No C.H.A.N.C.E. For Change?
by Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
Do the residents of public housing have a C.H.A.N.C.E.? C.H.A.N.C.E, the Chicago Housing Authority and Commonwealth Edison program, is supposed to address the issue of high unpaid electric bills. Or was that just something to stop the media from crawling up the backs of CHA and ComEd?
In previous editions of Residents' Journal, I detailed how public housing residents were stuck with extremely high electric bills from ComEd, bills that could jeopardize their eligibility for replacement housing, Section 8 and could even damage their credit, making access to housing in the private market difficult. In the Relocation Contract, the CHA stipulates residents must be lease compliant, including being current with all utility bills. Some residents had unpaid bills as high as $22,000. CHA and ComEd created C.H.A.N.C.E. to solve this problem.
According to CHA spokesperson Derek Hill, the C.H.A.N.C.E. program was supposed to help some residents with their bills. But C.H.A.N.C.E. ended this past March. Hill said those who still have bills should get in touch with their service connectors.
I recently talked with a few residents that signed up for this program and said they did not get any type of help. Jornell Holly, a young single mother who's suffering from severe health problems, has lived at LeClaire Courts for about 14 years.
Holly spoke of signing up for the C.H.A.N.C.E. program after her electric and her gas connections were turned off. "Electric is what I really need due to me using two oxygen machines in order to help me breathe," Holly said. "I applied for the C.H.A.N.C.E. program several months ago. Afterward, someone took my meter on January 16. I thought that someone had stolen the meter, but I later found out that the electric company had taken the meter."
In the year 2000, Holly said, a rash of burglaries struck LeClaire Courts. The thieves broke in while she was asleep and stole her microwave. Later, they took her floor model color T.V. and her computer.
"After that I lived in constant fear. I was scared," Holly explained. "I slept with my lights on, hoping that would deter any type of burglar, [but it] didn't help my light bill much at all!"
After the burglaries, Holly moved to another part of the LeClaire complex, but still didn't feel safe. "My light bills were always high after that. I had all of my bills transferred to my new address," she said. "But before I could move into my new unit I was in a car accident. I couldn't walk for a while, nor could I pay my utility bills."
Today, Holly still doesn't have electric power in her apartment. In order to use her oxygen machines, she spends the night at her mother's place.
Meanwhile, right smack dab in the middle of Bronzeville, Debra Ann-Jackson, a resident who is due to be relocated from the Robert Taylor Homes, explained to me that after applying for the C.H.A.N.C.E. program she was given the run-around by her service connector. She was told to ask for help from LIHEAP, the Low Income Housing Energy Assistance Program or see if money was available from the local Community Economic Development Agency, better known as CEDA.
"It has been since December of last year and I still haven't received any help for my electric bills," Jackson said. Her current balance from ComEd stands at $805.17. The bill is her final notice prior to disconnection.
Other residents in the same building, such as Travel Forney and a young women who wished to remain anonymous, spoke of receiving rejection letters from CEDA.
CHA knows the problem exists. This is a story that I investigated, researched and wrote about for more than a year. Plus, a well known columnist from the Chicago Sun-Times, Mark Brown, came into the developments with me and wrote about it in his paper as well.
Many residents that are due to be relocated or receive replacement housing who have these outstanding bills are left wondering, "Where do we receive help from?"
In other words, where's the C.H.A.N.C.E. for change?
On June 14, during a press conference marking the fifth anniversary of the Plan for Transformation at the Chicago Historical Society, CHA chief Terry Peterson said that ComEd would continue to assist residents with their high light bills and added that Peoples Gas would also aid residents with their gas bills.
"ComEd will work with us along with Peoples Gas to say, 'If residents are having difficulty, Terry, it's not a six month program. We will continue to stay engaged with you until we can assist residents to work through this,'" Peterson said.
"Our job is to stay the course and to stay with [residents] and continue to assist them through this process."
Monday, February 18, 2008
No C.H.A.N.C.E For Change?
No C.H.A.N.C.E. For Change?
by Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
Do the residents of public housing have a C.H.A.N.C.E.? C.H.A.N.C.E, the Chicago Housing Authority and Commonwealth Edison program, is supposed to address the issue of high unpaid electric bills. Or was that just something to stop the media from crawling up the backs of CHA and ComEd?
In previous editions of Residents' Journal, I detailed how public housing residents were stuck with extremely high electric bills from ComEd, bills that could jeopardize their eligibility for replacement housing, Section 8 and could even damage their credit, making access to housing in the private market difficult. In the Relocation Contract, the CHA stipulates residents must be lease compliant, including being current with all utility bills. Some residents had unpaid bills as high as $22,000. CHA and ComEd created C.H.A.N.C.E. to solve this problem.
According to CHA spokesperson Derek Hill, the C.H.A.N.C.E. program was supposed to help some residents with their bills. But C.H.A.N.C.E. ended this past March. Hill said those who still have bills should get in touch with their service connectors.
I recently talked with a few residents that signed up for this program and said they did not get any type of help. Jornell Holly, a young single mother who's suffering from severe health problems, has lived at LeClaire Courts for about 14 years.
Holly spoke of signing up for the C.H.A.N.C.E. program after her electric and her gas connections were turned off. "Electric is what I really need due to me using two oxygen machines in order to help me breathe," Holly said. "I applied for the C.H.A.N.C.E. program several months ago. Afterward, someone took my meter on January 16. I thought that someone had stolen the meter, but I later found out that the electric company had taken the meter."
In the year 2000, Holly said, a rash of burglaries struck LeClaire Courts. The thieves broke in while she was asleep and stole her microwave. Later, they took her floor model color T.V. and her computer.
"After that I lived in constant fear. I was scared," Holly explained. "I slept with my lights on, hoping that would deter any type of burglar, [but it] didn't help my light bill much at all!"
After the burglaries, Holly moved to another part of the LeClaire complex, but still didn't feel safe. "My light bills were always high after that. I had all of my bills transferred to my new address," she said. "But before I could move into my new unit I was in a car accident. I couldn't walk for a while, nor could I pay my utility bills."
Today, Holly still doesn't have electric power in her apartment. In order to use her oxygen machines, she spends the night at her mother's place.
Meanwhile, right smack dab in the middle of Bronzeville, Debra Ann-Jackson, a resident who is due to be relocated from the Robert Taylor Homes, explained to me that after applying for the C.H.A.N.C.E. program she was given the run-around by her service connector. She was told to ask for help from LIHEAP, the Low Income Housing Energy Assistance Program or see if money was available from the local Community Economic Development Agency, better known as CEDA.
"It has been since December of last year and I still haven't received any help for my electric bills," Jackson said. Her current balance from ComEd stands at $805.17. The bill is her final notice prior to disconnection.
Other residents in the same building, such as Travel Forney and a young women who wished to remain anonymous, spoke of receiving rejection letters from CEDA.
CHA knows the problem exists. This is a story that I investigated, researched and wrote about for more than a year. Plus, a well known columnist from the Chicago Sun-Times, Mark Brown, came into the developments with me and wrote about it in his paper as well.
Many residents that are due to be relocated or receive replacement housing who have these outstanding bills are left wondering, "Where do we receive help from?"
In other words, where's the C.H.A.N.C.E. for change?
On June 14, during a press conference marking the fifth anniversary of the Plan for Transformation at the Chicago Historical Society, CHA chief Terry Peterson said that ComEd would continue to assist residents with their high light bills and added that Peoples Gas would also aid residents with their gas bills.
"ComEd will work with us along with Peoples Gas to say, 'If residents are having difficulty, Terry, it's not a six month program. We will continue to stay engaged with you until we can assist residents to work through this,'" Peterson said.
"Our job is to stay the course and to stay with [residents] and continue to assist them through this process."
by Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
Do the residents of public housing have a C.H.A.N.C.E.? C.H.A.N.C.E, the Chicago Housing Authority and Commonwealth Edison program, is supposed to address the issue of high unpaid electric bills. Or was that just something to stop the media from crawling up the backs of CHA and ComEd?
In previous editions of Residents' Journal, I detailed how public housing residents were stuck with extremely high electric bills from ComEd, bills that could jeopardize their eligibility for replacement housing, Section 8 and could even damage their credit, making access to housing in the private market difficult. In the Relocation Contract, the CHA stipulates residents must be lease compliant, including being current with all utility bills. Some residents had unpaid bills as high as $22,000. CHA and ComEd created C.H.A.N.C.E. to solve this problem.
According to CHA spokesperson Derek Hill, the C.H.A.N.C.E. program was supposed to help some residents with their bills. But C.H.A.N.C.E. ended this past March. Hill said those who still have bills should get in touch with their service connectors.
I recently talked with a few residents that signed up for this program and said they did not get any type of help. Jornell Holly, a young single mother who's suffering from severe health problems, has lived at LeClaire Courts for about 14 years.
Holly spoke of signing up for the C.H.A.N.C.E. program after her electric and her gas connections were turned off. "Electric is what I really need due to me using two oxygen machines in order to help me breathe," Holly said. "I applied for the C.H.A.N.C.E. program several months ago. Afterward, someone took my meter on January 16. I thought that someone had stolen the meter, but I later found out that the electric company had taken the meter."
In the year 2000, Holly said, a rash of burglaries struck LeClaire Courts. The thieves broke in while she was asleep and stole her microwave. Later, they took her floor model color T.V. and her computer.
"After that I lived in constant fear. I was scared," Holly explained. "I slept with my lights on, hoping that would deter any type of burglar, [but it] didn't help my light bill much at all!"
After the burglaries, Holly moved to another part of the LeClaire complex, but still didn't feel safe. "My light bills were always high after that. I had all of my bills transferred to my new address," she said. "But before I could move into my new unit I was in a car accident. I couldn't walk for a while, nor could I pay my utility bills."
Today, Holly still doesn't have electric power in her apartment. In order to use her oxygen machines, she spends the night at her mother's place.
Meanwhile, right smack dab in the middle of Bronzeville, Debra Ann-Jackson, a resident who is due to be relocated from the Robert Taylor Homes, explained to me that after applying for the C.H.A.N.C.E. program she was given the run-around by her service connector. She was told to ask for help from LIHEAP, the Low Income Housing Energy Assistance Program or see if money was available from the local Community Economic Development Agency, better known as CEDA.
"It has been since December of last year and I still haven't received any help for my electric bills," Jackson said. Her current balance from ComEd stands at $805.17. The bill is her final notice prior to disconnection.
Other residents in the same building, such as Travel Forney and a young women who wished to remain anonymous, spoke of receiving rejection letters from CEDA.
CHA knows the problem exists. This is a story that I investigated, researched and wrote about for more than a year. Plus, a well known columnist from the Chicago Sun-Times, Mark Brown, came into the developments with me and wrote about it in his paper as well.
Many residents that are due to be relocated or receive replacement housing who have these outstanding bills are left wondering, "Where do we receive help from?"
In other words, where's the C.H.A.N.C.E. for change?
On June 14, during a press conference marking the fifth anniversary of the Plan for Transformation at the Chicago Historical Society, CHA chief Terry Peterson said that ComEd would continue to assist residents with their high light bills and added that Peoples Gas would also aid residents with their gas bills.
"ComEd will work with us along with Peoples Gas to say, 'If residents are having difficulty, Terry, it's not a six month program. We will continue to stay engaged with you until we can assist residents to work through this,'" Peterson said.
"Our job is to stay the course and to stay with [residents] and continue to assist them through this process."
Monday, February 11, 2008
" In too deep" part one continues
In too deep: three decades of gang involvement was more than enough for one former leader. Now he's telling others not to follow his path
by Beauty Turner
Page 1 Continued
Hoover called me into a meeting and asked me to stop extorting from Brick. At that time, I told him, 'Okay.' But, as soon as I got back to 95th Street, we were back on Brick's case. Hoover was mad for a little while, but later he said, 'That's just Ulysses.' We saw all the money Brick was making from selling dope, so we decided to just get rid of him and make that money instead.
Many times my life was threatened. Brick had the police grab me from in front of my father's house. They made me lay down on the floor of their car at gunpoint. Two white detectives took me to Brick's house. Brick came to the car. I could see his face. He said, 'Whack him!' I thought that my life was over.
They took me to the [Dan Ryan Woods] forest preserve on 87th and Western and said, 'We ought to kill you, nigger. You better leave Brick alone.' One of the detectives put a gun to my head. After they threatened me for a little while ... they let me go.
It made me come on to Brick even harder. We were successful in uprooting him from the community. And that's when we started selling drugs.
Brick tried one more time to kill me. I was standing in the middle of 95th Street, and a guy opened the side door of a catering truck [that Brick was driving] and let off five or six rounds, but he missed me. I fell to the ground face first. After the shots were over, I just lay there. I thought I was bit. People from the Lowden Homes projects came running and gathering around, asking me, 'Chief, are you all right? Are you hit?'
Do you miss that type of life?
No. I will tell any young person: 'Don't get involved in gangs.' I was in too deep.
It's different when the federal government comes in. They have taken the gloves off. It is an all-out war. It's not an easy game anymore. The government got Larry Hoover. They got Jeff Fort. And they made me see how serious it was. There's no more love, life and loyalty in gangs anymore. Your best friend will turn state's evidence on you. Nobody wants to do 20 years for you.
But, now, instead of taking from the community, I want to give back. That's why when I start something it is something positive that will not harm my people only enhance their lives.
I did a lot of negative things in the past. The road that I took when I was younger was not the right path. I scarred a lot of people. I hurt a lot of people. I never want to do that again. Today, I will tell the young people to stay in school and stop the killing, and start the healing. A message to the youth: If you must get in too deep, make it in your books.
Former gang leader Ulysses "U.S." Floyd, who spent nearly 30 years "in the game," helped start the Lilydale Outreach Workers, a South Side community group serving youth and seniors.
by Beauty Turner
Page 1 Continued
Hoover called me into a meeting and asked me to stop extorting from Brick. At that time, I told him, 'Okay.' But, as soon as I got back to 95th Street, we were back on Brick's case. Hoover was mad for a little while, but later he said, 'That's just Ulysses.' We saw all the money Brick was making from selling dope, so we decided to just get rid of him and make that money instead.
Many times my life was threatened. Brick had the police grab me from in front of my father's house. They made me lay down on the floor of their car at gunpoint. Two white detectives took me to Brick's house. Brick came to the car. I could see his face. He said, 'Whack him!' I thought that my life was over.
They took me to the [Dan Ryan Woods] forest preserve on 87th and Western and said, 'We ought to kill you, nigger. You better leave Brick alone.' One of the detectives put a gun to my head. After they threatened me for a little while ... they let me go.
It made me come on to Brick even harder. We were successful in uprooting him from the community. And that's when we started selling drugs.
Brick tried one more time to kill me. I was standing in the middle of 95th Street, and a guy opened the side door of a catering truck [that Brick was driving] and let off five or six rounds, but he missed me. I fell to the ground face first. After the shots were over, I just lay there. I thought I was bit. People from the Lowden Homes projects came running and gathering around, asking me, 'Chief, are you all right? Are you hit?'
Do you miss that type of life?
No. I will tell any young person: 'Don't get involved in gangs.' I was in too deep.
It's different when the federal government comes in. They have taken the gloves off. It is an all-out war. It's not an easy game anymore. The government got Larry Hoover. They got Jeff Fort. And they made me see how serious it was. There's no more love, life and loyalty in gangs anymore. Your best friend will turn state's evidence on you. Nobody wants to do 20 years for you.
But, now, instead of taking from the community, I want to give back. That's why when I start something it is something positive that will not harm my people only enhance their lives.
I did a lot of negative things in the past. The road that I took when I was younger was not the right path. I scarred a lot of people. I hurt a lot of people. I never want to do that again. Today, I will tell the young people to stay in school and stop the killing, and start the healing. A message to the youth: If you must get in too deep, make it in your books.
Former gang leader Ulysses "U.S." Floyd, who spent nearly 30 years "in the game," helped start the Lilydale Outreach Workers, a South Side community group serving youth and seniors.
"In too deep" part one
In too deep
By;Ms. Beauty Turner
In too deep: three decades of gang involvement was more than enough for one former leader. Now he's telling others not to follow his path
Chicago Reporter, The, July-August, 2004 by Beauty Turner
Ulysses "U.S." Floyd was 14 years old when he decided to run with the 95th Street Syndicate Black Stone Rangers, one of Chicago's J most infamous street gangs at the time. It was 1965. "My mother died when I was 11 years old, and my father was a workaholic. I'd barely ever see him," Floyd said. "I did it for the camaraderie, friendship, family. And, besides, all of my friends was in a gang already."
Like Floyd, many men and women who join street gangs at an early age find themselves feeling like small fish swimming in deep, shark-infested waters. Once they take the bait--usually the money, fancy clothes and flashy cars that gang leaders have--they are hooked and stuck for years.
"I stayed in it much too long," said Floyd, 53, who started his own gang. "You just can't walk away from the gangs, especially when you end up in a leadership position."
"Even if you got tired and wanted to get out, anybody--including your best friend--might whack you," he added. "I had to think about more than just me. I had to think about my family and my friends."
But he changed his thoughts. While serving prison time on drug charges in 1994, Floyd had a vision of himself working on doing positive things." He realized that he wanted to start building his community instead of tearing it down. In nearly 30 years "in the game," he'd started his own gang, overseen drug operations and survived years of violent scrapes with opposing gangs.
Floyd realized he was getting older. The youngest of his six children, Ulysses Jr., had just been born, and Floyd wanted his kids to look up to him. So, after his release in 1997, while in his mid-40s, he left his gang. Having paid his dues, Floyd didn't encounter any resistance from other gang leaders, he said.
He enrolled at Olive-Harvey College on the city's far South Side, graduating in 2000 with a real estate license and an associate's degree.
In 2003, Floyd helped start the Lilydale Outreach Workers, a community group that works with youth and seniors in the South Side neighborhood between 91st and 99th streets about five blocks west of the Dan Ryan Expressway. He said the group sponsors outings for children in the neighborhood-which includes the Lowden Homes, a public housing development where he once lived-like trips to Chicago White Sox games and the "My Daddy Can Cook Better Than Your Daddy Barbeque" held on Fathers' Day.
"We're trying to send them places, reward them for doing good in school, show them things outside the community and be mentors, so they do not have to take the road I took," he said.
Floyd talked with the Residents' Journal and The Chicago Reporter about his life in street gangs and why he decided to give it up.
How did you get into a gang?
I met Jeff Fort, known as 'Angel,' and Eugene Harrison, known as 'Bull.' They were the leaders of the Black Stone Rangers. I was hard-headed at the age of 14. I kept following the older guys. They had money, and I wanted some, too.
We used to meet every Tuesday after school. We had to pay $2 in dues. I had to give them my lunch money or add up the small change that I got from family and friends to pay my dues.
Fort wasn't the leader at that time. Harrison was the leader, but Fort did most of the talking at the meetings. Behind them on the stage were 21 chairs with 21 high-ranking members known as the 'Main 21.' Fort told us that the dues were going toward buying guns and bullets to protect our neighborhood against the Disciples; that was David Barksdale's gang. Fort and Harrison extended the meeting to twice a week, every Tuesday and every Saturday, and each time we had to pay dues. It was hard enough trying to pay dues once a week. Now it was $4 a week.
