghouse shows Siler scuffling with the seventeen-year-old senior. At one point, Siler holds his gun in his right hand as he repeatedly shoves the student into the wall with his left hand at the boy’s throat. The Sun-Times reported that the incident began when Siler stopped the student for exiting through a door reserved for people with disabilities. According to Block Club, Siler has since been removed from the school.

It is unclear precisely what his job was there, or whether he was working for the Chicago Police Department (CPD) or in another, off-duty role.

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) spokespersons did not immediately 22 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

respond to the Weekly's questions. An assistant principal at Westinghouse declined to comment on Siler’s status, citing the ongoing investigation.

As of press time, Siler is still listed on Westinghouse College Prep’s website as “Security / CPD.” A person with knowledge of the incident who spoke to the Weekly on the condition of anonymity confirmed Siler is the officer seen in the video.

The Weekly filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with CPD for Siler’s disciplinary and personnel records. According to the documents the department provided, Siler has been the subject of at least nine misconduct investigations since he was hired by CPD in 2007.

The 2017 pistol-whipping incident took place at a gas station mini-mart in Humboldt Park. Siler and officers Michael Benamon, Corey Boone, and Robert Clark were attempting to arrest a man they suspected of having a gun and being wanted in connection with a shooting.

COPA interviewed Siler about the incident in May 2019. According to the testimony Siler gave investigators, when the police approached the man in the mini-mart, Siler noticed a “bulge” in the man’s waistband and concluded the man was armed. He grabbed the man, who pulled away.

“As the struggle continued,” the

¬ DECEMBER 9, 2021

COPA investigators’ incident summary reads, “video evidence provided a better, more complete view of the struggle.

During this time [the suspect] was captured telling the officers that he was not going to shoot. The officers yelled at [him] to put his hands in the air. [The suspect], who had one hand in the air while the other hand was being held by Officer Benamon, was recorded telling the officers he had his hand up.

“Meanwhile,” the summary continues, “Officer Siler, using both of his hands, placed the barrel of his firearm directly against [the man’s] head. At one point, the video footage showed [the suspect] with both of his hands in the air. Soon thereafter, Officer Benamon grabbed the suspect’s gun and stated, ‘I got it.’ From this point forward…both officers instructed [the man] to place his hands behind his back.

“As the struggle moved over to the next aisle, Officer Siler grasped [the suspect] by the shirt and then intermittently pistol-whipped [him] in the face or aimed the barrel of his firearm directly against [his] head,” the COPA summary continued. “Around this time, Officer Boone entered the aisle and Officer Benamon handed [the suspect’s] firearm off to Officer Boone.”

The report says that the struggle continued to the floor by the cooler. “At which

time, Officer Benamon kneeled on [the suspect], who was in the prone position, and Officer Siler kneeled next to him.

While [the suspect] was on the ground, Officer Siler continued to pistol-whip [him] in the face with a firearm, point the barrel of a firearm directly against [the suspect’s] head, or ask assisting officers to tase [him] in the face. The combination of force by Officer Siler only stopped once [the suspect] lied motionless on the ground, seemingly unconscious.”

Siler admitted to investigators that he held his gun to the man’s head, threatened to shoot him, and pistol-whipped him.

He also admitted that he called for another officer to tase the man in the face.

Siler claimed that was supposed to be a threat and that he didn’t expect the other officers to tase the man. Officer Boone tased him anyway, although it’s unclear where on the man’s body.

The arresting officers’ supervising officer, Sergeant Kevin Leahy, reviewed their tactical-response report, a form officers must fill out after using force on a civilian. The report did not disclose that the suspect had been unarmed when Siler pistol-whipped him, according to the COPA investigation.

Lieutenant Wilfredo Roman reviewed surveillance video of the incident and approved the tacticalresponse report, concluding that Siler had acted in compliance with CPD policies

POLICE regarding the appropriate use of force. He told COPA investigators in June 2019 he did not believe Siler knew the suspect was disarmed before Siler began pistolwhipping him.

COPA found that both Leahy and Roman made “false, misleading, inaccurate, incomplete, and/or inconsistent statement(s) and/or fact(s)” regarding the tactical-response report.

