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The U.S. Census happens only every 10 years. It counts everyone in the United States and uses that information to determine how many members of Congress represent your community and how federal funds are spent. Completing the census is one more way we can help each other. When you fill out the census, you help amplify your community voice and ensure federal funds go to critical services like schools, libraries, nutrition and health programs, roads and much more.
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Get started today at howardbrown.org/2020census
SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent non-profit newspaper by and for the South Side of Chicago. We provide high-quality, critical arts and public interest coverage, and equip and develop journalists, photographers, artists, and mediamakers of all backgrounds. Volume 7, Issue 12 Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Serrato Managing Editors Martha Bayne Sam Joyce Sam Stecklow Deputy Editor Jasmine Mithani Senior Editors Julia Aizuss, Christian Belanger, Mari Cohen, Christopher Good, Rachel Kim, Emeline Posner, Adam Przybyl, Olivia Stovicek Politics Editor Jim Daley Education Editor Ashvini Kartik-Narayan, Michelle Anderson Music Editor Atavia Reed Literature Editor Davon Clark Stage & Screen Editor Nicole Bond Visual Arts Editor Rod Sawyer Nature Editor Sam Joyce Food & Land Editor AV Benford Sarah Fineman Contributing Editors Mira Chauhan, Joshua Falk, Lucia Geng, Carly Graf, Robin Vaughan, Jocelyn Vega, Tammy Xu, Jade Yan Data Editor Jasmine Mithani Radio Exec. Producer Erisa Apantaku Social Media Editors Grace Asiegbu, Arabella Breck, Maya Holt Director of Fact Checking: Tammy Xu Fact Checkers: Abigail Bazin, Susan Chun, Maria Maynez, Sam Joyce, Elizabeth Winkler Visuals Editor Mell Montezuma Deputy Visuals Editors Siena Fite, Sofie Lie, Shane Tolentino Photo Editor Keeley Parenteau Staff Photographers: milo bosh, Jason Schumer Staff Illustrators: Siena Fite, Katherine Hill Interim Layout Editor J. Michael Eugenio Deputy Layout Editors Nick Lyon, Haley Tweedell Webmaster Managing Director
Pat Sier Jason Schumer
The Weekly is produced by a mostly all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We distribute each Wednesday in the fall, winter, and spring. Over the summer we publish every other week. Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, contact: (773) 234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly.com
Cover illustration by Mell Montezuma
THE COVID ISSUE We hope you’re all doing well and staying safe during these strange and unprecedented days. To everyone that has been displaced due to a closure, or lost work due to illness, family concerns, or an employer shutting down, we hope you have found shelter with friends or family, and we urge government officials to do the right thing and offer financial relief immediately. These are uncertain times, but we plan to continue publishing. This issue is filled with community resources, explainers about unemployment eligibility and rent assistance, a profile of South Side food pantries’ efforts to meet increased need, and more. It will likely be our last print edition for the next few months. In the meantime, the South Side Weekly team will be working hard to bring you timely and relevant coverage on our website and social media channels. One thing we are learning during this pandemic is that community groups, religious institutions, nonprofits, and philanthropy are coming together to provide mutual aid where it's most needed. Please check out our bilingual South Side Community Resource Guide and other coverage inside to learn more. If you have a question that you haven't been able to find an answer to, please reach out to us to help inform our coverage. And if you're an essential worker, making art to pass the time, engaging in solidarity efforts, or just want to tell us about how you're experiencing life during the pandemic, we're launching a new initiative called “People’s Media” to document your stories. We want to hear from you. Please stay safe and inside your homes as much as possible. We don’t know how long this will last, but we will be here for you and each other.
covid-19 south side community resource guide
martha bayne, jim daley and olivia stovicek...............4 guía de recursos de covid-19
rocío santos y gisela orozco, traducido por vocalo..7 what you need to know about covid-19
Highlights from a Q&A with doctors of University of Chicago Medicine olivia stovicek....................................................................9 census spotlight
The Census is going digital in 2020 jocelyn vega.....................................................................11 south side weekly people's media
The Weekly is seeking audio, video, visual art, and written contributions from you that share how you’re experiencing life during the coronavirus pandemic ............................................................................................12 healthy babies, one videochat at a time
Chicago’s home-visit services keep families connected to information and resources emeline posner.................................................................14 setting the table
Food pantries scramble to adapt to the COVID-19 crisis and brace for increased need martha bayne...................................................................16 "we
want people to know that we're here. we have all this
food!"
A suburban food pantry promises to stay open in the face of pandemic irene romulo, cicero indepndiente...............................18 arts at a distance
Remote art, news, and community from South Side organizations kyle oleksiuk....................................................................18 the rent is due and chicagoans need relief
“We are putting forward a set of demands that are not radical... in a moment of an unprecedented health crisis.” jacqueline serrato..........................................................19 op-ed: to shape the future of policing, we must preserve its history
The Fraternal Order of Police threatens to destroy nearly all of Chicago’s police misconduct records maira khwaja & emma perez..........................................20 the criminal justice response to covid-19
“It’s more reactive than proactive until a person dies” andrew fan.......................................................................22
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COVID-19 South Side Community Resource Guide BY MARTHA BAYNE, JIM DALEY, AND OLIVIA STOVICEK
Collected here are items of particular relevance to South Siders, including information about unemployment benefits, public health, elder care, emergency food assistance, housing and tenants’ rights, and more; see southsideweekly.com/covid-19-south-side-community-resource-guide/. If you or your community organization has information to share, please email editor@southsideweekly.com and put “RESOURCE GUIDE” in the subject line of your message.
GENERAL INFORMATION State of Illinois: Visit coronavirus.illinois. gov for information for individuals and small businesses on the state’s COVID-19 response, what you can do to prepare and to reduce exposure to the novel coronavirus, FAQs about unemployment benefits, and more. For information about how you, your school, workplace, and community can prepare, you can also visit the CDC’s webpage, cdc.gov/coronavirus. For general questions about COVID-19, you can call the Illinois Department of Public Health MELL MONTEZUMA
COVID-19 hotline at 1-800-889-3931 or email dph.sick@illinois.gov. The hotline does not assist residents with getting tested. City of Chicago: For updates on COVID-19 in the city, see the City of Chicago’s COVID-19 website, chicago.gov/ city/en/sites/covid-19/home.html, follow @ChicagoPublicHealth on Facebook, or follow @ChiPublicHealth on Twitter. Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Allison Arwady answers questions from the public daily at 11am via the livestream “The Doc is In: Ask Dr. Arwady,” available on both Facebook and
Twitter. You can also receive alerts from the city by texting COVID19 to 78015. City of Chicago South Side Community Service Centers Englewood Community Service Center, 1140 W. 79th St., (312) 747-0200. Monday–Friday, 9am–5 pm; only five people admitted to the building at a time. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Center, 4314 S. Cottage Grove, (312) 747-2300. Monday– Friday, 9am–5pm. Services are limited, and those that come in should arrive before 3pm. South Chicago Community Service Center, 8650 S. Commercial Ave., (312) 747-0500. Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm. Services are limited. Not accepting walk-ins; no public restrooms or computers available. Cook County: The county is now running phone and email hotlines to answer residents’ questions about COVID-19. Call (708) 633-3319 Monday through Friday, 9am–4pm, to talk to a health professional or email ccdph.covid19@cookcountyhhs.org. The county is also launching a general text message alert system, which you can join by texting alertcook to 888-777.
FOR YOUR HEALTH AND SAFETY If you think you might have COVID-19, the city has a flowchart about what to do halfway down the COVID-19 website homepage mentioned above. If you have symptoms—a fever, cough, or difficulty breathing—you should not go to a hospital or physician without calling first. For medical emergencies, call 911, and notify 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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the person who picks up that you may have COVID-19 when explaining your emergency. If your living situation is unsafe, the Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline is multilingual and offers free support services and referrals: 1-877-863-6338. TTY: 1-877-863-6339. For a listing of domestic violence centers in Illinois, visit the Illinois Department of Human Services website (dhs.state.il.us) or call 1-877-663-6338 (1-877-TO-END-DV). The National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached by calling 1-800-799-7233 (or 1-800-7997233 for TTY), by texting LOVEIS to 22522, or by chatting on its website. The hotline’s website (thehotline.org) also has a post with suggestions for survivors during the COVID-19 pandemic.
FREE AND INCOME-BASED CLINICS ON THE SOUTH SIDE During the coronavirus crisis, if you develop serious symptoms you suspect are related to COVID-19 or need medical attention for other reasons, it’s best to call your physician, if you have one you trust. In the event that you are uninsured or underinsured, you still have options for seeking care. The following clinics offer free or low-cost medical screening or urgent care; this list is not comprehensive. For medical emergencies, call 911. Access Ashland Family Health Center: 5159 S. Ashland Ave. (773) 434-9216. Open Monday–Friday, 8am–6pm; Saturday, 8am–4:30pm. Closed Sunday.
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Cottage View Health Center: 4829 S. Cottage Grove Ave. (773) 548-1170. Open Monday-Friday, 8am–5pm. Closed weekends. By appointment only; no walk-ins. IMAN Community Health Center: 2744 W. 63rd St. (773) 434-4626. Open Monday–Tuesday, 9am–5pm; Wednesday, 10am–7pm; Thursday–Friday, 9am–5pm; Sunday, 10am–3pm. Closed Saturday. Clinicians are working from home, and consultations are done by phone. Port Ministries Free Clinic: 5013 S. Hermitage Ave. info@theportministries.org, (773) 778-5955. Open Tuesday, 6pm–8pm. The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) has published an interactive map of all of the health clinics in the state of Illinois that are available for anyone regardless of immigration status on its website, icirr.org.
PHARMACIES THAT OFFER DELIVERY The following pharmacies offer delivery of prescription medications; some on the list also deliver over-the-counter supplies (although most require a prescription for delivery). Most require a few days’ notice to schedule deliveries. Back of the Yards 47th Street Pharmacy, 1837 W. 47th St. (773) 847-6160. Delivery of prescription medications as well as over-the-counter supplies. Beverly Walgreens, 2345 W. 103rd St. (773) 429-0767. Delivery via Walgreens Express. Bridgeport Bridgeport Pharmacy, 3201 S. Wallace St. (312) 791-9000. Delivery of prescription medications to patients. Chatham Walgreens, 8628 S. Cottage Grove Ave. (773) 651-8500. Delivery via Walgreens Express; drive-thru open for medicines as well. East Side Cornerstone Pharmacy, 10555 S. Ewing Ave. (773) 902-2356. Delivery of
prescription medications to patients. Gage Park/West Elsdon Elsdon Medical Pharmacy, 4254 W. 55th St. (773) 582-2660. Delivery of prescription medications to patients. Walgreens, 4000 W. 59th St. (773) 5812345. Delivery via Walgreens Express. Hyde Park/Kenwood Katsaros Pharmacy, 1521 E. 53rd St. (773) 288-8700. Delivery of prescription medications as well as over-the-counter supplies. Walgreens, 1554 E. 55th St. (773) 6671177. Delivery via Walgreens Express. Morgan Park Drexler Pharmacy, 10830 S. Halsted St. (773) 468-0223. Delivery of prescription medications to patients. South Shore Walgreens, 7109 S. Jeffery Blvd. (773) 324-1880. Delivery via Walgreens Express.
COMMUNITY GROUP EFFORTS Brave Space Alliance (bravespacealliance. org) is operating a crisis food pantry and increasing efforts to help people apply for unemployment benefits, in addition to maintaining as much of its regular programming for queer and trans South Siders as possible. See the Food section for more details on the delivery-based food pantry. I Grow Chicago (igrowchicago.org), a nonprofit that works with Englewood residents to build community and provide a wide range of healing and food access-related resources, is providing care packages and virtual support to elders and families in its area, including food and cleaning supplies, check-in calls, and homework help. They’re seeking donations and supplies to keep the effort going. Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (lvejo.org) team members will be making themselves available to check in on elders, go to grocery stores for those who cannot, take community members to doctors’ appointments, etc., and have compiled lists of information and resources. (You can read LVEJO’s announcement with details in English or in Spanish on its website.) Mothers Against Senseless Killings (face-
book.com/maskontheblock/) has opened a community school for children in Englewood and neighboring communities after working hard to finish converting shipping containers into classrooms in time for the closure of Chicago Public Schools. Classes are held Monday through Friday, 9am–3pm, taught by volunteers, and breakfast, lunch, and snacks are provided. No more than ten people will be in a room, following current CDC guidelines. MASK is asking for donations (particularly sterilization supplies) for the “catastrophe camp,” which will feed kids and help “fill the void of the education experiences that will be lost” during the school closure. MASK is also asking for donations or loans of internet-capable devices for families with school-aged children to use while schools are closed. See their Facebook page for updates. My Block, My Hood, My City (formyblock.org), which provides exploration and direct action opportunities for youth from under-resourced communities, is accepting requests (and donations and volunteers) for deliveries of hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes to seniors. Pilsen Solidarity Network is a mutual aid collective of Pilsen residents responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The group is currently accepting requests for grocery and supply deliveries, and hopes to expand to help with caregiving, mental health support, and other errands. If you would like to volunteer or you run a restaurant that can donate goods, email pilsensn@gmail.com; to donate money see gofundme.com/f/pilsenvencera-covid19. Flood's Hall, a Hyde Park volunteer-run nonprofit, has launched a zero-interest, emergency loan program in response to COVID-19. "The pandemic caught us all by surprise, and the reality is that most Americans have trouble covering an unexpected expense of $400,” said co-founder Natalie Wright. “Government money can be slow-moving and involve complicated red tape—our community needs to fund itself now.” The group aims to provide short-term, interest-free loans of $200–$400 to address immediate needs and protect neighbors from predatory lenders. See floodshall.org/ emergency-loan for more.
