January 17 - 23, 2024

January 17 - 23, 2024 Vol. 32 No. 03

$3 $1.85 + Tips go to your Vendor

STAY COVERED WITH MEDICAID! C H E C K YO U R S TAT U S AT A B E . I L L I N O I S . G O V.

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4 Arts & Entertainment 6 SportsWise 8 Cover Story: 'Where I stay' podcast season 2 Event highlights of the week!

The SportsWise team discusses the Bears' 2023 season.

StreetWise has partnered with Rivet360 to launch a second season of their Shorty Award finalist podcast documentary, "Where I Stay," exploring homelessness and the housing crisis in America.

15 The Playground

ON THE COVER & THIS PAGE: A Tent City encampment in Touhy Park (Suzanne Hanney photos). DISCLAIMER: The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of StreetWise.

Dave Hamilton, Creative Director/Publisher

dhamilton@streetwise.org

StreetWiseChicago @StreetWise_CHI

Suzanne Hanney, Editor-In-Chief

suzannestreetwise@yahoo.com

Amanda Jones, Director of programs

ajones@streetwise.org

Julie Youngquist, Executive director

jyoungquist@streetwise.org

Ph: 773-334-6600 Office: 2009 S. State St., Chicago, IL, 60616

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT RECOMMENDATIONS Compiled by Dave Hamilton

Dino-Mite!

‘Bibliosaurus! Dinosaurs in the Popular Imagination’ Sixty-six million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous Period, dinosaurs became extinct. Yet look around, and they are everywhere: on billboards, company logos and cereal boxes. They leap out of the pages of children’s pop-up books, appear in editorial cartoons and dominate comic strips, television and film. They are the subject of countless books, journal articles, toys and video games. “Bibliosaurus! Dinosaurs in the Popular Imagination” explores how dinosaurs transformed from objects of intense scientific inquiry into outsize figures in everyday life. Using children’s books, field guides, journal articles, movie posters, lobby cards, original artwork and even Barbie dolls, Bibliosaurus! investigates subjects from the enduring legacy of “Godzilla” to the lasting contributions of amateur fossil hunters. The exhibition also illustrates how paleontology has been captured the public imagination during the past 200 years. FREE at The University of Chicago Joseph Regenstein Library, 1100 E. 57th St., 9 a.m. - 4:45 p.m. Weekdays, except 10 a.m.

- 4:45 p.m. Wednesdays through April 19.

Drag Superstars!

Ginger Minj and Gidget Galore in ‘The Broads’ Way’ Longtime collaborators Ginger Minj and Gidget Galore invite audiences on a musical journey through some of the best Broadway shows that have ever graced The Great White Way. This all-live singing, comedic show was a smash hit in Provincetown and was hailed as “…an impressive theatrical presentation that, from beginning to end, is seamless, never missing a beat.” (Provincetown Magazine) and “a feel-good extravaganza with all the physical humor and sight gags that add up to a great drag show.” (Provincetown Independant). Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m. January 18 - 28 at Mercury Theater Chicago’s The Venus Cabaret, 3745 N. Southport Ave. Tickets start at $40 at www.mercurytheaterchicago.com/ginger-minj-the-broads-way

Pulling Your Strings!

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival is the largest event dedicated to the artform in North America. The festival runs January 18 - 28, in dozens of Chicago venues, sharing 100+ puppetry activities with 14,000+ guests. The Festival includes performances, symposium, Catapult artist intensive, workshops, the Free Neighborhood Tour, and more. Since its launch in 2015, the Festival has highlighted artists from nations including Iran, Korea, Japan, Chile, South Africa as well as from Europe, Chicago and across the U.S. with the goal of promoting peace, equality, and justice on a global scale. For tickets and a full schedule, visit chicagopuppetfest.org

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Celebrating Cole Porter!

‘Anything Goes’ Chicago will get a kick out of this 90th anniversary production of Cole Porter’s smash-hit musical comedy, "Anything Goes" starring the Chicago-based international sensation Meghan Murphy as “Reno Sweeney.” Launching Porchlight Music Theatre’s 29th season, this legendary toe-tapping voyage across the Atlantic is filled with laughs, romance and intrigue. Porter’s iconic score includes a shipload of tunes that built the Great American Songbook including “Anything Goes,” “Friendship,” “You’re the Top” and “I Get a Kick Out of You.” At the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn St., Wednesdays - Fridays at 7:30 p.m, Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through February 25. Tickets start at $41 at porchlightmusictheatre.org/anything-goes/

A Riveting Collection!