Benamon was found to have used excessive force, to have called the suspect a “n*****,” and to have failed to intervene in Siler’s excessive use of force or report it. Boone was found to have discharged his taser, to have failed to report either Benamon’s or Siler’s excessive force, and to have made false or misleading statements to investigators. Clark was found to have failed to report the excessive force and to have made false or misleading statements to investigators.

Investigators concluded Siler’s decision to use force “was based on unreasonable conjecture and not upon objective facts that would lead a reasonable officer to use deadly force.”

COPA recommended Benamon be suspended for sixty days, and that Leahy and Roman be suspended for 180 days. COPA recommended Siler, Clark, and Boone be fired. As of press time, all three still work for the department; a CPD spokesperson said they are on administrative duty.

Reached by phone, Siler declined to comment.

W

hile the 2017 pistol-whipping was by far the most egregious incident in the files the Weekly reviewed, it wasn’t the first. Siler began collecting civilian complaints of excessive force soon after he joined the department in September 2007.

Siler’s first complaint occurred when he’d been a police officer for ten months.

According to the complainant, a radiology technician at Christ Hospital, Siler allegedly told a man in custody who would not cooperate with an examination that he’d “do it the Chicago way,” before painfully tightening his handcuffs. Security officers at the hospital contradicted the technician, and investigators found the complaint unsustained.

Siler’s second incident took place just shy of his one-year anniversary on the force, while he was still a probationary police officer. On a September evening in 2008, he was off-duty at a Church’s Chicken at North and Cicero. The restaurant’s ninety-nine cent “two-piece Tuesday” special had the line out the front door by 6 p.m., when a man dropped his girlfriend off to pick up some food while he went to a nearby strip mall.

The girlfriend, seeing the line at the front door, went to a side door with a few other patrons after another customer told them there was more than one line inside.

Siler, one of about thirty people in the lobby, began to yell at the group who had entered the side door.

“Man, you all buttin’ me,” Siler shouted. “We ain’t buttin’ you,” someone replied, pointing out the multiple available lines. According to another witness, Siler said, “I’ve been waiting in line like everybody else, and I want my fuckin’ food.”

Siler stepped out of the line he was in and approached the girlfriend as other customers tried to diffuse the situation.

Siler “pushed his way to the very front of the line next to me,” one witness later told investigators. “He continued to cuss and yell about people not knowing their place. The young lady he stepped in front of said, ‘Yo, just chill, it’s just chicken.” The only way to describe what he did next was he snapped on her. The one thing I did hear him say was, he leaned into her face and said, ‘Bitch, you need to shut the fuck up.’”

The woman pulled out her cell phone and called her boyfriend for help, telling him a guy was “amping up” on her.

“Why you calling for somebody?”

Siler said. “You’re gonna get somebody killed.”

According to multiple witnesses, he had not yet identified himself as a police officer.

The woman’s boyfriend then entered the restaurant with at least one other person. “Hold on, hold on, what’s goin’ on?” he said, according to what his girlfriend later told investigators. Siler claimed the man yelled, “Let’s whoop his ass” as soon as he arrived.

Multiple accounts agree that the

woman then pointed Siler out to her boyfriend, who later told investigators that at that point, he saw Siler take out his own cell phone. Then he saw Siler pull his gun.

“He motioned the gun toward the crowd and…stated ‘Let it happen, let it happen,’” the man told investigators.

Other witnesses said Siler held the gun at his leg, pointed at the ground.

A Church’s employee called 911.

“It’s an emergency, this guy has a gun,” he told the operator. A woman also called 911. “There’s a man up in here, he say he’s a police officer. He got a gun out,” the call transcript reads. “He off duty, he got his gun out…He a police officer, he got his badge up with a gun. He got his gun out in front of all these people at the Church’s Chicken ‘cause he got mad that somebody butt him.” In the background, another man is recorded saying “Don’t

put it up. Don’t put it up.”

As the crowd realized Siler had a gun, the lobby quickly emptied. Siler also called 911. On a transcript of his call, he says “Let it happen, let it happen,” multiple times. “Ain’t nobody have to get shot,” someone in the background says.

“Let it happen, let it happen,” Siler says.

On Siler’s 911 transcript, he tells the operator he’s an off-duty cop. None of the 911 calls record Siler saying “Chicago police,” and none of the witnesses stated he announced himself as an officer during the altercation. Siler gave the 911 operator a description of their car and the license plate number before following them into the parking lot.

