Community Renewal Society

In early March, The Salvation Army Mobile Outreach Unit was in danger of being kicked out of Uptown. The unit, a service of The Salvation Army Harbor Light of Chicago, offers on-site mental health and substance abuse assessments, referrals and hot meals to those in need, and provides transportation to a treatment facility. It makes a regularly scheduled stop at the intersection of Marine Drive and Wilson Avenue in Uptown. The unit initially received a 30-day notice by 46th Ward Alderman James Cappleman to find a new place to park. "While we were seeing success stories and improvements in quality of life for those in need, we still had persistent chronic homelessness that was centralized in the area near where the Salvation Army Mobile Food Truck provided services," Cappleman wrote on his website. After several meetings between Cappelman and representatives from The Salvation Army, protests by community members and a flurry of media attention, the two parties came to an agreement that allows the unit to continue providing services in Uptown. “Sometimes God uses what started out as wrong or bad and turns it into good, and that’s certainty what we have seen here," said Salvation Army Captain Nancy Powers, who oversees the program. "We have seen the attention brought to the needs of the homeless." —By Jonathan Gibby

Worry. Anger. Uncertainty. Those were some of the feelings that current and former Chicago Public Schools students and parents expressed about the district’s plans to close more than 50 schools. We caught up with three of them at this week’s rally against school closings to hear their thoughts. Photo by Jonathan Gibby Benjamin Chacon is in 6th grade at Jean D. Lafayette Elementary School, which is on the list for closure. He hopes that the protest will convince Mayor Rahm Emanuel “to consider our schools to stay open.” Benjamin’s favorite thing about Lafayatte is sports, but after giving it some thought, he says he also likes learning. Photo by Jonathan Gibby Rehab Ghasim graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in 2011, but she still has a little sister attending the school. “Closing down the schools could endanger students safety, and that’s the top one priority,” she said, even “before education. I wish the mayor would just listen to us for once.” Photo by Jonathan Gibby Ismael Enriquez is a proud graduate of Chicago Public Schools, and the parent of a son and daughter whom he expects to be proud graduates as well. “This is affecting our communities, especially Latino and African-American ones,” said Enriquez, who went to David G. Farragut Career Academy High School. “I believe that what we need to do is continue to fight and march and organize and rally against our political officials.”

Elizabeth Hartline received her court summons last week that told her she was being evicted from her unit at the Chateau Hotel in East Lakeview. She’s been looking for a new place to live since the end of January, when she found out that the building would be vacated, gutted and rehabbed. But she hasn’t found much she can afford. She works at Cornerstone Community Outreach, a homeless shelter in Uptown. She lived at Cornerstone before the shelter hired her, giving her enough income to pay rent at the Chateau. “I’ve been looking around, but what I’ve seen costs about $700 a month,” said Hartline. “I can only afford $600. I’m going to be stretching myself so thin that I won’t be able to eat.” Hartline says about 60 residents now remain at the Chateau. Until early February, it had been operating as a single-room-occupancy hotel. It’s the fourth in the neighborhood to be shut down within the last two years. Most of her neighbors received their eviction notices last week, she says. On Jan. 30, tenants received notices that their month-to-month leases would not be renewed. According to the Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance, that notice gives the landlord the right to evict after 30 days. Hartline says the front desk hasn’t been accepting her rent and won’t say when she or her neighbors will be forced out. “The new owner--I’ve never met him. I’ve met people that work for him,” said Hartline. “They really don’t have any answers, either, for a lot of stuff. We’re all pretty much in the dark.” A staff member at the Chateau front desk said she couldn’t comment on the status of the building or its residents. The building is owned by 3838 North Broadway, a limited liability corporation set up at the time of the purchase from the building’s former owner, Jack Gore. Thursday evening, Hartline and several other Chateau residents joined the Lakeview Action Coalition and the Organization of the NorthEast in a protest outside of 46th Ward Alderman James Cappleman’s office to lament what they say is a loss of diversity. They point to Cappleman’s actions regarding affordable housing, education and crime. He hasn’t defended low-income tenants at the Chateau, spoken up against possible school closings in the neighborhood or worked with local groups on violence prevention efforts, they say. “I am being pushed out of the Chateau,” Hartline said into a megaphone as she spoke to around 150 supporters that gathered on the sidewalk along North Broadway Street in Uptown. Neither Cappleman nor Tressa Feher, his chief of staff, returned four calls and five emails seeking comment on the protest or the Chateau’s current status. In January, Cappleman told the Reporter that he knows the identity of the Chateau’s new owner, but has promised not to reveal it. On March 6, Cappleman sent out an update on the Chateau in his email newsletter. “The owner has assured me that no one will go to a shelter if they are willing to work with the management to help them locate to safer housing at an affordable price,” wrote the alderman. “They have staff in the lobby to help each resident. I will continue to advocate for the remaining residents with the owner and with Catholic Charities to find permanent and safer housing.” Lakeview Action Coalition’s board president, Erin Ryan, says her group has been trying to meet with Cappleman since Feb. 28 discuss ways to keep the Chateau affordable for its current residents. Ryan suggested that the alderman could encourage the city to drop fines the Chateau has incurred through building violations in exchange for keeping part or all of the building available to low-income tenants. So far, the coalition has not gotten much response from the alderman. “We’ve been jumping through hoops, trying to meet with him. We have no choice but to take to the streets,” said Ryan, referring to Thursday’s protest. Chateau tenant Robert Rohdenberg also spoke at Thursday’s rally. Rohdenberg says he’s lived at the Chateau for a year and a half because he’s disabled and on a fixed income. “We need Alderman Cappleman to weigh in and positively affect this process for tenants,” he said. Without intervention from officials, Hartline and Rohdenberg fear many tenants will be forced out without a place to go. Hartline says her greatest fear is that she will end up seeing some of her current neighbors at her job at Cornerstone. “Some of them will end up in a homeless shelter,” she said. “Probably mine.”

