DEVELOPMENT
coach house was rented to her cousin while he was looking for his own place to move and continue his work. To her, moving to one of the other units in the building would be appealing—though she has some concerns. “I don’t want to see people every day. But, I mean, if something goes on [in the other units] I can go upstairs, so I don’t think it would be a problem,” she said. Many two-flats across Englewood have existing basements that can be adapted into housing. Ashley imagines that the renovated garden units in the community would remain affordable for residents—though she is concerned that newly constructed ADUs would be just as pricey as new units in other parts of the city. Although housing in the area costs less than in other communities, many Englewood residents are rent-burdened. This issue continues as past home building programs in the neighborhood, despite being designated as affordable, have given subsidies to homebuyers making up to $100,000—almost five times higher than Englewood’s median income. Ashley is concerned that white residents migrating to the South Side, who won’t build relationships with the community, would be the ones predominately living in new units. I asked how new ADUs can prioritize support of existing Black residents. “I think they should be affordable, because if you think about it, with gentrification and the stuff going on, you want Black people in the community. And so you want [ADUs] to be affordable for them, at least maybe initially, because there’s a lot of low-income folks.”
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bonée Green is a South Shore resident and a member of the Obama Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) Coalition, where she has been involved with ensuring that her community is not displaced from the construction of the Obama Presidential Center. A fall 2019 study from the University of Illinois at Chicago showed that within two miles of the planned Obama Center, rent in new constructions and renovations are continuing to rise, with evidence suggesting that “landlords are charging higher rents to new tenants compared to longer term tenants.” South Shore, which already has the city’s highest eviction rate, is at risk of losing many low-income residents to displacement. Ebonée’s first experience living in an ADU was a garden unit in Uptown that was poorly maintained, to the point where the landlord had covered up decaying
floorboards with carpet. “All of our stuff got covered in mold, and I actually still have a mold allergy from it,” she said. Although the experience gave her a bias against garden units, Ebonée now lives in a condo-quality 2-bedroom garden unit in South Shore, which she describes as the nicest apartment she has lived in Chicago. The apartment has new hardwood floors, insulated walls, and naturally lit rooms for $1,250 a month. While her rent is cheaper than other apartments in the building, it is higher than that of other places she had previously rented in South Shore, as well as the 3-bedroom I grew up in Rogers Park. Ebonée expressed concern that even lowermiddle class residents may not be able to afford new ADUs if they are legalized in South Shore. When asked about opening the city to ADUs and expanding the inventory of housing options, Ebonée said she is supportive of the idea but thinks it won’t immediately address affordability. “I don’t think that’s wrong thinking, but I do think that it’s gonna require a lot more oversight and it should not work around affordable housing.” She said South Shore’s immediate priority should be ensuring that new construction due to the Obama Center is affordable to residents. ADUs could help if they were legislated to benefit low-income Black residents—rather than relying on market demand to determine their rent. We each shared our own experiences— positive and negative—with living in a garden unit, and started discussing the implications of designating them as affordable units. “There’s something about putting affordable units in the garden, and forcing people underground, [that] just feels not right,” Ebonée brought up. She’s fortunate enough that her apartment receives enough natural light and has tall ceilings, but many older ADUs were not built with similar amenities. “Most of the poor people in Chicago, not all, are Black already and just to add that extra kind of psychological and physical health thing to it is messed up.” ¬ David Zegeye is an astrophysics graduate student at the University of Chicago and a freelance writer for Streetsblog Chicago and Cityscape Chicago. To David, pondering what is beyond our skies is deeply connected to understanding the history of our land. He focuses on writing about the inequity in the city's affordable housing and transit systems. This is his first piece for the Weekly.
The Final Piece of Saint Anthony’s Puzzle Competing interests fight for one empty La Villita lot BY JOSEPHINE WANG
T
ime and time again, over the last several years, the fate of the vacant lot at the southwest corner of 31st Street and Kedzie Ave. in La Villita has seemed all but certain. The former site of the Washburne Trade School, the lot has stood empty since 2009, accruing dust and debris. For nearly a decade, executives at Saint Anthony Hospital, located just a few blocks northwest in nearby North Lawndale, have been lobbying city and state officials to grant them the lot, as well as millions in funding, to develop a mixed-use project featuring a new hospital, businesses, and recreation areas under the name of Focal Point Community Campus. Despite their success in securing support from high profile politicians, obtaining some community buy-in, and even negotiating the sale of the lot for $1, the Focal Point project remained in stasis. When the Chicago Board of Education, which owns the lot, announced a bidding period last summer, it sat on proposals for months while keeping applicants in the dark. An internal email obtained by the Weekly showed that by February the situation had become dire: Saint Anthony executives were contemplating suing the city over the lot and closing down the hospital if all else failed. Earlier this month, spokespeople for the city and Saint Anthony told the Weekly that they are in negotiations over developing the lot, though no further details were given. Yet uncertainty permeates the project—from its protracted timeline, to
the hospital’s financial woes in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, to various other obstacles Saint Anthony executives must face before construction even begins. A local group’s objections to the development, their counter-proposal, and the lot’s continued vacancy in the middle of one of the city’s busiest arteries, shows just how complicated development can be in Chicago’s marginalized communities.
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aint Anthony sits on the southern edge of Douglas Park, where its employees have served nearby communities out of the same building for more than 125 years. It is a safety net hospital, meaning individuals can obtain access to health services regardless of their insurance or ability to pay. Most of its patients come from La Villita and North Lawndale, in addition to Pilsen, Brighton Park, and other neighborhoods with large populations of low-income people of color—who are often dealing with environmental pollutants and other health hazards. Illinois’s safety net hospitals have more Medicaid, charity, and self-pay patients than other hospitals. Consequently, they are more reliant on government funding and are often financially challenged. In 2007, Guy Medaglia, a business consultant, came to Saint Anthony to manage the hospital for eight weeks through a critical financial period. Medaglia decided to stay on as the president and CEO, and the hospital, after cutting ties with healthcare group Ascension in 2009, has managed to stay afloat and even JUNE 24, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 21