Steve McCurry ‘ICONS’ With more than 100 large-format photographs, ICONS is one of the most complete retrospectives of the career of Steve McCurry, one of the main figures in the world of photography in the last 40 years. Learn about the inspiration, life and work of Steve McCurry, who has been recognized with some of the most prestigious awards in the industry, including the Robert Capa Gold Medal or the National Press Photographers Award. At the Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA), 820 N. Michigan Ave., through February 3. Timed tickets start at 11 a.m. daily at stevemccurryicons.com/chicago, with prices starting at $19.

A Relaxing Lunch!

Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts Classical Music Chicago presents the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts. The free weekly concert series features extraordinary music by artists who are early in their careers. Enjoy classical concerts in-person at 12:15 p.m. at the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist, 55 E. Wacker. Face masks are optional. You may also stream from the comfort of your own home at classicalmusicchicago.org or listen on WFMT. On January 17 enjoy Miriam K. Smith (pictured) on cello and Julia Sicilano on piano. On January 24 enjoy Richard Brasseale on saxophone and Lillia Woolschlager on piano. FREE

Teachers on Display!

Evanston Art Center Faculty Exhibition The Evanston Art Center welcomes the public to the EAC Faculty Exhibition. The Evanston Art Center boasts over 80 accomplished artists as faculty members teaching across nine visual art departments. This January, it spotlights over 40 of its talented instructors in this biennial exhibition displaying the breadth and depth of its faculty’s artistic abilities. On display 9 a.m. 4 p.m. daily through February 4 at Evanston Art Center, 1717 Central St., Evanston. FREE.

The Beauty in Everyday!

‘Voices Through the Orb’ The Logan Center presents "Voices Through the Orb" featuring multistyle paintings by Shane-Jahi Jackson and curated by Juelle Daley. On view in Café Logan, 915 E. 60th, though January 21. This exhibition by Shane-Jahi speaks to the complex visual language that defines his style. Through portraiture, still life, and abstraction, Jackson summons viewers into a dialogue with hidden worlds: from the stark beauty of flowers in vases to the oft-ignored dimensions of Black female sensuality, Jackson’s dextrous style lends voice to both the ordinary and the opulent. 8 a.m. - 8 p.m. FREE.

Visualizing John Coltrane!

‘A Love Supreme’ “A Love Supreme” is a solo exhibition by Norman Teague inspired by legendary jazz musician John Coltrane, with an adjoining group exhibition in the Mies van der Rohe’s McCormick House featuring over 30 Chicago-based BIPOC artists titled “A Love Supreme: McCormick House Reimagined.” Teague uses Coltrane’s album “A Love Supreme” as a personal, cultural, and spiritual touchstone to consider design influences from his life-long home in Chicago, exploring how the power of bold improvisational jazz and unapologetic Black aesthetics have expanded the minds and inspired creative communities of color at Elmhurst Art Museum, 150 Cottage Hill Ave., Elmhurst, through April 28. Tickets are $18 at elmhurstartmuseum.org.

To Love, and To Be Loved!

‘Highway Patrol’ W hen Cam, a 13-year-old fan in a desperate medical situation captures actress Dana Delany’s attention on Twitter, she’s quickly swept into an intense, around-the-clock online friendship. But when Cam starts receiving messages from beyond, Dana is thrust into a world where unexpected revelations raise the question of how far we go to love and be loved. Emmy Award-winner Dana Delany ("China Beach," "Desperate Housewives") stars in this new thriller—part love story, part ghost story—crafted from hundreds of tweets and DMs. At Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St. from January 20 - February 18. Tickets start at $25 at goodmantheatre.org/sho/ highway-patrol .

www.streetwise.org

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Vendors (l-r) A. Allen, Russell Adams, John Hagan and William Plowman chat about the world of sports.

The Chicago bears in 2023 John: We are going to recap the Chicago Bears 2023 season. They have made improvements but there’s still some things they need to work on.

William: It was better than I expected but not as good as I was hoping. The Bears lost to teams they should have easily beaten.

SPORTSWISE

A. Allen: QB Justin Fields missed four games due to an injured thumb, but came back very strong. Fields was hitting wide receiver D.J. Moore with a lot of passes and now they have added 6-foot-6-inch wide receiver Collin Johnson. I still have confidence in Justin to be a good quarterback for Chicago. I was looking for them to make the playoffs, if not this year, definitely next.