Police officers arrived within

ILLUSTRATION BY ZAHID KHALIL

DECEMBER 9, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 23

POLICE

“While [the suspect] was on the ground, Officer Siler continued to pistol-whip [him] in the face with a firearm, point the barrel of a firearm directly against [his] head, or ask assisting officers to tase [him] in the face. The combination of force by Officer Siler only stopped once [the suspect] lied motionless on the ground, seemingly unconscious.”

—COPA investigative report minutes. According to one witness, Siler asked them to lock up one of the men he’d argued with. That witness later told investigators he stayed in the parking lot to prevent the arrest. “I thought that was wrong, ‘cause the kid didn’t do nothing,” his statement reads. “He threw some profanities at [Siler] but that was it. He didn’t go toward him or nothing. I don’t know what made the gun come out.” That witness also told investigators he didn’t realize Siler was a cop until everyone was in the parking lot.

When a responding sergeant later asked him if he had identified himself as a police officer, Siler said he had. “I identified myself to the whole restaurant basically,” he told him. Siler also claimed he began saying “Chicago police, Chicago police,” but several witnesses, including a Church’s employee, told investigators he hadn’t identified himself as a cop when he drew his gun. Others said one of the men who had approached Siler said they didn’t care if he was police.

Four witnesses later filed complaints with the department. Siler was relieved of police powers while the incident was under investigation.

In an interview with Bureau of Internal Affairs Reports (BIA) investigators, Siler claimed he feared for his life when he pulled out his gun. The 24 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

investigators reviewed the 911 calls and surveillance video from the Church’s Chicken and interviewed several witnesses.

After six weeks, investigators cleared Siler. In their report, they wrote that some of the civilian witnesses weren’t credible and noted that two of the complainants had stopped cooperating with them. Siler was back on the street, his career still ahead of him.

S

iler continued to garner civilian complaints. In June of 2011, a man Siler and other officers arrested filed a complaint alleging they had kicked him while he was lying on the ground and taken several thousand dollars from him. Other officers either denied the allegations or said they couldn’t recall the interaction, and without other witnesses or video evidence, the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA)—COPA’s predecessor agency—found the complaint unfounded. In August of 2011, another civilian filed a complaint accusing Siler of choking him and ramming his head into an interrogation room wall. The man was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital as a result, but lacking other witnesses, IPRA found his allegation unsustained.

Then, six years later, Siler pistolwhipped the suspect in the Citgo mini-

¬ DECEMBER 9, 2021

mart incident. Four years after that, he was filmed fighting the student at Westinghouse College Prep.

Besides the complaint stemming from the mini-mart incident, Siler had only one other complaint against him sustained: an administrative one for “indebtedness to [the] City,” for which he garnered a reprimand. Most of his civilian complaints were found to be unsustained or unfounded, but by 2017, he had more complaints than seventy-eight percent of CPD officers, according to the Citizens’ Police Data Project.

Cops staying on the force despite a troubling history of complaints— unsustained or otherwise—is alarmingly common. A 2019 study published in the American Economic Journal analyzed more than 50,000 civilian complaints against Chicago police officers, and found that cops who have more civilian complaints were far more likely to be involved in civil rights lawsuits.

Multiple officers involved in highprofile physical altercations with civilians in recent years had more complaints than the average officer. Jason Van Dyke, who murdered Laquan McDonald in 2014, had twenty-five complaints, according to the Citizen’s Police Data Project. One was sustained. Bruce Dyker, who attacked

a Black woman on the Lakefront path in August, had twenty-three complaints in his disciplinary file, several involving force. Two were sustained. Nicholas Jovanovich, who knocked out Miracle Boyd’s tooth at a protest last summer, attacked a teenager in 2009; investigators cleared him in that incident.

Last month, the Weekly won a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against CPD, and the department turned over two internal audits conducted in 2020 that analyzed the complaint histories of officers over the previous five years. One of the audits, which was apparently done in response to grassroots organizing efforts last summer, found that fifty-four percent of school resource officers had at least one complaint made against them between 2015 and 2020.

Investigators had found fewer than one in ten of them to be sustained. About seven percent of SROs had been suspended from duty for misconduct in that same time period.