FOOD To find a nearby food pantry, soup kitchen, shelter, or food distribution center in the Greater Chicago Food Depository’s network, go to the GCFD’s “Find Food” page on their website, chicagosfoodbank.org, and plug in your address, intersection or zip code. Hours may change, so make sure to call before you go. The GCFD’s benefits outreach team is also available by phone to help with applications for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid benefits; call (773) 843-5416. Note: changes to SNAP eligibility that were to have taken effect April 1 have been put on hold for the duration of this public health emergency. As of March 19, all Chicago Public Schools schools are scheduled to remain closed through April 20. CPS families can pick up free boxes of food containing three days of breakfast and lunch for every student in their household at the nearest CPS building, regardless of which school the students attend, for the duration of the closure. Pickups are available between 9am and 1pm, Monday through Friday. If you do have money to spare on food, check out Dining at a Distance (diningatadistance.com). This aggregator of restaurants open for pick-up or delivery definitely doesn’t include every restaurant that’s open on the South Side, but it includes at least 150 South Side restaurants and counting. In addition, the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce has compiled a list of its member restaurants and bakeries that are serving carry-out or delivery. Economic Strategies Development Corporation (ESDC) in Pilsen has similarly compiled a list of Pilsen restaurants available for takeout or delivery, with more restaurants chiming in that they’re open in the comments on their Facebook page. The Little Village Chamber of Commerce also posted close to one hundred restaurants doing carry-out and pick-up. The South Shore Chamber of Commerce has compiled an “Eat Local” list of neighborhood restaurants offering curbside service, carry-out, and delivery service. See the Facebook pages for the respective organizations for more. Closed Loop Farms (closedloop. farm) at The Plant has launched an online store to bring the farmers market to your door, offering home delivery of local food products made and grown in Back of the Yards at The Plant and beyond. In addition to Closed Loop, which grows microgreens, participating businesses APRIL 1, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5
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currently include Mint Creek Farm (beef, turkey), Timberfeast (duck), Bike a Bee (honey), Tuanis Chocolate, Xoca (fruit sodas), Pleasant House Pub (savory pies), Kombuchade (kombucha), and First Curve Apothecary (tinctures). Orders are handled by a team well-versed in safe food handling practices. The Urban Canopy (theurbancanopy. org), an urban farm in Englewood, has launched a weekly delivery service of local and non-local produce, plus other groceries from local purveyors such as coffee from Pleasant House and beer from Hopewell Brewing. An extension of UC’s popular Local Unified Community Supported Agriculture (LUCSA) service, shares are $40 or $60, depending on income. You can also add on a donation to help fund a share for someone who can’t afford it, and support UC crew members who need to take time off. Registration opens weekly on Fridays. Check the site for more information. The Chicago Farmers Market Collective (chicagofarmersmarketcollective. org) has collected information on various other online farmers markets offering delivery of local produce and other foods, including the McKinley Park Farmers Market, the Plant Chicago Farmers Market, and, here at the Weekly’s Experimental Station home base, the 61st Street Farmers Market. The University of Chicago is launching a meal delivery program in partnership with the Greater Chicago Food Depository. Meals prepared in on-campus dining facilities will be delivered to various sites in Douglas, Grand Boulevard, Greater Grand Crossing, Hyde Park, Kenwood, Oakland, South Shore, Washington Park, and Woodlawn through June 12. Residents should visit coronavirusupdates.uchicago. edu/community-support for a list of sites at which the meals prepared by the University will be distributed, or check with their alderman’s office or local community organization.
KIDS Chicago Public Schools (cps.edu) has provided an FAQ page and packets of enrichment learning resources for every grade level, as well as suggestions for activities to stay active at home, all available on their website. Also, a dedicated helpline has been created so Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (CCR&Rs) can 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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help connect essential worker families to emergency child care. Call toll-free at (888) 228-1146. The helpline will be available from 9am–3pm Monday through Friday to answer calls, but callers will be able to leave a message any time of day or night. Sittercity’s “Chicago Responds” program, launched in partnership with the City of Chicago, connects members of the public and public-sector employees with first responders who are looking for volunteers to provide childcare in their homes. The program gives all Chicago parents working as first responders free access to Sittercity Premium for three months. If you’d like to donate your time as a sitter, you can sign up at sittercity.com/chicagoresponds. Chicago Healthy Adolescents & Teens (chataboutit.org), a program supported by the Chicago Department of Public Health and highlighted on the city’s resource page, has extensive information and resources on sexual health, identity, and health-related rights online. The St. Sabina ARK, 7800 S. Racine, is open Monday through Friday, 9am–7pm, to serve youth whose parents have no other means of childcare. A light breakfast and lunch are provided. For more information call (773) 483-4333 or 773-483-4300 (St. Sabina Church).
UNEMPLOYMENT AND SICK LEAVE Brave Space Alliance, (bravespacealliance.org or (773) 333-5199), offers virtual assistance for those applying for unemployment and other benefits, and the Chicago Department of Family & Support Services remains open and available as a resource 9am–5pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and 11am– 7pm Wednesday, at its South and West Side locations in South Chicago (8650 S. Commercial Ave.), Englewood (1140 W. 79th St.), Bronzeville (4314 S. Cottage Grove Ave.), and Garfield Park (10 S. Kedzie Ave.). Immigrants with DACA or a work permit can apply. Unemployment benefits do not count as a “public charge.” Legal Aid Chicago (legalaidchicago. org), which provides free legal assistance in civil cases to Cook County residents living in poverty, has compiled an FAQ on paid sick leave. People who work for a Chicago or Cook County employer may be eligible for paid sick leave under the Chicago Paid
Sick Leave and Cook County Earned Sick Leave Ordinances.
HOUSING No court orders for eviction or foreclosure will be entered through April 15. The City of Chicago announced on March 27 the creation of the COVID-19 Emergency Housing Assistance grant program, which will give one-time grants of $1,000 for rent relief to two thousand Chicagoans, with the intent to distribute them by mid-April. One thousand of the grants will be distributed by lottery; people must apply by Wednesday, April 1, to be eligible. The rest will be distributed through nonprofit community organizations. Applicants for the grant lottery must show documentation of a changed employment situation (which can include reduced hours) and of their household making no more than sixty percent of the area median income. Undocumented Chicagoans are eligible (the application does not ask about residency status), and the Department of Housing says the emergency grant would not count as a public charge. The application form is available in English, Spanish, Polish, Chinese, and Arabic. Apply online at chicago.gov/coronavirus or over the phone with a community-based organization in your neighborhood. The City of Chicago’s Rental Assistance program can help pay rent for households at immediate risk of homelessness due to a temporary economic crisis. See the Department of Family and Support Services’ page at chicago.gov. ShelterList (shelterlist.com) provides a directory of Chicago shelters for the homeless, though it does not appear to have information about how the shelters are responding to the spread of the novel coronavirus. The Metropolitan Tenants Organization crisis hotline is open; call (773) 292-4988 for help with housingrelated legal issues.
UTILITIES AND CITY DEBT Chicago’s COVID-19 website includes brief information about payment/debt relief. Here are the details: Utility bills for Chicago residents
are now due April 30 (though a more permanent utility relief program has been put on hold). ComEd has announced it is suspending electricity disconnections due to unpaid bills and waiving late charges through at least May 1. Peoples Gas has an existing moratorium on service disconnections in winter, but it is also waiving late charges through May 1. Water shutoffs due to unpaid bills were stopped in Chicago last year after an APM Reports investigation of rising water rates. Comcast is offering new customers in its service areas sixty days of free Internet Essentials service, which is normally available to qualified lowincome households for $9.95/month, and increasing the Internet speed of the service going forward. Along with many other nationwide telecom companies, Comcast will also not disconnect internet service or charge late fees until mid-May, though customers may need to contact the company to say they can’t pay their bills at this time. The City of Chicago will stop all debt collection (including pausing late fees and stopping interest from accruing), booting, and impounding, except for public safety issues, through at least April 30. City sticker and expired license plate violations should still not be ticketed until April 30.
LEGAL AID Chicago Volunteer Legal Services (cvls.org) has closed its office through March 30, but staff are available via phone to provide pro bono legal help with issues ranging from child support and landlord-tenant disputes to how to write a will. Call (312) 332-1624 or fill out the form on their website. CVLS also offers direction to other legal resources on their website.
ARTS & CULTURE Build Coffee at the Experimental Station has launched an online store through the nascent Bookshop initiative (bookshop. org/shop/buildcoffee); the site features recommendations from Experimental Station neighbors Blackstone Bikes and the Invisible Institute, as well as yours truly, South Side Weekly. Thirty percent of the proceeds go to Build. Haymarket Books (haymarketbooks.org), a “radical,
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independent, nonprofit” publisher based in Chicago, is making ten of its ebooks, by authors such as Angela Y. Davis, Naomi Klein, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, available for free through April 1. Print and ebook editions of its books for young readers are fifty percent off through April 30. Pilsen Community Books (pilsencommunitybooks.com) has an online store up and running with extensive staff recommendations—and you can email them for personalized recs anytime at bookspilsen@gmail.com. The Seminary Co-op Bookstore (semcoop. com) is offering free shipping on all titles purchased online. You can also browse recommended books from the last decade, download episodes of the store’s Open Stacks podcast— featuring conversations with poets, novelists, scholars and activists—and listen to audiobooks through a partnership with Libro.fm (libro.fm/semcoop). Bookie’s New and Used Books (bookiesbookstores.com) in Beverly is encouraging customers to purchase books, ebooks, and gift cards via their website.
RELIEF FUNDS AND ASSISTANCE FOR SPECIFIC GROUPS Many businesses, community organizations, and mutual aid groups have launched fundraisers for their members and constituents. Our online guide includes links to an ever-growing list that offers monetary, material or informational assistance for workers in the hospitality industry, artists, immigrants, undocumented Chicagoans, the disability community, incarcerated persons and more. See southsideweekly. com/covid-19-south-side-communityresource-guide/.
If you or your community organization has information to share, please email editor@southsideweekly.com and put “RESOURCE GUIDE” in the subject line of your message.
Guía de recursos de COVID-19 Traducido por Rocío Santos, productora de “Domingos en Vocalo” 91.1FM, y Gisela Orozco, editora independiente.
INFORMACIÓN GENERAL Estado de lllinois: En el sitio coronavirus. illinois.gov encontrarás información para individuos y pequeños negocios sobre la respuesta del estado al coronavirus (COVID-19). Este portal ofrece respuestas a preguntas frecuentes: qué puedes hacer para prepararte, y cómo reducir la exposición al virus, los beneficios de desempleo, y más. Para información sobre prevención en tu casa, escuela, trabajo y comunidad, visita la página web de los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades, cdc.gov/ coronavirus. Para preguntas generales acerca del COVID-19, puedes llamar a la línea de asistencia del COVID-19 del Departamento de Salud Pública de Illinois, al 1-800-8893931 o enviar un correo electrónico al dph. sick@illinois.gov. Ciudad de Chicago: Para actualizaciones del COVID-19 en Chicago, visita el sitio de la ciudad que puedes leer en español o en otro idioma en chicago.gov/city/en/ sites/covid-19/home.html, sigue la cuenta @ChicagoPublicHealth en Facebook, o @ChiPublicHealth en Twitter. La comisionada del Departamento de Salud Pública, la Dra. Allison Arwady, responde a preguntas diariamente a las 11 am por medio de la sesión en vivo disponible en Facebook y Twitter. También, puedes recibir actualizaciones mediante el sistema de alerta de mensajes de texto enviando COVID19 al 78015. Condado de Cook: Para hablar con un profesional de la salud del condado, llama al (708) 633-3319 de lunes a viernes de 9 am a 4 pm, o envía un correo a ccdph. covid19@cookcountyhhs.org. El condado
cuenta también con un sistema de alerta vía mensajes de texto al que puedes unirte enviando el mensaje la palabra alertcook al 888777.
tienes opciones para buscar atención médica. Estas clínicas ofrecen exámenes médicos y atención urgente gratuitos o a bajo costo. Para emergencias médicas, llama al 911.
POR TU SEGURIDAD
Alivio Medical Center: 966 W. 21st St. y 2355 S. Western Ave. (312) 8508238. Abierto lunes, martes, jueves y viernes de 8:30am a 5:30pm; miércoles 1 a 8pm; sábados de 8:30am a 12:30pm.