Over a thousand guys were now involved with Fort. [They] had us marching around the community to show our strength.
What did the street gang do?
There were Jewish and Arab businesses in our community, so we extorted money from the stores. If they wanted to continue to do business in our community, they had to pay protection lees. As foot soldiers, we never got to keep any of that money. Only the ones such as the elite did.
I tell you what [the store owners] did for us: Every Friday night, we were told to go behind all the stores on Stony Island Avenue from 67th Street to 71st Street. Behind the stores there were boxes of food, new clothes and other new things that we could split between us.
From 1967 to 1968, there was a big wide void when the older guys on 95th Street went off to the Vietnam War, or started doing their own things. So, at the age of 18, I started my own gang: 95th Street Maniac Supremes. That's when I became a chief. I used all that I learned from Jeff Fort and Eugene Harrison and applied it to my gang.
How did drugs get introduced to your gang?
We saw a drug dealer by the name of Brick who was making a lot of money in our community. We extorted money from him and made him pay us to continue to serve in the community. Brick ran to Larry Hoover, who was the head of the [Black] Gangster [Disciples] Nation at that time, trying to get him to stop us from extorting from him.
By;Ms. Beauty Turner
In too deep: three decades of gang involvement was more than enough for one former leader. Now he's telling others not to follow his path
Chicago Reporter, The, July-August, 2004 by Beauty Turner
Ulysses "U.S." Floyd was 14 years old when he decided to run with the 95th Street Syndicate Black Stone Rangers, one of Chicago's J most infamous street gangs at the time. It was 1965. "My mother died when I was 11 years old, and my father was a workaholic. I'd barely ever see him," Floyd said. "I did it for the camaraderie, friendship, family. And, besides, all of my friends was in a gang already."
Like Floyd, many men and women who join street gangs at an early age find themselves feeling like small fish swimming in deep, shark-infested waters. Once they take the bait--usually the money, fancy clothes and flashy cars that gang leaders have--they are hooked and stuck for years.
"I stayed in it much too long," said Floyd, 53, who started his own gang. "You just can't walk away from the gangs, especially when you end up in a leadership position."
"Even if you got tired and wanted to get out, anybody--including your best friend--might whack you," he added. "I had to think about more than just me. I had to think about my family and my friends."
But he changed his thoughts. While serving prison time on drug charges in 1994, Floyd had a vision of himself working on doing positive things." He realized that he wanted to start building his community instead of tearing it down. In nearly 30 years "in the game," he'd started his own gang, overseen drug operations and survived years of violent scrapes with opposing gangs.
Floyd realized he was getting older. The youngest of his six children, Ulysses Jr., had just been born, and Floyd wanted his kids to look up to him. So, after his release in 1997, while in his mid-40s, he left his gang. Having paid his dues, Floyd didn't encounter any resistance from other gang leaders, he said.
He enrolled at Olive-Harvey College on the city's far South Side, graduating in 2000 with a real estate license and an associate's degree.
In 2003, Floyd helped start the Lilydale Outreach Workers, a community group that works with youth and seniors in the South Side neighborhood between 91st and 99th streets about five blocks west of the Dan Ryan Expressway. He said the group sponsors outings for children in the neighborhood-which includes the Lowden Homes, a public housing development where he once lived-like trips to Chicago White Sox games and the "My Daddy Can Cook Better Than Your Daddy Barbeque" held on Fathers' Day.
"We're trying to send them places, reward them for doing good in school, show them things outside the community and be mentors, so they do not have to take the road I took," he said.
Floyd talked with the Residents' Journal and The Chicago Reporter about his life in street gangs and why he decided to give it up.
How did you get into a gang?
I met Jeff Fort, known as 'Angel,' and Eugene Harrison, known as 'Bull.' They were the leaders of the Black Stone Rangers. I was hard-headed at the age of 14. I kept following the older guys. They had money, and I wanted some, too.
We used to meet every Tuesday after school. We had to pay $2 in dues. I had to give them my lunch money or add up the small change that I got from family and friends to pay my dues.
Fort wasn't the leader at that time. Harrison was the leader, but Fort did most of the talking at the meetings. Behind them on the stage were 21 chairs with 21 high-ranking members known as the 'Main 21.' Fort told us that the dues were going toward buying guns and bullets to protect our neighborhood against the Disciples; that was David Barksdale's gang. Fort and Harrison extended the meeting to twice a week, every Tuesday and every Saturday, and each time we had to pay dues. It was hard enough trying to pay dues once a week. Now it was $4 a week.
Over a thousand guys were now involved with Fort. [They] had us marching around the community to show our strength.
What did the street gang do?
There were Jewish and Arab businesses in our community, so we extorted money from the stores. If they wanted to continue to do business in our community, they had to pay protection lees. As foot soldiers, we never got to keep any of that money. Only the ones such as the elite did.
I tell you what [the store owners] did for us: Every Friday night, we were told to go behind all the stores on Stony Island Avenue from 67th Street to 71st Street. Behind the stores there were boxes of food, new clothes and other new things that we could split between us.
From 1967 to 1968, there was a big wide void when the older guys on 95th Street went off to the Vietnam War, or started doing their own things. So, at the age of 18, I started my own gang: 95th Street Maniac Supremes. That's when I became a chief. I used all that I learned from Jeff Fort and Eugene Harrison and applied it to my gang.
How did drugs get introduced to your gang?
We saw a drug dealer by the name of Brick who was making a lot of money in our community. We extorted money from him and made him pay us to continue to serve in the community. Brick ran to Larry Hoover, who was the head of the [Black] Gangster [Disciples] Nation at that time, trying to get him to stop us from extorting from him.
Shocking truth about CHA
The Shocking Truth about CHA
Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
Residents in the Robert Taylor Homes are being judged as non-lease compliant due to their electric utility bills and may lose their right to return to public housing units in the new mixed-income communities which are planned to replace the current developments. CHA's relocation contract with its residents stipulates that if a resident is not current or on a payment plan concerning their utilities, they will not receive replacement housing, a Housing Choice Voucher or have the right to return to public housing.
But the shocking truth is that CHA may itself be responsible for making many residents non-lease compliant. Back in 1998, CHA dropped the ball when it came to registering buildings in Robert Taylor Homes for electric utility service, according to an RJ investigation.
I talked to former CHA officials and Commonwealth Edison representatives and no one is willing to accept the blame for this problem. An earlier RJ investigation revealed that many Robert Taylor residents had high electric utility bills which they denied accumulating. One year ago, current CHA officials, including CEO Terry Peterson, promised to resolve this issue but apparently have not done so.
And now in 2003, as CHA continues to demolish public housing high rises and make way for promised mixed-income communities, many Robert Taylor residents are dealing with enormous electric bills which may stop them from getting replacement housing or a Housing Choice Voucher, and may stop them from moving back to their neighborhoods. These bills are ruining many residents' credit ratings and might even prevent them from getting into a private market apartment.
In recent months, residents from the Robert Taylor development at 4946 S. State St. - one of the buildings in the so-called "Cluster" - lit up my phone with a surge of calls concerning their high utility bills. Others called to say they were not receiving bills at all. The residents in 4946 S. State were energized over this issue because the building is due to be closed by September of this year.
Of the approximately 100 families left in the building, about one-half are non-lease compliant, the majority due to overdue or unpaid electric bills, according to the research I have been conducting in the building with Columbia University sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh.
Yet another source of confusion for the residents is that some of the residents who are lease compliant have outstanding light bills. Many of the residents were highly charged and upset when they received letters saying they were non-lease compliant due to their electric bills. "CHA is saying I'm not lease compliant because of my electric bill. I don't even have a meter. How's Commonwealth Edison billing me anyway?" one resident yelled into the receiver. This is one of the many residents who were referred to me while I was doing research about the residents of Robert Taylor.
Darnell "Bull" Montgomery, a longtime resident of Robert Taylor who is working with me on the research, explained the history of the problem. "Back in 1998, when CHA rehabbed the buildings in the Cluster, they didn't contact Commonwealth Edison regarding establishing meters or electricity in the new residents' names.
"After all, the 11th to the 16th floors in the 4946 building had been closed down for years before CHA rehabbed them," Montgomery continued. Commonwealth Edison spokesperson Todd Banks confirmed Montgomery's story. Somewhere on the playing field, CHA dropped the ball.
"CHA never let Commonwealth Edison know that that they were rehabbing those units (meaning in the Cluster). Never did they register for electricity, nor did they ever install meters in the residents' names," Banks continued. "Somewhere along the line, they dropped the ball."
I brought this dilemma to the attention of the current CHA, to Duwaine Bailey, who's over CHA Operations. "This matter will be investigated further and if it is found out to be true, then we will do all that's necessary to help our residents," Bailey said. I investigated further by calling Joseph Shuldiner who was the CEO of CHA in 1998 and who is now a consultant to the Gary, Ind., housing authority.
I talked with Shuldiner about the dilemma concerning the installation of the electrical utility meters in the Cluster when they rehabbed the buildings back in 1998. I explained to Shuldiner that Commonwealth Edison said that the meters were never installed nor were the residents ever registered.
"That has nothing to do with me," Shuldiner said. "You need to look at the people who were over the rehabbing process of those buildings at that time," Shuldiner continued. I asked him if installing the meters and registering tenants was the responsibility of David Anderson, who worked at CHA at the time? "Yes, but it goes farther than us. Other entities were involved," Shuldiner said.
I tracked down David Anderson, who is now working at the Chicago Department of Housing, and asked him about whose job it was to install meters and electric utility hook ups in the Robert Taylor Cluster back in 1998-99? "The responsibility lays on the residents. CHA provides heat and water, and by the way we had constant meetings with the residents and with Commonwealth Edison in those days," Anderson said.
This comment left me wondering. Banks told me that Commonwealth Edison didn't have any records of meeting with CHA or residents at that time. I called Local Advisory Council President Mildred Dennis in Robert Taylor (B) and informed her about the big problem concerning the electric utility hook ups dilemma in the Cluster.
"If this problem happened back in 1998, then I believe that the past management is at fault," Dennis said. I called Interstate Realty, the firm contracted by CHA to manage Robert Taylor, and spoke to Peter Levavi, a developer with Brinshore-Michaels, the company contracted to build the new mixed-income community on the ground where Robert Taylor now stands. Brinshore-Michaels is closely affiliated with Interstate Realty.
I called them to see who or what establishment sent out the non-lease compliant letters to the residents. Levavi confirmed the story provided by residents as well as Commonwealth Edison: CHA never installed the meters or registered the residents in the units they rehabbed in 1998.
Levavi said the problem may even be larger than the Cluster. Levavi gave me many numbers to call, including Interstate's main office in New Jersey. Interstate's representatives never returned my calls. After weeks of investigating this matter, Commonwealth Edison spokesperson Banks called me on April 17, at 7 p.m. on my cell phone, and informed me that about two weeks prior, current CHA officials finally registered the meters in 4946 S. State.
Banks said, "The building on 49th and State has now been IDed by our Engineering Department. "I know that there was an order put in about a couple of weeks ago to have meters put in at that location, and basically our Revenue Management folks - the people who manage the money - are aware as well.
"We are not going to do anything about disconnecting the services. This is in our Revenue Services [Department's] hands and any issue that they have in respect to money that is owed, they have the information to get in touch with CHA, and they have dealt with CHA extensively before. That's going to be a process to get our arms around. I just wanted to make sure you know that it's going to be a work in progress."
Banks didn't explain why Commonwealth Edison was installing meters in a building that is just months away from closing. He also didn't explain what Commonwealth Edison was doing to clear the bills which already had accumulated.
When this issue about the residents' high electric bills was brought up about a year ago, CHA CEO Peterson pledged at that time to resolve this issue. The residents who are having this problem are wondering why it is taking Peterson so long to make the right connections.
Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
Residents in the Robert Taylor Homes are being judged as non-lease compliant due to their electric utility bills and may lose their right to return to public housing units in the new mixed-income communities which are planned to replace the current developments. CHA's relocation contract with its residents stipulates that if a resident is not current or on a payment plan concerning their utilities, they will not receive replacement housing, a Housing Choice Voucher or have the right to return to public housing.
But the shocking truth is that CHA may itself be responsible for making many residents non-lease compliant. Back in 1998, CHA dropped the ball when it came to registering buildings in Robert Taylor Homes for electric utility service, according to an RJ investigation.
I talked to former CHA officials and Commonwealth Edison representatives and no one is willing to accept the blame for this problem. An earlier RJ investigation revealed that many Robert Taylor residents had high electric utility bills which they denied accumulating. One year ago, current CHA officials, including CEO Terry Peterson, promised to resolve this issue but apparently have not done so.
And now in 2003, as CHA continues to demolish public housing high rises and make way for promised mixed-income communities, many Robert Taylor residents are dealing with enormous electric bills which may stop them from getting replacement housing or a Housing Choice Voucher, and may stop them from moving back to their neighborhoods. These bills are ruining many residents' credit ratings and might even prevent them from getting into a private market apartment.
In recent months, residents from the Robert Taylor development at 4946 S. State St. - one of the buildings in the so-called "Cluster" - lit up my phone with a surge of calls concerning their high utility bills. Others called to say they were not receiving bills at all. The residents in 4946 S. State were energized over this issue because the building is due to be closed by September of this year.
Of the approximately 100 families left in the building, about one-half are non-lease compliant, the majority due to overdue or unpaid electric bills, according to the research I have been conducting in the building with Columbia University sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh.
Yet another source of confusion for the residents is that some of the residents who are lease compliant have outstanding light bills. Many of the residents were highly charged and upset when they received letters saying they were non-lease compliant due to their electric bills. "CHA is saying I'm not lease compliant because of my electric bill. I don't even have a meter. How's Commonwealth Edison billing me anyway?" one resident yelled into the receiver. This is one of the many residents who were referred to me while I was doing research about the residents of Robert Taylor.
Darnell "Bull" Montgomery, a longtime resident of Robert Taylor who is working with me on the research, explained the history of the problem. "Back in 1998, when CHA rehabbed the buildings in the Cluster, they didn't contact Commonwealth Edison regarding establishing meters or electricity in the new residents' names.
"After all, the 11th to the 16th floors in the 4946 building had been closed down for years before CHA rehabbed them," Montgomery continued. Commonwealth Edison spokesperson Todd Banks confirmed Montgomery's story. Somewhere on the playing field, CHA dropped the ball.
"CHA never let Commonwealth Edison know that that they were rehabbing those units (meaning in the Cluster). Never did they register for electricity, nor did they ever install meters in the residents' names," Banks continued. "Somewhere along the line, they dropped the ball."
I brought this dilemma to the attention of the current CHA, to Duwaine Bailey, who's over CHA Operations. "This matter will be investigated further and if it is found out to be true, then we will do all that's necessary to help our residents," Bailey said. I investigated further by calling Joseph Shuldiner who was the CEO of CHA in 1998 and who is now a consultant to the Gary, Ind., housing authority.
I talked with Shuldiner about the dilemma concerning the installation of the electrical utility meters in the Cluster when they rehabbed the buildings back in 1998. I explained to Shuldiner that Commonwealth Edison said that the meters were never installed nor were the residents ever registered.
"That has nothing to do with me," Shuldiner said. "You need to look at the people who were over the rehabbing process of those buildings at that time," Shuldiner continued. I asked him if installing the meters and registering tenants was the responsibility of David Anderson, who worked at CHA at the time? "Yes, but it goes farther than us. Other entities were involved," Shuldiner said.
I tracked down David Anderson, who is now working at the Chicago Department of Housing, and asked him about whose job it was to install meters and electric utility hook ups in the Robert Taylor Cluster back in 1998-99? "The responsibility lays on the residents. CHA provides heat and water, and by the way we had constant meetings with the residents and with Commonwealth Edison in those days," Anderson said.
This comment left me wondering. Banks told me that Commonwealth Edison didn't have any records of meeting with CHA or residents at that time. I called Local Advisory Council President Mildred Dennis in Robert Taylor (B) and informed her about the big problem concerning the electric utility hook ups dilemma in the Cluster.
"If this problem happened back in 1998, then I believe that the past management is at fault," Dennis said. I called Interstate Realty, the firm contracted by CHA to manage Robert Taylor, and spoke to Peter Levavi, a developer with Brinshore-Michaels, the company contracted to build the new mixed-income community on the ground where Robert Taylor now stands. Brinshore-Michaels is closely affiliated with Interstate Realty.
I called them to see who or what establishment sent out the non-lease compliant letters to the residents. Levavi confirmed the story provided by residents as well as Commonwealth Edison: CHA never installed the meters or registered the residents in the units they rehabbed in 1998.
Levavi said the problem may even be larger than the Cluster. Levavi gave me many numbers to call, including Interstate's main office in New Jersey. Interstate's representatives never returned my calls. After weeks of investigating this matter, Commonwealth Edison spokesperson Banks called me on April 17, at 7 p.m. on my cell phone, and informed me that about two weeks prior, current CHA officials finally registered the meters in 4946 S. State.
Banks said, "The building on 49th and State has now been IDed by our Engineering Department. "I know that there was an order put in about a couple of weeks ago to have meters put in at that location, and basically our Revenue Management folks - the people who manage the money - are aware as well.
"We are not going to do anything about disconnecting the services. This is in our Revenue Services [Department's] hands and any issue that they have in respect to money that is owed, they have the information to get in touch with CHA, and they have dealt with CHA extensively before. That's going to be a process to get our arms around. I just wanted to make sure you know that it's going to be a work in progress."
Banks didn't explain why Commonwealth Edison was installing meters in a building that is just months away from closing. He also didn't explain what Commonwealth Edison was doing to clear the bills which already had accumulated.
When this issue about the residents' high electric bills was brought up about a year ago, CHA CEO Peterson pledged at that time to resolve this issue. The residents who are having this problem are wondering why it is taking Peterson so long to make the right connections.
"Washington Park want answers"
Transforming CHA: Washington Park Wants Answers
Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
Washington Park Local Advisory Council President Mary Wiggins is facing a dilemma. She is concerned and wondering, searching high and low for an answer to a question that lays heavy on her mind like a wrecking ball against a Chicago Housing Authority wall.
She is confused and a bit puzzled why Saint Edmund’s Church Association, a group contracted by the CHA, will not rehab or open up a stretch of closed public housing row houses that dot the South Side like a bunch of choir lines, all in straight rows. Wiggins would prefer that residents live in the rehabbed row houses instead of the high rise at 62nd and Calumet, which now houses approximately 200 families.
Wiggins said, “I’m wondering why they won’t open up and rehab the smaller units such as the row houses and the 3- to 7-story walk ups? Its over 100 units that have lain dormant and unoccupied for almost 4 years now.
“We need them open so that my the residents that reside in Washington Park can begin to occupy those units instead of keeping the high rise open.
She added that these places have been unoccupied much too long. She feels that it would be in the residents’ best interest if CHA rehabbed the row houses and the walk ups that stretch from 46th Street and Indiana Avenue to 62nd Street and Calumet Avenue.