How many more officers like Chavez Siler are policing Chicago?

How many are working in Chicago Public Schools? Jim Daley is the Weekly’s interim managing editor. He last reported on internal CPD audits of officers’ disciplinary histories.

ILLUSTRATION BY THUMY PHAN

BULLETIN Love & Nappyness Hair Care Drive Various, Through Friday, December 17. Free. instagram.com/loveandnappyness

Love & Nappyness is a community service initiative that promotes community wellness through natural hair care. Donations will go to Ignite and St. Leonards Ministry. A full list of drop-off locations is available on the Instagram @loveandnappyness. Volunteer opportunities are also available. (Chima Ikoro)

#DenyThePermit Rally

Jonquil Park, 1001 W. Wrightwood Ave., December 10, 5:00pm. Free. bit.ly/CHIStrike Join #StopGeneralIron at Jonquil Park to call on the Chicago Department of Public Health to deny Southside Recycling's metal shredder's permit to open General Iron on the Southeast Side. (Maddie Parrish)

GoodKidsMadCity Love March

67th & Ashland, Saturday, December 11, 3:00pm. Free. bit.ly/3y6NzIn Hosted by GoodKidsMadCity and Nita's Love Train, this is a march to spread love and peace followed by mutual aid. Free food and winter coats will be handed out to the community after the march, and you can DM @gkmc18 or email englewoodgkmc@gmail.com to donate coats. (Maddie Parrish)

City Council Meeting

City Hall, Wednesday, December 15, 10:00am. Free. chicityclerk.com The full City Council will meet in person at City Hall.

Agenda and instructions for public comment and online and in-person attendance will be posted on the City Clerk's website. ( Jim Daley)

Read & Run Chicago South Side Girls Run

IMMIGRATION

The Monument to the Great Northern Migration, 345 E. Eastgate Pl., Sunday, December 12, 10:00am–12:00pm.

Free. bit.ly/3rGNiuK

Cerrito de Des Plaines

Read and Run Chicago is a running group with routes inspired by books set in Chicago written by local authors. Currently, the group is reading South Side Girls by Marcia Chatelain. If you would like to join, you should pick up a copy. The group will meet at The Monument to the Great Northern Migration on Saturday, December 12 for a 5.5-mile run that will end at Peach's Restaurant for an optional book discussion and brunch (cost not included in ticket). (Alma Campos)

Ni las tormentas de nieve han impedido que los católicos de Illinois hagan su peregrinación anual al altar de la Virgen de Guadalupe en Des Plaines, hasta el año pasado cuando se canceló oficialmente a causa de la pandemia. Este año el ritual regresa en la víspera del Día de La Virgen de Guadalupe para rezarle el rosario y cantarle Las Mañanitas. Habrá cohetes a las 8:30 p.m. y misa de medianoche a las 12 a.m. ( Jacqueline Serrato)

Green Schools for Chicago: Student Listening Session Virtual, Monday, December 13, 4:30pm. Free. bit.ly/CTUListening

Members of the Chicago Teachers Union are looking for feedback from CPS high school and middle school students as they prepare to launch a public campaign to improve school buildings through green infrastructure and provide green jobs to communities. Join via Zoom at bit.ly/Dec13GreenSchools and make your voice heard! (Maddie Parrish)

December Board of Education Meeting

CPS Loop Office, 42 W. Madison St., Garden Level, Board Room, Wednesday, December 15, 10:30am. Free. bit.ly/3DMtEAw Advance registration to speak at the December 15 Board of Ed meeting will open on December 13 at 10:30 a.m. Members of the public can register to speak virtually or in person online at cpsboe.org or via phone at (773) 553-1600. The meeting will be livestreamed to the public at cpsboe.org. (Maddie Parrish)

Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, 1170 N. River Rd., Saturday, December 11, 7:00pm–8:00am. Gratis.