Si presentas síntomas, no deberías ir al hospital o al médico sin antes llamar. La ciudad de Chicago cuenta con un diagrama con información de qué hacer en su sitio oficial de COVID-19 mencionado arriba. También, el portal en español de UI Health (University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System) provee información precisa sobre los síntomas, consejos y la prueba del COVID19 en su sitio web. Para emergencias médicas, llama al 911 o notifica a quien atienda la llamada al momento de explicar tu emergencia, que podrías tener COVID-19. Si no vives en un ambiente seguro, la Línea sobre Violencia Doméstica de Illinois es multilingüe y ofrece servicios de ayuda y recursos gratuitos, llamando al 1-877-8636338, o TTY 1-877-863-6339. Para una lista de los centros de ayuda en casos de violencia doméstica en Illinois, visita el sitio web del Departamento de Servicios Humanos de Illinois (dhs.state.il.us) o llama al 1-877-663-6338 (1-877-TO-END-DV).
CLÍNICAS DONDE HABLAN ESPAÑOL Si desarrollas síntomas serios que sospeches están relacionados con el COVID-19 — fiebre, tos, falta de aliento —, o si necesitas atención médica por otros motivos, lo más recomendable es que te pongas en contacto con tu médico. En caso de no contar con seguro médico o que este sea de baja cobertura,
Esperanza Health Centers: 2001 S. California Ave.; 3059 W. 26th St.; 4700 S. California Ave.; 6550 S. Richmond St. (773) 584-6200. Abierto lunes a viernes promedio 7:15am a 6:30pm. Si presentas los síntomas del COVID19, este centro cuenta con pruebas, LLAMA ANTES at 773-584-6200. Lawndale Christian Health Center: Clínica principal 3860 W. Ogden Ave. (872) 588-3000. Abierto lunes, martes, y jueves de 8:30am a 9pm, miércoles y viernes, 8:30 am a 5 pm, sábados de 8 am a 12:30pm; Clínica de cuidado inmediato y farmacia 3910 W. Ogden Ave. (872) 588-3250. Abierto lunes a viernes de 8am a 8pm; 3517 W. Arthington St. (872) 588-3510. Abierto lunes y martes, 8:45–9 pm y miércoles a viernes, 8:45am–5pm; 3256 W. 24th St. (872) 5883540. Abierto lunes, 8:45am–9pm, martes a viernes, 8:45am–5pm; 5122 S. Archer Ave. (872) 588-3560. Abierto lunes, 8:15am– 9pm, martes a viernes, 8:45am–5 pm. La Coalición de Inmigrantes y Refugiados de Illinois (ICIRR por sus siglas en inglés) ha creado un mapa interactivo de clínicas del estado de Illinois que están disponibles para cualquier persona sin importar su estatus migratorio.
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GUIDE
FARMACIAS QUE OFRECEN ENTREGA A DOMICILIO Estas farmacias (por vecindario) solicitan un aviso con anticipación para hacer entregas. Las Empacadoras 47th Street Pharmacy, 1837 W. 47th St. (773) 847-6160. Entrega de medicamentos recetados y suministros de venta libre. Beverly Walgreens, 2345 W. 103rd St. (773)429-0767. Entrega de medicamentos recetados. Bridgeport Bridgeport Pharmacy, 3201 S. Wallace St. (312) 791-9000. Entrega. East Side Cornerstone Pharmacy, 10555 S. Ewing Ave. (773) 902-2356. Entrega. Gage Park/West Elsdon Careplus Discount Pharmacy, 4255 W. 63rd St. (773) 424-4262. Entrega de medicamentos recetados y suministros de venta libre. Elsdon Medical Pharmacy, 4254 W. 55th St. (773) 582-2660. Entrega. Walgreens, 4000 W. 59th St. (773) 5812345. Entrega.
ALIMENTOS Desde el 19 de marzo, las Escuelas Públicas de Chicago (CPS por sus siglas en inglés) se mantendrán cerradas. Durante este periodo, las familias con hijos en CPS pueden recibir alimentos gratuitos con provisiones para tres días que incluyen el desayuno y el almuerzo por cada estudiante por familia en el edificio más cercano de CPS sin importar a cual escuela acudan tus hijos. Puedes recoger los alimentos de lunes a viernes de 9am a 1pm. Para localizar una despensa de comida en tu comunidad, albergues o centros de distribución de comida utiliza el portal del Greater Chicago Food Depository (chicagosfoodbank.org/find-food), el cual provee un buscador donde puedes ingresar tu código postal o dirección exacta para encontrar lugares cercanos. Las horas pueden cambiar, asegurate de llamar antes de ir al lugar. La extensión comunitaria del 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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banco de comida también provee asistencia por teléfono para ayudarte con las solicitudes del programa para las “estampillas de comida” (SNAP por sus siglas en inglés) y los beneficios de Medicaid. Importante: Los cambios de elegibilidad de SNAP que hubieran tomado efecto el 1 de abril están en pausa durante la emergencia de salud actual con el coronavirus. Algunos sitios populares para obtener alimentos incluyen: Despensa Amor de Dios (La Villita) 2356 S. Sawyer Ave. Abierto los jueves 3pm a 7pm y en otros días según la disponibilidad de alimentos. (773) 9723143. Despensa UI Health (Pilsen) 1850 S. Throop St. Abierto lunes a viernes de 12pm a 3:30pm. (773) 812-3150. Si tienes la capacidad de comprar comida preparada, la Corporación para el Desarrollo de Estrategias Económicas (ESDC por sus siglas en inglés) de Pilsen recopiló una lista de los restaurantes disponibles para llevar o entregar a domicilio. La Cámara de Comercio de La Villita también publicó una lista de más de cien restaurantes haciendo entrega a domicilio o para llevar.
NIÑOS/AS Las escuelas CPS ofrecen una página de preguntas y respuestas, una página con recursos de aprendizaje en inglés y en español para cada grado, así como sugerencias de actividades para mantener activos a tus hijos en el hogar, cps.edu/ Pages/EnrichmentLearningResources.aspx. Además, crearon una línea de ayuda para que las agencias de cuidado infantil puedan ayudar a trabajadores “esenciales” a obtener cuidado de niños/as de emergencia. Llama gratis al (888) 228-1146 de lunes a viernes de 9am a 3pm, y puedes dejar un mensaje a cualquier hora.
DESEMPLEO El estado extendió los beneficios de desempleo para aquellos que pueden demostrar que perdieron trabajo a causa del COVID-19. Los inmigrantes con DACA o permiso de trabajo son elegibles para solicitar estos beneficios ya que no se consideran un cargo público. Puedes llenar la solicitud de desempleo en la página del Departamento de Trabajo de Illinois (www2.illinois.gov/ides).
VIVIENDA No habrán ordenes de desalojo ni ejecuciones hipotecarias hasta mínimo el 15 de abril. La ciudad de Chicago anunció una lotería de emergencia para proveer mil dólares a 2,000 inquilinos que puedan demostrar que su estado económico ha sido afectado por el coronavirus. La solicitud se encuentra en español y en otros idiomas (www.bit.ly/chirenta) y cierra el 1 de abril a las 11:59pm. Los indocumentados son elegibles y no se consideraría un cargo público. La ciudad también tiene el programa de Asistencia de Alquiler de Emergencia para los inquilinos que están en riesgo inmediato de perder sus hogares debido a una crisis económica temporal (chicago.gov/fss). La Organización Metropolitana de Inquilinos tiene una línea de ayuda local para cualquier crisis de vivienda (773) 2924988.
UTILIDADES Y DEUDAS Los recibos de utilidades se deberán pagar el 30 de abril (aunque se ha postergado un programa más permanente de ayuda). ComEd ha suspendido la desconexión de la luz de recibos sin pagar y omitirá los cargos por pago tardío al menos hasta el 1 de mayo. Para postergar tu pago o crear un plan de pago, ponte en contacto con la línea de ayuda de ComEd al 1-800-334-7661. Peoples Gas tiene un moratorio existente de desconexión de servicios en invierno, pero también omitirá sus cobros por pagos atrasados hasta el 1 mayo. Para más información llama a su línea de ayuda al 866-556-6001 o crea un plan de pago en su sitio en español. En Chicago, la desconexión del servicio de agua potable por recibos sin pagar se detuvo el año pasado. Comcast ofrece lugares con WiFi gratuito y 60 días de servicio de internet básico gratuito a nuevos clientes en seis áreas, mismo que usualmente está disponible a hogares de bajos recursos calificados por $9.95 al mes y aumenta la velocidad del servicio más adelante. Junto con otras compañías nacionales de telecomunicaciones, Comcast no desconectará los servicios ni cobrará cargos por pagos atrasados hasta mediados de mayo.
La ciudad detendrá toda la recaudación de deudas (incluida la pausa en los cargos por pagos atrasados y evitar que se acumulen intereses), la emisión de multas y el embargo, hasta al menos el 30 de abril. Las multas de estacionamiento tampoco se cobrarán durante ese periodo.
PARA INDOCUMENTADOS El Programa de Recursos para Familias Inmigrantes (IFRP por sus siglas en inglés) provee información acerca de si tú o tu familia pueden calificar para beneficios públicos u otros tipos de asistencia. Favor de llamar a la línea de ayuda de IFRP al 1-855-IFRP-NOW (1-855-437-7669). Debido al COVID-19, la línea será atendida por un trabajador de admisiones, de lunes a viernes de 9:30 am a 4:30 pm, en ocho idiomas diferentes: español, árabe, chino (mandarín), coreano, polaco, ruso, vietnamita e hindi/gujarati.
HEALTH
What You Need to Know About COVID-19
Highlights from a Q&A with Drs. Emily Landon and Allison Bartlett
BY OLIVIA STOVICEK
W
hen Governor J.B. Pritzker announced the state’s stay-athome order to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic on March 20, Dr. Emily Landon of University of Chicago Medicine was at the press conference with him to follow up with a powerful speech about how important the drastic measure was to save lives. “Our healthcare system doesn’t have any slack. There are no empty wards for patients, or nurses waiting in the wings,” said Landon, an adult infectious diseases specialist and the executive medical director of the hospital’s infection prevention and control program. “If we let every patient with this infection infect three more people, and then each of them infect two or three people, there won’t be a hospital bed when my mother can’t breathe very well or when yours is coughing too much.” Landon’s straightforward comments drew attention and praise around the country, but they’re far from her only effort to educate the public: a few days earlier, she and Dr. Allison Bartlett, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist and another leader in the hospital’s infection control program, answered questions about the novel coronavirus in a live question-andanswer session online. Here, the Weekly summarizes highlights from their expert
answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the novel coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19. How dangerous is COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus? “Many people who get sick will not get very sick at all. About eighty percent of people will not need much more than a number of days at home, resting, with a lot of coughing,” Landon said. But for some, the disease is more severe. About fifteen percent of people will need care in a hospital, and some go on to need critical care such as being on a ventilator. “In the end, if everyone is able to access the care they need when they need it, we expect to only have about one to two percent of people who will succumb to this illness... The real concern here is not so much about each of our own personal safety, but the most vulnerable among us need to be protected,” she said, explaining that we need to avoid having too many people sick at one time so the resources that keep most hospitalized people from dying don’t run out. What is social distancing, and why is it so important?