A resident who asked to remain anonymous said, “They need to put the residents in the row houses and the walk ups. Because with the high rise being the only one on this side, it sticks out like a big red sore thumb. Just look at it from the El - the Green Line. You can see (the building) a mile away.
I telephoned St. Edmund’s Village, located at 63rd Street and Michigan. A spokesperson for St. Edmund’s told me that all the units located on 62nd Street and Calumet Avenue and along Michigan Avenue are in the process of being rehabbed. Right now, the spokesperson said they dont know whos going to occupy those rehabbed units.
I was told to call back at a later date for updates concerning those properties.
I also called CHA St. Edmund’s Redevelopment office Director W.D. Billings, who said that St. Edmund’s is working with CHA on a joint venture concerning the properties that stretch from 62nd Street and Calumet Boulevard to Michigan Avenue.
“We have plans on redeveloping and rehabbing the row houses into town houses with the tax credit increment for families in the community as well as for other families that are not in the community. It will be for 50 percent to 60 percent of the median-income level.
Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
Washington Park Local Advisory Council President Mary Wiggins is facing a dilemma. She is concerned and wondering, searching high and low for an answer to a question that lays heavy on her mind like a wrecking ball against a Chicago Housing Authority wall.
She is confused and a bit puzzled why Saint Edmund’s Church Association, a group contracted by the CHA, will not rehab or open up a stretch of closed public housing row houses that dot the South Side like a bunch of choir lines, all in straight rows. Wiggins would prefer that residents live in the rehabbed row houses instead of the high rise at 62nd and Calumet, which now houses approximately 200 families.
Wiggins said, “I’m wondering why they won’t open up and rehab the smaller units such as the row houses and the 3- to 7-story walk ups? Its over 100 units that have lain dormant and unoccupied for almost 4 years now.
“We need them open so that my the residents that reside in Washington Park can begin to occupy those units instead of keeping the high rise open.
She added that these places have been unoccupied much too long. She feels that it would be in the residents’ best interest if CHA rehabbed the row houses and the walk ups that stretch from 46th Street and Indiana Avenue to 62nd Street and Calumet Avenue.
A resident who asked to remain anonymous said, “They need to put the residents in the row houses and the walk ups. Because with the high rise being the only one on this side, it sticks out like a big red sore thumb. Just look at it from the El - the Green Line. You can see (the building) a mile away.
I telephoned St. Edmund’s Village, located at 63rd Street and Michigan. A spokesperson for St. Edmund’s told me that all the units located on 62nd Street and Calumet Avenue and along Michigan Avenue are in the process of being rehabbed. Right now, the spokesperson said they dont know whos going to occupy those rehabbed units.
I was told to call back at a later date for updates concerning those properties.
I also called CHA St. Edmund’s Redevelopment office Director W.D. Billings, who said that St. Edmund’s is working with CHA on a joint venture concerning the properties that stretch from 62nd Street and Calumet Boulevard to Michigan Avenue.
“We have plans on redeveloping and rehabbing the row houses into town houses with the tax credit increment for families in the community as well as for other families that are not in the community. It will be for 50 percent to 60 percent of the median-income level.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Shocking Electric Bills
Shocking Electric Bills
by Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
Many Robert Taylor residents are suddenly finding themselves facing extremely high electric bills, bills in the $10,000 range and higher that can make them non-lease compliant and ineligible for replacement housing.
CHA is going through a $1.6 billion Plan for Transformation that states if a resident is found non-lease compliant, they may not be relocated to another development, a scattered site unit or the same development or receive a Housing Choice Voucher (formerly known as Section 8).
A tenant can be found non-lease compliant if a tenant's utilities are not paid up. One young single mother of three, Lithia Henderson, said, "My electric bills are sky high. How do they expect for me to pay this $11,000 light bill?"
Henderson, 24, said she has no idea how her bill was computed. "I'm low-income. I live in the development, not a luxury mansion," she said.
Another young resident said, "How do they even estimate my bills? I haven't had a meter for years. "How could they let us not pay for service all this time?
And now, all of a sudden, it's our fault that they didn't collect or turn off the lights, or warn us.
This is not fair. Shouldn't Commonwealth Edison carry the biggest of the blame?"
Many people in the private market couldn't get away with that, another Robert Taylor resident said.
I called CHA spokesperson Derek Hill and asked him about the high electric bills. He was in shock and said he would investigate. Hill was under the impression that CHA paid the electric bills for Robert Taylor. Hill later found out that what I told him about the bills being very high was the truth. He said, "This needs to be looked into."
After speaking to Hill, I decided to call Commonwealth Edison and speak to an executive. I spoke to Tim Lindberg, head of communications for Commonwealth Edison. I asked him, "How long does it take Commonwealth Edison to send out a warning notice when a client is late with their bills?" He replied, "The Illinois Commerce Commission requires a 10-day notice and three days after that, we follow up with a telephone call."
I next asked why do the residents in the Robert Taylor development have such high light bills? He hesitated for a moment and then said, "We can't issue a general statement concerning that because with each client, the explanation varies. "But I can say if a person in the private market or in public housing feels that their light bills are too high, don't do anything at first. Just call us.
"We also have programs to help low-income residents such as (LHEAP) Light Heat Energy Assistance Program." I recently did a cable show with the manager of external affairs for Commonwealth Edison, Todd Banks. Banks, who was surprised by the showing of a low-income public housing resident's electric bill
of $10,934.40, showed great concern.
I asked what he thought that young lady might have done in her apartment that would create a bill of that size.
He replied, "I don't know. But we will investigate it."
A day after the show, a Commonwealth Edison truck was in front of my building, 4525 S. Federal St. Comed workers turned off four families' lights. One of those residents who lost their electric service was a young woman named Katrina Nawls, who has a new-born baby girl in her apartment.
I called Banks to see why they turned off the people's lights. He replied, "They each owe high light bills. They need to call us and set up a payment plan."
by Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
Many Robert Taylor residents are suddenly finding themselves facing extremely high electric bills, bills in the $10,000 range and higher that can make them non-lease compliant and ineligible for replacement housing.
CHA is going through a $1.6 billion Plan for Transformation that states if a resident is found non-lease compliant, they may not be relocated to another development, a scattered site unit or the same development or receive a Housing Choice Voucher (formerly known as Section 8).
A tenant can be found non-lease compliant if a tenant's utilities are not paid up. One young single mother of three, Lithia Henderson, said, "My electric bills are sky high. How do they expect for me to pay this $11,000 light bill?"
Henderson, 24, said she has no idea how her bill was computed. "I'm low-income. I live in the development, not a luxury mansion," she said.
Another young resident said, "How do they even estimate my bills? I haven't had a meter for years. "How could they let us not pay for service all this time?
And now, all of a sudden, it's our fault that they didn't collect or turn off the lights, or warn us.
This is not fair. Shouldn't Commonwealth Edison carry the biggest of the blame?"
Many people in the private market couldn't get away with that, another Robert Taylor resident said.
I called CHA spokesperson Derek Hill and asked him about the high electric bills. He was in shock and said he would investigate. Hill was under the impression that CHA paid the electric bills for Robert Taylor. Hill later found out that what I told him about the bills being very high was the truth. He said, "This needs to be looked into."
After speaking to Hill, I decided to call Commonwealth Edison and speak to an executive. I spoke to Tim Lindberg, head of communications for Commonwealth Edison. I asked him, "How long does it take Commonwealth Edison to send out a warning notice when a client is late with their bills?" He replied, "The Illinois Commerce Commission requires a 10-day notice and three days after that, we follow up with a telephone call."
I next asked why do the residents in the Robert Taylor development have such high light bills? He hesitated for a moment and then said, "We can't issue a general statement concerning that because with each client, the explanation varies. "But I can say if a person in the private market or in public housing feels that their light bills are too high, don't do anything at first. Just call us.
"We also have programs to help low-income residents such as (LHEAP) Light Heat Energy Assistance Program." I recently did a cable show with the manager of external affairs for Commonwealth Edison, Todd Banks. Banks, who was surprised by the showing of a low-income public housing resident's electric bill
of $10,934.40, showed great concern.
I asked what he thought that young lady might have done in her apartment that would create a bill of that size.
He replied, "I don't know. But we will investigate it."
A day after the show, a Commonwealth Edison truck was in front of my building, 4525 S. Federal St. Comed workers turned off four families' lights. One of those residents who lost their electric service was a young woman named Katrina Nawls, who has a new-born baby girl in her apartment.
I called Banks to see why they turned off the people's lights. He replied, "They each owe high light bills. They need to call us and set up a payment plan."
Chewing up tobacco Road
Transforming CHA: Chewing Up Tobacco Road
Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
The stores on Tobacco Road are losing business because of the relocation of residents of the low-income areas surrounding the stores.
As I walked down the legendary 47th Street, better known as Tobacco Road, in early March, I noticed a lot of boarded up stores. The Michigan Garden Apartments, better known as the Rosenwald complex, lay barren. The Rosenwald once housed approximately 500 low-income families. Now it’s a ghost town. No children are outside playing; no one is standing outside of the once very busy dwelling.
I was waiting for a tumbleweed to brush by my dusty boots as I continued to walk down the long road of despair. I couldn’t help but wonder: If all the stores that were located in the Rosenwald closed down, then how are the other businesses in the community doing?
What effect is the relocation and displacement of low-income people from the Rosenwald, Robert Taylor Homes and other nearby properties having on the community businesses?
The first store that I went to was the Community Mart, 53 E. 47th St. I asked the manager, Abdul Mizyed, how business was now that the Rosenwald is closed.
Mizyed said, “There’s a big difference concerning our business since the closing of the buildings. Our profits are down but there are still a lot of houses in the community that are keeping us somewhat afloat - at least so far."
“Big Pun,” the assistant manager, said, “I’m finding it quite difficult concerning business but I’m optimistic concerning the future. I do believe that whatever the plan that the city has will come into play and our business will pick back up and everything will fall back into place as long as the community continues to support us."
As I continued to walk down the long, dusty Tobacco Road, I came upon the Marathon Gas station at 4700 S. Michigan Ave., the gas station that seems to have been there ever since my feet hit the soil of 47th Street 9 years ago.
In the Marathon's store, I asked the owner, P. Grewal, how business was going.
He looked down at the floor as he spoke to me: “Sliding down hill fast, sinking. I’m one person who is not glad that the city closed the Rosenwald because we lost a lot of business."
Grewal added, “One bad apple spoiled the whole bunch. Every body that lived there wasn’t bad. There’s bad and good in every community and in every race."
I asked him about his plans for the future.
Grewal said, "These are our jobs, our livelihood. We are going to stay."
As I continued on my journey for answers, I couldn’t help but notice the smells that were now lingering in the air: freshly baked donuts and cakes hot off of the oven rack and the strong, freshly brewed black coffee. It was a heavenly aroma coming from the Abundance Bakery, 105 E. 47th St.
It seemed to me the aromas took on hands and pulled me into the bakery. My eyes continued to roam. Like a kid in a candy store, I couldn’t stay focused from looking at all of the sweet treats that lined the shelves. I mustered us enough willpower to ask Billy Ball, the general manager, how business was going. Ball replied, I ve been in business for 10 years and this is the slowest I have ever seen it. I guess it s slow because of the closing of the Rosenwald and all the other people being relocated."
I asked Ball what his plans were for the bakery's future.
Ball said, "I'm trying to hang in there until the neighborhood makes its transition."
I built up enough strength to pull myself away from the sweets in the bakery and went right next door into the Parkway Barbershop, where I saw a young man cutting another young man's hair.
"Excuse me," I said. "Are you the owner?"
He looked closely at my press pass and said he would answer my questions only if I used his initials. I agreed to do that.
I asked, "How's business?"
M&M said, "Business is nil to none. I am trying hard to keep my head above water to keep from drowning. I’m trying hard to stay on the raft and keep afloat but it is a bear market out here. If one thing doesn t get you, the utilities will.
“The big businesses don’t want to give the small businesses a break. Small businesses are like a small guppy fish swimming in shark-infested waters. Otherwise, the big fish eats the small fish."
Next, I went a store on the west side of the street called My Style, a men’s-clothing store, 104 E. 47th St.
I asked the salesperson, a young man name Khan Yasin, how business was going.
He said, “At a snail’s pace. Very slow. I heard that they closed the Rosenwald because of a gas problem. I guess when they fix it, the people will return. At least I hope so."
I didn’t tell him what was really happening with the Rosenwald. The building was closed in January of this year and there are no plans to re-open it.
I asked him what his plans were for the store's future.
Yasin said, “Hopefully, to keep my job. My boss said if business doesn’t pick up, there’s no need for a salesman. Hopefully, the people will come back. We were good to them. We gave them 50 percent off. Not many stores will do that. They will charge them the full 100 percent price for their clothes."
I decided to stop in one more store that has been around for almost 30 years. Most of the people s watering hole is a store called 200 Liquor, 204 E. 47th St.
I asked the owner, S. Michelis, how business was going.
He said, "Business is great. I'm selling more grocery than liquor these days. I guess with the closing of other stores, like Al Finer Foods, people come here for their groceries.
“Plus, it has a lot to do with how I treat people. I treat people good and no matter where they go, they seem to come back here. The secret is to treat people nice."
I walked down to Ald. Dorothy Tillman’s 3rd Ward office and I asked her about the city’s plans for the 47th Street area.
Tillman said, “The city’s plan for the 47th Street area is to designate this area for a blues spot for African American culture."
I telephoned the city’s Department of Planning and spoke with Yvonne Gonzalez. I asked Gonzalez how much money is being spent to turn 47th Street into a blues spot for African American culture.
Gonzalez said, “The redevelopment plans are still in draft form and are waiting to be adopted at the Community Development Commission meeting, which will be held on May 22 in the City Council Chamber.”
Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
The stores on Tobacco Road are losing business because of the relocation of residents of the low-income areas surrounding the stores.
As I walked down the legendary 47th Street, better known as Tobacco Road, in early March, I noticed a lot of boarded up stores. The Michigan Garden Apartments, better known as the Rosenwald complex, lay barren. The Rosenwald once housed approximately 500 low-income families. Now it’s a ghost town. No children are outside playing; no one is standing outside of the once very busy dwelling.
I was waiting for a tumbleweed to brush by my dusty boots as I continued to walk down the long road of despair. I couldn’t help but wonder: If all the stores that were located in the Rosenwald closed down, then how are the other businesses in the community doing?
What effect is the relocation and displacement of low-income people from the Rosenwald, Robert Taylor Homes and other nearby properties having on the community businesses?
The first store that I went to was the Community Mart, 53 E. 47th St. I asked the manager, Abdul Mizyed, how business was now that the Rosenwald is closed.
Mizyed said, “There’s a big difference concerning our business since the closing of the buildings. Our profits are down but there are still a lot of houses in the community that are keeping us somewhat afloat - at least so far."
“Big Pun,” the assistant manager, said, “I’m finding it quite difficult concerning business but I’m optimistic concerning the future. I do believe that whatever the plan that the city has will come into play and our business will pick back up and everything will fall back into place as long as the community continues to support us."
As I continued to walk down the long, dusty Tobacco Road, I came upon the Marathon Gas station at 4700 S. Michigan Ave., the gas station that seems to have been there ever since my feet hit the soil of 47th Street 9 years ago.
In the Marathon's store, I asked the owner, P. Grewal, how business was going.
He looked down at the floor as he spoke to me: “Sliding down hill fast, sinking. I’m one person who is not glad that the city closed the Rosenwald because we lost a lot of business."
Grewal added, “One bad apple spoiled the whole bunch. Every body that lived there wasn’t bad. There’s bad and good in every community and in every race."
I asked him about his plans for the future.
Grewal said, "These are our jobs, our livelihood. We are going to stay."
As I continued on my journey for answers, I couldn’t help but notice the smells that were now lingering in the air: freshly baked donuts and cakes hot off of the oven rack and the strong, freshly brewed black coffee. It was a heavenly aroma coming from the Abundance Bakery, 105 E. 47th St.
It seemed to me the aromas took on hands and pulled me into the bakery. My eyes continued to roam. Like a kid in a candy store, I couldn’t stay focused from looking at all of the sweet treats that lined the shelves. I mustered us enough willpower to ask Billy Ball, the general manager, how business was going. Ball replied, I ve been in business for 10 years and this is the slowest I have ever seen it. I guess it s slow because of the closing of the Rosenwald and all the other people being relocated."
I asked Ball what his plans were for the bakery's future.
Ball said, "I'm trying to hang in there until the neighborhood makes its transition."
I built up enough strength to pull myself away from the sweets in the bakery and went right next door into the Parkway Barbershop, where I saw a young man cutting another young man's hair.
"Excuse me," I said. "Are you the owner?"
He looked closely at my press pass and said he would answer my questions only if I used his initials. I agreed to do that.
I asked, "How's business?"
M&M said, "Business is nil to none. I am trying hard to keep my head above water to keep from drowning. I’m trying hard to stay on the raft and keep afloat but it is a bear market out here. If one thing doesn t get you, the utilities will.
“The big businesses don’t want to give the small businesses a break. Small businesses are like a small guppy fish swimming in shark-infested waters. Otherwise, the big fish eats the small fish."
Next, I went a store on the west side of the street called My Style, a men’s-clothing store, 104 E. 47th St.
I asked the salesperson, a young man name Khan Yasin, how business was going.
He said, “At a snail’s pace. Very slow. I heard that they closed the Rosenwald because of a gas problem. I guess when they fix it, the people will return. At least I hope so."
I didn’t tell him what was really happening with the Rosenwald. The building was closed in January of this year and there are no plans to re-open it.
I asked him what his plans were for the store's future.
Yasin said, “Hopefully, to keep my job. My boss said if business doesn’t pick up, there’s no need for a salesman. Hopefully, the people will come back. We were good to them. We gave them 50 percent off. Not many stores will do that. They will charge them the full 100 percent price for their clothes."
I decided to stop in one more store that has been around for almost 30 years. Most of the people s watering hole is a store called 200 Liquor, 204 E. 47th St.
I asked the owner, S. Michelis, how business was going.
He said, "Business is great. I'm selling more grocery than liquor these days. I guess with the closing of other stores, like Al Finer Foods, people come here for their groceries.
“Plus, it has a lot to do with how I treat people. I treat people good and no matter where they go, they seem to come back here. The secret is to treat people nice."
I walked down to Ald. Dorothy Tillman’s 3rd Ward office and I asked her about the city’s plans for the 47th Street area.
Tillman said, “The city’s plan for the 47th Street area is to designate this area for a blues spot for African American culture."
I telephoned the city’s Department of Planning and spoke with Yvonne Gonzalez. I asked Gonzalez how much money is being spent to turn 47th Street into a blues spot for African American culture.
Gonzalez said, “The redevelopment plans are still in draft form and are waiting to be adopted at the Community Development Commission meeting, which will be held on May 22 in the City Council Chamber.”