Kimberly Drew remembers a woman who testified before the Illinois Commission on the Elimination of Poverty in August. As she stood in front of the microphone, the woman described the last few years of her life. She had gotten pregnant. Then, she lost her job. After that, her car broke down. “By the time that she gave birth to her child, she had no money in the bank,” said Drew, a policy associate at the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights. Her story is not uncommon, says Drew. In fact, more than ten percent of Chicago's citizens live in what's called “extreme poverty”--living under less than half of the poverty line. Chicago has the third highest rate of extreme poverty of the nation's 10 largest cities, at 10.4 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2011 American Community Survey. Philadelphia is first at 12.9 percent, followed by Phoenix at 10.7 percent. San Jose, Calif., was No. 10, with 5.5 percent. Here are the country's 10 largest cities by population, and their rates of extreme poverty: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvdFKwmh4Eo7dG1sTWttV0NJUXZMbEJnYVcyWThTeUE&usp=sharing For a family of three, extreme poverty means surviving on about $9,500 or less for the entire year. That means incredibly tough choices, says Drew. “We hear a lot about families that are really struggling about how to make choices about how to spend the little income that they do have: choices between whether you pay for medicine or food, whether you pay the rent or electricity,” said Drew. Chicago's extreme poverty rate has been relatively stagnant for the last few years, fluctuating between 9.4 and 9.8 percent between 2007 and 2011. Drew says families living at this level of poverty have an even tougher time moving up the economic ladder. Many are working minimum wage jobs with few opportunities for advancement, often unable to even get full-time hours. Why is Chicago's rate higher than cities of a comparable size like Houston or Los Angeles? Drew isn’t sure. However, there are specific policies and programs, she says, that can help reduce our extreme poverty rate. The State of Illinois developed the 37-member Commission on the Elimination of Poverty in 2008. Its charge is to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015. The commission consists of elected officials and leaders in government and nonprofit organizations. In 2010, it released a strategic plan to reduce poverty, and meets several times a year to track the plan's progress. Despite the commission, public officials have cut programs aimed at low-income families, and new policies to help them have stalled. According to the Commission's 2012 annual report, 12 bills were introduced that year in the Illinois legislature that would have addressed the needs of families in extreme poverty. Only one was signed into law. Those bills included efforts to raise the minimum wage, ban the state from asking on a job application if an applicant has a criminal record, and increasing the availability of charity care in Illinois hospitals. “We've become pretty complacent and we haven't prioritized policy solutions and programs that will help people climb out of poverty,” said Drew.