Vaccines and antiviral medications are usually our key defenses for slowing and treating viral infections, but we don’t have any for COVID-19 yet. “Without them, the only way that we can keep the number of infected people out and about low is by asking everyone to stay home,” Landon said. “That way, people won’t be having as many contacts with other people,” and each infected person will infect fewer people. Without that reduction in contacts between people—social distancing—the number of infected people will grow more quickly. “Our hospitals are not set up to have fifteen to twenty percent of our population sick at one time and needing their care,” Landon said. “This is not about being personally afraid of your own bad outcome. This is about protecting the people who need to use their healthcare system when they do get sick by spreading it out as much as possible.” “In the general community, we no longer can contain this virus,” Landon said. If we don’t slow down the spread of the disease, or “flatten the curve” of infections by reducing our interactions with others, the consequences will be severe. “There will be people who die because they cannot get in the hospital to have a bed unless we all—even those of us who won’t have a bad outcome and are going to be just fine—stay
home so we slow the spread, “ she said. What caution should I take other than social distancing? Bartlett recommended the same precautions you should take every flu season: wash your hands often (for at least twenty seconds), cover your mouth when you cough, and be proactive about cleaning frequently touched surfaces like doorknobs. Can asymptomatic people infect others with the novel coronavirus? “We don’t really have a great sense of how many people are walking around potentially infected with COVID-19 without having symptoms because we aren’t testing those people,” Bartlett said, but the possibility of its being a factor is becoming more evident. “That’s another important part in why we’re recommending that people stay away from other individuals, because we don’t know who might be potentially contagious,” she said. When I feel a cold coming on, I take supplements. Will they make a difference with the novel coronavirus? People should be careful about taking
APRIL 1, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9
HEALTH
supplements, since they can interact with medication and may cause bad reactions. Landon recommended against starting new supplements, but said that she doesn’t see a problem with people continuing supplements they take regularly without incident, as long as they do not increase the dose and continue to be careful. Does ibuprofen worsen COVID-19? Is acetaminophen better to use right now? Bartlett said for most people, it should be okay to use either. There is some limited data that suggest ibuprofen, an anti-inflammatory medication, may worsen infections, but for the “vast majority” of people who get COVID-19 without becoming severely ill, “use of ibuprofen or not, in terms of their severity of illness, is not going to have an impact,” she said. “It will make you feel better if you have a fever…. I don’t think there’s any reason to not symptomatically treat your fever as appropriate.” How does access to testing work? Testing capacity has been increasing in Illinois, but shortages of materials and initial problems with testing in the U.S. mean it’s still not possible to test everyone who’s sick. Though it will be frustrating for some, “We need to make sure that we’re prioritizing testing to identify patients who could become very sick if they got coronavirus, to make sure that we can get them admitted to the hospital when they need to be, [and] making sure that we’re keeping our healthcare workers safe, and if healthcare workers do become infected, making sure it’s safe for them to go back to work. Otherwise we’re gonna run out of healthcare workers,” Bartlett said. Someone in my house is sick, but I’m not sure if it’s the flu or coronavirus. Is it okay for me to go to work if I don’t have any symptoms? It depends on your work and your level of risk, Landon said. Frontline healthcare providers should be tested—they, and patients they work with, need to be kept as safe as possible. “For people who work in nursing homes, in group homes, or with patients, or with elderly people—people that are at a very high risk for a bad outcome— you may want to check with your employer about what the rules are for when you can and cannot work,” Landon said. 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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If you have direct contact with someone who has COVID-19, you must stay home for fourteen days. “If you’re the direct contact of someone that you don’t know whether or not they have COVID, it’s a little harder to make that decision,” Landon acknowledged, saying that if you have reason to believe it may be COVID-19, you should act as if you’ve been exposed, even without a test. If you “had contact with someone who had contact with someone who had COVID, you don’t need to change your behavior right now.” If the person you had direct contact with becomes sick, you should then consider yourself exposed and act accordingly. I’m immunocompromised, but I still have to go to work. Is there anything I can do to protect myself? In order to maintain social distance while at work, Landon suggested interacting over the phone or through teleconferencing even on site. Workspaces should be spread out to provide more distance between people, which can be facilitated by having those who can work from home do so. For those who must be physically present, splitting work into shifts, (or more and shorter shifts) is useful as well. “Any little bit that you can do to reduce the number of human beings that you are within six feet of at any given time will reduce the risk of this disease spreading too quickly through our community,” Landon said. Landon also highlighted the importance of cleaning surfaces regularly—every hour, even. “We know from some studies out of Singapore that even when you have sick people around, if you clean surfaces regularly, it really does help to decrease spread.” If someone must take the CTA during this time, what are the best practices? “I know there’s a lot of work going on with the public transportation authorities to increase the frequency with which they’re cleaning buses and trains, but we can only do so much cleaning,” Bartlett said. “Hand hygiene and not touching your face until after you’ve washed your hands are going to be important parts of how you can prevent spread.” “Those of you who don’t need to… use public transportation, shouldn’t use it,” Landon said, “so that the people that need it in order to get to their essential jobs can take it and spread out so that they don’t have as much risk.”
What’s the point of sending kids home from school? “Children are very unlikely to be sick from COVID-19, but they are, as far as we can tell, a very important vector in the spread of all of these infections,” Bartlett said; keeping them home is important to slowing the spread. “But we also need to respect the reason why we did this, which is social distancing,” she said. “Having giant playdates in the basement is not a good stewarding of resources. Everyone put a lot of effort into making infrastructure so that kids stay apart from each other; we need to continue to maintain that at home.” How long does the novel coronavirus last on surfaces, including clothing? We don’t know for sure, though more research is starting to come out on the topic. “I would say when you wear your clothes, you should wash them,” Landon said. “It is also not the time to be like, ‘Oh, I don’t need to clean off my countertops today, they’re fine.’ It’s probably a good idea to be keeping your surfaces clean and to be changing your clothes regularly and cleaning them in the washing machine.” Final thoughts? “This is going to be hard. It’s different than any way we’ve ever lived before,” Landon said. “But we have to do it. And it may take longer than we want it to take, and it may be different than we want it to be. And no matter how much you think that you’re going to be fine, so why do you have to do all this, ‘It’s just like the flu’—if you keep having that behavior and that thought process, there are a lot of older people and people that are immunocompromised that will die. “It’s important that everyone take a minute to start thinking more about everyone else around them, and not just about themselves. I know that a lot of you are out there staying at home already… Keep spreading the word—electronically—and do your best,” she said. “Just be patient, and we’ll get through it together.” Note: You can watch the entire Q&A online at uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/ at-the-forefront-live/coronavirus-questionsanswered.
“The real concern here is not so much about each of our own personal safety, but the most vulnerable among us need to be protected.” Olivia Stovicek is a senior editor. She last wrote about resources available to South Siders during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Census Spotlight The Census is going digital in 2020 BY JOCELYN VEGA
T
he Census is going digital in 2020, with households classified as either “internet first” or “internet choice” based on their community’s access to reliable internet. If the U.S. Census Bureau determined that a geographic area has consistent internet access, households are labeled “internet first” and initially receive only an invitation to complete the census online. Otherwise, households will be considered “internet choice” and receive a paper form in addition to their online invitation. Maria Fitzsimmons serves as census campaign director with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. She works with sixty-three community-based partners across Cook County to ensure immigrant communities and collar counties have accurate information regarding this civic process. During our conversation, Fitzsimmons discussed the Census Bureau's early stage outreach and major updates as the census goes digital. Starting March 12, the Census Bureau officially invites households to complete the census online. “Most people are expecting that they're going to get a paper form that they can physically fill out. And they will eventually get a paper form. But [most] people in the United States are going to receive what's called the Internet First mailing, which is that the Census Bureau will ... mail you and invite you to participate in the census through the website,” said Fitzsimmons. This invitation includes a unique twelve digit identifier. Individuals who do not have this identifier can still complete the census online by filling in their household address. Individuals who are experiencing homelessness can identify their geographic location (city, state, zip code, or location description such as intersections and park names) as an alternative to providing an address. One major change is that households will no longer be able to request a paper form, but the census can also be completed over the phone. “The Census Bureau is encouraging a majority of the country to take part online or over the phone to help
reduce the burden of administration,” said Fitzsimmons. The invitation will be addressed to the residence address, not an individual person, since all household members should be included in the census. The online form must be completed in a single session and include the information of every household member. Fitzsimmons advises against using the browser’s forward or back buttons, recommending instead the online form’s forward or previous options, to avoid having to re-enter information. There are advantages to completing the census online. The physical form has limited space for household members to list their demographic information, requiring followup from the Census Bureau to collect the full demographic information of households with more than six members. Fitzsimmons recommended large households either respond online or by telephone. Households completing the form online will be able to choose between thirteen languages, with additional guides in fifty-nine languages. The mailed form “will offer very brief instructions to complete the census in either English or English and Spanish,” and will also include a language assistance list for thirteen languages with toll-free phone numbers. “But even if you never receive a mailer, or if you don't have your own home—if you're crashing on someone's couch, you're living in a car, whatever the case may be— anybody can still fill out the census form for their whole household online or over the phone,” Fitzsimmons said. To complete the Census online, visit my2020census.gov.
Your parcipaon matters. Questions about the 2020 Census? We have answers. Text us your questions to 987987.
Complete your Census form online: my2020Census.gov
The Weekly’s reporting on the 2020 Census is supported by a grant from the McCormick Foundation, administered by the Chicago Independent Media Alliance. Jocelyn Vega is a contributing editor to the Weekly. She last wrote about a fundraiser for Black and brown farmers collectives. APRIL 1, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11
VISUAL ARTS
South Side Weekly People's Media
The Weekly is seeking audio, video, visual art, and written contributions from you that share how you’re experiencing life during the coronavirus pandemic. Let us know how and what you’re doing.
Don’t know what to say? Here are some prompts! Work: How has coronavirus affected your work? Are you working from home? Have you been laid off ? If you’re doing essential work, let us know what the conditions are like, how you’re staying safe, and what your work atmosphere is like. What do you want the rest of the world to know? Art: Are you making art to cope with our new reality? Read for us your poems. Play
for us your music. Share with us your comics. And if someone else’s art is inspiring you, we’d love to hear about that as well. Solidarity: Have you been engaging in efforts to sustain solidarity with folks in Chicago? Grocery shopping for your elderly neighbor? Donating to a mutual aid fund? Let us know what you’re doing to help one another during this once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Here’s how to contribute: Audio: Record a voice memo on your phone and email southsideweeklyradio@ gmail.com with Work, Art, or Solidarity in the subject line. In your message, please include your name and location. If you’re not sure how to record on your phone, check out this resource: bit.ly/RecordMobile. You can also share your experience by leaving us a voicemail at (331) 308-0773.
Every Wednesday and Sunday for the foreseeable future we’ll release a collection of these messages on our Soundcloud. Visual, video, and text: We’d love to share your stories, essays, poems, photos, comics, paintings, and videos on our website on a rolling basis. Submit your work to us via the form at southsideweekly.com/peoplesmedia/.
"TANJIRO", 8.5X11" HOLOGRAPHIC PRINT BY SIMONE ROBINSON OF PILL HILL
THE JOE AND RIKA MANSUETO LIBRARY IN HYDE PARK. PHOTO BY DONOVAN HARVEY OF HYDE PARK
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VISUAL ARTS
My senior year is ruined… I want to sit and wallow in self pity But I can’t help but feel like an asshole when I do There’s a worldwide pandemic And here I am complaining about not going toprom I can’t help but want to take a step back and put it into perspective But saying this is easier than doing it As much as I want to put my issues aside and focus on the bigger problem at hand I’m still an immature barely adult 18 year old Who feels like she’s had everything she’s worked for Pulled right from under her First we have a strike And then a pandemic At this point I just feel like throwing in the towel with what’s left of my so called senior year E-learning assignments are piling up and I can’t help But close my laptop every time I open it I just want to graduate and put this whole year behind me already. I always said I wanted to live through something historic But not like this Not this damaging And earth shattering I miss my friends I miss school But more importantly I miss my old normal
PAINTINGS BY ELENA DIADENKO TOP: "HIDING", 22 X 22 INCHES, ACRYLICS ON WOOD, BOTTOM: QUARANTINE, 18 X 18 INCHES, ACRYLICS ON WOOD
BY HELENA CHEATHAM OF BRONZEVILLE
APRIL 1, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13
a 7–part investigative podcast launching 3/31
Healthy Babies, One Videochat At a Time
Chicago’s home-visit services keep families connected to information and resources. A mother investigates her sonʼs murder and joins forces with a team of journalists to confront Chicago Police and challenge the cityʼs longstanding racial disparities somebodypodcast.com
@somebody_pod
@somebodypod
Southern Exposure The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side
by LEE BEY
AVAILABLE WHERE BOOKS ARE SOLD www.nupress.northwestern.edu
14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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BY EMELINE POSNER
A
s the count of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Chicago rises— reaching over 2,000 by press time on March 30—home-visiting services for families and expectant parents are joining the ranks of healthcare providers and others who are using telemedicine to see their patients. For Diana McClarien, the director of grantee support services at the Ounce of Prevention Fund, the switch from in-person to virtual visits has been relatively smooth. “We have a lot of younger parents, so they’re pretty tech savvy,” she says. The Ounce, as it’s called, is a local nonprofit that runs a nationwide education program along with two home-visit services: one for low-income, at-risk families with kids up to age three, and one for young moms. It’s one of several Chicago services that uses home visitors to provide additional care for families who could benefit from parenting advice, educational support, or guidance navigating the healthcare system and community resources. Like many other providers and community organizations that rely on inperson interactions, the Ounce was in “panic mode” after Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Governor J.B. Pritzker announced a “stayat-home” order to limit the transmission of COVID-19, McClarien said. They had already closed their Bronzeville early childhood center, Educare Chicago at the Charles A. Hayes Early Childhood Investment Center, but had to figure out how to keep their home-visit services running from a safe distance.
“[But] besides not being able to be present, it’s been fine,” McClarien said. They’re keeping to the same schedule of weekly “visits,” though they’ve reduced the session time from ninety to sixty minutes, and are sending extra educational videos and resources from their staff educators over the phone. They’re also working on getting families on a group videochat to get back on schedule with biweekly parenting groups. If anything, they’re hearing more from their parents now about where they’re at. Many families have been needing diapers, McClarien says. More recently, she’s been hearing from the Ounce’s four home visitors that parents are stressed about being laid off and about needing to get on unemployment. In response to that, they’ve been providing guidance, as well as care packages with diapers, wipes, formula, and developmentally appropriate books, and are about to send small-amount gift cards to help the families get by—though they’re still figuring out how to get them to their families safely.