Tales of Lawndale Housing
Tales of Lawndale Housing
by Beauty Turner
Assistant Editor
Many of the poorest of the poor in Lawndale feel as if they have been exploited for years by Cecil Butler and his company called Lawndale Restoration as well as U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.
Until last year, no one paid close attention to the cries of the people in the Lawndale community. People only started to cast their eyes to this West Side neighborhood when one of Cecil Butler's apartment buildings' roofs caved in, endangering the safety of residents.
The subsidized housing that Butler provided for Lawndale residents left many of them literally without a roof to call their own. According to the Chicago Tribune, more than 1,800 code violations were found in a fall 2004 inspection.
Butler's buildings suffer from mice and roach infestation, rotting ceilings, roof leaks, dangling electrical wires, and dirty sewage in many of the basements. There are lopsided, rickety porches and stairs. Year after year, these same places passed inspections and federal HUD money kept coming in, like rain through an open window.
Residents were demanding to know how did that keep occurring? Where were these same inspectors earlier when they passed these buildings to continue to receive federal dollars?
"Nothing is going to change," Shirley Beck, a long-time resident of Lawndale, said. "We have been living like this for so long and nobody cared. What is going to make the city care now?"
A number of activist groups are organizing the people of Lawndale to fight for better housing. They have also been fighting among each other.
"We have been working with the residents of Lawndale for over a year now. We are working to help protect their options and interest, and to make sure that what they decide is what is best for them," said Maurice Redd, executive director of the Lawndale Neighborhood Organization. Redd explained that the median income level in Lawndale Restoration buildings was $20,000 and less.
The residents affected by the terrible building conditions were given two options: take a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher and move into the private market or to move into another project-based subsidized housing building. The folks who chose Section 8 were not to get any additional financial help from HUD.
In September 2004, the in-your-face group called V.O.T.E. - Voices Of The Ex-offenders - hosted a tour of Butler's properties for then US Senate candidate Alan Keyes, the Republican nominee. The tour included one of Butler's buildings that had collapsed after a car ran into a support pillar.
At the time, Keyes made blunt statement to the media about the dilapidated properties. He alleged that Butler was a affiliate of Mayor Richard M. Daley, and that's why the buildings were allowed to continue in disrepair.
V.O.T.E. organizers also made a number of accusations, coming out against the presence of another activist group in Lawndale, the Association of Communities for Reform Now, or ACORN.
"The residents of Lawndale have been under siege for years. Cecil Butler is a tyrant as well as an alleged thief. Most of the residents of Lawndale are not even aware about him nor are they aware about the group called ACORN," said Paul McKinley, a member of V.O.T.E.
"ACORN has been around for years and they didn't do anything until our group came on the scene. Now they want to become the great white saviors of the Black community," McKinley said.
"ACORN is organizing the residents of Lawndale who wish to stay in their project-based buildings," said Madeline Talbot, Executive Director for Chicago ACORN. She said the group collected 615 signatures out of 1,048 apartments for residents who want to keep their project-based subsidies.
"HUD wants to voucher out the residents of Lawndale but what HUD isn't telling the Lawndale residents is that the housing market is extremely tight and that they are also vouchering out low-income public housing residents that are being relocated underneath the CHA Transformation Plan and many of them are losing their vouchers," Talbot went on to say.
Talbot also explained that many of the tenants who relocated with Section 8 Vouchers after the car demolished one of Butler's buildings were losing their vouchers because they could not install their utilities.
I called Cecil Butler and tried to talk to him about his buildings. "I have been murdered; they have crucified me," Butler said, sounding wounded like a shot deer by the negative news surrounding his buildings.
Butler's properties are allegedly due to be confiscated and there is talk from the city that the properties may be divided up by 60 different developers.
by Beauty Turner
Assistant Editor
Many of the poorest of the poor in Lawndale feel as if they have been exploited for years by Cecil Butler and his company called Lawndale Restoration as well as U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.
Until last year, no one paid close attention to the cries of the people in the Lawndale community. People only started to cast their eyes to this West Side neighborhood when one of Cecil Butler's apartment buildings' roofs caved in, endangering the safety of residents.
The subsidized housing that Butler provided for Lawndale residents left many of them literally without a roof to call their own. According to the Chicago Tribune, more than 1,800 code violations were found in a fall 2004 inspection.
Butler's buildings suffer from mice and roach infestation, rotting ceilings, roof leaks, dangling electrical wires, and dirty sewage in many of the basements. There are lopsided, rickety porches and stairs. Year after year, these same places passed inspections and federal HUD money kept coming in, like rain through an open window.
Residents were demanding to know how did that keep occurring? Where were these same inspectors earlier when they passed these buildings to continue to receive federal dollars?
"Nothing is going to change," Shirley Beck, a long-time resident of Lawndale, said. "We have been living like this for so long and nobody cared. What is going to make the city care now?"
A number of activist groups are organizing the people of Lawndale to fight for better housing. They have also been fighting among each other.
"We have been working with the residents of Lawndale for over a year now. We are working to help protect their options and interest, and to make sure that what they decide is what is best for them," said Maurice Redd, executive director of the Lawndale Neighborhood Organization. Redd explained that the median income level in Lawndale Restoration buildings was $20,000 and less.
The residents affected by the terrible building conditions were given two options: take a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher and move into the private market or to move into another project-based subsidized housing building. The folks who chose Section 8 were not to get any additional financial help from HUD.
In September 2004, the in-your-face group called V.O.T.E. - Voices Of The Ex-offenders - hosted a tour of Butler's properties for then US Senate candidate Alan Keyes, the Republican nominee. The tour included one of Butler's buildings that had collapsed after a car ran into a support pillar.
At the time, Keyes made blunt statement to the media about the dilapidated properties. He alleged that Butler was a affiliate of Mayor Richard M. Daley, and that's why the buildings were allowed to continue in disrepair.
V.O.T.E. organizers also made a number of accusations, coming out against the presence of another activist group in Lawndale, the Association of Communities for Reform Now, or ACORN.
"The residents of Lawndale have been under siege for years. Cecil Butler is a tyrant as well as an alleged thief. Most of the residents of Lawndale are not even aware about him nor are they aware about the group called ACORN," said Paul McKinley, a member of V.O.T.E.
"ACORN has been around for years and they didn't do anything until our group came on the scene. Now they want to become the great white saviors of the Black community," McKinley said.
"ACORN is organizing the residents of Lawndale who wish to stay in their project-based buildings," said Madeline Talbot, Executive Director for Chicago ACORN. She said the group collected 615 signatures out of 1,048 apartments for residents who want to keep their project-based subsidies.
"HUD wants to voucher out the residents of Lawndale but what HUD isn't telling the Lawndale residents is that the housing market is extremely tight and that they are also vouchering out low-income public housing residents that are being relocated underneath the CHA Transformation Plan and many of them are losing their vouchers," Talbot went on to say.
Talbot also explained that many of the tenants who relocated with Section 8 Vouchers after the car demolished one of Butler's buildings were losing their vouchers because they could not install their utilities.
I called Cecil Butler and tried to talk to him about his buildings. "I have been murdered; they have crucified me," Butler said, sounding wounded like a shot deer by the negative news surrounding his buildings.
Butler's properties are allegedly due to be confiscated and there is talk from the city that the properties may be divided up by 60 different developers.
Security Problems Continues for C.H.A Residents
Security Problems Continue for Residents
Beauty Turner, Assitant Editor
Crime continues to weigh on the minds of many families in the Bronzeville, Auburn Gresham and Englewood areas, where many public housing residents have relocated under the Chicago Housing Authority's $1.6 billion Plan for Transformation. They are continuing to complain about shootings, the tainted heroin and other illegal drugs circulating in their neighborhoods, as well as the general level of criminal activity in the remaining Chicago public housing complexes and at other crime 'hot spot' areas.
CHA is currently paying the Chicago Police Department $16 million annually to provide "above baseline services" to residents under the Plan for Transformation. However, current and former CHA residents are still complaining about the lack of a police presence in their communities to deter crime.
Most recently, at the Aug. 9 Tenant Services meeting, Gladys McKinney, the building president of 3983 S. Lake Park and another resident of that building complained to CHA CEO Terry Peterson about the continuing cluster of non-residents standing around the building and harassing the legal tenants. They also were upset about the lack of police presence at their building. At the same meeting, residents of the Bridgeport Homes also complained about their problems with other residents who they claimed to be gang members and they asked CHA to investigate and provide police protection.
In May, Regina Leonard, a single mother of three who relocated out of the CHA's Robert Taylor Homes in 2002, complained to RJ about her children not being able to go to the neighborhood grocery store in peace because of the recent shootings in her relocated area.
"My children can't even go to the corner store," she said during a telephone interview. "My children and I have to lie down on the floor so that we will not get shot." Leonard, who now lives in a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-subsidized apartment in Vincennes Plaza, located at 47th Street and Vincennes Avenue, said there has been shooting every day on her block since she moved out of the Robert Taylor Homes.
"The violence is bad. It is worse here then it was in the projects. Because at least there we knew each other," Leonard said.
Keshia Rhyme, a single young mother of five who relocated out of the Robert Taylor "A" development in 2002, claimed to have moved over three times before moving to the Auburn Gresham community, where she now lives. Rhyme told RJ recently that she was also concerned about the recent shootings on her block.
"I heard the gun shots and I heard somebody say 'Get down,'" Rhyme said.
Earlier this year, community residents, advocates for the poor and city officials challenged the gun violence head on after a rash of recent shootings of children in the Englewood community. Fourteen-year-old honor student Starkesia Reed was shot in her head on March 3 while looking out of her window waiting for a ride to school. Eight days later, 10-year-old Siretha White was shot in the head while trying desperately to escape a hail of bullets sprayed into her aunt's house during her surprise birthday party, not far from where Reed was killed.
Killings such as those sparked marches and demonstrations in Englewood and Auburn Gresham. Ongoing meetings have been set up to address the issues of violence and to put a stop to it. At a march and a demonstration held on Easter in Englewood, the Rev. Paul Hall attributed much of the surge in violence to the CHA Plan for Transformation.
"The problem is that the Chicago Housing Authority has emptied out their buildings and their residents are relocating into this area," Hall told reporters at the protest. "There's an influx of gang members coming into this area fighting for the same territory."
Chicago Police spokesperson Pat Camden told RJ in early June that at least 25 murders involving guns occurred in the Auburn Gresham community since the beginning of this year. Camden added that as of June 7, there had been 640 aggravated batteries citywide with a firearm since the beginning of this year. As of that same date, Camden reported there being three shooting deaths in the Bronzeville community, compared to four the same time last year.
In response to a reporter's question of whether the recent shootings in the Bronzeville, Englewood and Auburn Gresham community were because of an influx of former CHA residents into these areas, Camden replied:
"As for the shootings, we can't really pin point that and say it is because of any one thing. As I said before, there are cases of domestic violence, gang related as well as other reasons," he said.
In a recent RJ interview, Mark Donohue, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, gave his opinion about Chicago gangs, guns and drugs in the city's most vulnerable communities.
RJ: What do you think should be done about the gangs, guns and drugs in the CHA communities?
MD: The reaction of the police department typically is that the police or law enforcement all over the country will address the problem by throwing more manpower at the problem.
RJ: Why are there more drugs in those communities if there is more manpower there?
MD: In large part in my perspective, the policy makers don't want to let the police do the thing that is necessary to get rid of the drugs, guns and gangs.
RJ: What do you mean by that statement?
MD: We need to allow a police officer to use his discretion when it comes to getting these guns off of the streets.
RJ: What do you think should be done to combat the violence in those communities?
MD: I think that the necessary resources should be put in those communities, whether those resources are more police officers or job training.
Tainted heroin deaths soar
Like a deadly vulture circling its prey, tainted heroin has been causing a soaring number of deaths in Chicago lately. As of Aug. 15, there have been 180 deaths due to the tainted heroin, according to Dr. Edmund R. Donoghue, Chief Medical Examiner of Cook County. On August 15 alone, six suspected overdoses from the tainted heroin took place at the Harold Ickes public housing site, according to a CHA official who asked to be unnamed. The CHA source told RJ that eyewitnesses said the victims collapsed after being given "free $3 bags" from alleged drug dealers.
Community sources say the tainted drugs first surfaced in January. Residents that RJ interviewed in late May said they thought the tainted drug death toll had soared in the CHA public housing developments since the first reported death at the site. In a phone interview with RJ, Donoghue explained that the heroin was laced with the pain killer Fentanyl. Young and old, Black, Hispanic and white alike are dying from the deadly drug. The deaths have taken place not only here in the Windy City but around the country.
The Chicago Police Department, along with Chicago-based federal drug agents, raided the CHA Dearborn Homes development on June 23, where many tainted heroin deaths occurred. Despite the raids and the presence of the police department's blue flickering surveillance cameras at CHA sites, the sale of tainted heroin and other illegal drugs continues.
The Chicago Police Department, along with Chicago-based federal drug agents, raided the CHA Dearborn Homes development on June 23, where many tainted heroin deaths occurred. Despite the raids and the presence of the police department's blue flickering surveillance cameras at CHA sites, the sale of tainted heroin and other illegal drugs continues.
Deaths related to tainted heroin were reported at the Ida B. Wells public housing site as well. Joseph Watkins, a Wells resident and founder of Saving our Seeds, a non-for-profit organization which advocates on behalf of ex-felons and provide services to youths, said the circulation of tainted drugs throughout the poor and low-income communities is a conspiracy by the American government to harm poor people.
"I think that it was put in our communities intentionally," Watkins said. "Just like when they put the crack cocaine in our communities. The saga continues. They are testing those drop dead drugs on us."
Beauty Turner, Assitant Editor
Crime continues to weigh on the minds of many families in the Bronzeville, Auburn Gresham and Englewood areas, where many public housing residents have relocated under the Chicago Housing Authority's $1.6 billion Plan for Transformation. They are continuing to complain about shootings, the tainted heroin and other illegal drugs circulating in their neighborhoods, as well as the general level of criminal activity in the remaining Chicago public housing complexes and at other crime 'hot spot' areas.
CHA is currently paying the Chicago Police Department $16 million annually to provide "above baseline services" to residents under the Plan for Transformation. However, current and former CHA residents are still complaining about the lack of a police presence in their communities to deter crime.
Most recently, at the Aug. 9 Tenant Services meeting, Gladys McKinney, the building president of 3983 S. Lake Park and another resident of that building complained to CHA CEO Terry Peterson about the continuing cluster of non-residents standing around the building and harassing the legal tenants. They also were upset about the lack of police presence at their building. At the same meeting, residents of the Bridgeport Homes also complained about their problems with other residents who they claimed to be gang members and they asked CHA to investigate and provide police protection.
In May, Regina Leonard, a single mother of three who relocated out of the CHA's Robert Taylor Homes in 2002, complained to RJ about her children not being able to go to the neighborhood grocery store in peace because of the recent shootings in her relocated area.
"My children can't even go to the corner store," she said during a telephone interview. "My children and I have to lie down on the floor so that we will not get shot." Leonard, who now lives in a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-subsidized apartment in Vincennes Plaza, located at 47th Street and Vincennes Avenue, said there has been shooting every day on her block since she moved out of the Robert Taylor Homes.
"The violence is bad. It is worse here then it was in the projects. Because at least there we knew each other," Leonard said.
Keshia Rhyme, a single young mother of five who relocated out of the Robert Taylor "A" development in 2002, claimed to have moved over three times before moving to the Auburn Gresham community, where she now lives. Rhyme told RJ recently that she was also concerned about the recent shootings on her block.
"I heard the gun shots and I heard somebody say 'Get down,'" Rhyme said.
Earlier this year, community residents, advocates for the poor and city officials challenged the gun violence head on after a rash of recent shootings of children in the Englewood community. Fourteen-year-old honor student Starkesia Reed was shot in her head on March 3 while looking out of her window waiting for a ride to school. Eight days later, 10-year-old Siretha White was shot in the head while trying desperately to escape a hail of bullets sprayed into her aunt's house during her surprise birthday party, not far from where Reed was killed.
Killings such as those sparked marches and demonstrations in Englewood and Auburn Gresham. Ongoing meetings have been set up to address the issues of violence and to put a stop to it. At a march and a demonstration held on Easter in Englewood, the Rev. Paul Hall attributed much of the surge in violence to the CHA Plan for Transformation.
"The problem is that the Chicago Housing Authority has emptied out their buildings and their residents are relocating into this area," Hall told reporters at the protest. "There's an influx of gang members coming into this area fighting for the same territory."
Chicago Police spokesperson Pat Camden told RJ in early June that at least 25 murders involving guns occurred in the Auburn Gresham community since the beginning of this year. Camden added that as of June 7, there had been 640 aggravated batteries citywide with a firearm since the beginning of this year. As of that same date, Camden reported there being three shooting deaths in the Bronzeville community, compared to four the same time last year.
In response to a reporter's question of whether the recent shootings in the Bronzeville, Englewood and Auburn Gresham community were because of an influx of former CHA residents into these areas, Camden replied:
"As for the shootings, we can't really pin point that and say it is because of any one thing. As I said before, there are cases of domestic violence, gang related as well as other reasons," he said.
In a recent RJ interview, Mark Donohue, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, gave his opinion about Chicago gangs, guns and drugs in the city's most vulnerable communities.
RJ: What do you think should be done about the gangs, guns and drugs in the CHA communities?
MD: The reaction of the police department typically is that the police or law enforcement all over the country will address the problem by throwing more manpower at the problem.
RJ: Why are there more drugs in those communities if there is more manpower there?
MD: In large part in my perspective, the policy makers don't want to let the police do the thing that is necessary to get rid of the drugs, guns and gangs.
RJ: What do you mean by that statement?
MD: We need to allow a police officer to use his discretion when it comes to getting these guns off of the streets.
RJ: What do you think should be done to combat the violence in those communities?
MD: I think that the necessary resources should be put in those communities, whether those resources are more police officers or job training.
Tainted heroin deaths soar
Like a deadly vulture circling its prey, tainted heroin has been causing a soaring number of deaths in Chicago lately. As of Aug. 15, there have been 180 deaths due to the tainted heroin, according to Dr. Edmund R. Donoghue, Chief Medical Examiner of Cook County. On August 15 alone, six suspected overdoses from the tainted heroin took place at the Harold Ickes public housing site, according to a CHA official who asked to be unnamed. The CHA source told RJ that eyewitnesses said the victims collapsed after being given "free $3 bags" from alleged drug dealers.
Community sources say the tainted drugs first surfaced in January. Residents that RJ interviewed in late May said they thought the tainted drug death toll had soared in the CHA public housing developments since the first reported death at the site. In a phone interview with RJ, Donoghue explained that the heroin was laced with the pain killer Fentanyl. Young and old, Black, Hispanic and white alike are dying from the deadly drug. The deaths have taken place not only here in the Windy City but around the country.
The Chicago Police Department, along with Chicago-based federal drug agents, raided the CHA Dearborn Homes development on June 23, where many tainted heroin deaths occurred. Despite the raids and the presence of the police department's blue flickering surveillance cameras at CHA sites, the sale of tainted heroin and other illegal drugs continues.