Little Village Posada

Manuel Perez Jr. Plaza, 4345 W. 26th St., Friday, December 17, 3:00pm–6:00pm. Free. bit.ly/LVPosada The Little Village Chamber of Commerce invites families to attend their Christmas event, where food baskets, toys, and coats will be passed out in the holiday spirit. The outdoor public plaza has a decorated Christmas tree that makes for perfect selfies and family portraits. Donations of these items can be dropped off at the Chamber of Commerce's 26th St. office during regular business hours. ( Jacqueline Serrato)

FOOD & LAND Austin Community Market

5713 W. Chicago Ave., Through Sunday, December 19, 10:00am–3:00pm. Free. healthauthority.org Enjoy food and crafts sold by local vendors—including Forty Acres Fresh Market and Thank God 4 Raw & Vegan Treats—along with live entertainment at this weekend community market organized by the WestSide Health Authority. The market is seeking licensed vendors and musicians; email menewman@ DECEMBER 9, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 25

healthauthority.org or call (773) 378-1878 for vendor/performance opportunities. Market runs Saturdays and Sundays through December 19. ( Jim Daley)

After School Meals

Chicago Public Library - Back of the Yards Branch, 2111 W. 47th St., Through Thursday, December 30, 3:30pm–4:30pm.

Free. bit.ly/3bRfqSq

outdoors space, and masks are required throughout the event. (Alma Campos)

Free Painting Sessions

Pilsen Arts and Community House, 1637 W. 18th St., Through Tuesday, December 28, 12:00:00 PM–4:00 PM. Free. bit.ly/3mXGWUJ

Free after-school meals will be provided by the Greater Chicago Food Depository for kids and teens. Meals must be eaten on site. (Alma Campos)

Join artist Julia Kay Morrison for weekly painting sessions designed to help you tap into your imagination. Materials will be provided. Participants should feel free to bring ideas, photographs, images, and sketches that inspire or speak to them.

(Isabel Nieves)

Not Me We Mutual Aid

OG Delacreme Coat/Toy Drive

Parkside Academy, 6938 S East End, Saturday, December 18, 11:00am–2:00pm.

Join Not Me We in South Shore for their monthly mutual aid drive at Parkside Academy. There will be free groceries and baby supplies as well as opportunities to connect into their tenant organizing work! (Malik Jackson)

David Brady Memorial Food Pantry

Our Lady of Counsel Church, 3528 S. Hermitage Ave., Monday, December 20, 11:30am–2:00pm. Free. bit.ly/3lGOLx3 On December 20th, Blessed Sacrament Parish will host the David Brady Memorial Food Pantry. The service area from West 33rd St. to Pershing Rd., and between Ashland Ave. and Western Ave. Those interested can call (773) 523-3917 for more information. (Alma Campos)

ARTS Pilsen Vendor Market

Pilsen Art House, 1756 W. 19th St., Through March 2022, 12:00pm–5:00pm.

Free. bit.ly/3m9yMID This family-friendly weekly market invites artists and vendors to sell their wares such as candles, jewelry, woodwork, apparel, handmade goods, and more. There are both indoor and 26 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

PEP Center (Holy Family Church), 542 W. Hobbie St., Through Friday, December 17, 2:00pm–6:00pm. Free. bit.ly/OGCoats OG Cares and Delacreme Scholars are teaming up again for another toy and coat drive. They are accepting new and slightly worn youth and adult coats, as well as new toys. Donations can be dropped off at PEP Center Mondays through Fridays between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. The coat and toy distribution will take place on Sunday, December 19th!

(Chima Ikoro)

Read/Write Library is Closing Read/Write Library, 914 N. California Ave., Friday,Saturday, Sunday December 10-31, 1:00pm–5:00pm. bit.ly/ReadWriteHelp

After ten years of collecting local publications and "stories that have been left out of the record," as well as offering cultural programs and making their research accessible to the community, the Read/Write Library will close their current location on December 31 due to an unaffordable rent increase. They are seeking donations to relocate and continue their programming, and are also welcoming volunteers Fridays through Sundays to help pack the thousands of archives in their collection. ( Jacqueline Serrato)

¬ DECEMBER 9, 2021

Holiday Family Celebration

Afro Joe's Coffee and Tea, 8344 S. Halsted St., Saturday, December 11, 1:00pm– 3:00pm. Free. bit.ly/3EuGSlT Families can enjoy live holiday music, holiday treats, free books, and arts and crafts at Afro Joe’s Coffee and Tea, in partnership with Burst into Books.

The first seventy-five families to arrive will get a free photo with Santa. (Alma Campos)

Stormy Weather with Maggie Brown

Parkway Ballroom, 4455 S. King Dr., Saturday, December 11, 2:00pm–5:00pm.