Russell: They played better than I thought they would.

I’m satisfied. I wasn’t expecting them to go to the playoffs anyway. There’s games they should have won. NFC South is not that strong…seven or eight wins you might be in.

The offensive line has gotta get fixed up. You gotta protect the quarterback. Jay Cutler was the same way. He kept getting sacked, sacked, sacked.

They’ve got the No. 1 draft pick. They’ve got their own draft pick and they’ve got money to spend on free agency.

John: The way they started out, I thought they were going to be the Carebears of last year, but they played a lot better the last two months.

What the Bears need to do next year is simple: get help for Justin Fields’ offensive line and then an additional lineman. They could also use a running back. As far as the overall No. 1 pick, I would trade it down again because the Bears seem to like Justin Fields. He's getting better.

You just got to use him right.

If you don't have him in a pocket, you need to buy him time to throw the ball down the field. So if the Bears do all that, they can very well make the Super Bowl. Philadelphia is in decline. Dallas doesn't scare me. The 49ers are overrated.

William: Russell hit the nail on the head. A lot of these seasons where the Bears did a really lousy job, we blamed the quarterback. We blamed Jay Cutler and then he left the Bears and went to the Broncos and look how good he did. It's not the quarterbacks; it’s the offense. And part 2 is, I don't think the Bears are always as teamwork-oriented as they need to be. I've seen some games where each player just wanted to do his own thing. Fix that and they'd be much better.

A. Allen: I like what Russell said and what you said, William. We have a good quarterback. He did a lot of running, but he had to, if you don't have the protection. I agree with you John, we need a running back in the backfield to be able to run the ball instead of Justin Field trying to be quarterback and running back.

Russell: Good luck Bears.

Not saying they can go to the Super Bowl. But spend that money. Beat Green Bay. John: A successful season for the Bears if they don’t win the Super Bowl is beating Green Bay. This isn't Detroit. This isn’t Minnesota. These are the Packers, the arch rival.

As far as next year is concerned, the only way I would keep the draft pick is if you’re drafting wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. out of Ohio State, because the Bears got their quarterback. They just need to coach him right.

William: Like you said, the offensive line is what we need. The best defense is a good offense.

Any comments, suggestions or topic ideas for the SportsWise team? Email StreetWise Editor Suzanne Hanney at suzannestreetwise@yahoo.com

Sam's Chicken & Ribs

by Sarah Luczko

Obviously they are famous in the neighborhood for their huge portions of chicken and ribs.

Their ribs are drenched in BBQ sauce as is their chicken, unless you ask otherwise.

I have had the pleasure of trying both the chicken and rib specials that both come with an order of awesome french fries and a can of soda.

Actually all their specials come with an order of fries and a pop.

On my latest visit I ordered the cheeseburger special. I usually order the fries with no salt which they gladly oblige and get my burger with everything.

They load it up pretty good with all the stuff a good ole' Chicago burger should have, which makes for a healthy meal.

Robert Laine

I have been to Sam's a few times and each time I have been satisfied and intrigued to want to try more items on their ever expanding menu.

Sam's Philly Cheesesteak; exterior; chicken & ribs with fries; interior; fried chicken wings with fries.

New Taste of Chicago Location: 1102 W. Granville Ave. Edgewater neighborhood Price Range: Under $10/ per person Hours: Monday - Friday 11 a.m. - 11:30 p.m.

Saturday & Sunday Noon - 11:30 p.m.

The place itself is a no-frills throwback to past Chicago take-out places of this nature and I think if they spruced it up or decorated they might lose their big following. I guess they follow the old adage, "if it ain't broke don't fix it."

It is like stepping back in time to a restaurant from the 70's or 80's when things were simpler, or at least appeared that way.

EATWISE

Stop in, you will be glad you did.

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STREETWISE + RIVET360 COVER HOMEL CHICAGO ON SEASON 2 OF WHERE I STA

by Suzanne Hanney

Welcome to the 51st Ward.

StreetWise partnered with Rivet360 to launch a second season of their Shorty Award finalist podcast documentary, “Where I Stay,” exploring homelessness and the housing crisis in America.

As winter cold sends the city scrambling to create housing for thousands of people, the broadcast-print team switched its focus from invisible homelessness to the most visible form: the tent cities.