A
cross the city, home visitors are helping to maintain a crucial line of information and resources between providers and families with young children. Nurses at Rush Hospital who are providing virtual “home visits” to parents that have welcomed an infant in the last three weeks say that they’re getting “very specific” questions from parents, as not a lot of the information about COVID-19 coming from providers or from Rush itself is geared toward addressing infant or family
HEALTH
safety, pediatric physician Gina Lowell said. “We’re starting calls with a lot of anxiety [from the parents],” said nurse and home visitor Kathryn Kaintz. “We can stay on the line for a long time [up to three hours], so we’ve been able to talk families down a little bit.” Kaintz is one of two nurses at Rush conducting home visits through Family Connects, which is in the beginning of a two-year-long, four-hospital pilot aimed to provide supplemental assistance for new parents. The pilot is in its infancy: they were gearing up to launch the service when the “stay-at-home” order came. Rush is unique in that it’s the only of the four hospitals that’s able to go forward providing services in the midst of the crisis. The other three hospitals in the pilot—Mount Sinai in North Lawndale, St. Bernard in Englewood, and Norwegian American in Humboldt Park—were relying on the Chicago Department of Public Health’s (CDPH) public health nurses, who have been deployed elsewhere to help with efforts to treat patients with coronavirus. Rush, however, staffs the service with its own nurses. When asked about the paused services at the other hospitals—and about other home-visit services staffed by CDPH’s nurses, including one that serves postpartum women with high blood pressure and one that serves high-risk infants—CDPH spokesperson Elena Ivanovich wrote, “CDPH's home visits are a supplement to, not a replacement for, care by mothers' medical providers. As always, but especially during this time, it is crucial that new moms and parents stay in close communication with their medical providers.” When the Weekly spoke with their team on Thursday, March 26, nurses Kaintz and Darlene Hepburn had conducted seven total visits and were preparing for another later that day. That’s twice a day, but they were preparing to scale up to four visits a day to be able to accommodate the roughly thirty babies born every week at Rush. Initially, both Kaintz and Hepburn were disappointed to hear that they wouldn’t be able to conduct visits in person. “I’m always in the home or in person in the community, so I was like, ‘I don’t know how I do on the phone,’” said Kaintz, whose background is in providing community- and mental healthcentered home visits. “I rely so much on body language and active listening.” But they’ve found the visits have been helpful for parents, even over the phone. “I
was really pleasantly surprised about how helpful it seemed to the mom to have the opportunity to speak [to a nurse],” Hepburn said. On top of providing basic resources and information—about newborn health, breastfeeding, and more—Family Connects, which was originally designed by Duke University for the city of Durham, North Carolina, has been shown to reduce infant visits to the ER by fifty-nine percent. That’s especially important right now, said Lowell. “We want to keep healthy babies out of the ER setting, where there can be a lot of exposure to [virus-carrying] individuals right now.” The Ounce’s McClarien said that one of the most important things that home visitors can teach their families is how to advocate for themselves and for their children. Until the stay-at-home order is over—which may not be until late April, according to a recent announcement from the mayor—they’re trying to help families keep on the same page as their primary care providers. “We’re asking our families to call their pediatricians and see if there’s a protocol they use to minimize risk,” McClarien says. “And we’re giving them some language to use. So, [if a parent says], ‘I’m calling to reschedule a well-child visit [from] over two years ago, and there are some immunizations this baby needs’—they’ll prioritize this child.”
Lowell, the pediatric physician at Rush, said her team has had to reach out to families scheduled for checkups, and to reassure them that they have implemented new workflows to separate healthy and sick families in different units. But even so, one family couldn’t be convinced to show up to a newborn checkup. “They were not having it,” she said. But it’s not all bad news. Increasingly parents with blood pressure conditions are able to get prescriptions for blood pressure cuffs to keep at home. Family Connects nurse Kaintz said that a patient she talked to last week had been keeping her own blood pressure log. For McClarien, one of the concerns is that the work they’ve put in to convince families of the importance of going to the doctor and keeping up with health checks and dental exams—which are two things that they can’t keep up for as long as their home visits are remote—will backslide. Once the crisis has passed, “we’re going to start over, all over again,” she said. But in the meantime, the Ounce’s family support specialists and home visitors are helping families stay on top of appointments as best as they can. “Things are evolving,” McClarien said.
And families have jumped on board with the new normal. Before the COVID-19 crisis, families would send home visitors pictures of their kids on occasion, she said. “Now it’s like every day. That’s really nice.” Emeline Posner is a senior editor. She last wrote about COVID-19 unemployment benefits and who qualifies.
HALEY TWEEDELL
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ven so, there are some parts of homevisit sessions that can’t be replicated over the phone or videochat. These are things like newborn weight checks—and, for moms, blood-pressure checks, which are essential for women with hypertension, a condition that puts them at higher risk of developing blood clots or having strokes or heart attacks after birth. Women of color, but especially Black women, are at higher risk of developing complications and of dying during and in the period after birth, as recent reporting on the Black maternal health crisis has shown. Increased care for moms in the postpartum period—as well as training on implicit bias—has been shown to reduce those rates. And, though neither home-visit service is supposed to replace primary care for mothers or babies, fear of COVID-19 may prevent families—especially those sharing a home with older parents or grandparents— from keeping their postpartum checkups. APRIL 1, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15
FOOD
Setting the Table Food pantries scramble to adapt to the COVID-19 crisis and brace for increased need BY MARTHA BAYNE
MARTHA BAYNE
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n January 22, the Casa Catalina Basic Human Needs Center, a food pantry serving Back of the Yards and surrounding neighborhoods, celebrated its reopening after being closed for more than three months. Catholic Charities chaplain Father Gerard Kelly blessed the Ashland Avenue storefront space, rehabbed and reorganized to provide supplemental food along what’s known as a “client choice” model. Rather than receiving bags of preselected food, visitors could now fill shopping carts with groceries from the shelves of the pantry under the guidance of a volunteer “personal shopper.” The changeover had been a little rough—among other things, the rehab of the center had taken much longer than anticipated—but at the time Sister Joellen Tumas, who runs Casa Catalina, was sanguine. “I think it’s to 16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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give people more of a choice and help them feel like they have control over their lives,” she said in January. “We’ll see how it goes.” Barely two months later, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, these careful plans, like so many others, were out the window. Clients entered one by one, some in masks, to take prepacked bags of groceries from a team of gloved volunteers. Casa Catalina usually serves as many as 200 households a week. “We opened at 12:45 and by one had seen thirty-three households,” said Tumas on March 18. “It’s in and out.” On the floor nearby, a man carefully packed every inch of a rolling suitcase with food. Across Chicago, food pantries are scrambling to figure out how to simultaneously serve their clients, plan for increased need, and keep their staff and
volunteers safe. At the food pantry at Amor de Dios United Methodist Church on 25th Street and Sawyer Avenue in Little Village, groceries are still being distributed every Thursday, and on other days as available. But, said pastor Ramiro Rodriguez, “We are protecting ourselves. We don’t let the community touch the food, and we only let a few people in at a time, and keep them far apart.” At the Common Pantry in North Center, on the North Side, food distribution has continued, but clients are no longer allowed inside the pantry. Rather, they line up outside the door of Epiphany United Church of Christ, where the pantry is housed. There too, client choice has been abandoned; gloved volunteers ferry bags of food out the door to each recipient. “We’ve limited all our volunteer spots so we can be six to eight feet apart from each other,” said Margaret O’Connor, executive director of the pantry. “We are trying to minimize exposure for our volunteers, because we can’t really survive without our volunteers.” In South Chicago—a community with far fewer resources than North Center— many food pantries attached to churches have simply closed for now, such as the ones at St. Katherine’s on South Harper Avenue, and Our Lady of Guadalupe at 91st and Brandon. Those that remain open are bracing for a surge in need. Rosemary Arias, a retired Chicago Public Schools security guard who runs the two-month-old Southeast Side of Chicago Food Pantry out of a cinderblock building formerly owned by Republic Steel, said, “The way it’s going, my numbers are increasing by leaps and bounds.” “We’re not seeing an urgent need right now,” said Ana Quijano, a community services coordinator with Claretian Associates, who also coordinates the South Chicago Food Network. “But we do anticipate that at the beginning of the month, when rent comes due, we’re going to have an increase.” Greg Trotter, spokesperson for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, echoes this concern. “Lower-income families and hourly workers likely will be disproportionately affected by school closures and work stoppages,” he said. “Many people likely will experience increased financial burden and less income as a result. That could lead to increased demand on our network of partners and programs. As we saw with last year’s government shutdown, many Americans are only one paycheck
away from experiencing food insecurity.” The GCFD, one of the nation’s largest food banks, distributes food to more than 700 food pantries, shelters, kitchens, and other organizations across Cook County. But the food bank is not the only source of food for these organizations—they also rely on individual and corporate donations, and gleaning from grocery stores and farmers’ markets. They also often purchase some items from local retailers, including non-food items like disposable diapers and sanitary supplies. Some smaller independent pantries do not work through the GCFD at all, and their supply chains may be radically disrupted by the COVID-19 crisis. South Chicago, Back of the Yards, Little Village, and other South Side neighborhoods such as Englewood have some of the highest concentrations of people living below the federal poverty line in the city. But according to the GCFD’s food data map, they often have fewer options for supplemental food assistance than their peers in wealthier neighborhoods like North Center. Like Casa Catalina and Common Pantry, pantries that remain open during the pandemic have had to make adjustments. At the Southeast Side of Chicago pantry, volunteers wear gloves, and the space is thoroughly cleaned before, during, and after food distribution. In addition, Arias has had to try to convince seniors, many of whom come every week to line up an hour before the pantry opens, to just come at 1pm, or at least wait in their cars. The GCFD has offered guidance to its network pantries that they should not only forgo client choice, but also only offer hot meals to go, rather than in a group setting, and minimize contact between guests and staff, not just physically but in terms of time spent in conversation. While in the past it has been standard practice at many pantries to ask guests for proof of residence in the form of an ID, utility bill, or piece of mail, now such time-consuming intake has been shelved. “Typically, our partner agencies ask for a proof of address—some agencies have geographical boundaries—as well as some demographic information to help us better understand and meet the need in our communities,” said the GCFD’s Trotter. “People can always decline to provide personal information. We’ve further simplified the intake process because of the coronavirus. Now we only recommend asking for household size and zip code.”
FOOD
Most food pantries right now are allowing anyone to come and get groceries, regardless of whether they live in the pantry’s normal service area and without logging their personal information. Still, noted Common Pantry’s O’Connor, this puts another layer of responsibility on the volunteers. “We’re only calling volunteers if they’ve been here before and if they know what they’re doing,” she said, adding that while under normal circumstances the pantry limits client visits to once a month, that’s pretty impossible to track right now. Still, to discourage hoarding, she said, “We need people on the front lines who can be like, ‘Wait, weren’t you here last week?’ ” Hoarding is a concern for Arias as well—from another angle. When she put in her order to the GCFD the week of March 16, she said she asked for milk but none was provided, as anxious people across the city had depleted supplies with panic shopping. Meanwhile, over at Amor de Dios, Rodriguez has forgone the GCFD’s once-amonth-per-household guideline. “We have food for every family, every week. Everyone should be able to get [food] with us.” One spot of good news: thus far, food has not been shown to be any sort of significant vector for transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. As noted in a recent comprehensive article in Serious Eats, “According to multiple health and safety organizations worldwide, including the CDC, the USDA, and the European Food Safety Authority, there is currently no evidence that COVID-19 has spread through food or food packaging.” People should not be frightened to go to a food pantry to pick up needed food, said Trotter, and should just practice “the basic measures advocated by health experts, including frequent hand-washing and social distancing.” A woman named Mirella, who did not provide her last name, came to Casa Catalina on March 18 with her sixth-grade daughter. She said she had been coming to the pantry for five years. Asked if she was scared, she said, “Si, un poco.” (Yes, a little.) But, she added, she is lucky in that she still has a job, in order fulfillment for an online retailer. Both Casa Catalina and Amor de Dios both serve a mainly Latinx population, reflecting the neighborhoods’ demographics. Many clients work in the restaurant industry, as servers, dishwashers, line cooks, or other hourly workers. “More people are coming now because of COVID,” said Rodriguez.