Free. bit.ly/StormyWeatherFilm Musician Maggie Brown will host a discussion about the 1943 musical film Stormy Weather, which starred Lena Horne and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson among an all-star Black cast. Musicians Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Katherine Dunham and others are featured in the film, which has sixteen musical numbers in all. ( Jim Daley)

Colescott Night

Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St., Monday, December 13, 6:00pm– 9:30pm. Free. bit.ly/ColeScott Multidisciplinary artist Melissa DuPrey emcees a night of comedy in celebration of painter and satirist Robert Colescott's 1976 mockumentary, "Dulacro's Masterpiece." Taneshia "Just Nesh" Rice, Calvin Evans, and Windy Indie will perform stand-up, and DJ Sadie Woods will spin hour-long sets in the exhibit hall, where Colescott's paintings are on display through May 29, 2022. ( Jim Daley)

Graphic Novel Club: Under-Earth

Brighton Park Library, and online, 4314 S. Archer Ave., Thursday, December 16 12/16/2021, 5:30:00 PM–7:30 PM. Free. bit.ly/UnderEarthClub The Brighton Park Library book club will discuss Under-Earth, Chris

Gooch's dystopian graphic novel about an underground prison city and the struggles and adventures of three of its denizens. The event will be held in person and via Zoom (registration closes 24 hours in advance). Call Anthony Ledwon at (312) 747-0666 for more information. ( Jim Daley)

Long Hair Don't Care Show

Metro, 3730 N. Clark St., Friday, December 17, 7:30pm. $31 in advance; $35 door. bit.ly/3xZFll8 Love and Nappyness presents the Long Hair Don't Care Show at the end of their annual haircare-products drive.

The show will feature Jamila Woods, theMIND, and Matt Muse. A portion of ticket sales will be donated to the beneficiaries of the hair care drive.

Attendees will be required to show proof of vaccination. (Chima Ikoro)

Young Chicago Authors Wordplay Open Mic

Instagram Live, Every Tuesday, 6:00pm–7:30pm. Free. instagram.com/ youngchicagoauthors One of the longest-running youth open mics, Worldplay, is back every Tuesday on Instagram Live. The virtual open mic is hosted by DJ Ca$hera, and will feature music, spoken-word performances, and a featured artist. (Chima Ikoro)

Scan to view the calendar online!

:,9=0*, +09,*;69@ SERVICE DIRECTORY SHOWCASE: -2 587+ 5(02'(/,1* *HQHUDO &RQWUDFWRUV )DPLO\ 2ZQHG 6LQFH PLASTERING CO.

࠮ =PU[HNL /VTLZ 9LZ[VYH[PVUZ ࠮ 2P[JOLUZ )H[OZ – ࠮ )HZLTLU[Z ࠮ ,SLJ[YPJ 7S\TIPUN ࠮ >HSS -SVVY ;PSL ࠮ 7HPU[PUN *HYWLU[Y`

:H :RUN :LWK <RX 7R 0HHW <RXU 1HHGV

(<;6: >(5;,+

WE WA T YO R O D CAR We Pay CASH! 100 to $500 Cash!

$

–

• JUMP STARTS • TIRE CHANGE • LOCAL TOWS

*65:;9<*;065

PLASTER PATCHING DRYVIT STUCCO FULLY INSURED

(815) 464-0606

73(:;,905.

KELLY

PLASTERING CO. PLASTER PATCHING DRYVIT STUCCO FULLY INSURED

(815) 464-0606

46=05.

MICHAEL MOVING COMPANY

Serving Hyde Park and – -2 587+ surrounding communities 5(02'(/,1* 773-977-9000 *HQHUDO &RQWUDFWRUV

Moving, Delivery and Cleanout Jobs

)DPLO\ 2ZQHG 6LQFH

4`^a]VeV CV^`UV]Z_X DVcgZTVd :WLJPHSPZ[Z PU! ࠮ =PU[HNL /VTLZ 9LZ[VYH[PVUZ ࠮ 2P[JOLUZ )H[OZ ࠮ )HZLTLU[Z ࠮ ,SLJ[YPJ 7S\TIPUN ࠮ >HSS -SVVY ;PSL ࠮ 7HPU[PUN *HYWLU[Y`

:H :RUN :LWK <RX 7R 0HHW <RXU 1HHGV

3L[ <Z /LSW )\PSK @V\Y )\ZPULZZ (K]LY[PZL PU [OL )\ZPULZZ :LY]PJL +PYLJ[VY` ;VKH`

73<4)05.