Back in 2002, Terry Peterson, then CEO of the Chicago Housing Authority, said the city's overhaul of public housing, dubbed the Plan For Transformation, would be successful. “I have every confidence we will succeed in improving the quality of life for the great majority of CHA residents and helping them share fully in Chicago's blessings,” Peterson wrote in a Chicago Tribune editorial. Eleven years later, a new study from the Urban Institute examines if Peterson's confidence was correct. It shows that while the majority of CHA residents now live in higher-standard housing, the ones for whom life has improved the most were those who received intensive social services--education, job counseling and training, physical and mental health services. The others may be living in better housing, but their quality of life hasn't gotten the same boost. The study by the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute draws on two groups of residents--a group of 198 household heads from Bronzeville's former Madden/Wells Homes labeled the “panel study sample,” and another group of 475 Madden/Wells and Dearborn Homes household heads labeled the “demonstration sample” that got the social services. The demonstration residents were chosen because they faced many challenges in securing a job or finding stable housing--credit problems, low literacy, families with criminal histories, few work skills or employment histories, or physical and mental health problems. Their progress has been substantial. Their rates of employment improved, even after they stopped receiving the job help. About 70 percent reported working in the last 12 months--an increase of 25 percent from 2007. Their health also improved, both physically and mentally. In 2007, over half of the demonstration residents rated their own health as “fair” or “poor,” but by 2011, that number had gone down to 38 percent. Worry, anxiety and symptoms of depression had decreased. By contrast, employment rates for the panel participants--who didn't get the special services-- stayed the same. In addition, their health seems to have deteriorated. In 2001, 36 percent of residents who didn't receive the special services said their health was fair or poor. Ten years later, it increased to 48 percent. Mental health has also gotten worse. Residents reported higher rates of depression and anxiety in 2011 than back in 2001. Why the big differences? Susan Popkin, one of the study's author, said housing alone wasn't enough to address the many problems residents faced, including “mental and physical illness, domestic violence, family members with criminal records, and long-term disconnection from the labor market.” “The intensive services the demonstration provided directly addressed these issues,” said Popkin. “Participants got regular support from case managers as well as access to clinical mental health services and transitional jobs programs.” The study's results were not a surprise to Breann Gala, associate at the Metropolitan Planning Council. Gala, a housing expert who has studied the Plan for Transformation, describes housing as a platform to improve a family's life, but adds that it's not enough. Her organization has developed Reconnecting Neighborhoods, a program at three Plan for Transformation sites which helps improve transportation, retail businesses and school partnerships in the new mixed-income communities the CHA has built. “Housing programs alone, particularly when serving a historically disenfranchised population, have not been able to achieve long-term family self-sufficiency,” said Gala. “It is hard to overemphasize the strain that comes with living in chronically violent environments.” Gala says that Section 8 voucher recipients face many of these same challenges, with the additional hurdle of families being spread out, making it harder for them to get the kinds of services they need. Last year, Gala helped launch the Chicago Regional Housing Choice Initiative, an effort to help voucher holders from eight regional housing authorities move to areas with more economic opportunities, and to connect them with services to help them thrive. And what about current CHA residents? Can the housing authority afford to provide the kinds of intensive services that made such a big difference in outcomes for residents who participated in the Urban Institute study? Popkin said the housing authority currently spends nearly $40 million a year on resident services, but that's not enough. However, not all residents need that kind of focused help, she said. Currently, the Urban Institute is working with the housing authority to address a group that didn't see improvement – young people. Even when intensive social services helped the adults in the demonstration group, their children were still struggling - behavior problems in young children, teen delinquency, crime and a lack of engagement in their education. One third of young adults who came from families that received services is neither in school nor employed. “The next challenge is to develop strategies for two-generation models that serve the whole family simultaneously,” said Popkin. Charles Woodyard, the current CEO at the CHA, said the agency is using the study to inform its policies and figure out how to best help residents. “The study also underscores our ongoing effort to provide key services and support for low-income residents who are on the road toward self-sufficiency and preparing to enter the global economy,” Woodyard said in a statement. “CHA will also partner with organizations to leverage resources for services to provide families with new opportunities and needed services.” Coming up with the money for additional services for residents may be tough. But if Popkin's study is correct, without them, many residents might not enjoy the full promise of the Plan for Transformation.