Over the course of Season 2, they examine the housing crisis in Chicago: from the city's attempts to reverse a history of segregation, to public policies contributing to affordable housing shortages and the rise of tent cities fueled by the global pandemic and uncertain resources. With the added pressure of an influx of migrants from south of the border, the city of Chicago must answer a number of questions, starting with the most fundamental: “What do we owe each other?”

Season 2 puts some of the reporting into the hands of those with lived experience. StreetWise vendors Keith Hardiman, A. Allen and Kianna Drummond (see breakouts) participated throughout the documentary process, from brainstorming topics to interviews, with the goal of grounding the podcast in the issues that matter most.

“Where I Stay” is designed to challenge the way people think about homelessness. It also serves as a grassroots campaign to raise funds and awareness.

COVER STORY

Chicago’s homeless population equals a ward in itself

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Artwork for the podcast is inspired by Chicago’s City seal.

There are 50 wards in Chicago, but the 65,000 people who are homeless in Chicago comprise the equivalent of another, “51st ward.”

People turn to tent cities when shelters fail to meet their needs. Shelter capacity halved during the pandemic due to social distancing, and the system imposes restrictions on individual freedom.

In Episode 1, Rivet’s Jesse Betend, StreetWise Editor in Chief Suzanne Hanney and StreetWise Vendor A. Allen investigate tent cities springing up across Chicago. They interviewed everyone from Ald. Maria Hadden (49th ward) to the elected “mayor” of Uptown Tent City, Tom Gordon. Erin

Ryan, senior vice president of The Night Ministry, poses the question the team strives to answer: who’s responsible?

Episode 2 features an interview with former 46th ward alderperson Helen Shiller, who came to the North Side lakefront ward of Uptown in 1972 as a part of a small group of white activists working under the Black Panther Party.

Shiller drove a cab, worked as a waitress and freelance photographer before becoming involved in radical politics.

After a failed run for alderperson in 1983, she ran again at the behest of Mayor Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor. She remained in office for 24 years, from 1987 to 2011. Her final term ended about six years before “Mayor” Tom Gordon and the encampment under the Uptown viaducts over DuSable Lake Shore Drive.

LESSNESS IN AY PODCAST Vendor Keith Hardiman (right) records an interview for the Where I Stay podcast with host Jesse Betend (center) and Paul Grajnert, social service director of the Polish American Association.

(Suzanne Hanney photo).

Meet Vendor Keith Hardiman

More than a year ago, Keith Hardiman looked at migrants from south of the border coming to Chicago and receiving services and asked, “What about me?” in interviews with local officials for the “Where I Stay” series. The question became an increasingly important focus for the series.

“It’s plenty of people that was in the same situation or similar to what I’ve been through [living] on the streets,” Hardiman said.

“They need help. You go places, they tell you that you don’t qualify. How can you not qualify when you are sleeping on trains or on the streets? I have done it all: slept on trains, doorways, little cubbyholes. Once I sobered up and realized what I had done to myself, I woke up with some money in my pocket and changed my ways.”

Selling StreetWise is part of that. ”If I am hungry, I can go into a restaurant and sit down and eat, buy underwear and soap. That makes me feel good. I wasn’t trying to steal it. Now I’ve done a complete turnaround and I try to help people with a commonsense approach about things. If you can chase drugs all night and wake up with nothing in your pocket, what was the purpose?

You want a cigarette. If you’d saved some of that money from drinking, you’d have it.”

A Tent City in Touhy Park, 7348 N. Paulina St. (Suzanne Hanney photo).

Now, Hardiman says he is “working to survive. That’s a hustle. I am out every day three or four hours and I’ve made my money.

I have good days and bad days.” The range of money he can make in a day can be anywhere from $20 to $120.

Uptown’s Helen Shiller saw homelessness right away Shiller noticed homelessness in Uptown, which had the city’s largest concentration of poor working white people, “From the day I got here in 1972,” she said in the podcast.

He spends $450 a month to live in a room of a friend’s home on the South Side. He is also conscious of the money he needs for storage, food, laundry and transportation. Felony convictions in his past keep him out of subsidized housing.

In those days, however, “it was called ‘urban removal’. We didn’t use the term ‘gentrification’ really until the 80s, the 70s.”

“What I would like for people to know is that everyone has different reasons and causes to why they are out there and homeless.

