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AUSTIN WEEKLY news ■
Closed CPS school acquired by youth nonprofit,
Vol. 30 No. 36
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September 14, 2016
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austinweeklynews.com
@AustinWeeklyChi
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PAGE 12
Also serving Garfield Park
Jill Stein in Austin, page 8
West Side is ‘epicenter’ of state’s heroin crisis By TERRY DEAN AustinTalks
Chicago’s West Side has become the “epicenter” for heroin deaths and arrests in the state, according to a Roosevelt University report released last week. Cook County accounted for more heroinrelated deaths than any other part of the state in 2014, with black residents dying at a rate of 9 persons per 100,000 compared to 5.9 per 100,000 for whites, according to the study commissioned by the university. Heroin deaths, arrests and hospitalizations are largely concentrated on the West and South sides, which comprise the largest black populations in Illinois. Overdose deaths due to heroin versus other drugs also impact Chicago’s black and Latino populations disproportionately, the data shows. In 2014, heroin accounted for 57 percent of overdose deaths among blacks and 58 percent among Latinos. Among whites, it was 37 percent. The report, titled “Hidden in Plain Sight: Heroin’s Impact on the West Side,” was released during a press conference at the James R. Thompson Center. A new task force to address the West Side heroin problem was also announced Wednesday. “We talk about the guns and killings on the street, but if we really want to help the community and police, then we’ll do everything we can to stop the flow of drugs on the West Side of Chicago,” said Austin state Rep. La Shawn Ford, who spearheaded the West Side Heroin Task Force’s creation. Austin’s Loretto Hospital and West SubSee HEROIN CRISIS on page 5
WILLIAM CAMARGO/Staff Photographer
FREEDOM SONG: Marshawn Fort experiments on a harmonica someone gave him inside Freedom Square, the protest camp located across the street from the Chicago Police Department’s Homan Square facility.
An activist on the legacy of Freedom Square By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
About a week before the canopy and tents at Freedom Square were taken down last month, we visited the vacant plot turned protest site in North Lawndale, which is located across the street from the Chicago Police Department’s controversial Homan Square facility, and spoke to Damon Williams, 23, who was a fixture at the site for most of the 41 days it was active. Williams is a member of Black Youth Project 100 and a co-founder of the Let Us
Breathe Collective, the organization that maintained Freedom Square since it was pitched in the wake of a demonstration in July protesting the alleged police abuse and illegal detention of Chicago residents at the Homan Square site.
How did all of this come about? This came about organically and collectively. Everything you see has been donated and is the work of people who have identified as part of our collective. We have all type of people who here consistently. Young people have been here almost every day, all day.
Food comes from people all over the city and country and we’ve been able to feed people every day. We’ve probably fed over 1,000 people this month. We’ve also been giving away clothes and books. We don’t have a bank account. Everything you see is from the world and country supporting what we’re doing. That’s a powerful lesson in itself. This is organizing black liberation and what this proved to me is that the world believes in it, because they’ve supported us. We didn’t buy one canopy or tent or plate.
Austin Chamber of Commerce on the move... 773.854.5848 • www.austinchicagochamber.com
See FREEDOM SQUARE on page 4