Homes

By LACEY SIKORA Contributing Reporter

harif Walker is known as one of the West Side’s movers and shakers. A ommunity and youth advocate, he’s worked for After School Matters and is a commissioner of the Chicago District. As a for mer board chair ustin Coming Together and current president and CEO of Bethel New Life, he is committed to the Austin community profes- sionally and personally.

Walker’s roots in the community go back to his parents. In the early 1990s his parents were looking for more space for their f amily than their Howard Street-area home could provide, but they wanted to stay in a community where they could give back some of the support they had been given on their upward trajectory in life

According to Walker, they saw Austin as that type of community and realized their money would go farther in Austin than it did in West Rogers Park. Walker was away at college when his parents made Austin their home, but he moved back to Chicago after school, staying with them for a stint.

When a job transfer moved his parents to Atlanta in the late 1990s, they wanted to keep the house in the fami ly. Walker tried to maintain the family home and his own on the South Side and found it a challenge.