We need help.” He became homeless at 34 when his mother had breast cancer and he self-medicated for depression with drugs.

He took to the streets because he didn’t want to bring drugs around his mother and then returned to take care of her in her last days. After she died, the family lost her home.

The neighborhood’s residents included a very large percentage of poor white people from Appalachia, one of the largest urban settlements of

Hardiman is especially conscious of his need for help now that he is 62. “I am presentable and I dress well,” he says, but he’s not as healthy as he once was. www.streetwise.org

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Native Americans and what Shiller termed the oldest Black community outside Bronzeville.

CTA Red Line station at Wilson Avenue. They spent the remainder of the week on the street.

In the 1940’s, Uptown’s Black community formed, despite segregation, around one city block. It too, had begun essentially as a matter of chance – or a bug in the system – through the final wish and burial rights of a white homeowner who died and passed on his house to his Black chauffeur.

“There was something really always working against them,” Shiller said. “But you could be sure that hardly anyone had a really stable place to be able to stay. One that was healthy and one that was safe.

The Native American community dated to the 1950s. The idea was to help Native Americans assimilate and move to job-rich cities. In some cases, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs subsidized housing. However, Native Americans question whether the hidden intention was to lure them away from their ancestral lands (StreetWise Nov.1-7, 2023).

Uptown became the port of entry for Southeast Asians and then Russian Jews. When the state of Illinois decommissioned its mental healthcare facilities in the 1970s, clients were dumped on the 46th ward’s streets. Almost everyone living in Uptown had been displaced from somewhere else.

“There were so many people who were just really barely able to survive day by day in so many ways…,” Shiller said. “And there was a 25 percent infant mortality rate. It was horrific.

There were always people on the street passed out.”

a Cheap hotel was an Uptown refuge Shiller knew people who worked low-wage jobs and stayed half the week at the Wilson’s Men’s Club, just west of the

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“When I became alderman, even talking about homelessness, let alone affordability, was nothing [anybody] wanted to hear. So I think we are just talking about a reality that was invisible until it was demanded not to be.”

City policy in the early 1970s began to identify resources for the neighborhood, such as a city college and a health center – “and every single one of those institutions was planned to be built on the same land that the very people they claimed were gonna benefit were living,” Shiller said.

“So they weren’t really intended for them. It was a vehicle using their needs to displace them and disperse them somewhere else…”

There would be talk about building better housing, but it wasn’t for the low-income people who needed it, she said.

“That ended up in some people leaving and going back South or wherever they had come from, but a lot of people being homeless. Uptown was a community where people were organized and very conscious, and finally we're saying, ‘Enough, we're not going anywhere anymore and you know, we're gonna stand our ground.’”

Portions of Chicago Housing Authority's Lathrop Homes (Damen/Diversey/Clybourn intersection) were left abandoned (left), but some buildings have recently been remodeled (right). Below: Jesse Betend and A. Allen interview Uptown Tent City "Mayor" Tom Gordon.

(Suzanne Hanney photos).

Meet Vendor A. Allen

a New kind of homelessness in the 70s and 80s The kind of widespread homelessness we see today first emerged in the late 1970s and early 80s, as Ed Shurna, retired executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, once told Suzanne.

“To use the popular term, it’s because of ‘income inequality.’

But a simpler way of understanding it is to say the jobs now that are not college jobs don’t pay enough for you to have your own place to stay.” It’s a change from Shurna’s South Side upbringing where none of the fathers were professionals. They worked in factories, warehouses, steel mills or oil refineries, yet still could afford homes in Chicago neighborhoods.

“People are working minimum wage and are not earning enough, and the cost of housing has skyrocketed,” Shurna said. The reason costs have skyrocketed is that the Chicago jobs today are in finance, law, IT. With their big salaries, these workers will pay for easy access to the whole North Side lakefront and downtown via the CTA Red Line.

As an example, one Uptown home was occupied by a brother and sister from 1905 until they died in the 1970s. Their home – with archaic electricity and plumbing – sold for a low five figures in 1975. Ten years later, it was worth $100,000, and a recent Google search pegged it at $900,000. The same was true of the house next door. An Asian family bought it in the mid-70s and lived there several decades. Now rehabbed, it was recently on the market for $1 million.

A.Allen calls his homelessness “the educational school of hard knocks” and aspires to do more writing about it. Allen is a frequent vendor/contributor to StreetWise; for the “Where I Stay” series, he interviewed Tom Gordon, “mayor” of the tent cities under the Uptown viaducts over DuSable Lake Shore Drive, and also people at the Touhy Park tent city.