Residential Plumbing Service SERVICES INCLUDE:

Plumbing • Drain Cleaning • Sewer Camera/Locate Water Heater Installation/Repair Service –Heater Installation/Repair Service • Tankless Water Toilet Repair • Faucet/Fixture Repair Vintage Faucet/Fixture Repair • Ejector/Sump Pump • Garbage Disposals • Battery Back-up Systems

Licensed & Insured • Serving Chicago & Suburbs

10% OFF Senior Citizen Discount License #: Call 773-617-3686 058-197062

9,:;69(;065

Greg’s

–

Restorations Inc. Masonry Restoration & Tuckpointing

࠮ 4HZVUY` 9LZ[VYH[PVU ࠮ )YPJR^VYR ࠮ .YPUKPUN ;\JRWVPU[PUN ࠮ 7HYHWL[ >HSS ࠮ 9LI\PSK 9LWHPY ࠮ >H[LYWYVVÄUN ࠮ *H\SRPUN – ࠮ *OPTUL` 9LI\PSK 9LWHPY ࠮ :[LLS 3PU[LS 0 )LHT 9LWSHJLTLU[ ࠮ 7HPU[ 9LTV]HS ࠮ :HUKISHZ[PUN ࠮ 7YLZZ\YL >HZOPUN ࠮ (UK 4VYL

Licensed • Bonded • Insured

Call

773-814-6430

gregs24h7@yahoo.com Visit us on Facebook

966-05.

Conrad Roofing Co. of Illinois Inc.

SPECIALIZING IN ARCHITECTURAL: METAL WORK:

Residential Plumbing Service SERVICES INCLUDE:

Plumbing • Drain Cleaning • Sewer Camera/Locate Water Heater Installation/Repair Service • Tankless Water Heater Installation/Repair Service Toilet Repair • Faucet/Fixture Repair Vintage Faucet/Fixture Repair • Ejector/Sump Pump • Garbage Disposals • Battery Back-up Systems

Licensed & Insured • Serving Chicago & Suburbs

10% OFF Senior Citizen Discount License #: Call 773-617-3686 058-197062

• Cornices • Bay Windows • Ornaments • Gutters & Downspouts • Standing & Flat Seam Roofs ROOFING WORK: • Slate • Clay Tile • Cedar • Shingles • Flat/Energy Star Roof

(773)

He lp Wan te d /LSW >HU[LK /LSW >HU[LK

00 1

HELP WANTED

KELLY

4`^a]VeV CV^`UV]Z_X DVcgZTVd :WLJPHSPZ[Z PU!

CLASSIFIED Section

286-6212

ZZZ FRQUDGURRÀQJ FRP

3L[ <Z /LSW )\PSK @V\Y )\ZPULZZ (K]LY[PZL PU [OL )\ZPULZZ :LY]PJL +PYLJ[VY` ;VKH`

(K JVW` KLHKSPUL! ! W T -YPKH` ILMVYL >LKULZKH` W\ISPJH[PVU KH[L ;V 7SHJL `V\Y HK JHSS! VY LTHPS! THSVUL'ZV\[OZPKL^LLRS` JVT