Kristina Tendilla’s father served in the U. S. Navy while still living in the Phillipines, and when he came to the United States in the late 1970s, he became an American citizen. He had three siblings, and as soon as he was granted citizenship, he petitioned for them to leave the poverty of their upbringing and come live with him. But it wasn’t to be. “He waited for his siblings for over 20 years,” said Tendilla, a community organizer with the Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment, “only to have two of them die at the end of their petition.” Alie Kabba of the United African Organization calls on Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin to “fight like a tiger” for immigrants and their families. Photo by Lucio Villa.  Tendilla was one of 14 of community activists affected by the immigration system who, along with Aldermen Danny Solis and Proco Joe Moreno, took part in a civil disobedience in front of the federal building on March 22. Their protests had two aims: push the “Gang of Eight”--U.S. senators tasked with putting forward an immigration blueprint to move on immigration reform, and prevent the family and diversity visas from being eliminated in the process. Family visas allow American citizens and green-card holders to apply for their relatives to live in the United States, while diversity visas make a certain number of visas available through a lottery program for countries with low immigration to the United States. Protesters hold immigration applications and state IDs during the rally. Photo by Lucio Villa. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the Gang of Eight, told The Washington Post that a limiting of family visas is likely. He said: Right now you get green cards to adult children, to grandparents. What I want to do is reserve green cards based on the economic needs of the country, and we’ll do something for families. But the goal for me is to replace a chained migration immigration system with an economic-based immigration system. In response to queries about the limiting of family visas, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s press office told The Chicago Reporter that, “Senator Durbin believes families should not be torn apart by deportations and that any comprehensive immigration reform measure must include a pathway to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented immigrants and the DREAM Act.” Advocates as well as the Congressional Asian Pacific American caucus sent letters to the Gang of Eight about the importance of the category. The processing of family visa can take years. According to the Migration Policy Institute, immigrants from the Phillipines wait, on average, more than 20 years to be reunited with their family members--but Tendilla worries of the harsher effects if the visa category is removed altogether. Her family’s circumstances “emotionally crippled my father and millions of other immigrant families,” she said. “We need an immigration system that is inclusive, fair and keeps families together.” More than 50 protesters lined the streets during the civil disobedience. Photo by Lucio Villa.

A think tank that works on creating economic opportunity came out with its annual scorecard, a state-by-state comparison of household financial security. According to the nonpartisan, Washington-based Corporation for Enterprise Development, Illinois ranks 33 out of the 50 states on how secure families are in their finances. The report analyzes five areas--financial assets and income, business and jobs, housing and homeownership, health care and education--and looks at how state policies are influencing those measures. Our state got a “C” in every category but housing and homeownership, where we got a “D.” One set of data points from the report caught my eye--three different measures of poverty in our state. The first is just the regular poverty rate--13.6 percent. The second is “asset poverty,” or what percentage of families would be able to get by for three months if they lost their incomes. The third is “liquid asset poverty,” further refining the idea of asset poverty.  A family of four, the report says, would need about $5,763 to get by for three months. A family may technically have that in assets, like the value of a home or car, for instance. But liquid assets are those they can get to quickly--savings, mutual funds, investments, 401Ks, etc. Liquid asset poverty means those families who don't have enough set aside to get by for three months in a way that can be easily cashed in. So, how are we doing on these last two measures? Take a look at this graphic: More than a quarter of Illinois families, or 26.4 percent, are “asset poor.” What's more, 42 percent of us are “liquid asset poor.” The report on Illinois also breaks down the numbers by race. Families of color are nearly three times as likely to be asset poor, and over two times as likely to be liquid asset poor. The scorecard highlights many policies the Corporation for Enterprise Development says need to change to help families build assets. For instance, like programs that create incentives for poor families to save, more protection from pay-day lenders and a change in the income tax structure. The bottom 20 percent of families, the think tank says, pay 2.8 times more of their income in taxes than the top 1 percent. Gov. Pat Quinn's press office did not provide a formal response to the report card, but did point to recent legislation passed, like the bill streamlining the foreclosure process, as well as efforts to increase the minimum wage and new federal funding for health care and education, to show how Quinn is addressing the issues raised in the report. What about you? Do you have $5,763 or likewise at the ready in case of financial collapse? Tell us your thoughts on how families can cushion themselves from job loss or debt and what the state's role in that should be. You can leave us a comment here or find us on Facebook or twitter.

It’s known as “the box”--the little square that job applicants are expected to check on an employment application if they have a criminal record. Cities and states around the country have passed laws to mitigate the effects of “the box” for ex-offenders. Now, Springfield is approaching the issue from a different direction--giving businesses an incentive to hire ex-offenders.

A bill that passed the Illinois Senate and is now making its way through the House would offer a $1,500 tax credit for any business that hires someone who has a criminal record--an increase from the $600 credit offered before.