“It was a good experience interviewing people for the podcast,” Allen said.

Allen’s experience with homelessness began when he was in his late 20s and wanted to travel. He visited Canada, New York City, Washington, D.C. and Miami where he stayed five years and had two jobs. He left one job when it made risky demands. He started using drugs and stopped paying rent. His money ran out and he began living on the beach.

“My homeless experience was hard. I was away from home and I didn’t have no help.”

Eventually, he came home to Chicago.

His mother died and family members sold the house with him in it. He came to StreetWise as “the last house on the block,” as he says, and is now one of two staff members who leads new vendor orientation.

www.streetwise.org

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The loss of SROs Simultaneously, Single Room Occupancy hotels that had traditionally been home to low-income workers began to disappear, not just on the North Side, but across the city.

The Wilson Men’s Hotel Shiller mentioned was one of roughly 3,700 Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels built in Chicago before 1915. SROs started to get a reputation as substandard housing in the 1960s, and by the 1980s, 4 out of 5 (80 percent) of Chicago’s 38,000 units were lost. In 2014, there were only 73 licensed SROs, with about 5,500 units.

In November 2016, the Wilson Men’s Hotel had 256 cubicles, all of them affordable. But in July 2017, it was sold to a market-rate developer and renovated. There are now bathrooms and kitchens in each unit – but also just 16 units with rents ranging from $340 to $380 a month. That’s what is affordable to people making less than 30 percent of the median Chicago income.

Shiller began to see the community split between very wealthy and very poor. “And to me, that’s not a natural development of things. I wanted to make sure the market is responsible for it.”

She pushed for Chicago’s first affordable requirements ordinance, (which finally happened in the late 1990s) where

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developers must set aside 20 percent of new housing units at rents geared to people with lower income.

“My impression is that since I left the city council, there's less talk about true affordability. There's been more of an attachment of affordability to market forces as opposed to actual people's needs,” Shiller said. “So that even the affordable units are too expensive for the people who have the most serious need for housing. It doesn't really get to the heart of the problem.”

A TIF that works for everyone However, Shiller’s imprint shows in the Wilson Yards development, on land at Montrose and Broadway that had been occupied by a CTA rail yard and train repair shop until they were destroyed by a 1996 fire. As alderman, she hosted multiple planning sessions for the TIF (tax increment finance) district, and what emerged was two seven-story buildings with 80 units of affordable housing for families and 98 more for seniors, a two-story Target store, parking, a relocated Aldi grocery store and multiple street-level retailers.

Because the buildings shared architectural details, financing had to be obtained before construction began. The developer secured funding from 15 different sources and used New Market Tax Credit dollars to bridge the gaps.

“In the end, the 178-unit development not only brought more affordable housing to the neighborhood, but has spurred growth in the retail scene,” according to its 2011 Chicago Neighborhood Development Award (CNDA) for Outstanding For-Profit Neighborhood Real Estate Project.

Wilson Yards as a TIF fulfilled the city’s goal of growing the local tax base too. The 144-acre parcel had an assessed value of $56 million when it began in 2001. By 2005, it was valued at $135 million – an increase of 141% in four years.

In 2014, the executive director of Voice of the People in Uptown told StreetWise that the TIF had also provided funds to rehab her housing stock.

Subsequent episodes in the series discuss the way homeless services evolved from soup kitchens and shelters in church basements; Chicago’s yearly application for more than $80 million in federal funding against homelessness; and a landmark Civil Rights-era court case that has resulted in less segregation, but also less housing being built on Chicago Housing Authority land. – Jesse Betend and Cindy Paulauskas contributing

From left: A Tent Ciry encampment in Touhy Park. Jesse Betend (far right) and A. Allen (second to right) interview Touhy Park residents (Suzanne Hanney photos). Helen Shiller signs copies of her book (www.helenschiller.com photo).

Meet Vendor kianna drummond

Kianna Drummond was homeless in her teens and again as the result of partner abuse.

She is the mother of two and has since obtained subsidized housing.

Besides contributing to the baseline questions for the “Where I Stay” series, Kianna asked a central question in the interview with Mick Dumke of Block Club regarding the Chicago Housing Authority: “What has happened to basketball courts?” It’s a surprising indicator of racial politics.