The University of Chicago seeks Assistant Instructional Professor for Chicago, IL to conduct courses in math, incl. a range of undergrad courses in math incl. single & multivariable calculus. Ph.D. PU 4H[OLTH[PJZ VY JSVZLS` YLSH[LK ÄLSK YLX»K 9LX»K! must submit CV, teaching statement & 2 letters of reference. Applicants encouraged to submit any additional materials which they believe sheds light on [OLPY [LHJOPUN L_W HIPSP[` (WWS` VUSPUL! HWWS` PU[LYfolio.com/99737 We seek a diverse pool of applicants who wish to join an academic community that places the highest ]HS\L VU YPNVYV\Z PUX\PY` HUK LUJV\YHNLZ KP]LYZL perspectives, experiences, groups of individuals, and ideas to inform and stimulate intellectual challenge, LUNHNLTLU[ HUK L_JOHUNL ;OL <UP]LYZP[`»Z :[H[LTLU[Z VU +P]LYZP[` HYL H[ O[[WZ! WYV]VZ[ \JOPJHNV edu/statements-diversity. ;OL <UP]LYZP[` VM *OPJHNV PZ HU (ɉYTH[P]L (J[PVU ,X\HS 6WWVY[\UP[` +PZHISLK =L[LYHUZ ,TWSV`LY HUK does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, age, status as an individual with a disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, or other protected classes under the law. For HKKP[PVUHS PUMVYTH[PVU WSLHZL ZLL [OL <UP]LYZP[`»Z 5V[PJL VM 5VUKPZJYPTPUH[PVU Job seekers in need of a reasonable accommodation to complete the application process should call 773 VY LTHPS LX\HSVWWVY[\UP[`'\JOPJHNV LK\ ^P[O [OLPY YLX\LZ[ /LSW >HU[LK

Autos Wanted

Barber Booth Available (Licensed Barber ONLY) 773-966-5268 Next Man Up

(K]LY[PZL PU [OL :V\[O :PKL >LLRS` ;VKH`

066

We Want Your Old Car! We Pay Cash! $100 to $500 cash!

Phenomenal Towing Jump Starts, Tire Change, Local Tows Contact Rod at 773-930-7112

H elp Wan te d Construction 083 9LZ[VYH[PVU JO & RUTH REMODELING We Specialize in Vintage Homes and Restorations!

Painting, Power Washing, Deck Sealing, Brick Repair, Tuckpointing, Carpentry, Porch/Deck, Kitchen & Bath Remodeling. *Since 1982* 773-575-7220

4V]LYZ

MICHAEL MOVING We Move, Deliver, and Do Clean-Out Jobs 773.977.9000

7S\TIPUN

The Plumbing Department Available for all of your residential plumbing needs.

Lic. & insured. Serving Chicago & Suburbs. Senior Discounts.

Call Jeff at 773-617-3686

7SHZ[LYPUN

00 1

*5(*·6 RESTORATIONS INC Masonry restoration, brickwork, grinding & tuckpointing, parapet wall, UHEXLOG UHSDLU ZDWHUSURRÀQJ caulking, chimney rebuild/ repair, steel lintel & I-beam replacement, paint removal, sandblasting, pressure washing, and more...

Licensed, Bonded, and Insured!

773-814-6430 gregs24h7@yahoo.com Visit us on Facebook

9VVÄUN

CONRAD ROOFING CO. Specializing in Architectural Metal Work, Gutters & Downspouts, Bay Windows, &RUQLFHV 5RRÀQJ 6ODWH Clay Tile, Cedar, Shingles, Flat/Energy Star Roof 773-286-6212

(Y[PJSLZ MVY :HSL

KELLY Plastering Co. Plaster Patching, Dryvit, Stucco.

FULLY INSURED. 815-464-0606

(K]LY[PZL PU [OL :V\[O :PKL >LLR S` ;VKH` ,THPS!

THSVUL' ZV\[OZPKL^LLRS` JVT

¶ +RQGD 6FRRWHU Vin# JH2HF0314HS204880 Kenwood. Best offer 773-268-2796 773-603-3070

(WHY[TLU[Z MVY 9LU[ *ONV 65th and Woodlawn Large 1 bedroom. Includes all utilities, heat, air conditioning, stove and refrigerator. $1,050/month. Section 8 OK. 773-684-1166

*VUKV MVY 9LU[ *ONV

2BD/BA Condo w/Gar 1700 E 56th St. $2200/mo $2000 w/out garage Jeanne 312-519-7221

T:9.65"

T:10"

Now you can have Grandma’s cookies every day.

AARP advocates for multigenerational housing in your community.

Chicago’s new Additional Dwelling Unit ordinances give aging adults more choices on how and where they live. They allow people to convert attics, basements, and backyards into additional living spaces so people can live with their family as they get older. We support multigenerational housing and are proud that these options are available to five zones in Chicago — hopefully more soon. As your wise friend and fierce defender, AARP is always in your corner working to help you keep your family together as loved ones grow older.

Find out how to update your home at makeroomforfamily.org