“Many have lost jobs now, because of the shutdown.” “We have a lot of new people coming through,” said Tumas. “Some of them are scared silly. Most of them—especially if they have kids in CPS—they know something's going on. Some of the seniors....” She paused. “I don’t know.” Getting reliable information to clients is another challenge in this already challenging field. While some food pantries have more robust networks and are able to communicate with clients via apps or social media, many smaller pantries—again, often on the South and West Sides—do not have either the human resources or the technological capacity to do so, and elderly and/or non-English-speaking clients may not be able to readily access information online. Quijano of Claretian Associates said that in South Chicago, where Claretian manages 153 senior apartments in addition to coordinating the South Chicago Food Network, “Right now, it’s really just word of mouth. We’ve been telling our residents information about COVID and the food pantries, and I’ve been sharing with my network as well—the libraries and the local nonprofits in the neighborhood. But other than that....” For the moment, supplies of food are not a problem—though storage is. Claretian did receive some funding from United Way to purchase nonperishable items for its senior residents, as well as gift certificates for items like milk and eggs from local grocery store First Choice Market. They’re also accepting donations of nonperishables to store in their kitchen to give to residents on an as-needed basis, but—like many social service organizations—space is at a premium, something other pantries are struggling with as well as suddenly closed restaurants seek to donate produce and other perishables. After Governor J.B. Pritzker issued the March 15 edict shutting down all Illinois restaurants for eat-in service, Common Pantry received a donation of 900 pounds of produce that it scrambled to distribute before it went bad. “We have pretty rich bags for people right now because of all these restaurants trying to get rid of perishables,” said O’Connor. “People are being provided some pretty incredible groceries right now, but how long that’s going to last, we don’t know.” She would like to find an effective way to redistribute extra food to pantries in other
parts of the city that don’t share her affluent donor base (“When we put a call out for cereal to the neighborhood, we’re going to get 300 boxes”). But, she said, they have yet to have the capacity to figure out how. For the moment, the surplus is not a problem unique to the North Side. Amor de Dios has seen a spike in donations from a local produce wholesaler, and it has tried to move swiftly to pass along the bounty. “We are serving a poor community,” said Rodriguez. “When we have produce, we don’t hold it in our coolers—we get out in the street and give it to the community.” On March 12, Casa Catalina received 150 corned beef dinners from a Catholic Charities fundraiser in Cicero that saw a remarkable number of no-shows. A few days later, the pantry took delivery of a load of snacks from the Auditorium Theater— hummus, crackers and cheese, and “some wonderful chocolate cookies”—intended for patrons of the Joffrey Ballet’s nowpostponed Don Quixote. Tumas, who is seventy-six years old and a sister in the order of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, has been running Casa Catalina essentially single-handedly for more than thirty years. She had surgery in January and walks with a cane. [Ed. note: As of March 25, Tumas was self-isolating at home and no longer working in person at the pantry.] Now, from her desk in the pantry, she answers the incessantly ringing phone: “Catholic Charities, Casa Catalina, how can I help you? Necesita comida?” Across the room, the half-dozen volunteers—most of them seniors—keep their spirits up tossing bagged rolls to be packed into larger brown bags for clients. When one approaches Tumas with a question about substituting beef for chicken for a client—the kind of client choice that might have been a goal in other times—she is quick to lay down the law. “Nothing gets swapped out,” she said. “That’s how it comes, take it or leave it.” “These are hard times,” she added. “We prayed to God before we opened today.” Then she turned back to the volunteers with another directive. “Breathe, everybody. It’s time to breathe.”
online on March 24. It has been updated to reflect changes at Casa Catalina. To find a nearby food pantry, soup kitchen, shelter, or food distribution center in the Greater Chicago Food Depository’s network, go to the GCFD’s “Find Food” page and plug in your address, intersection, or zip code. Hours may change, so make sure to call before you go. The GCFD’s benefits outreach team is also available by phone to help with applications for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid benefits; call 773247-3663. (Changes to SNAP eligibility that were to have taken effect April 1 have been put on hold for the duration of this public health emergency.) To volunteer, visit the GCFD’s website (volunteers.chicagosfoodbank.org) for a guide of volunteer opportunities through the GCFD, or contact your neighborhood pantry. Note that some pantries are not currently open to new volunteers. Statewide volunteer opportunities to assist with food distribution and other services can be found on the State of Illinois’ website. The GCFD, Catholic Charities, Claretian Associates, and many individual food pantries are all seeking monetary donations; see their websites for information on how to give.
Martha Bayne is a managing editor of the Weekly. She last wrote about resources available to South Siders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Note: This article was originally published APRIL 1, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17
FOOD
“We want people Arts at a Distance Remote art, news, and community from to know that we’re South Side organizations here. We have all A this food!” BY KYLE OLEKSIUK
A suburban food pantry promises to stay open in the face of pandemic BY IRENE ROMULO, CICERO INDEPENIDENTE
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n Tuesdays at 8:00am, volunteers are usually busy moving boxes full of 6,000 pounds of food from the alley into the basement at Gethsemane Lutheran Church, at 1937 South 50th Avenue in Cicero, where the Cicero Berwyn Stickney (CBS) Food Pantry is located. Although the pantry has been around for thirty years, volunteers say that not enough people are taking advantage of the resource. Diane Hurstak-Eddy has been running the food pantry for over twenty years. Volunteers refer to her as the “coordinator of chaos” for making sure everything runs smoothly on Tuesdays when the pantry is open. She says that despite coronavirus fears the pantry will remain open for those in need. “This is when people need us the most, so we won’t close until they let us know that we can’t do it anymore,” Hurstak-Eddy said. The pantry will be taking extra precautions for the next few weeks to ensure that volunteers and families stay safe. Instead of congregating in the church basement, for example, people will be asked to wait in line outside of the church and only ten will be allowed inside at a time. All volunteers, the majority of whom are elderly, 18 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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will be wearing gloves and masks and they have been provided with hand sanitizer. Anyone who lives in Cicero, Berwyn or Stickney can come on Tuesdays between 2 and 5:30 in the afternoon to pick up groceries. If someone doesn’t live in these areas they can get food the first time but they will be referred to a pantry near their home. People can only come every other Tuesday but there are no other restrictions. The food pantry currently serves about 75-100 families a week but has capacity for more. Hurstak-Eddy explained that 85% of the people who they see are Latinx but there’s a growing Black and senior population. Find the full version of this story at Cicero Independiente (ciceroindependiente.com), a volunteer-run, bilingual, independent news outlet for Cicero residents. Originally published online March 18. Reprinted with permission.
s the COVID-19 pandemic spreads throughout Chicagoland, most of the culture, news, and community that South Siders take for granted have become unavailable. To fill the gap that the quarantine has created, a number of local organizations have adapted to the times by offering remote news, art, and even (even!) dancing, available online. We’ve spoken with a few of the organizations that are uploading their events into cyberspace and discussed what it takes to provide a semblance of togetherness in these lonely times. Slo ‘Mo Dance Party
For nine years, Slo ‘Mo: Slow Jams For Queer Fam has run a Third Thursday party at the Whistler in Logan Square, produced by Kristen Kaza and DJ’d by Audio Jack, VITI GRRL, and “a rotation of LGBTQ+ & allied DJs playing R&B, house, hip hop, and disco from the seventies to today,” according to Kaza. Now, they will be continuing their Third Thursdays event online in the form of a live digital dance party, “so that you can still experience the joy of Slo ‘Mo—from your home-o.” Their first attempt at hosting the event online was this month, on March 19, and producer Kristen Kaza says it received “an enormous response,” with 5,000+ viewers. The party is held every third Thursday of the month at 8pm on Instagram Live and Zoom (details can be found on Slo ‘Mo’s social media accounts). This month, on April 16, the Slo ‘Mo DJs will be joined by The Empress Darling Shear, who will lead dance lessons for viewers. Slo ‘Mo has created a fund for artists and LGBTQ+ community members in need. Participants in the Slo ‘Mo parties can contribute to these funds by Venmoing @ slomoparty or by purchasing “tickets” to the free party on their website. Slo ‘Mo Dance Party. Instagram: @slomoparty.
slomoparty.com.
Rebuild Foundation
Rebuild Foundation, the South Shore nonprofit that serves as a hub for artist and University of Chicago professor Theaster Gates’s many initiatives, usually offers free arts and cultural programming at its Stony Island Arts Bank and Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative. Julie Yost, the director of public programming for Rebuild, says that “before closing our sites to help protect against the spread of COVID-19, we offered free programming across our sites every day, from community meetings and dance and music classes to artist talks, film screenings, DJ sets, wellness offerings, and opportunities to engage with some of our collections.” Now, they have partnered with their teaching artists and artists in residence to create virtual arts opportunities for their community. Every Sunday at 3pm, DJ-in-residence Duane Powell is presenting a Virtual Sunday Service, based on his usual Sunday Service sets at the Stony Island Arts Bank. He is also releasing his sets on Mixcloud, “so people can feel the spirit in their own homes,” as Yost noted. Every Sunday at 1pm, Rebuild’s wellness practitioner-in-residence, Stacy Patrice, will be conducting a live virtual yoga class on Rebuild’s Instagram. Patrice, who usually leads a free community yoga class at the Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative each week, will continue to walk participants through yoga and meditation techniques specifically tailored to helping people find healing ways to express themselves during this time. Rebuild Foundation. rebuild-foundation.org. Instagram: @rebuild-foundation. The Silver Room The Silver Room boutique and gallery, located in Hyde Park, is adapting to quarantine by moving two of their events online. Eric Williams, who founded The
HOUSING Silver Room in 1997, says that The Silver Room decided to move some of their events online “a few days before we knew we had to close.” He invites readers to follow The Silver Room on social media and sign up for their newsletter. “We welcome folks to contribute content and ideas.” Every Thursday from 1-2pm, the Silver Room will be hosting a weekly webinar, the Silver Room Sessions, “as a way to connect the community.” The webinars will be led by Williams and John Robinson (the CEO of BackUp leadership coaching), and is titled “Navigating Small Business for Artists + Entrepreneurs.” Every third Thursday, they will host their storytelling night, “Grown Folks Stories,” through Zoom from 7-9pm. The Silver Room. thesilverroom.com. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram: @thesilverroom. The Quarantine Times, via the Public Media Institute The Public Media Institute is a Bridgeportbased nonprofit that runs the Co-Prosperity Sphere, Lumpen Magazine, and Lumpen Radio (WLPN 105.5 FM). In response to the pandemic, it has created The Quarantine Times, a newspaper, art, and radio outlet that can be found online. Nick Wylie, the managing director of the Public Media Institute, said that The Quarantine Times was created with urgency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. “We started talking about it about a week ago, brainstormed a structure last [Wednesday], confirmed we were going forward last Friday, and started calling editors that night,” Wylie said. “We launched the site and started working toward new content last weekend.” Every day, The Quarantine Times commissions and publishes one project by a local artist. These projects are displayed on their website alongside a calendar of past projects and reflections by commissioned artists on how they’re getting through the pandemic.
Weekly, smallWORLD said they’ve moved their parties online because “before the COVID-19 crisis, we were a free party every Sunday night for years and we watched it grow into a safe, reliable, and necessary space for Chicago’s Queer community. As soon as the order came through to close Chicago bars and other facilities, we immediately refused to let that very important space wither away.” So every Sunday from 8pm to 11pm “while social distancing is in effect,” smallWORLD is hosting a virtual dance party “for ‘Womxn and their buddies!’” accessible live on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. During the event, Chicago DJ and smallWORLD co-founder DJ Dapper will take listeners and dancers on a “uniquely blended musical journey.” Fortyfive minutes of the event is devoted to Q&A and discussions on non-monogamy and polyamory. smallWORLD will also be releasing a “QPOC Polyamorous-focused podcast,” accessible through a Patreon account. smallWORLD said that their virtual events make it possible for “everyone [to join in], and that’s been the really beautiful thing about all of this.” smallWorld Collective. Instagram: @smallworldcollective. Facebook: @smallWORLDCollectiveChi. Twitter: @smallworld_chi. Visit southsideweekly.com for more organizations providing remote access to their art to South Siders and Chicagoans. Kyle Oleksiuk is a former staff writer for the Weekly. He last contributed an interview with WHPK DJs Brenda Phillips and Linda Hall in April 2019.