The legislation also extends the definition of an “ex-offender” to include anyone with a criminal record except for sex offenders and credits businesses for hiring people who have been out of prison for up to three years.

“I hope this bill will help ease some of the burden placed on communities when ex-offenders leave prison,” said state Sen. Patricia Van Pelt, the lead sponsor of the bill. “And I hope it is part of a comprehensive approach to re-entry for former prisoners.”

Advocates who work with prisoners have applauded the bill.

“Having a record creates a lifetime barrier to employment,” said Laurie Jo Reynolds, an activist with the Tamms Year Ten, which was created to advocate for prisoners inside of the now-closed Tamms Correctional Center. The bill “would give companies a strong incentive to hire people with records.”

Reynolds said a paycheck can go a long way toward helping an entire community. According to The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Mobility Project, one in 28 children had a parent behind bars in 2010, and ex-offenders’ criminal record cuts their earnings by 40 percent.

“Employment is the fundamental way for people to become stable in all areas of their life,” she said. “Giving even a small incentive to hire people with records will ultimately strengthen these communities.”

Here’s what else we’re following in Springfield this week:

• Mandatory-minimum gun legislation in the House would place anyone caught with an illegal gun behind bars for at least 2.5 years. We looked at an estimated long-term price tag of this bill on Chicago Muckrakers this week.

• Under current law, a 17-year-old who commits a felony is tried in adult court in Illinois. A House bill would raise the age at which an offender can be classified as a “delinquent minor” and sent to an adult court from 17 to 18.

• A bill will increase the penalties for anyone who submits false information to get healthcare services from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class 4 felony.

• A lawmaker from Watseka, a small town in Western Illinois, is attempting to bring back funding for Dwight Correctional Center, one of the prisons Gov. Pat Quinn ordered closed last year. The bill would add more than $35 million into the budget for the Illinois Department of Corrections to operate Dwight.

Photo credit: Truthout.org

Hundreds gathered at New Beginnings Church of Chicago for the funeral of 6-month-old Jonylah Emani Watkins. One week earlier, the baby was shot in the South Side’s Woodlawn neighborhood, according to the Chicago Police Department. —Produced and photographed by Jonathan Gibby and Lucio Villa

The debate over how to stop the bloodshed in Chicago headed south last week as Illinois lawmakers took up a bill that would put more people with guns behind bars--for longer. There is a logic behind HB 2265, which was introduced by state Rep. Michael Zalewski, a Democrat from west suburban Riverside. The argument: that felons, gang members and just about anyone convicted of carrying a loaded gun might think twice if they knew that they’d face mandatory time behind bars. And if they didn’t, they’d do enough time--a minimum of about 2.5 years--and stay off the streets. Presumably, that would help solve Chicago’s ongoing homicide crisis. “What we have here in Chicago is a serious situation where the streets are not safe and the police are crying out for help,” Zalewski said. If this new “war on guns” is starting to sound a lot like the “war on drugs,” well, that’s because it is. In fact, it has the potential to be a lot more expensive than recently passed tough-on-crime drug laws, according to a Chicago Reporter analysis of Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court records. Had the mandatory gun penalties under HB 2265 already been on the books, Illinois taxpayers would have been responsible for, at a minimum, more than $760 million in additional incarceration costs related to gun possession convictions between 2000 and 2011, our analysis has found. That’s on top of the estimated $5.3 billion in incarceration costs stemming from all criminal cases originating in Chicago during that time. The additional cost come from the fact that roughly six out of every 10 people convicted of one of these felony gun crimes in Cook County have been sentenced to time behind bars, our analysis shows. The other 10,130 defendants were sentenced to an alternative to prison like probation or boot camp--which would no longer be an option under Zalewski’s bill. The Illinois Office of Budget and Management projects that the state would also have to spend an extra $263 million to build the prison space to accommodate the number of potential inmates. “I’m not going to be disingenuous and suggest that the bill is not expensive,” Zalewski told me. “But if we say we can’t afford to protect public safety, we’re not doing our job.” The measure is currently in the Illinois General Assembly’s House Judiciary Committee. Zalewski said members of his caucus are debating over whether they could relax some current mandatory prison offenses to free up inmate space for these gun-related crimes and blunt the cost to taxpayers. Friday is the deadline to move the bill to the floor for a full vote. Even if we could afford it, the question still remains: Would mandatory prison time be effective? As I pondered this question, I was reminded of one of my old stories. A little more than two years ago, I dug into the court cases of youth who’d been convicted of adult felony gun crimes. I went into the project thinking that I’d be looking at some bad boys. It was a reasonable assumption, considering that young people have been involved in more than their fair share of Chicago’s homicides, whose number leads the nation--by plenty. I pulled the records to examine each of those convictions and, as I read through them, I quickly realized that I needed to throw all of my assumptions out the window. We ended up calling the piece, “Without a Smoking Gun,” with good reason. Take Isaac Mobley’s case. At 16, he was trying to be a typical teenager; he played on the football team, made respectable grades, was on a drill team. During his sophomore year, he transferred to an alternative high school because the trip to Hyde Park Academy High School was just too dangerous. Isaac decided to get gun to protect himself. But he was caught with it at school, convicted of a gun-related felony and sentenced to mandatory time behind bars as a result. With what came across to me as a twinge of regret, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Vincent Gaughan said, “Mr. Mobley, it is just very unfortunate this stuff is happening.” Gaughan sentenced him to a year behind bars. “I know the streets are dangerous,” Gaughan added. “You have to get that through your head, no matter how dangerous it is out there. You are going to be able to adapt without having the weapons. Otherwise, you are going to keep getting hurt.” Isaac was eventually released into the same violent South Deering neighborhood. Within a year, he was gunned down while walking to a birthday party. His mother told me that police chalked up his death to being at the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s not an uncommon narrative. Whether the stiffer sentence would have scared Isaac straight—we will never know.