The Chicago Police Department, along with Chicago-based federal drug agents, raided the CHA Dearborn Homes development on June 23, where many tainted heroin deaths occurred. Despite the raids and the presence of the police department's blue flickering surveillance cameras at CHA sites, the sale of tainted heroin and other illegal drugs continues.
Deaths related to tainted heroin were reported at the Ida B. Wells public housing site as well. Joseph Watkins, a Wells resident and founder of Saving our Seeds, a non-for-profit organization which advocates on behalf of ex-felons and provide services to youths, said the circulation of tainted drugs throughout the poor and low-income communities is a conspiracy by the American government to harm poor people.
"I think that it was put in our communities intentionally," Watkins said. "Just like when they put the crack cocaine in our communities. The saga continues. They are testing those drop dead drugs on us."
A Trip To The Future
A Trip To The Future
Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
Robert Taylor Homes resident leaders went on a trip in April to Springfield and Peoria where they saw beautiful new homes that were built by the same developers that will re-build Robert Taylor. But the homes that they saw weren't for all but a few of the former residents that used to reside in the John Hay Homes and Warren Homes.
Before the redevelopment of Robert Taylor started, many of the residents thought the development teams would be no more than scheme teams, only out to get their land.
But in late February, Robert Taylor seemed to hit the jackpot with a dream team of developers from Brinshore-Michaels. Brinshore-Michaels held community meetings and answered the residents' questions with respect.
Brinshore-Michaels sponsored a trip to Springfield and Peoria, Ill., in April to let the residents see first hand some of the handiwork of developer Peter Levavi. Levavi hosted the trip and Rich Sciortino, President of Brinshore-Michaels, accompanied the residents.
The Trip Begins
The residents of the Robert Taylor "A" waited patiently in the twilight hours of 7 a.m. on April 17. A luxury lined coach bus pulled up to the curb behind the off-white concrete tenement building at 4429 S. State St.
A coach bus driver adorned in a chauffeur's black outfit with a matching hat opened the doors and smiled and treated the residents like major VIPs - very important people.
Already comfortably seated were developers Levavi, Sciortino and David Moore from Brinshore-Michaels and Chicago Housing Authority official Jose Anthony Alvarez, among others.
As we boarded the bus, breakfast - in the form of bagels and cream cheese and fresh apple and orange juice - was given to whoever desired it.
We watched 4429 fade away into the background like a ground hog's shadow on a semi-cloudy spring day. We entered Robert Taylor "B," where Local Advisory Council President Mildred Dennis and a few more residents boarded the bus.
I started thinking that some of the residents didn't know what it means to be "lease compliant." Those residents who are not "lease compliant" stand a chance of being evicted and will not be able to come back into the newly built homes. I asked everybody on the bus to explain what "lease complaint" means. LAC President Dennis said that "lease compliant means all your bills are paid up, electric bills, too. Make sure that nobody has a felony and if they do, get them off of your lease. Make sure there are no One Strikes."
Dennis said she was having classes to teach residents how to be lease compliant.
"I tell people how to become lease compliant in case they are not," Dennis said.
In the midst of her conversation, community activist Tyrone Galtney interrupted, "You already know that lease compliance is nothing more than a way to take my people's homes, nothing more or nothing less. What the LAC presidents don't know is that when they are finished tearing down these buildings, they are no longer needed. The developers who will become more privatized will no longer be obligated to CHA. It will then be changing hands. Otherwise, if the LAC presidents don't do a contract with the developers, they will still lose out and so will the residents."
We entered the golden gates of Springfield and went into the Madison Park Place Homes, where we were greeted by Springfield Housing Authority Executive Director Bill Logan. Logan showed us around the newly developed complex of single and duplex deluxe homes. He said the area once was occupied by notorious gangs and highly infested with drugs, a development that was once called the John Hay Homes. The Hay Homes once consisted of over 600 units of low-income housing on 33 acres of land. Logan said the Springfield Housing Authority redeveloped the Hay Homes with a $35 million Hope VI grant, the same program that will be used to redevelop Robert Taylor.
Logan said there weren't many people in the Hay Homes in 1998 when redevelopment started. "When I got here, it was only 39 families from the Hay development still here. All the other ones were already relocated. They were given a contract to return back," he said.
I asked Logan how the housing authority kept track of the displaced tenants?
"We used media outlets, such as radio, television and community newspapers," he said.
I asked Logan how many of the residents from the Hay Homes still live there?
A representative for the management of the Madison Park Place Homes said only two families from the former development live there and two more are pending.
Logan corrected the management representative:
"Well over 200 people came back to fill out the applications but due to them not being able to pass the criteria, they could not come back."
I asked Logan about the criteria and he said he would provide me with a list by the end of the trip. I have yet to receive that list.
Cora Dillard, LAC president of Robert Taylor "A," asked Logan, "Where's the schools?"
Logan answered, "About a mile from here. I used to reside here and I walked to school."
LAC President Cora Dillard replied, "So we will need a car."
Many of the residents were very impressed with Madison Park Place Homes. They liked the way the new homes looked, the way they were built, and the safety of the community.
The trip continued to Peoria. We stopped at a construction site and were given out hard hats by Roger John, the CEO of the Peoria Housing Authority.
John showed us around the site, a place that was once a development called Warren Homes, 13 acres of land being filled with wooden homes.
Some of the residents on the trip said they liked the Madison Park Place Homes better. The Madison Park Place units were arranged in a circle, decorated better, and made of stronger materials, said Shashak Ben Levi, Tyrone Galtney and Barbara Dennis, a resident of Robert Taylor "B."
John said only the former residents who can pass the screening criteria will come back to the new development.
John also did not provide me with the screening criteria.
On the bus ride back to Chicago, the residents reflected on what they saw.
LAC President Dillard said, "I liked the houses in Springfield better than in Peoria. I didn't like the fact about the schools being so far away."
Mary Reed, president of 4525 S. Federal St. in Robert Taylor "A," said, "This trip was a wonderful thing."
Barbara Dennis, a resident of Robert Taylor "B," said, "I was wondering, Why do we the residents get to view what might become of something? Take, for instance, the pre-school that's behind Farren Elementary School on State Street. We dug the dirt to build that school but now I found out that none of our children can attend it.
"Will the housing be the same way? We will help build them but want to be able to live in them. Otherwise, we will be like a child looking in a candy store at all the sweet treats that line the shelves with our faces pressed up against the window looking through a glass with no money to afford to buy any. Will the housing be the same? We want be able to afford to live in them."
Mbanna Kantako
I called a former resident of the John Hay Homes in Springfield, Mbanna Kantako. Kantako was the very last resident that was left behind after they had forced or moved everybody else out.
Kantako described the Hay Homes: "Living in the John Hay Homes was like your typical concentration camp, wasn't nothing nice. But it wasn't the people that lived there. The gangs and the drugs were a government mission just so they could take the land. You probably find the same situation in every development."
We talked about keeping in contact with his former neighbors.
Kantako said, "I only know of one resident that's living in the same place. All of the rest are constantly moving at least more than once. Even I had to move twice now. That's what the residents of public housing who are underneath the transformation plan have to look forward to now."
Kantako explained what it was like in the last days of the redevelopment process in the Hay Homes when he was the lone resident left.
Kantako said, "The Springfield Housing Authority did me wrong. They stopped accepting my rent and I didn't have to pay for numerous months. So after a while, they took me to eviction court, saying I owed $3000. I didn't pay it.
"They did dirty tactics such as having gang bangers shoot at me. They took my furniture out of my apartment, took it and sat it on the curb and then took it back to my apartment all broken up.
"I had a pirate radio station in my house and my organization, called the Tenant Rights Association, that I started so I could document all of the things that they were doing to the residents.
"Plus, I am an activist. I wouldn't let them get away with the dirt. They eventually gave me a Section 8 voucher for me and my wife and three children.
"They asked me to give them a receipt for all the things that I had to repair and buy. They were going to reimburse me. I gave them a receipt for $1,800. All they gave me back is $127, no more and no less." Kantako said what happened to him could happen to Chicago residents.
"All kinds of dirty tricks are going to be played on you. Many people are going to be done wrong, especially young mothers with multiple children.
This is no longer a tenants rights issue but is now a human rights issue all over the world."
Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
Robert Taylor Homes resident leaders went on a trip in April to Springfield and Peoria where they saw beautiful new homes that were built by the same developers that will re-build Robert Taylor. But the homes that they saw weren't for all but a few of the former residents that used to reside in the John Hay Homes and Warren Homes.
Before the redevelopment of Robert Taylor started, many of the residents thought the development teams would be no more than scheme teams, only out to get their land.
But in late February, Robert Taylor seemed to hit the jackpot with a dream team of developers from Brinshore-Michaels. Brinshore-Michaels held community meetings and answered the residents' questions with respect.
Brinshore-Michaels sponsored a trip to Springfield and Peoria, Ill., in April to let the residents see first hand some of the handiwork of developer Peter Levavi. Levavi hosted the trip and Rich Sciortino, President of Brinshore-Michaels, accompanied the residents.
The Trip Begins
The residents of the Robert Taylor "A" waited patiently in the twilight hours of 7 a.m. on April 17. A luxury lined coach bus pulled up to the curb behind the off-white concrete tenement building at 4429 S. State St.
A coach bus driver adorned in a chauffeur's black outfit with a matching hat opened the doors and smiled and treated the residents like major VIPs - very important people.
Already comfortably seated were developers Levavi, Sciortino and David Moore from Brinshore-Michaels and Chicago Housing Authority official Jose Anthony Alvarez, among others.
As we boarded the bus, breakfast - in the form of bagels and cream cheese and fresh apple and orange juice - was given to whoever desired it.
We watched 4429 fade away into the background like a ground hog's shadow on a semi-cloudy spring day. We entered Robert Taylor "B," where Local Advisory Council President Mildred Dennis and a few more residents boarded the bus.
I started thinking that some of the residents didn't know what it means to be "lease compliant." Those residents who are not "lease compliant" stand a chance of being evicted and will not be able to come back into the newly built homes. I asked everybody on the bus to explain what "lease complaint" means. LAC President Dennis said that "lease compliant means all your bills are paid up, electric bills, too. Make sure that nobody has a felony and if they do, get them off of your lease. Make sure there are no One Strikes."
Dennis said she was having classes to teach residents how to be lease compliant.
"I tell people how to become lease compliant in case they are not," Dennis said.
In the midst of her conversation, community activist Tyrone Galtney interrupted, "You already know that lease compliance is nothing more than a way to take my people's homes, nothing more or nothing less. What the LAC presidents don't know is that when they are finished tearing down these buildings, they are no longer needed. The developers who will become more privatized will no longer be obligated to CHA. It will then be changing hands. Otherwise, if the LAC presidents don't do a contract with the developers, they will still lose out and so will the residents."
We entered the golden gates of Springfield and went into the Madison Park Place Homes, where we were greeted by Springfield Housing Authority Executive Director Bill Logan. Logan showed us around the newly developed complex of single and duplex deluxe homes. He said the area once was occupied by notorious gangs and highly infested with drugs, a development that was once called the John Hay Homes. The Hay Homes once consisted of over 600 units of low-income housing on 33 acres of land. Logan said the Springfield Housing Authority redeveloped the Hay Homes with a $35 million Hope VI grant, the same program that will be used to redevelop Robert Taylor.
Logan said there weren't many people in the Hay Homes in 1998 when redevelopment started. "When I got here, it was only 39 families from the Hay development still here. All the other ones were already relocated. They were given a contract to return back," he said.
I asked Logan how the housing authority kept track of the displaced tenants?
"We used media outlets, such as radio, television and community newspapers," he said.
I asked Logan how many of the residents from the Hay Homes still live there?
A representative for the management of the Madison Park Place Homes said only two families from the former development live there and two more are pending.
Logan corrected the management representative:
"Well over 200 people came back to fill out the applications but due to them not being able to pass the criteria, they could not come back."
I asked Logan about the criteria and he said he would provide me with a list by the end of the trip. I have yet to receive that list.
Cora Dillard, LAC president of Robert Taylor "A," asked Logan, "Where's the schools?"
Logan answered, "About a mile from here. I used to reside here and I walked to school."
LAC President Cora Dillard replied, "So we will need a car."
Many of the residents were very impressed with Madison Park Place Homes. They liked the way the new homes looked, the way they were built, and the safety of the community.
The trip continued to Peoria. We stopped at a construction site and were given out hard hats by Roger John, the CEO of the Peoria Housing Authority.
John showed us around the site, a place that was once a development called Warren Homes, 13 acres of land being filled with wooden homes.
Some of the residents on the trip said they liked the Madison Park Place Homes better. The Madison Park Place units were arranged in a circle, decorated better, and made of stronger materials, said Shashak Ben Levi, Tyrone Galtney and Barbara Dennis, a resident of Robert Taylor "B."
John said only the former residents who can pass the screening criteria will come back to the new development.
John also did not provide me with the screening criteria.
On the bus ride back to Chicago, the residents reflected on what they saw.
LAC President Dillard said, "I liked the houses in Springfield better than in Peoria. I didn't like the fact about the schools being so far away."
Mary Reed, president of 4525 S. Federal St. in Robert Taylor "A," said, "This trip was a wonderful thing."
Barbara Dennis, a resident of Robert Taylor "B," said, "I was wondering, Why do we the residents get to view what might become of something? Take, for instance, the pre-school that's behind Farren Elementary School on State Street. We dug the dirt to build that school but now I found out that none of our children can attend it.
"Will the housing be the same way? We will help build them but want to be able to live in them. Otherwise, we will be like a child looking in a candy store at all the sweet treats that line the shelves with our faces pressed up against the window looking through a glass with no money to afford to buy any. Will the housing be the same? We want be able to afford to live in them."
Mbanna Kantako
I called a former resident of the John Hay Homes in Springfield, Mbanna Kantako. Kantako was the very last resident that was left behind after they had forced or moved everybody else out.
Kantako described the Hay Homes: "Living in the John Hay Homes was like your typical concentration camp, wasn't nothing nice. But it wasn't the people that lived there. The gangs and the drugs were a government mission just so they could take the land. You probably find the same situation in every development."
We talked about keeping in contact with his former neighbors.
Kantako said, "I only know of one resident that's living in the same place. All of the rest are constantly moving at least more than once. Even I had to move twice now. That's what the residents of public housing who are underneath the transformation plan have to look forward to now."
Kantako explained what it was like in the last days of the redevelopment process in the Hay Homes when he was the lone resident left.
Kantako said, "The Springfield Housing Authority did me wrong. They stopped accepting my rent and I didn't have to pay for numerous months. So after a while, they took me to eviction court, saying I owed $3000. I didn't pay it.
"They did dirty tactics such as having gang bangers shoot at me. They took my furniture out of my apartment, took it and sat it on the curb and then took it back to my apartment all broken up.
"I had a pirate radio station in my house and my organization, called the Tenant Rights Association, that I started so I could document all of the things that they were doing to the residents.
"Plus, I am an activist. I wouldn't let them get away with the dirt. They eventually gave me a Section 8 voucher for me and my wife and three children.
"They asked me to give them a receipt for all the things that I had to repair and buy. They were going to reimburse me. I gave them a receipt for $1,800. All they gave me back is $127, no more and no less." Kantako said what happened to him could happen to Chicago residents.
"All kinds of dirty tricks are going to be played on you. Many people are going to be done wrong, especially young mothers with multiple children.
This is no longer a tenants rights issue but is now a human rights issue all over the world."
Moving at their own Risk
Moving at Their Own Risk
Beauty Turner and Brian J. Rogal
The Redevelopment of public housing creates new dangers
Nicole Wright thought her new home in Englewood would be safer than the Robert Taylor Homes. Last fall, her family was displaced from the dilapidated high-rise at 4037 S. Federal St., one of dozens demolished under the Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation.
Her new neighborhood is filled with blocks where trees shade homes with big porches, and neighbors sit out and enjoy the pleasant weather. But this area is also plagued by drugs and gang violence. Like many relocated out of public housing developments, Wright had a teenage son, Kemp, 16. Teenagers can be dangerous for families leaving public housing, even if they are not members of a street gang. And gang members in Englewood looked upon the Wright family with suspicion.
At the Taylor Homes, Kemp knew everyone---and how to avoid trouble, Wright said. But she feared for his safety in their new surroundings. After they moved to the house on 67th Street, Wright told all of her children, "Don't tell nobody we're from the 40s," a reference to the Robert Taylor buildings located between 40th and 50th streets.
On June 14, Kemp left their home to play basketball. Not long after, Wright's neighbors rushed to her home to tell her Kemp had been shot in the back in a field on 58th Street between Green and Halsted streets. They drove her to the scene, but he was already dead. "He was just lying there with his tongue hanging out, as if he'd had a seizure," Wright said. "I'm still [confused] on what happened to my son."
At first, Wright believed Kemp was caught in a random shooting. But she and her family have become convinced that Kemp was killed because he was plunged into a neighborhood filled with unfamiliar gang members and rivalries.
"My child was more protected in the projects," Wright said. "There's too much freedom out here. It's sad to feel like that."
CHA officials refused to say if they considered the possibility that the Plan for Transformation might stir up bloodshed. The CHA declined to answer numerous verbal and written requests, and finally issued an official statement that reads, in part, "We are working to create environments where hard-working, law-abiding residents can live in safety and peace."
The Chicago Police Department refused to address how they planned to deal with the violence in city neighborhoods to where residents are relocating.
But police officers, community activists, public housing residents and researchers said the demolition of high-rises has squeezed many competing street gangs and drug dealers into tighter and tighter spaces in public housing, often with violent results. At the same time, they said, the relocation process has stirred up territorial disputes in neighborhoods like Englewood, pitting young men with established gang and drug connections against residents from public housing, where different networks controlled the illegal drug market.
In a joint investigation, Residents' Journal and The Chicago Reporter found several murders that were linked to such disputes. The publications also found that the murder rate in CHA developments has nearly doubled since 1999, the year before the city launched its Plan for Transformation, a 10-year, $1.5 billion redevelopment effort, in which the CHA moves nearly 25,000 families. And, while murders have fallen citywide, they have increased in Englewood and two other neighborhoods where large numbers of former CHA residents have relocated.
"It's like they took all the gangs and mixed them up," said Wright's younger brother, Sammy, a 30-year-old carpenter and roofing contractor. "Every project they shut down, they don't check where they put you. They just put you." And, afterwards, the gangs are "automatically bumping heads [and the CHA's attitude is] whatever happens happens, but we got them out of our hair."
City officials are aware of the problem. Former U.S. Attorney Thomas P. Sullivan, the CHA's former independent monitor who oversaw the relocation process until early this year, wrote several reports in which he cautioned CHA officials about the dangers of relocating residents from neighborhoods or buildings controlled by one gang to another. He met with CHA officials and also said that CHA staff made "good-faith efforts" in 2003 to move families where they would not face trouble from gangs, but were not entirely successful in avoiding conflict.