The Quarantine Times. quarantinetimes.org. smallWORLD collective smallWORLD collective, which hosts free pop-up parties all over Chicago, started two years ago with a weekly event called “E N E R G Y.” The collective had been hosting it in different spaces across the city until earlier this month, when quarantine went into effect. In a statement to the
COURTESY OF SLO 'MO DANCE PARTY
The rent is due and Chicagoans need relief
Fair housing advocates and elected officials push to keep vulnerable residents housed during the COVID-19 crisis
BY JACQUELINE SERRATO
A
s Chicago joins the world in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, low-income and jobless residents are at the highest risk of losing the stability of their homes. While city and state officials have introduced some relief initiatives for overburdened renters and homeowners, advocates say that more needs to be done to ensure the security of the most vulnerable populations. On March 27, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced the city is issuing one-time $1,000 grants to 2,000 residents impacted by the economic fallout of COVID-19. Department of Housing Commissioner Marisa Novara will dip into $2 million of in-lieu fees from developers who opted out of constructing affordable housing, as mandated by the city's Affordable Requirements Ordinance. The application will be online in multiple languages at chicago.gov/coronavirus until 11:59pm April 1. Applicants will be entered into a lottery, and nonprofit organizations based throughout the city will distribute some funds using their existing networks. The application asks for proof of financial impact and does not ask for immigration status. 35th Ward Alderman Carlos Ramírez-Rosa’s office is offering help to Spanish-speaking residents. The city Department of Family and Support Services also has a rental assistance program for households at immediate risk of homelessness due to a documented crisis that is “beyond their control.” This could pertain to temporary loss of work, a fire or flood, a court-ordered eviction
or foreclosure (which are currently not being enforced), or domestic violence. One setback for applicants is that they have to apply in person at one of six organizations mentioned at the city’s rental assistance website. Immigrants are eligible to apply if they have an ITIN number. Anyone currently behind on their light and gas bills—and any debt with the city, such as traffic tickets—will not be sent to collections until after April 30 and will not accrue interest, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Comptroller Reshma Soni announced in mid-March. Back in November, Lightfoot had said the city would stop shutting off water service on people who are overdue on their payments. “Water is a basic, basic human right,” she said during her campaign for mayor. Additionally, Lightfoot announced that five Chicago hotels would be making 2,000 rooms available by the end of March for people who have tested positive for COVID-19 or people who have somebody in their household who have tested positive, as well as those who are at high risk for the disease and housing insecure. “We applaud the mayor for some of the immediate help to the especially vulnerable population, but we need to do more,” said Maxica Williams, a formerly homeless cancer survivor and member of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. “There are about 86,000 people who are homeless in the city of Chicago and we estimate that the city needs to provide about 2,800 units of isolated housing and support services for those who are living on the street and APRIL 1, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19
HOUSING
in shelters. If there is a stay-at-home order, then we must be sure to make it a priority to provide all populations with a safe place to stay.” The YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago has also stepped up to provide more than 400 beds for homeless people currently living in close quarters. The Cook County Sheriff ’s Office is not enforcing eviction orders after Chief Judge of the Circuit Court Timothy C. Evans canceled all court operations in nonemergency cases and suspended all evictions in the county (that had been filed and approved) for a thirty-day period. The Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing, a legal aid agency in Chicago that advocates for renters, said they are “relieved” the county has joined Seattle, San Francisco, and other jurisdictions in not entering or executing eviction orders during the coronavirus pandemic. In a statement to the Weekly, its executive director Mark Swartz said, “Renters should keep in mind that even though the courts may not be hearing eviction cases, they should still be responsive to any lawful notices (five-day or ten-day notices) so that they can remain in their homes after this public health crisis passes.” Cook County Commissioner Alma Anaya, who represents parts of the Southwest Side, said in a teleconference that there would also be a moratorium on the final judgments and executions of ruling regarding mortgage foreclosures: “Our goal is to push back and make sure that we have
an addition or an expansion beyond April 15. We know that this crisis isn’t going to be cleared within a few weeks. It may impact the way that we live even up to eighteen months so we need to figure out how we expand on that end.” Homeowners will have more time to submit property tax appeals and apply for exemptions, as those deadlines have been extended, according to Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi. His staff is working remotely but will continue to review property appeals and exemptions online. On his end, Governor J.B. Pritzker is also suspending evictions and utility shutoffs and expanding unemployment benefits for Illinoisans. “I’ve made calls personally to CEOs and leaders of our largest utilities across the state, as well as employed our Illinois Commerce Commission, and we have succeeded in getting the utilities to agree to a moratorium on shutoffs during this time period. Some of them for a relatively lengthy period, I may add,” he said in a press conference. Both ComEd and People’s Gas are suspending service disconnections for customers who are unable to pay and they are waiving late charges through May 1st. CEDA, the organization that administers federal funds for utility debt relief in Cook County, is not currently accepting new applications, due to the crisis. Comcast also announced it would not disconnect internet service or charge late fees until May for customers who are eligible. GABY FEBLAND
20 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
¬ APRIL 1, 2020
Following in the city’s footsteps, the state is partnering with various hotels to open up some 20,000 rooms for medical workers, first responders, and people needing isolation. Northwest Side State Representative Delia Ramírez, a housing advocate, said she has asked the governor’s office and the Illinois Department of Human Services to replace and supplement the beds that have been lost when social distancing guidelines were implemented at local shelters. “Hotel rooms are not the only option,” she said. “I know that places like the Chicago Housing Authority have 2,000 units right now that are vacant, so we could work with the city to try to figure out if that’s a way to be able to house people.” The CHA reported about 1,885 vacant housing units in a report from late 2019. “We have a number of schools and places that are not being currently used that have washing machines, lockers and showers, so we are working nonstop with the city and state to identify places immediately, in addition to providing support to the shelters,” said Ramírez. Ramírez-Rosa, Ramírez, and Anaya are joined by progressive elected officials and organizations like United Working Families and the Chicago Teachers Union who are proposing a “Right of Recovery” agenda meant to provide public relief during the COVID-19 epidemic for the most dispossessed communities in Illinois. Since the Chicago City Council and the State of Illinois legislative sessions are cancelled during the state of emergency, progressive politicians are calling on the state, county, and city to “modernize our legislative sessions… so we are able to virtually legislate” and pass vital relief measures like paid emergency leave, an end to ICE check-ins, free COVID-19-related treatment, and weekly stimulus payments to workers who have been impacted, they said. There should also be an indefinite moratorium on evictions and foreclosures and a waiver on all rent, mortgage, and utility payments for the duration of the pandemic, according to a statement also signed by Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, Ald. Rossana Rodríguez Sánchez, Ald. Byron Sigcho-López, Ald. Jeanette Taylor, Ald. Daniel La Spata, State Sen. Robert Peters, and State Rep. Will Guzzardi. “This of course is a working document based on the experiences of people on
the ground, people who are suffering the consequences of disinvestment and certain measures that for far too long have affected our communities, especially the most vulnerable,” 25th Ward Alderman SigchoLópez said via teleconference. The city chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and progressive officials are also pushing for a legally binding moratorium on water and utility shut offs, the restoration of services previously cut off due to outstanding debt, payment plans based on a household’s ability to pay, and a utility debt forgiveness program for the neediest families. The proposed legislation also seeks to screen access to senior housing and provide quarantine support in high density buildings. Said 33rd Ward Alderman Rossana Rodríguez Sánchez, “We are putting forward a set of demands that are not radical ... in a moment of an unprecedented public health crisis.” This article was originally published online on March 27. It was revised to reflect new information about the city’s rental assistance grants. Jacqueline Serrato is Editor-in-Chief of South Side Weekly. She last wrote about Metropolitan Water Reclamation District board candidate Eira Corral Sepúlveda.
OP-ED
Op-Ed: To Shape the Future of Policing, We Must Preserve Its History
The Fraternal Order of Police threatens to destroy nearly all of Chicago’s police misconduct records BY MAIRA KHWAJA AND EMMA PEREZ, INVISIBLE INSTITUTE
F
ew, if any, news outlets are reporting on it—understandably, given the pandemic—but hundreds of thousands of records detailing allegations of police misconduct by current and former Chicago police officers are at risk of being destroyed. On March 17, the Illinois Supreme Court heard oral arguments in FOP v. City of Chicago. The Fraternal Order of Police, which represents the majority of Chicago Police officers, argued that the City of Chicago must destroy police misconduct records older than five to seven years. The current FOP contract requires that the City destroy them, but the City hasn’t yet—in part because the destruction process is potentially illegal, in part because the City may find itself liable for destroying evidence in civil rights and wrongful conviction cases, and in part because the Department of Justice needed the records to investigate the Chicago Police Department after the Laquan McDonald scandal. Now, the police union claims, the DOJ investigation is over, so there is no longer a strong public policy reason to pause the record destruction. They argue that police complaint records are wide-ranging, from the most “mundane” (i.e., an officer’s uniform infraction) to the most extreme (i.e., a police shooting), and that low-level complaints should not follow officers through their careers. Complaints deemed “serious” in
negotiations, including those taken to the Chicago Police Board (the body that decides whether to fire an officer) would be preserved under the union proposal. We cannot let the police union win in destroying any of its misconduct history. The public need for maintaining these complaint records is strong as it has ever been. First, the consent decree—run by an independent monitoring team, appointed by a federal judge—is new and fledgling. To ensure compliance with the reforms of the consent decree, and continue to make demands within it, official complaint records must be preserved well into the future. We must understand past patterns and practices of misconduct to avoid the same abuses—the retention of records is crucial for the success of this reform. Second, so-called “low-level” complaints can show a pattern that builds toward greater abuse. Jason Van Dyke had an undisciplined complaint history of verbal abuse—like calling Black people racial slurs on multiple occasions—in the years prior to murdering Laquan McDonald. And when Van Dyke participated in the coverup of the murder? The investigation into the coverup was coded as a low-level Operations & Personnel Violation in data released to the Invisible Institute by the city. That should not be erased.
KAHARI BLACK
The FOP argues that the City could negotiate for “serious” categories of complaints, such as use of force, to be retained. However, given the miscategorization of complaints that can obscure the worst harms in a narrative, this is far from comforting. Hundreds of “mundane” violations, categorized by investigators as personnel violations or conduct unbecoming, have reports of sexual misconduct or violence buried within the summaries of the incident. Our colleagues have read hundreds of complaints where the categorization entirely obscures abuse. For example, from a complaint narrative, deemed “Operation & Personnel Violation: Miscellaneous”: Officer Brian Treacy was on duty when he asked the complainant, a sex worker, if she wanted a ride and how much she charged to “hang out.” The complainant stated that she charged a hundred dollars per hour. She stated “If you’re not the police, then why don’t you touch me?” After she said this, the victim alleged that Treacy put his hand under her shirt, touched her bare left breast, and put his hand into her pants on her vagina. After he assaulted her, she was arrested and taken into custody, where she made a complaint against Treacy. There is no indication in the category that sexual assault was investigated, or even occurred, in this complaint. If the FOP has its way, those records would be destroyed. Third, the FOP’s reassurance that serious complaints that make it to the Chicago Police Board—the body which hears the most severe disciplinary cases—
will be preserved is meaningless. Some of the most egregious incidents of misconduct in the city’s history did not make it to the police board. Sgt. Ronald Watts or Detective Reynaldo Guevara never went before the police board—and people have been exonerated based on bad policing from these officers, known for extortion, selling and buying drugs, and forcing confessions. Since 2010, just 252 cases have gone before the police board. Dante Servin, the detective that shot and killed Rekia Boyd, never had his day before the police board, because he resigned the day before his hearing. If the police union agreement is enforced, Servin’s complaint history, including the CR associated with the killing of Rekia Boyd, would be destroyed. If the FOP succeeds in getting the City to destroy hundreds of thousands of complaints, going back to 1967, it will be the most expansive police coverup of all time. The City’s collection of complaint records is the only human rights archive that is routinely deemed credible when the Department of Justice investigates, a police officer claims wrongdoing by another, or a wrongful conviction claim comes forth in court. Our independent archive (cpdp. co) serves as a check on the data that the government makes available, but alone it is not enough. We, the public, need the City of Chicago to retain these records for the sake of future investigations, exonerations, and reforms. “Accountability” is not a APRIL 1, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 21
OP-ED single moment, after which the past can be forgotten. Accountability is evolving, iterative, and demands constant and ongoing consideration of history. To this end, the City can hold its ground on two fronts: First, prevent the clause that calls for document destruction from being included in its next collective bargaining agreement with the police unions. The negotiation is ongoing in private, and the public depends on Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the City’s attorney, and an arbitrator to protect the public interest. 2) Quickly seize the rare opportunity presented by a ruling in a separate case that came last month, in which a judge ordered the City to produce all of the supporting records for police complaints from 1967–2015. The City must maintain Freedom of Information services during the ongoing shutdown; these months are our chance to preserve those records in case the state Supreme Court issues an unfavorable ruling. When we emerge from this allconsuming public health crisis, we will have the freshest opportunity of our lifetime to reconstitute policing and other public institutions. To seize that moment, we must have human rights documentation, so we can prevent repeating the past. The Invisible Institute is a journalism production company on the South Side of Chicago. Our work coheres around a central principle: we as citizens have co-responsibility with the government for maintaining respect for human rights and, when abuses occur, for demanding redress. We created the Citizens Police Data Project (CPDP), a tool for holding police accountable to the public they serve. CPDP takes government records of police interactions with the public—records that would otherwise be buried in internal databases—and opens them up to make the data useful to the public. Additional reporting by Asha Futterman
22 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
¬ APRIL 1, 2020
The Criminal Justice Response to COVID-19
Chicago agencies take measures to decarcerate, but is it too little, too late? BY ANDREW FAN
A
s much of Chicago remains shut down due to COVID-19, criminal justice agencies are responding to an escalating outbreak in the Cook County Jail. The Chicago police, the jail and county courts system, and the Illinois Department of Corrections have all pledged to reduce incarceration as cases behind bars rise, but their efforts lag behind some other cities. The rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases among people incarcerated in the Cook County Jail shot up rapidly last week, rising from two confirmed cases on Monday, March 23, to 134 cases on Monday, March 30. Twenty staff members also tested positive. That means that nearly three percent of all people detained in the jail have COVID-19, a rate of reported infection close to forty times that of Cook County as a whole. Public health experts warn that incarcerated people are especially vulnerable during the outbreak; social distancing is much more difficult inside of a jail or prison, and access to cleaning products or even handwashing is often limited. Additionally, testing in the jail may only be identifying some cases. Through Sunday, only nine people tested negative of the 143 tested. Statewide, about one of every six tests identifies a case of COVID-19, compared to nine out of every ten in the jail; the higher rate of positive results is one of a number of indications that suggests the jail's current testing may be an undercount of cases. At a Friday press conference, Dr. Connie Mennella, chair of correctional health at Cermak Health Services—the hospital inside Cook County Jail—indicated that
jail staff are primarily testing inmates who display symptoms. This practice also raises the possibility that staff are missing large numbers of cases. COVID-19 symptoms often take about five or more days to show up, and some people who are infected do not display symptoms, even though they can pass the disease to others. Earlier in the week, the Cook County Public Defender called for large reductions in the jail population to protect incarcerated people. Chief Criminal Court Judge LeRoy K. Martin Jr. ordered a review of cases, but resisted calls to release entire groups of atrisk people. At a press conference on Friday, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart reaffirmed their commitment to releasing more people, saying that roughly 1,000 people detained for nonviolent offenses could be eligible. Dart, who oversees the Cook County Jail, estimated that about twenty people were being released each day due to new review procedures. Overall, the jail population has declined by about 600 people over the last week, with the current population reported at about 4,800, according to Injustice Watch. Dart also promised that nearly everyone would be moved to single cells in the next few days. Afterward, advocates criticized the pace of releases. Sarah Staudt, a lawyer and policy analyst at the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice said in a statement that “if we continue to move at our current glacial pace of release, hundreds of people will crowd and overwhelm our hospitals, and many of them will die.”