Kianna previously was among vendors who participated in a press conference with the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services around the 2023 Point in Time (PIT) count of people living on the street. www.streetwise.org

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e1 to 12/17/23 Sudoku 9.

PuzzleJunction.com

Streetwise 12/14/23 Crossword To solve the Sudoku puzzle, each row, column and box must contain the Sudoku numbers 1 to 9.

PuzzleJu

Crossword Across

©2023 PuzzleJunction.com

9 Bout stopper, for short 10 Newspaper employees 11 All over again 12 Corn cake 14 Ziti, e.g.

22 Trumpeter 26 See 60 Down Across 1 Glasses, 28 Mystery briefly 29 Ape treat 2 Thick soup 30 High spirits 3 Serviceable 31 Cat command 4 Heating vent 32 Eastern state 5 Fretted (Abbr.) instrument 33 Starch 6 Extraterrestrial 34 Mesozoic era denizens 7 Burbot 36 God of love 8 Less taxing 66 Pay attention 67 Military rulers 68 Poet Pound 69 Fem. suffix 70 Willow twig 71 Cozy retreat 72 Caribou 73 Sea swallow

37 Physics unit 39 Asner and Begley 42 Campus VIP 45 Author Ayn 49 Viewed as 51 Guitar relative 53 Metric weight unit 54 Below 55 Sgt. Bilko 56 Aromatic compound 57 Absorb knowledge 58 Secluded valley 59 Seep 61 Gold colliery 63 Dethrone 65 Make lace

1 5 9 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 23 24 25

Copyright ©2023 PuzzleJunction.com

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©PuzzleJunction.com

Copyright ©2023 PuzzleJunction.com

lastSudoku week's answers Solution

27 29 32 35 36

Solution

37 40 41 42

Sudoku Solution

43 44 45 46

Find your nearest StreetWise Vendor at www.streetwise.org

47 48 51

Boast Neutral color Agreements Tibetan monk Norse thunder god Museum piece Yemeni port Spanish wine Terrestrial lizard Auto replacement part Plea at sea Cyst “Star Trek” rank (Abbr.)

Went underground Intentions ©2023 PuzzleJunction.com Wrecker’s job Color of honey 57 Heart 7 Wander Gay Talese’s 8 River to the chambers “___ the Sons” 58 Mark’s Caspian Surrealist 9 Some scampi successor Spanish painter 59 Jewish month 10 Sponsorship They’re found 11 Join hands?

60 Harsh in politics 12 ___ out!

61 La Scala African flower 13 Melee memento highlight Zest 21 Eddy 62 Lens holders Clear the 22 Exorcist’s 63 Barbs boards target 64 Goatish glance Type of ring or 65 Slangy denial 26 Wife of word Hercules Deep-six 27 Chips in Down Final (Abbr.)

28 Slanted type, Half-brother of briefly 1 Pincers Tom Sawyer 2 Ham’s need 29 Scarlett’s home Prone 30 Auto pioneer 3 Harbingers Make a scene?

31 Judicious 4 Potter’s tool Where to 32 One of the 5 Engraved keep some Aleutians 6 Type of gang prescriptions 33 Yard pest or saw

34 Channel marker 35 Employs 36 Blowgun ammo 38 Lyric poem 39 River feature 44 Behemoths 45 Hullabaloo 46 Smug smile 47 Falcon’s home 48 Part of a TV feed 49 Muscle spasm 50 Clipped 51 Foolhardy 52 Camp Swampy dog 53 Certain cookie 54 Banquet 55 Unpolluted 56 Mountain pool

How StreetWise Works Buy the Magazine, Take the Magazine Vendors purchase When you buy the magazine, take the the magazine for $1.15 and sell it for magazine, and read the $3 plus tips. The vendor keeps all of magazine, you are supporting our their earnings. microentrepreneurs earning an income with dignity.

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All vendors go through an orientation focusing on their rights and responsibilities as a StreetWise Magazine Vendor. Authorized vendors have badges with their name, picture and current year.

New vendor orientation is every Tuesday and Thursday at 10:00 a.m. at 2009 S. State St. Find your nearest vendor at www.streetwise.org

THE PLAYGROUND

StreetWise exists to elevate marginalized voices and provide opportunities for individuals to earn an income and gain employment. Anyone who wants to work has the opportunity to move themselves out of crisis.

StreetWise provides “a hand up, not a handout.”

Sol

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