Some experts believe the violence is likely to continue as the city demolishes more high-rises, which have long been considered a haven for drug dealers. A lack of building security, the ease of controlling spaces inside the entryways and the inability of police officers to approach developments without being observed has made the high-rises valued drug "turf." Gang members felt "the [housing] project itself was like a fortress," said John Hagedorn, gang researcher and criminal justice professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
He said pushing dealers out to other neighborhoods will force them "to carve out turf and contest with other gangs," a violent process that he and other academics say they have observed for years in Chicago. Hagedorn said such turmoil didn't happen in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and other cities throughout the country that saw their neighborhoods calm down and homicide rates drop steeply after the crack cocaine epidemic subsided in the '90s.
There is no one way to measure how the city's gangs have responded to the demolition of public housing. In some areas, it has touched off deadly feuds that boiled in developments and outlying neighborhoods, adding to the city's homicide statistics.
Elsewhere, gangs that had been rivals now share the same buildings and appear to have cast off their old identities. As their turf shrank, many gang members discounted the rivalries and lore that were part of their culture, concentrating on what has become most important---the profits from drug dealing.
Even then, agreements sometimes break down, and gunfire erupts.
In 1999, 460 people were killed by firearms in the city. By 2003, that number climbed to 484. But the rate soared at CHA developments, where the number of firearm deaths per 1,000 occupied units rose from 1.3 in 1999 to 2.3 in 2003.
In 2003, 24 people were shot to death in CHA developments, up from 21 in 1999, according to police data---even though the number of occupied units in the CHA fell nearly 37 percent in this time, from 16,446 in 1999 to 10,405 in 2003. In the same period, other serious crimes in the CHA such as criminal sexual assault, robbery and aggravated battery declined by nearly 50 percent.
In three of the neighborhoods where CHA residents have frequently been relocated---Englewood, Roseland and South Shore---homicides increased by 36 percent from 1998 to 2003. Citywide, homicides fell by 15 percent during that time.
Wright still doesn't know for sure what happened to Kemp, but said the chain of events that ended in his murder probably began a week earlier when an acquaintance of Kemp's, a 16-year-old boy known to many in the neighborhood as "Fatman," was severely beaten by gang members from the 58th Street area.
A.J., a wiry 16-year-old neighbor with polite manners, said Fatman wanted to go back to 58th Street and show the boys he had a posse.
A.J. said he, Kemp and four other neighborhood boys agreed to go with Fatman to 58th Street. "We didn't know the boys [Fatman was] into it with," said A.J., who didn't want his real name used for fear of retaliation.
"Fatman's from 58th Street and just moved down here," Wright said. Some of the younger children in the neighborhood told her the beating Fatman received was because he was "hanging out with someone from the 40s."
"[Fatman] knew it wasn't over," said Wright. He knew that Kemp and the other boys would be in danger by going with him to 58th Street, she said. Wright was further convinced that Kemp's killing wasn't a random act when, in mid-July, she heard Fatman was joking about the murder, laughing as he told her 14-year-old daughter, "That nigger got gunned down."
William Hull, 16, was arrested for the killing on June 16. An arrest report shows that police identify Hull as a member of the same gang that reportedly sold drugs at 4037 S. Federal St., the Taylor Homes building the Wrights left last fall.
But similar gang affiliation does not mean much: Each neighborhood group would have different rules and rivalries of its own, said Dee, a close family friend, who used to live in the building and asked that her real name not be used.
Still, Wright maintains Kemp was not a gang member. "He never disrespected me; he was an innocent bystander," she said. Wright received a disability check for Kemp, an asthma sufferer. It was her only source of income.
Dee said Kemp wasn't violent or even forceful, but was occasionally involved in selling drugs as a low-level person used by "older boys." "I would say it was doing what he had to do to stay alive," she said. But she is afraid it may have caused some of the conflict in Englewood. "He was not strong enough to keep up in that neighborhood," Dee said, adding, "If [Wright]'s still around there, it's going to happen to another of her kids."
Wright said the family plans to move, but her lease is not up until September. Sammy, her brother, said as the two youngest siblings of their family, he and Wright have always supported each other.
"One way or another, this family will make it," he said.
On July 13, in the early evening, the life of 31-year-old Byron Howard came to a violent end in a decayed playground between two buildings in the Cabrini-Green public housing development. Howard died in front of a group of young children, shot by an alleged rival drug dealer in retaliation for a previous altercation, according to some residents. Others said they heard rumors that the men argued over a sports jersey. Less than a week later, the only sign of Howard's death was an immaculate white teddy bear lying among the damp wood chips and broken asphalt, left as a memento.
Several police officers were parked behind the development in a nearby school lot, said Marvin Edwards, a longtime Cabrini-Green resident. Still, the police were visible from the playground, he said. "The [shooter] seen [the police] presence and had no regard for it."
Edwards has a simple explanation for the Howard killing, and others like it: "Who was going to sell what---and where they would sell it."
Nearly 20 people have been gunned down at the development since 1999, the result of intensified competition for drug turf, according to residents.
Police arrested and charged Mose E. Stamps for Howard's murder later that week. Court documents show Stamps had been arrested for selling drugs. And though Stamps was not a Cabrini resident, according to police records, he had also been arrested for alerting individuals that they under surveillance during a narcotics investigation at Cabrini-Green.
Marvin Edwards and his twin brother Maurice, now 36 and known around the neighborhood simply as "the twins," have lived in Cabrini-Green all of their lives. They can hardly keep track of all the gang fights that have broken out over the years. Some were the result of personal slights that young men took too seriously, they said. But others had a clear origin---the drug market that many of Cabrini's young men find more lucrative than unemployment, or low-paying jobs, the twins said.
Since 1998, as the city demolished dozens of high-rises in the Robert Taylor Homes, Rockwell Gardens and Stateway Gardens, Marvin Edwards and some of his neighbors have watched factions of known gang members from those developments migrate to Cabrini-Green.
"They cliqued up with other [lower-level] guys" and went into business together, he said, though they were from a wide array of gangs. And when reputed gang leader Ernest "Smoky" Wilson tried to impose a tax on their operations, "all those heads started bumping," Marvin said.
"It was something out of a Beirut movie," Marvin said of the gang war that then erupted, on July 15, 2001. "They were firing AK-47's from every vacant apartment" in the high-rises on Division Street.
The twins organized a meeting in the development's property management office and sat all of the factions' "enforcers" at one table until they made peace, Marvin said. "A lot of these young men have known us since they were babies."
Within three weeks, the upstarts and all their "cliques" had established the right to occupy their new buildings without paying taxes, Marvin believes.
The twins organized more community events and things were relatively peaceful for over a year. But during 2002, 10 people were shot to death in the Cabrini development, the highest one-year total at a CHA property during the last five years, according to police data.
Another flare-up may be on the horizon. In April, the CHA issued notices to 385 families in nine Cabrini-Green buildings informing them that they had 180 days to move out of the buildings, and into another public housing unit or the private market with a housing voucher. Residents challenged the notices and took the CHA to court. A federal judge approved a plan to have the CHA team up with the Cabrini residents' advisory council to survey residents on where they want to live.
But some residents said issuing the 180-day notices has touched off a flurry of shooting incidents, including the one that claimed Howard's life. The impending demolition has made the handful of dealers there fear they are running out of time. "Everybody's trying to sell as much as they can," said Maurice Edwards.
"They know they're going to be shipped off," said Hope, an 18-year-old Cabrini resident, who requested to be identified by his last name. Some of the dealers would rather go down than face life on the outside, he said. "Some people are planning to die before Cabrini is torn down." But Hope said he won't go in that direction. "My brother died from gang violence, and I want to show my mother we both won't be statistics and die in these streets."
The changing landscape at the South Side's Robert Taylor Homes has also sparked gun battles and unlikely gang alliances. From 1999 to 2003, 17 people were shot to death at the development, where three high-rises remain out of the 28 that once towered over the Dan Ryan Expressway.
Leila Hallom, a resident of the development for 11 years, said the level of drug dealing in her building "got worse since the [other] buildings closed down."
Drug dealers at Taylor have attempted to divide up the shrinking territory, with limited success. There's less territory to claim and more people to share it---or fight over it. At 4429 S. Federal St., one of the three remaining high-rises, known gang factions from Taylor's demolished buildings frequently gather at the base of the building.
Jermaine "Dewey" Colbert, 28, Hallom's cousin, was murdered directly behind the building on March 6, according to police records. Hallom said Colbert was killed by a member of his gang. In the building, even the gang factions have split into factions, said Mary Forney, a 10-year resident of Taylor who saw the shooting from her window.
Police records show Colbert had lived at 5001 S. Federal St., a now-demolished Taylor high-rise. He had been arrested for attempting to sell narcotics in the 3900 block of South Prairie Avenue as recently as December 2002, and by that time he was living at 12022 S. Prairie Ave. on the far South Side, records show. Police said he was a self-identified member of the Vice Lords, although the 4429 S. Federal St. building has historically been dominated by a different gang.
Residents say the dealers at 4429 S. Federal St. are affiliated with a number of gang factions. But, on the first of every month, when welfare benefits and paychecks arrive at once, the dealers do their heaviest business, and, at least temporarily, are too busy to fight over the turf.
On May 1, children were playing on the gallery-style porches, and music was blasting loud. Hot coals were sputtering in outside barbecues. At least six boys and young men were standing downstairs, some pitching pennies, while others were shooting dice.
About 20 young men and women were downstairs selling drugs to whomever would buy. Yet another group stood outside working security for the drug dealers. Chants rang out like "5-0 in the lane," "got that rock," and "got that blow." Although most buyers appear to be African American and poor, it's not unusual to see a white person, or someone in a suit, or, occasionally, an addict with fingertips burnt from smoking and circles under his or her eyes. "There'll be so many people downstairs I can't count them," Hallom said.
In mid-July, the action seemed to have calmed down. A much smaller crowd hung out on both sides of the building, some involved in the drug trade and others just enjoying the sunshine. The scene was peaceful, but inside, two young men carefully shielded objects they'd hidden away in a hole in the wall.
But, with so little territory and so many trying to use the building at the same time, Forney said "tension can explode like a ticking time bomb."
Violence like the Colbert shooting is not uncommon. On June 26, 2003, George Holiday, 32, and Lesley A. Coppage, 24, were shot to death in broad daylight in the 2200 block of South State Street in the Ickes Homes development.
"Most of the shooting around here is [caused by] someone selling on their turf," said Gloria Williams, the president of the Ickes Homes Local Advisory Council, pointing to the June 26 shooting as an example. But she hates to give people the impression that Ickes, one of the sites used to house relocated residents, is wracked by uncontrollable violence.
"This is one of the few developments where kids ride their bikes and girls jump rope," she said.
But the occasional shootings send a message, she added. "You was top dog where you came from, but you're not going to come here."
"You'd think that with the feds wanting them so bad" the dealers would keep a low profile, Forney said. But "everybody's stealing everybody's drugs and everyone wants to take over."
A 33-year-old patrol officer has witnessed the same free-for-all in the 5th Police District on Chicago's far South Side. "It's like a killing frenzy out here," said the officer, who has spent the past four years in the 5th District, which includes the Roseland, Pullman, West Pullman and Riverdale community areas. He asked not to be identified, fearing for his job security. "[The killing] stems from a lot of people from other projects being dumped in Roseland" as well as increased drug-selling competition.
From 1998 to 2003, the number of killings in the Roseland community area jumped by 40 percent, from 15 to 21. There were 26 murders there in 2001.
The officer grew up in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development, located along 130th Street just west of the Bishop Ford Freeway in Riverdale. Calling himself "a product of the projects," he said it was impossible not to become close to other young men who began dealing drugs and getting into other criminal activity. "I wasn't in a gang, but my best friend was, and I hung with him. When they would have gang meetings [the leader] would tell me I had to [leave]," he said. "The first time I saw someone get shot I was 10."
As familiar as he is with the neighborhood---and its players---the officer said residents, including some gang members, trust him. Acquaintances involved in drug dealing have sought his advice after being contacted by the FBI, he said. "I just tell them, 'They got something on you, so be honest and tell them what they want to know.'"
But the gang ties to drug dealing and turf violence are not as clear as they used to be, the officer said. It has made the city's neighborhoods more unpredictable than ever. "You don't have the single, top drug dealer any more," he said. "Now, the little homey on the street, he doesn't want to wait."
But the shootings are not necessarily "gang conflict," at least the way most people understand it, the officer said. Typically, the conflicts result from disputes between dealers over who has the right to sell drugs in a particular area. Their gang connections are often difficult to unravel---and sometimes irrelevant, he said.
The pursuit of drug money has broken down the gangs---and, ultimately, led to more conflict, said Benny Lee, a former gang leader who is now an outreach worker for CeaseFire. Started in 1995, the organization works with community groups, churches, and others to reduce neighborhood violence.
As a member of one of the first black families in Austin during the late '60s, Lee and a group of friends were constantly harassed by whites. "That forced us to become a gang," he said. Lee joined in 1967, when he was 14.
But things began to change in the early 1980s, when Lee and other members of his gang returned from prison. Returning to their neighborhoods, they found few opportunities. "That's when [many] got into drug selling," Lee said.
"Different branches began controlling their own turf in their own neighborhood," he said. Then, by the late 1990s, the gangs that had once dubbed themselves "Nations" had fractured into blocks. "Many people who control a neighborhood's drug trade might still recognize a gang, but it's the drug money that holds their loyalty," Lee said.
And the money elevates the tension.
Tio Hardiman, a community coordinator for CeaseFire, said a male relative recently relocated from the Henry Horner Homes, a West Side public housing development, to the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side. His relative quickly attracted attention from the neighborhood's young gang members, who feared he was setting up a new drug-selling operation.
"Thirty guys surrounded [his] house," said Hardiman, who arrived on the scene before any real trouble started. He chuckled ruefully as he recalled asking to speak to the head honcho, and found himself face-to-face with a 15-year-old. "I didn't go over and preach," said Hardiman, who succeeded in convincing them his relative would not set up a "business."
Hardiman said the drug violence in black neighborhoods doesn't happen the way it is portrayed in the media. Although predominantly Latino gangs still battle each other, in the black community gang warfare is a thing of the past. Fighting has gotten to be more one-on-one and no one's in enough of a leadership position to coordinate big gang battles, Hardiman said. "You've got [Gangster Disciples] working with Vice Lords. You've got all kinds of mix-ups in the [black] community."
But other issues can also lead to violence, including more routine misunderstandings, perceived slights and women.
"Some guys just like being gladiators," said Hardiman. He recalled a shooting involving two men from different gangs that had nothing to do with their gang affiliations and was, in fact, a fight over a parking space. "Is that a gang war?" he asked.
Hardiman's approach with the young men who threatened his relative is the style that has become CeaseFire's trademark. Every evening, 70 outreach workers, many of them former gang members, hit the streets to work with approximately 850 young men the workers have identified as violent, angry, possibly involved in the drug trade and potentially willing to solve conflicts with guns.
The workers take their message directly to the people involved. "We don't preach to these guys," Hardiman said. "I don't say, 'You've got to stop selling drugs.' … If you're in a gang, you're in a gang. It doesn't mean you have to be violent."
Dr. Gary Slutkin, the physician who runs CeaseFire, claims his organization has helped keep the city's homicide rate in check. In 2003, police beat 1413 in Logan Square, torn by gang warfare, led all beats in the city with 10 homicides, according to a special report on homicides by the Chicago Tribune. Throughout the year, CeaseFire had two full-time and two part-time workers in beat 1413. This year, the organization boosted that number to 10 full-time workers, and beat 1413 made it through the first half of 2004 without a single killing.
In addition, Hardiman said, the organization has helped defuse 32 conflicts this year that could have led to homicides. But, in the Gresham police district, which includes the Chatham and Auburn-Gresham community areas, there were 22 murders during the first six months of 2004, compared with 29 murders there in all of 2003. The surge happened even while eight CeaseFire workers were assigned to the district.
Hagedorn, of the UIC, remains skeptical that the initiative can lower the city's homicide rate in the long term. Just like policing efforts, CeaseFire does not address the underlying causes of violence, he said.
Hagedorn constantly points to Chicago's need for affordable housing, saying it can't be a coincidence that cities with high homicide rates tend to be older, poorer and more segregated. During the '90s, New York City poured $1 billion into affordable housing in the South Bronx, its most devastated area, and saw its homicide rate drop dramatically.
"The South Bronx looks different now," Hagedorn said. But "you don't see the massive investment in regular people's future" in Chicago. In addition, he believes that drug dealing doesn't have to be violent. He notes that illegal drugs are found at equal levels in the suburbs and wealthier communities, in which drug dealing tends to operate through friendships and other informal contacts. The police presence in public housing and poor neighborhoods adds to the pressure. In the suburbs, little police pressure is around, so no security or lookouts are needed, and, above all, there's no turf to fight over.
Hagedorn hopes the police can occasionally drop their pursuit of dealers and help settle conflicts.
Police have tried in some areas.
Harold "Noonie" Ward, a former gang leader on the far South Side who grew up in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development, said he "dropped his flag," or left his street gang, in the early 1990s, but was approached last summer by neighborhood police officers about helping to negotiate an end to a flare-up of violence. He said several older gang members imprisoned in the '80s were recently released from prison and wanted to settle old scores in Altgeld Gardens. But he told the cops, "I don't have no juice" with the younger members and couldn't help.
"They'd have to deal with it themselves," said Ward, a businessman who lost bids for alderman in 2003 and state representative this spring, but won a majority of the votes in the four precincts that include Altgeld Gardens. "I'm not opening up another can of worms."
Still, it is possible that a cooling-out process is happening in select areas of Chicago. Gail Singleton, the president of the Local Advisory Council at the Dearborn Homes on the near South Side, said her development has calmed down in recent years. "The guys haven't been as violent," Singleton explained.
In 2001, there were 19 arrests in Dearborn for either aggravated battery or aggravated assault and battery with a handgun, police records show. In 2003, there were eight.
But dealing hasn't stopped, residents say. "In my building, it used to be every once in a while. Now it seems to be every single day," said Cynthia Bridges, a Dearborn resident originally from the Taylor development.
And Singleton has some concerns about the future.
"The older guys have a sense of responsibility," she said, referring to gang members mostly in their 20s. But lately she's noticed that "the younger faction is kind of picking it up."
That's why the 33-year-old 5th District police officer isn't sure peace agreements between dealers will reduce violence. "The people on the street do not have enough respect for the police, themselves, or their gang leader," he said. "They'll make [peace], but as soon as they get back on the block, and little Ray Ray steps on somebody's foot, you've got another fight."
Brandon Davis, Brandi M. Green, Scott Krischke and Jessica Young helped research this article.
Beauty Turner and Brian J. Rogal
The Redevelopment of public housing creates new dangers
Nicole Wright thought her new home in Englewood would be safer than the Robert Taylor Homes. Last fall, her family was displaced from the dilapidated high-rise at 4037 S. Federal St., one of dozens demolished under the Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation.
Her new neighborhood is filled with blocks where trees shade homes with big porches, and neighbors sit out and enjoy the pleasant weather. But this area is also plagued by drugs and gang violence. Like many relocated out of public housing developments, Wright had a teenage son, Kemp, 16. Teenagers can be dangerous for families leaving public housing, even if they are not members of a street gang. And gang members in Englewood looked upon the Wright family with suspicion.