Other jurisdictions have moved to release people from jails and prisons, including the temporary release of up to 1,000 people in New Jersey and the release of 1,700 in Los Angeles County. One person in the jail, who requested anonymity to prevent retaliation, expressed frustration with the jail’s response, saying, “It’s extremely irresponsible. It’s more reactive than proactive until a person dies, that’s when they’ll make serious inquiries to prevent it for real.“ He also said that people were highly concerned and on edge due to concerns about infection. Meanwhile, the Illinois Department of Corrections has barred the state’s county jails from transferring people to state prisons, with limited exceptions. The move was criticized by Dart, but encouraged by civil rights advocates who say that the county jail has more room for social distancing. There are also fears that transferring people from Cook County could lead to new outbreaks. A cluster of COVID-19 cases in the Stateville Correctional Center has already led to the death of one incarcerated person and the hospitalization of twelve others. A further seventy-seven people have symptoms. Two staff members at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal prison in the South Loop, have also tested positive. The federal public defender for the Northern District of Illinois has called recent rulings blocking the release of inmates at the MCC “short-sighted”; Chief District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, who is responsible for the administration of the federal courts in Chicago, did not respond to the Sun-Times’s request for comment. Both the state prison system and local jails have also shut down most in-person visits. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx announced that her office would suspend prosecutions of low-level drug offenders and that she would assist efforts to release some people detained at the county jail. The change in policy, along with reduced stops by the Chicago Police Department, appears to be having an effect on the Cook County Jail. On Friday, Sheriff Tom Dart noted that in early March, the jail handled about 200 newly arrested people each day, but that number was now closer to sixty or seventy. Andrew Fan is a journalist and data analyst. He last wrote for the Weekly about an anti-violence march on 79th Street in 2017.
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Superb recently renovated vintage house steps This classic 1903 Tudor house in Hyde Park was away from the University of Chicago and Superb recently renovated vintage Hospitals house steps designed by 1903 the architect as his personal This classic Tudor house in Hyde residence. Park was sirable University studiorenovation condominium. s is a stunning andPark complete of a 4811 SOUTH WABASH UNIT 1home - $242,500 Laboratory School in Hyde ThisHospitals has 3 away from the University of Park. Chicago and Wonderfulby5the bedroom, 3 his story residence with designed architect as personal residence. e floor plan has been beautifully effectively sirable University Park studio and condominium. AVAILABLE bedrooms and 2.5 baths a ON-CAMPUS walk-out basement. Laboratory School in Hyde Park. This home has 3 CO-OP many slate Wonderful 5 features: bedroom, 3 roof, storyhardwood residencefloors, with new This opensunny, kitchen has a3RARELY edesigned. floor planThe hasbrand been beautifully and effectively spacious bedroom, 2 bath residence is with located on a beautiful tree-lined streetvintage in Bronzeville, with 4811 WABASH UNIT 1and - $242,500 Many vintage features. Wonderful newhas kitchen, bedrooms 2.5inbaths with a walk-out basement. twoa fireplaces, high ceilings, tinned living floors, room many vintage in features: slate roof, hardwood gated parking for two The property, move-in condition, a largenew balcony and fireplace the living rble backsplash and new counters. New stainless designed. The brand openSOUTH kitchen has a vehicles. room. The open concept updated kitchen, with granite countertops and stainless appliances, overlooks baths,on new central air, new furnace new windows! Many vintage features. Wonderful new kitchen, new windows, lovely moldings and atinned boot scraper. fireplaces, high the ceilings, living room This sunny, spacious 3 bedroom, 2 bath residence is located a beautiful tree-lined streetand in Bronzeville, withsteeltwo el appliances include acounters. dishwasher. One garage rble backsplash and New stainless living andOne dining Both baths have white porcelain floors andnew showers. — near the green/red gated parking two vehicles. The property, inroom. move-in condition, has a large balcony and a and fireplace in theIdeally living located Motivated seller! baths, new central air, new furnace windows! windows, lovely moldings and a boot scraper. rking space isfor included the price. el appliances include aindishwasher. garage 1019 E HYDE PARK BLVD #1 lines, Lake Shore the expressway, thestainless lake, beaches and the University of the Chicago campus. oom. space The open concept in updated kitchen, withDrive, granite countertops and steel appliances, overlooks Motivated seller! rking is included the price. This exquisitely renovated, period inspired 5 bed ving and dining room. Both baths have white porcelain floors and showers. Ideally located — near the green/red condominium offers 3000 sq. ft.BLVD of gracious nes, Lake Shore Drive, the expressway, the lake, beaches and the University of Chicago campus. 1019 E HYDE PARK #1 living
CONTACT US AT 312.337.2400 CONTACT US AT ON-CAMPUS 312.337.2400 S WOODLAWN #2N - $397,500 RARELY 5515 AVAILABLE CO-OP
Seldomly available Hyde Park cooperative with garage! Only steps to the University of Chicago! The assessment
taxes, garage, heat, water andSgeneral maintenance. Wonderful sun-lit 3 bedroom plus study in vintage RARELYincludes AVAILABLE ON-CAMPUS CO-OP#2N 5515 WOODLAWN - $397,500 building built by renowned Chicago architects Irving and Allen Pond in 1892. Seldomly available Hyde Park cooperative with garage! Only steps to the University of Chicago! The assessment includes taxes, garage, heat, water and general maintenance. Wonderful sun-lit 3 bedroom plus study in vintage building built by renowned Chicago architects Irving and Allen Pond in 1892.
CLOSED
CLOSED
BEAUTIFUL UNIVERSITY PARK STUDIO 3 BEDROOM GREYSTONE 5515 S WOODLAWN #2N - $397,500 CLOSED CLOSED
Seldomly available Hyde Park cooperative with garage! Only steps to3the University ofGREYSTONE Chicago! The assessment BEAUTIFUL UNIVERSITY PARK STUDIO BEDROOM includes taxes, garage, heat, water and general maintenance. Wonderful sun-lit 3 bedroom plus study in vintage building built by renowned Chicago architects Irving and Allen Pond in 1892.
CLOSED
space. Hardwood floors throughout, updated This exquisitely renovated, period inspired 5 bed bathrooms, original built-ins, French doors, and condominium offers 3000 kitchen. sq. ft. ofFront gracious a professionally designed andliving rear space. floors updated balconies,Hardwood a garage and in-unit throughout, laundry. bathrooms, original built-ins, French doors, and a professionally designedPARK kitchen. Front#1 and rear 1019 E HYDE BLVD balconies, a garage and in-unit laundry. This exquisitely renovated, period inspired 5 bed condominium offers 3000 sq. ft. of gracious living TUDOR HOUSE space. CLASSIC Hardwood1903 floors throughout, updated bathrooms, original built-ins, French doors, and a professionally designed kitchen. Front and rear CLASSIC 1903 TUDOR HOUSE balconies, a garage and in-unit laundry.
UNDER CONTRACT
1019 E HYDE PARK BLVD #1
UNDER CONTRACT
CLOSED
BEAUTIFUL UNIVERSITY PARK STUDIO
UNDER CONTRACT
This exquisitely renovated, period inspired 5 bed 1019 E HYDE PARK BLVD #1offers 1903 CLASSIC TUDOR HOUSE 3 BEDROOM GREYSTONE condominium 3000 sq. ft. of gracious living
This exquisitely renovated, period 5 bed space. inspired Hardwood floors throughout, updated condominium offers 3000 sq. ft. of gracious living bathrooms, original built-ins, French doors, and space. The Hardwood floors athroughout, updated professionally designed kitchen. Front and rear Seldomly available Hyde Park cooperative with garage! Only steps to the University of Chicago! assessment 5515 S WOODLAWN #2N - $397,500 bathrooms, built-ins,balconies, French a doors, and 5442 S INGLESIDE 5305 S in-unit GREENWOOD! 1400 heat, E 55TH #909S garage and laundry. includes taxes, garage, water and general maintenance. Wonderful sun-lit 3 bedroom plus studyoriginal in vintage a professionally designed kitchen. Front and rear built by renowned Chicago architects Irving and Allen Pond in 1892. Seldomly available Hyde Park building cooperative with garage! Only steps to the University of Chicago! The assessment Superb recently renovated vintage house steps This classic 1903 Tudor house in Hyde Park was This is a stunning and complete renovation of a balconies, a garage andand in-unit laundry. ncludes taxes, garage, heat, water and general maintenance. sun-lit 3 bedroom away plus study vintage from in the University of Chicago Hospitals designed by the architect as his personal residence. desirable University Park Wonderful studio condominium. 5442 S INGLESIDE 5305 S GREENWOOD! 1400 E 55TH #909S1892. building built by renowned Chicago and Allen Pond in and Laboratory School in Hyde Park. This home has 3 Wonderful 5 bedroom, 3 story residence with Thearchitects floor planIrving has been beautifully effectively
BEAUTIFUL
5515 S WOODLAWN #2N - $397,500
CLOSED
CLOSED
UNDER CONTRACT UNDER CONTRACT
Superb recently house steps This 1903 Tudorslate house inhardwood Hyde Park was bedrooms and 2.5 renovated baths with vintage a walk-out basement. manyclassic vintage features: roof, floors, away thefeatures. University of Chicago and designed by the1903 architect as his tinned personal residence. TUDOR HOUSE Many from vintage Wonderful newHospitals kitchen, new 3 BEDROOM GREYSTONE twoCLASSIC fireplaces, high ceilings, living room Laboratory Schoolair, in new Hyde Park. and Thisnew home has 3 Wonderful 5 bedroom, story residence The plan has been beautifully andOne effectively baths, new central furnace windows! windows, lovely moldings 3 and a boot scraper. with steelfloor appliances include a dishwasher. garage bedrooms and 2.5 baths with a CLASSIC walk-out basement. manyHOUSE vintage features: slate roof, hardwood floors, The brand new open has a GREYSTONE Motivated seller! 1903 TUDOR parking is included in the price. UNIVERSITYre-designed. PARKspace STUDIO 3 kitchen BEDROOM Many vintage 5442 features. new kitchen, new two fireplaces, ceilings, tinned living room marble backsplash counters. S Wonderful INGLESIDE 5305high S GREENWOOD! 1400 Eand 55TH #909SNew stainless baths, new central air, new furnace and new windows! windows, lovely moldings and a boot scraper. steel appliances include a dishwasher. One garage Superb recently renovated vintage house steps This classic 1903 Tudor house in Hyde Park was This is a stunning and complete renovation of a Motivated seller! parking space is included in the price. away from the University of Chicago Hospitals and designed by the architect as his personal residence. desirable University Park studio condominium. Laboratory School in Hyde Park. This home has 3 Wonderful 5 bedroom, 3 story residence with The floor plan has been beautifully and effectively bedrooms and 2.5 baths with a walk-out basement. many vintage features: slate roof, hardwood floors, re-designed. The brand new open kitchen has a Many vintage features. Wonderful new kitchen, new two fireplaces, high ceilings, tinned living room marble backsplash and counters. New stainless baths, new central air, new furnace and new windows! windows, lovely moldings and a boot scraper. steel appliances include a dishwasher. One garage Motivated seller! parking space is included in the price. This is a stunning and complete of a re-designed. The brand new openrenovation kitchen has a
desirable University Parkcounters. studio condominium. BEAUTIFUL UNIVERSITY PARKNew STUDIO marble backsplash and stainless
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CLOSED
CONTACT US AT 312.337.2400
CONTACT US AT 312.337.2400
1400 E 55TH #909S
CONTACT5442 USS INGLESIDE AT 312.337.2400
5305 S GREENWOOD!
Superb recently renovated vintage house steps This classic 1903 Tudor house in Hyde Park was is a stunning and complete renovation of a 5442 S INGLESIDE 5305 S GREENWOOD! 1400 E 55THThis #909S away from the University of Chicago Hospitals and designed by the architect as his personal residence. desirable University Park studio condominium. Superb and recently renovated Laboratory vintage house This classic 1903has Tudor in Hyde5Park was This is a stunning and complete renovation a beautifully Schoolsteps in Hyde Park. This home 3 house Wonderful bedroom, 3 story residence with The floor plan hasof been effectively away from the University Chicago Hospitals and withdesigned by the architect as many his personal residence. desirable University Park re-designed. studio condominium. and 2.5 baths a walk-out basement. vintage features: slate roof, hardwood floors, The brand new open kitchen has a of bedrooms Laboratory School in Hyde Park. home has 3 Wonderful Wonderful 5 bedroom, 3 two storyfireplaces, residencehigh withceilings, tinned living room The floor plan has been beautifully effectively Many This vintage features. new kitchen, new marble and backsplash and counters. New stainless bedrooms and baths withbaths, a walk-out basement. manyand vintage features: slate windows, roof, hardwood floors, e-designed. The brand new open kitchen has a a dishwasher. new central air, new furnace new windows! lovely moldings and a boot scraper. steel appliances include One2.5 garage vintage features. Wonderful new seller! kitchen, new two fireplaces, high ceilings, tinned living room marble backsplash and counters. New stainless Motivated parking space is included inMany the price. baths, new central air, new furnace and new windows! windows, lovely moldings and a boot scraper. teel appliances include a dishwasher. One garage Motivated seller! parking space is included in the price.
CONTACT US AT 312.337.2400 CONTACT US AT 312.337.2400