At the Taylor Homes, Kemp knew everyone---and how to avoid trouble, Wright said. But she feared for his safety in their new surroundings. After they moved to the house on 67th Street, Wright told all of her children, "Don't tell nobody we're from the 40s," a reference to the Robert Taylor buildings located between 40th and 50th streets.
On June 14, Kemp left their home to play basketball. Not long after, Wright's neighbors rushed to her home to tell her Kemp had been shot in the back in a field on 58th Street between Green and Halsted streets. They drove her to the scene, but he was already dead. "He was just lying there with his tongue hanging out, as if he'd had a seizure," Wright said. "I'm still [confused] on what happened to my son."
At first, Wright believed Kemp was caught in a random shooting. But she and her family have become convinced that Kemp was killed because he was plunged into a neighborhood filled with unfamiliar gang members and rivalries.
"My child was more protected in the projects," Wright said. "There's too much freedom out here. It's sad to feel like that."
CHA officials refused to say if they considered the possibility that the Plan for Transformation might stir up bloodshed. The CHA declined to answer numerous verbal and written requests, and finally issued an official statement that reads, in part, "We are working to create environments where hard-working, law-abiding residents can live in safety and peace."
The Chicago Police Department refused to address how they planned to deal with the violence in city neighborhoods to where residents are relocating.
But police officers, community activists, public housing residents and researchers said the demolition of high-rises has squeezed many competing street gangs and drug dealers into tighter and tighter spaces in public housing, often with violent results. At the same time, they said, the relocation process has stirred up territorial disputes in neighborhoods like Englewood, pitting young men with established gang and drug connections against residents from public housing, where different networks controlled the illegal drug market.
In a joint investigation, Residents' Journal and The Chicago Reporter found several murders that were linked to such disputes. The publications also found that the murder rate in CHA developments has nearly doubled since 1999, the year before the city launched its Plan for Transformation, a 10-year, $1.5 billion redevelopment effort, in which the CHA moves nearly 25,000 families. And, while murders have fallen citywide, they have increased in Englewood and two other neighborhoods where large numbers of former CHA residents have relocated.
"It's like they took all the gangs and mixed them up," said Wright's younger brother, Sammy, a 30-year-old carpenter and roofing contractor. "Every project they shut down, they don't check where they put you. They just put you." And, afterwards, the gangs are "automatically bumping heads [and the CHA's attitude is] whatever happens happens, but we got them out of our hair."
City officials are aware of the problem. Former U.S. Attorney Thomas P. Sullivan, the CHA's former independent monitor who oversaw the relocation process until early this year, wrote several reports in which he cautioned CHA officials about the dangers of relocating residents from neighborhoods or buildings controlled by one gang to another. He met with CHA officials and also said that CHA staff made "good-faith efforts" in 2003 to move families where they would not face trouble from gangs, but were not entirely successful in avoiding conflict.
Some experts believe the violence is likely to continue as the city demolishes more high-rises, which have long been considered a haven for drug dealers. A lack of building security, the ease of controlling spaces inside the entryways and the inability of police officers to approach developments without being observed has made the high-rises valued drug "turf." Gang members felt "the [housing] project itself was like a fortress," said John Hagedorn, gang researcher and criminal justice professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
He said pushing dealers out to other neighborhoods will force them "to carve out turf and contest with other gangs," a violent process that he and other academics say they have observed for years in Chicago. Hagedorn said such turmoil didn't happen in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and other cities throughout the country that saw their neighborhoods calm down and homicide rates drop steeply after the crack cocaine epidemic subsided in the '90s.
There is no one way to measure how the city's gangs have responded to the demolition of public housing. In some areas, it has touched off deadly feuds that boiled in developments and outlying neighborhoods, adding to the city's homicide statistics.
Elsewhere, gangs that had been rivals now share the same buildings and appear to have cast off their old identities. As their turf shrank, many gang members discounted the rivalries and lore that were part of their culture, concentrating on what has become most important---the profits from drug dealing.
Even then, agreements sometimes break down, and gunfire erupts.
In 1999, 460 people were killed by firearms in the city. By 2003, that number climbed to 484. But the rate soared at CHA developments, where the number of firearm deaths per 1,000 occupied units rose from 1.3 in 1999 to 2.3 in 2003.
In 2003, 24 people were shot to death in CHA developments, up from 21 in 1999, according to police data---even though the number of occupied units in the CHA fell nearly 37 percent in this time, from 16,446 in 1999 to 10,405 in 2003. In the same period, other serious crimes in the CHA such as criminal sexual assault, robbery and aggravated battery declined by nearly 50 percent.
In three of the neighborhoods where CHA residents have frequently been relocated---Englewood, Roseland and South Shore---homicides increased by 36 percent from 1998 to 2003. Citywide, homicides fell by 15 percent during that time.
Wright still doesn't know for sure what happened to Kemp, but said the chain of events that ended in his murder probably began a week earlier when an acquaintance of Kemp's, a 16-year-old boy known to many in the neighborhood as "Fatman," was severely beaten by gang members from the 58th Street area.
A.J., a wiry 16-year-old neighbor with polite manners, said Fatman wanted to go back to 58th Street and show the boys he had a posse.
A.J. said he, Kemp and four other neighborhood boys agreed to go with Fatman to 58th Street. "We didn't know the boys [Fatman was] into it with," said A.J., who didn't want his real name used for fear of retaliation.
"Fatman's from 58th Street and just moved down here," Wright said. Some of the younger children in the neighborhood told her the beating Fatman received was because he was "hanging out with someone from the 40s."
"[Fatman] knew it wasn't over," said Wright. He knew that Kemp and the other boys would be in danger by going with him to 58th Street, she said. Wright was further convinced that Kemp's killing wasn't a random act when, in mid-July, she heard Fatman was joking about the murder, laughing as he told her 14-year-old daughter, "That nigger got gunned down."
William Hull, 16, was arrested for the killing on June 16. An arrest report shows that police identify Hull as a member of the same gang that reportedly sold drugs at 4037 S. Federal St., the Taylor Homes building the Wrights left last fall.
But similar gang affiliation does not mean much: Each neighborhood group would have different rules and rivalries of its own, said Dee, a close family friend, who used to live in the building and asked that her real name not be used.
Still, Wright maintains Kemp was not a gang member. "He never disrespected me; he was an innocent bystander," she said. Wright received a disability check for Kemp, an asthma sufferer. It was her only source of income.
Dee said Kemp wasn't violent or even forceful, but was occasionally involved in selling drugs as a low-level person used by "older boys." "I would say it was doing what he had to do to stay alive," she said. But she is afraid it may have caused some of the conflict in Englewood. "He was not strong enough to keep up in that neighborhood," Dee said, adding, "If [Wright]'s still around there, it's going to happen to another of her kids."
Wright said the family plans to move, but her lease is not up until September. Sammy, her brother, said as the two youngest siblings of their family, he and Wright have always supported each other.
"One way or another, this family will make it," he said.
On July 13, in the early evening, the life of 31-year-old Byron Howard came to a violent end in a decayed playground between two buildings in the Cabrini-Green public housing development. Howard died in front of a group of young children, shot by an alleged rival drug dealer in retaliation for a previous altercation, according to some residents. Others said they heard rumors that the men argued over a sports jersey. Less than a week later, the only sign of Howard's death was an immaculate white teddy bear lying among the damp wood chips and broken asphalt, left as a memento.
Several police officers were parked behind the development in a nearby school lot, said Marvin Edwards, a longtime Cabrini-Green resident. Still, the police were visible from the playground, he said. "The [shooter] seen [the police] presence and had no regard for it."
Edwards has a simple explanation for the Howard killing, and others like it: "Who was going to sell what---and where they would sell it."
Nearly 20 people have been gunned down at the development since 1999, the result of intensified competition for drug turf, according to residents.
Police arrested and charged Mose E. Stamps for Howard's murder later that week. Court documents show Stamps had been arrested for selling drugs. And though Stamps was not a Cabrini resident, according to police records, he had also been arrested for alerting individuals that they under surveillance during a narcotics investigation at Cabrini-Green.
Marvin Edwards and his twin brother Maurice, now 36 and known around the neighborhood simply as "the twins," have lived in Cabrini-Green all of their lives. They can hardly keep track of all the gang fights that have broken out over the years. Some were the result of personal slights that young men took too seriously, they said. But others had a clear origin---the drug market that many of Cabrini's young men find more lucrative than unemployment, or low-paying jobs, the twins said.
Since 1998, as the city demolished dozens of high-rises in the Robert Taylor Homes, Rockwell Gardens and Stateway Gardens, Marvin Edwards and some of his neighbors have watched factions of known gang members from those developments migrate to Cabrini-Green.
"They cliqued up with other [lower-level] guys" and went into business together, he said, though they were from a wide array of gangs. And when reputed gang leader Ernest "Smoky" Wilson tried to impose a tax on their operations, "all those heads started bumping," Marvin said.
"It was something out of a Beirut movie," Marvin said of the gang war that then erupted, on July 15, 2001. "They were firing AK-47's from every vacant apartment" in the high-rises on Division Street.
The twins organized a meeting in the development's property management office and sat all of the factions' "enforcers" at one table until they made peace, Marvin said. "A lot of these young men have known us since they were babies."
Within three weeks, the upstarts and all their "cliques" had established the right to occupy their new buildings without paying taxes, Marvin believes.
The twins organized more community events and things were relatively peaceful for over a year. But during 2002, 10 people were shot to death in the Cabrini development, the highest one-year total at a CHA property during the last five years, according to police data.
Another flare-up may be on the horizon. In April, the CHA issued notices to 385 families in nine Cabrini-Green buildings informing them that they had 180 days to move out of the buildings, and into another public housing unit or the private market with a housing voucher. Residents challenged the notices and took the CHA to court. A federal judge approved a plan to have the CHA team up with the Cabrini residents' advisory council to survey residents on where they want to live.
But some residents said issuing the 180-day notices has touched off a flurry of shooting incidents, including the one that claimed Howard's life. The impending demolition has made the handful of dealers there fear they are running out of time. "Everybody's trying to sell as much as they can," said Maurice Edwards.
"They know they're going to be shipped off," said Hope, an 18-year-old Cabrini resident, who requested to be identified by his last name. Some of the dealers would rather go down than face life on the outside, he said. "Some people are planning to die before Cabrini is torn down." But Hope said he won't go in that direction. "My brother died from gang violence, and I want to show my mother we both won't be statistics and die in these streets."
The changing landscape at the South Side's Robert Taylor Homes has also sparked gun battles and unlikely gang alliances. From 1999 to 2003, 17 people were shot to death at the development, where three high-rises remain out of the 28 that once towered over the Dan Ryan Expressway.
Leila Hallom, a resident of the development for 11 years, said the level of drug dealing in her building "got worse since the [other] buildings closed down."
Drug dealers at Taylor have attempted to divide up the shrinking territory, with limited success. There's less territory to claim and more people to share it---or fight over it. At 4429 S. Federal St., one of the three remaining high-rises, known gang factions from Taylor's demolished buildings frequently gather at the base of the building.
Jermaine "Dewey" Colbert, 28, Hallom's cousin, was murdered directly behind the building on March 6, according to police records. Hallom said Colbert was killed by a member of his gang. In the building, even the gang factions have split into factions, said Mary Forney, a 10-year resident of Taylor who saw the shooting from her window.
Police records show Colbert had lived at 5001 S. Federal St., a now-demolished Taylor high-rise. He had been arrested for attempting to sell narcotics in the 3900 block of South Prairie Avenue as recently as December 2002, and by that time he was living at 12022 S. Prairie Ave. on the far South Side, records show. Police said he was a self-identified member of the Vice Lords, although the 4429 S. Federal St. building has historically been dominated by a different gang.
Residents say the dealers at 4429 S. Federal St. are affiliated with a number of gang factions. But, on the first of every month, when welfare benefits and paychecks arrive at once, the dealers do their heaviest business, and, at least temporarily, are too busy to fight over the turf.
On May 1, children were playing on the gallery-style porches, and music was blasting loud. Hot coals were sputtering in outside barbecues. At least six boys and young men were standing downstairs, some pitching pennies, while others were shooting dice.
About 20 young men and women were downstairs selling drugs to whomever would buy. Yet another group stood outside working security for the drug dealers. Chants rang out like "5-0 in the lane," "got that rock," and "got that blow." Although most buyers appear to be African American and poor, it's not unusual to see a white person, or someone in a suit, or, occasionally, an addict with fingertips burnt from smoking and circles under his or her eyes. "There'll be so many people downstairs I can't count them," Hallom said.
In mid-July, the action seemed to have calmed down. A much smaller crowd hung out on both sides of the building, some involved in the drug trade and others just enjoying the sunshine. The scene was peaceful, but inside, two young men carefully shielded objects they'd hidden away in a hole in the wall.
But, with so little territory and so many trying to use the building at the same time, Forney said "tension can explode like a ticking time bomb."
Violence like the Colbert shooting is not uncommon. On June 26, 2003, George Holiday, 32, and Lesley A. Coppage, 24, were shot to death in broad daylight in the 2200 block of South State Street in the Ickes Homes development.
"Most of the shooting around here is [caused by] someone selling on their turf," said Gloria Williams, the president of the Ickes Homes Local Advisory Council, pointing to the June 26 shooting as an example. But she hates to give people the impression that Ickes, one of the sites used to house relocated residents, is wracked by uncontrollable violence.
"This is one of the few developments where kids ride their bikes and girls jump rope," she said.
But the occasional shootings send a message, she added. "You was top dog where you came from, but you're not going to come here."
"You'd think that with the feds wanting them so bad" the dealers would keep a low profile, Forney said. But "everybody's stealing everybody's drugs and everyone wants to take over."
A 33-year-old patrol officer has witnessed the same free-for-all in the 5th Police District on Chicago's far South Side. "It's like a killing frenzy out here," said the officer, who has spent the past four years in the 5th District, which includes the Roseland, Pullman, West Pullman and Riverdale community areas. He asked not to be identified, fearing for his job security. "[The killing] stems from a lot of people from other projects being dumped in Roseland" as well as increased drug-selling competition.
From 1998 to 2003, the number of killings in the Roseland community area jumped by 40 percent, from 15 to 21. There were 26 murders there in 2001.
The officer grew up in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development, located along 130th Street just west of the Bishop Ford Freeway in Riverdale. Calling himself "a product of the projects," he said it was impossible not to become close to other young men who began dealing drugs and getting into other criminal activity. "I wasn't in a gang, but my best friend was, and I hung with him. When they would have gang meetings [the leader] would tell me I had to [leave]," he said. "The first time I saw someone get shot I was 10."
As familiar as he is with the neighborhood---and its players---the officer said residents, including some gang members, trust him. Acquaintances involved in drug dealing have sought his advice after being contacted by the FBI, he said. "I just tell them, 'They got something on you, so be honest and tell them what they want to know.'"
But the gang ties to drug dealing and turf violence are not as clear as they used to be, the officer said. It has made the city's neighborhoods more unpredictable than ever. "You don't have the single, top drug dealer any more," he said. "Now, the little homey on the street, he doesn't want to wait."
But the shootings are not necessarily "gang conflict," at least the way most people understand it, the officer said. Typically, the conflicts result from disputes between dealers over who has the right to sell drugs in a particular area. Their gang connections are often difficult to unravel---and sometimes irrelevant, he said.
The pursuit of drug money has broken down the gangs---and, ultimately, led to more conflict, said Benny Lee, a former gang leader who is now an outreach worker for CeaseFire. Started in 1995, the organization works with community groups, churches, and others to reduce neighborhood violence.
As a member of one of the first black families in Austin during the late '60s, Lee and a group of friends were constantly harassed by whites. "That forced us to become a gang," he said. Lee joined in 1967, when he was 14.
But things began to change in the early 1980s, when Lee and other members of his gang returned from prison. Returning to their neighborhoods, they found few opportunities. "That's when [many] got into drug selling," Lee said.
"Different branches began controlling their own turf in their own neighborhood," he said. Then, by the late 1990s, the gangs that had once dubbed themselves "Nations" had fractured into blocks. "Many people who control a neighborhood's drug trade might still recognize a gang, but it's the drug money that holds their loyalty," Lee said.
And the money elevates the tension.
Tio Hardiman, a community coordinator for CeaseFire, said a male relative recently relocated from the Henry Horner Homes, a West Side public housing development, to the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side. His relative quickly attracted attention from the neighborhood's young gang members, who feared he was setting up a new drug-selling operation.
"Thirty guys surrounded [his] house," said Hardiman, who arrived on the scene before any real trouble started. He chuckled ruefully as he recalled asking to speak to the head honcho, and found himself face-to-face with a 15-year-old. "I didn't go over and preach," said Hardiman, who succeeded in convincing them his relative would not set up a "business."
Hardiman said the drug violence in black neighborhoods doesn't happen the way it is portrayed in the media. Although predominantly Latino gangs still battle each other, in the black community gang warfare is a thing of the past. Fighting has gotten to be more one-on-one and no one's in enough of a leadership position to coordinate big gang battles, Hardiman said. "You've got [Gangster Disciples] working with Vice Lords. You've got all kinds of mix-ups in the [black] community."
But other issues can also lead to violence, including more routine misunderstandings, perceived slights and women.
"Some guys just like being gladiators," said Hardiman. He recalled a shooting involving two men from different gangs that had nothing to do with their gang affiliations and was, in fact, a fight over a parking space. "Is that a gang war?" he asked.
Hardiman's approach with the young men who threatened his relative is the style that has become CeaseFire's trademark. Every evening, 70 outreach workers, many of them former gang members, hit the streets to work with approximately 850 young men the workers have identified as violent, angry, possibly involved in the drug trade and potentially willing to solve conflicts with guns.
The workers take their message directly to the people involved. "We don't preach to these guys," Hardiman said. "I don't say, 'You've got to stop selling drugs.' … If you're in a gang, you're in a gang. It doesn't mean you have to be violent."
Dr. Gary Slutkin, the physician who runs CeaseFire, claims his organization has helped keep the city's homicide rate in check. In 2003, police beat 1413 in Logan Square, torn by gang warfare, led all beats in the city with 10 homicides, according to a special report on homicides by the Chicago Tribune. Throughout the year, CeaseFire had two full-time and two part-time workers in beat 1413. This year, the organization boosted that number to 10 full-time workers, and beat 1413 made it through the first half of 2004 without a single killing.
In addition, Hardiman said, the organization has helped defuse 32 conflicts this year that could have led to homicides. But, in the Gresham police district, which includes the Chatham and Auburn-Gresham community areas, there were 22 murders during the first six months of 2004, compared with 29 murders there in all of 2003. The surge happened even while eight CeaseFire workers were assigned to the district.
Hagedorn, of the UIC, remains skeptical that the initiative can lower the city's homicide rate in the long term. Just like policing efforts, CeaseFire does not address the underlying causes of violence, he said.
Hagedorn constantly points to Chicago's need for affordable housing, saying it can't be a coincidence that cities with high homicide rates tend to be older, poorer and more segregated. During the '90s, New York City poured $1 billion into affordable housing in the South Bronx, its most devastated area, and saw its homicide rate drop dramatically.
"The South Bronx looks different now," Hagedorn said. But "you don't see the massive investment in regular people's future" in Chicago. In addition, he believes that drug dealing doesn't have to be violent. He notes that illegal drugs are found at equal levels in the suburbs and wealthier communities, in which drug dealing tends to operate through friendships and other informal contacts. The police presence in public housing and poor neighborhoods adds to the pressure. In the suburbs, little police pressure is around, so no security or lookouts are needed, and, above all, there's no turf to fight over.
Hagedorn hopes the police can occasionally drop their pursuit of dealers and help settle conflicts.
Police have tried in some areas.
Harold "Noonie" Ward, a former gang leader on the far South Side who grew up in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development, said he "dropped his flag," or left his street gang, in the early 1990s, but was approached last summer by neighborhood police officers about helping to negotiate an end to a flare-up of violence. He said several older gang members imprisoned in the '80s were recently released from prison and wanted to settle old scores in Altgeld Gardens. But he told the cops, "I don't have no juice" with the younger members and couldn't help.
"They'd have to deal with it themselves," said Ward, a businessman who lost bids for alderman in 2003 and state representative this spring, but won a majority of the votes in the four precincts that include Altgeld Gardens. "I'm not opening up another can of worms."
Still, it is possible that a cooling-out process is happening in select areas of Chicago. Gail Singleton, the president of the Local Advisory Council at the Dearborn Homes on the near South Side, said her development has calmed down in recent years. "The guys haven't been as violent," Singleton explained.
In 2001, there were 19 arrests in Dearborn for either aggravated battery or aggravated assault and battery with a handgun, police records show. In 2003, there were eight.
But dealing hasn't stopped, residents say. "In my building, it used to be every once in a while. Now it seems to be every single day," said Cynthia Bridges, a Dearborn resident originally from the Taylor development.
And Singleton has some concerns about the future.
"The older guys have a sense of responsibility," she said, referring to gang members mostly in their 20s. But lately she's noticed that "the younger faction is kind of picking it up."
That's why the 33-year-old 5th District police officer isn't sure peace agreements between dealers will reduce violence. "The people on the street do not have enough respect for the police, themselves, or their gang leader," he said. "They'll make [peace], but as soon as they get back on the block, and little Ray Ray steps on somebody's foot, you've got another fight."
Brandon Davis, Brandi M. Green, Scott Krischke and Jessica Young helped research this article.
Transforming CHA: Federal Housing Voucher Woes
Transforming CHA: Federal Housing Voucher Woes
Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
On Oct. 30, 1998, dozens of residents in a Flannery Homes high-rise lost all their belongings in a raging fire.
The operator of a mechanical shovel digging a trench for some market-rate town homes being built around the high-rise was not aware the gas line that supplied this building, belonging to the Chicago Housing Authority, was located on the same path where he was digging.
Now, after three years, residents still have not been able to recover their losses. To find out what was happening, I interviewed Timothy Fox, who is the Claims Manager with the Chicago Housing Authority. Fox tells me that he will soon receive a very large payment from the insurance companies for this building. But that money will be for the building, which was insured for several million dollars. Fox said the residents who suffered losses will have to go through their own suits and their own attorneys.
The residents are quite worried because, after so long, they still have not been able to recover their losses nor has anyone helped them to recover their losses.
This building, located at 1507 N. Clybourn Ave., suffered quite extensive damage when the gas line was accidentally punctured. The column of fire was more than 200 feet above the building. Residents are desperate to learn when they will recover their losses because they have already been waiting for three years. Who can give them any information? I don’t know. The best that they can do is to talk with their own attorneys to get a professional answer.
I also had the chance to visit CHA’s Inspector General, Leonard Odum, who always receives me with a smile and in a very professional manner. It is a pleasure to visit this gentleman. But he wasn’t able to give me any answers either.
Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
On Oct. 30, 1998, dozens of residents in a Flannery Homes high-rise lost all their belongings in a raging fire.
The operator of a mechanical shovel digging a trench for some market-rate town homes being built around the high-rise was not aware the gas line that supplied this building, belonging to the Chicago Housing Authority, was located on the same path where he was digging.
Now, after three years, residents still have not been able to recover their losses. To find out what was happening, I interviewed Timothy Fox, who is the Claims Manager with the Chicago Housing Authority. Fox tells me that he will soon receive a very large payment from the insurance companies for this building. But that money will be for the building, which was insured for several million dollars. Fox said the residents who suffered losses will have to go through their own suits and their own attorneys.
The residents are quite worried because, after so long, they still have not been able to recover their losses nor has anyone helped them to recover their losses.
This building, located at 1507 N. Clybourn Ave., suffered quite extensive damage when the gas line was accidentally punctured. The column of fire was more than 200 feet above the building. Residents are desperate to learn when they will recover their losses because they have already been waiting for three years. Who can give them any information? I don’t know. The best that they can do is to talk with their own attorneys to get a professional answer.
I also had the chance to visit CHA’s Inspector General, Leonard Odum, who always receives me with a smile and in a very professional manner. It is a pleasure to visit this gentleman. But he wasn’t able to give me any answers either.
Shocking Electric Bills
Shocking Electric Bills
by Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
Many Robert Taylor residents are suddenly finding themselves facing extremely high electric bills, bills in the $10,000 range and higher that can make them non-lease compliant and ineligible for replacement housing.
CHA is going through a $1.6 billion Plan for Transformation that states if a resident is found non-lease compliant, they may not be relocated to another development, a scattered site unit or the same development or receive a Housing Choice Voucher (formerly known as Section 8).
A tenant can be found non-lease compliant if a tenant's utilities are not paid up. One young single mother of three, Lithia Henderson, said, "My electric bills are sky high. How do they expect for me to pay this $11,000 light bill?"
Henderson, 24, said she has no idea how her bill was computed. "I'm low-income. I live in the development, not a luxury mansion," she said.
Another young resident said, "How do they even estimate my bills? I haven't had a meter for years. "How could they let us not pay for service all this time?
And now, all of a sudden, it's our fault that they didn't collect or turn off the lights, or warn us.
This is not fair. Shouldn't Commonwealth Edison carry the biggest of the blame?"
Many people in the private market couldn't get away with that, another Robert Taylor resident said.
I called CHA spokesperson Derek Hill and asked him about the high electric bills. He was in shock and said he would investigate. Hill was under the impression that CHA paid the electric bills for Robert Taylor. Hill later found out that what I told him about the bills being very high was the truth. He said, "This needs to be looked into."
After speaking to Hill, I decided to call Commonwealth Edison and speak to an executive. I spoke to Tim Lindberg, head of communications for Commonwealth Edison. I asked him, "How long does it take Commonwealth Edison to send out a warning notice when a client is late with their bills?" He replied, "The Illinois Commerce Commission requires a 10-day notice and three days after that, we follow up with a telephone call."
I next asked why do the residents in the Robert Taylor development have such high light bills? He hesitated for a moment and then said, "We can't issue a general statement concerning that because with each client, the explanation varies. "But I can say if a person in the private market or in public housing feels that their light bills are too high, don't do anything at first. Just call us.
"We also have programs to help low-income residents such as (LHEAP) Light Heat Energy Assistance Program." I recently did a cable show with the manager of external affairs for Commonwealth Edison, Todd Banks. Banks, who was surprised by the showing of a low-income public housing resident's electric bill
of $10,934.40, showed great concern.
I asked what he thought that young lady might have done in her apartment that would create a bill of that size.
He replied, "I don't know. But we will investigate it."
A day after the show, a Commonwealth Edison truck was in front of my building, 4525 S. Federal St. Comed workers turned off four families' lights. One of those residents who lost their electric service was a young woman named Katrina Nawls, who has a new-born baby girl in her apartment.
I called Banks to see why they turned off the people's lights. He replied, "They each owe high light bills. They need to call us and set up a payment plan."
by Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
Many Robert Taylor residents are suddenly finding themselves facing extremely high electric bills, bills in the $10,000 range and higher that can make them non-lease compliant and ineligible for replacement housing.
CHA is going through a $1.6 billion Plan for Transformation that states if a resident is found non-lease compliant, they may not be relocated to another development, a scattered site unit or the same development or receive a Housing Choice Voucher (formerly known as Section 8).
A tenant can be found non-lease compliant if a tenant's utilities are not paid up. One young single mother of three, Lithia Henderson, said, "My electric bills are sky high. How do they expect for me to pay this $11,000 light bill?"
Henderson, 24, said she has no idea how her bill was computed. "I'm low-income. I live in the development, not a luxury mansion," she said.
Another young resident said, "How do they even estimate my bills? I haven't had a meter for years. "How could they let us not pay for service all this time?
And now, all of a sudden, it's our fault that they didn't collect or turn off the lights, or warn us.
This is not fair. Shouldn't Commonwealth Edison carry the biggest of the blame?"
Many people in the private market couldn't get away with that, another Robert Taylor resident said.
I called CHA spokesperson Derek Hill and asked him about the high electric bills. He was in shock and said he would investigate. Hill was under the impression that CHA paid the electric bills for Robert Taylor. Hill later found out that what I told him about the bills being very high was the truth. He said, "This needs to be looked into."
After speaking to Hill, I decided to call Commonwealth Edison and speak to an executive. I spoke to Tim Lindberg, head of communications for Commonwealth Edison. I asked him, "How long does it take Commonwealth Edison to send out a warning notice when a client is late with their bills?" He replied, "The Illinois Commerce Commission requires a 10-day notice and three days after that, we follow up with a telephone call."
I next asked why do the residents in the Robert Taylor development have such high light bills? He hesitated for a moment and then said, "We can't issue a general statement concerning that because with each client, the explanation varies. "But I can say if a person in the private market or in public housing feels that their light bills are too high, don't do anything at first. Just call us.
"We also have programs to help low-income residents such as (LHEAP) Light Heat Energy Assistance Program." I recently did a cable show with the manager of external affairs for Commonwealth Edison, Todd Banks. Banks, who was surprised by the showing of a low-income public housing resident's electric bill
of $10,934.40, showed great concern.
I asked what he thought that young lady might have done in her apartment that would create a bill of that size.
He replied, "I don't know. But we will investigate it."
A day after the show, a Commonwealth Edison truck was in front of my building, 4525 S. Federal St. Comed workers turned off four families' lights. One of those residents who lost their electric service was a young woman named Katrina Nawls, who has a new-born baby girl in her apartment.
I called Banks to see why they turned off the people's lights. He replied, "They each owe high light bills. They need to call us and set up a payment plan."
A Right To Write
A Right To Write is a collection of Ms. Beauty Turner "Published Writings"
Between A Rock and a Hard Place
Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
For the last 4 years, a former resident of Robert Taylor Homes, Mary Sistruck, a young single mother of six, has been moved around from slum to slum after receiving a Housing Choice Voucher formerly known as a Section 8.
I wrote about her in Residents’ Journal’s February 2001 edition. Sistruck once lived in the “Hole,” a notorious cluster of buildings that once towered over the State Street Corridor at 53rd Street. Sistruck described herself as “moving around like cattle” since she received the Housing Choice Voucher. Her children have attended six different schools since her first move.
In a late June interview, Sistruck said, “I wish that I was back in Robert Taylor. At least there I had a roof over my head. I didn't worry about becoming homeless like I do now.
“Since I’ve moved out into the private market, it has been one big headache after another. My head is constantly spinning. It’s like riding a mental roller coaster with this constant moving every year. "I used to live on 46th Street and Indiana Avenue. It was nice living there. It was right near my children's old school, right around people that I know, but it burned down.
“All the apartments that I lived in didn’t pass the second inspection, so they abated the rent. “After the apartment on 46th Street burned down, that lead me to 90th and Exchange. By looking at my apartment, it may look beautiful. But as of February 2000, it didn’t pass inspection due to code violations in the basement and in the hallways.
“I’ve been to court off and on since then. As a matter of fact, everyone in the building has to vacate the premises.
“It has been rather hard trying to find a apartment. I’ve looked at over 75 apartments, spent over $325 in application fees, and still wasn't able to find a place to stay."
Sistruck called me at the Residents’ Journal office in February. She told me that a friend of hers told her about me, that I was a writer and an activist. She asked me for help. The only help that I could give her at that time was to write about her.
As I continued to write, other women called me with their dilemmas. They told me about their dilemmas and I decided, after listening to them, that I would bring their stories to the attention of Chicago Housing Authority officials. I hosted three meetings about the Housing Choice Vouchers, which I called the “Great Debates about Section 8 on State" at Omega Baptist Church, 4623 S. State St.
At the first meeting on March 26, CHA official Sharon Glenn took notes and listened to the residents’ concerns. At the next meeting on April 5, Glenn came back with the status on the inquiries – a memorandum that reported on what she did for the people who spoke out.
For Mary Sistruck, the memo reads, “Prospective apartment passed inspection on April 3, 2001. Awaiting completion of rent negotiations which should be completed by Thursday, April 5, 2001. I have a copy of her inspection form indicating pass."
Sistruck signed the lease before looking at the apartment. She continued with her story, “I had to leave and go on a trip the very next day. I was very elated and happy when I heard that news. I thought that my trouble was finally over. But that was short lived.
“After I came back from the trip, I went to see my new apartment. It was unlivable. I don’t know how in the world that place passed inspection. I told Sharon Glenn and we agreed to tear up that lease that I had signed. But that also left me back in the same situation I was in at first, between a rock and a hard place, facing the pavement once again to homelessness.
“The last court date said I had to be out of the building by June 5. So I moved so that I wouldn’t lose my Section 8 housing choice voucher.
“Due to my family helping me find a place, they found me a place at 67th and Green, a community that is infested with drugs and gangs.
“The first day that I moved in, my son almost got shot in our front yard. There was a shoot-out right by my window.
“I’m very much afraid that this place will not pass Section 8 inspection either because it is also a slum.
"Where will residents like me stay?"
I called Sharon Glenn and asked her about large families that have Housing Choice Vouchers. I asked her if the program has a safety net concerning large-sized families like Mary Sistruck, who are finding it quite difficult securing descent housing.
Glenn said, “The same rules apply to families that are large or small when it come to the Section 8 program.
“We are seriously thinking about getting an ombudsman (a middle man) to advocate with the landlords and tenants so that we can begin to combat some of the problems that may occur before it gets to eviction court. As a matter of fact, we received that suggestion from one of your ‘Section 8 Debate’ meetings, so meetings do come in handy. Otherwise, they do help.
“We are also thinking about having mentors from the (FSS) Families Self Sufficiency program come out and talk to the residents. We are also asking families to get involved in this program. Many of the families that went through this program are self-sufficient; it worked for them.
“We don’t have all the answers. That’s why we are asking the residents to get involved, so that we can solve any problem that may arrive together.”
Between A Rock and a Hard Place
Beauty Turner, Assistant Editor
For the last 4 years, a former resident of Robert Taylor Homes, Mary Sistruck, a young single mother of six, has been moved around from slum to slum after receiving a Housing Choice Voucher formerly known as a Section 8.
I wrote about her in Residents’ Journal’s February 2001 edition. Sistruck once lived in the “Hole,” a notorious cluster of buildings that once towered over the State Street Corridor at 53rd Street. Sistruck described herself as “moving around like cattle” since she received the Housing Choice Voucher. Her children have attended six different schools since her first move.
In a late June interview, Sistruck said, “I wish that I was back in Robert Taylor. At least there I had a roof over my head. I didn't worry about becoming homeless like I do now.
“Since I’ve moved out into the private market, it has been one big headache after another. My head is constantly spinning. It’s like riding a mental roller coaster with this constant moving every year. "I used to live on 46th Street and Indiana Avenue. It was nice living there. It was right near my children's old school, right around people that I know, but it burned down.
“All the apartments that I lived in didn’t pass the second inspection, so they abated the rent. “After the apartment on 46th Street burned down, that lead me to 90th and Exchange. By looking at my apartment, it may look beautiful. But as of February 2000, it didn’t pass inspection due to code violations in the basement and in the hallways.
“I’ve been to court off and on since then. As a matter of fact, everyone in the building has to vacate the premises.
“It has been rather hard trying to find a apartment. I’ve looked at over 75 apartments, spent over $325 in application fees, and still wasn't able to find a place to stay."
Sistruck called me at the Residents’ Journal office in February. She told me that a friend of hers told her about me, that I was a writer and an activist. She asked me for help. The only help that I could give her at that time was to write about her.
As I continued to write, other women called me with their dilemmas. They told me about their dilemmas and I decided, after listening to them, that I would bring their stories to the attention of Chicago Housing Authority officials. I hosted three meetings about the Housing Choice Vouchers, which I called the “Great Debates about Section 8 on State" at Omega Baptist Church, 4623 S. State St.
At the first meeting on March 26, CHA official Sharon Glenn took notes and listened to the residents’ concerns. At the next meeting on April 5, Glenn came back with the status on the inquiries – a memorandum that reported on what she did for the people who spoke out.
For Mary Sistruck, the memo reads, “Prospective apartment passed inspection on April 3, 2001. Awaiting completion of rent negotiations which should be completed by Thursday, April 5, 2001. I have a copy of her inspection form indicating pass."
Sistruck signed the lease before looking at the apartment. She continued with her story, “I had to leave and go on a trip the very next day. I was very elated and happy when I heard that news. I thought that my trouble was finally over. But that was short lived.
“After I came back from the trip, I went to see my new apartment. It was unlivable. I don’t know how in the world that place passed inspection. I told Sharon Glenn and we agreed to tear up that lease that I had signed. But that also left me back in the same situation I was in at first, between a rock and a hard place, facing the pavement once again to homelessness.
“The last court date said I had to be out of the building by June 5. So I moved so that I wouldn’t lose my Section 8 housing choice voucher.
“Due to my family helping me find a place, they found me a place at 67th and Green, a community that is infested with drugs and gangs.
“The first day that I moved in, my son almost got shot in our front yard. There was a shoot-out right by my window.
“I’m very much afraid that this place will not pass Section 8 inspection either because it is also a slum.
"Where will residents like me stay?"
I called Sharon Glenn and asked her about large families that have Housing Choice Vouchers. I asked her if the program has a safety net concerning large-sized families like Mary Sistruck, who are finding it quite difficult securing descent housing.
Glenn said, “The same rules apply to families that are large or small when it come to the Section 8 program.
“We are seriously thinking about getting an ombudsman (a middle man) to advocate with the landlords and tenants so that we can begin to combat some of the problems that may occur before it gets to eviction court. As a matter of fact, we received that suggestion from one of your ‘Section 8 Debate’ meetings, so meetings do come in handy. Otherwise, they do help.
“We are also thinking about having mentors from the (FSS) Families Self Sufficiency program come out and talk to the residents. We are also asking families to get involved in this program. Many of the families that went through this program are self-sufficient; it worked for them.
“We don’t have all the answers. That’s why we are asking the residents to get involved, so that we can solve any problem that may arrive together.”
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