Between 2000 and 2011, nearly 150,000 Chicago defendants received a prison sentence in the Cook County Circuit Court. The majority of them were from poor neighborhoods on the city's South and West sides. Raymond Richard was one of those people. At one time, he lived on the streets of Chicago and turned to drugs and crime to survive. He was released from prison in 2008 and turned his life around. Now he is devoting his life to helping men and women like him put their lives back together after incarceration by assisting them in finding jobs and becoming productive members of society. Richard refuses to call people who are released from prison "ex-offenders" because ex-offenders can’t find jobs. Instead, he likes to call them "returning citizens." —By Lucio Villa

Updated 3/25/2013: On March 12, about 200 people attended a press conference and vigil honoring Jonylah Watkins, a 6-month-old baby who was fatally shot a day earlier in the South Side’s Woodlawn neighborhood. The Chicago Police Department initially reported, and later retracted, that Jonylah was shot multiple times, and that her father was changing her diaper in the car when she was shot. —Photos by Lucio Villa

When it comes to housing people can afford in Illinois, there’s a serious mismatch. A new report from the National Low-income Housing Coalition shows that for every 100 “extremely low-income” households in Illinois, only 28 affordable units are available. Extremely low-income is defined as a household with an income of 30 percent of the state’s median income or less. In Illinois, that means a family of four making less than $21,650 a year. The coalition group defined an affordable unit as one where a family would pay no more than 30 percent of its income in rent, a widely held standard. Our state is following a nationwide trend, a growing gap between the number of poor folks looking for a place to rent and the number of units they can afford. Meanwhile, the number of units that people at higher incomes can afford is growing. “The result of the foreclosure crisis  is that many more people are renting, and competition for those few rental units affordable to extremely low-income households has increased, and rents for these households have continued to go up,”  said Bob Palmer, policy director for Housing Action Illinois, a statewide coalition advocating for more affordable housing. The numbers, released in February, come from an analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey. The coalition’s numbers have caught the attention of national and local housing officials at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. “HUD is extremely concerned about the shortage of affordable housing and preserving affordable housing stock is a major focus of Secretary Donovan,” said Laura Feldman, director of public affairs for HUD Region V. Feldman pointed to one new HUD program. The Rental Assistance Demonstration program targets properties that are under old federal subsidies and at risk of becoming unaffordable or dilapidated. HUD helps convert them to new, long-term Section 8 contracts, keeping them affordable and giving owners access to capital for needed repairs. Under the program, HUD began working with three Illinois housing authorities as of January: the agencies of Christian County in Central Illinois, Lake County and Elgin. The effort will allow them to obtain private financing to rehab 458 units. But Palmer points out that the program just preserves existing affordable units, rather than creating new ones. Palmer and advocates at the National Low-Income Housing Coalition want the government to fund the National Housing Trust Fund, established in 2008 as part of the Economic Recovery Act. The money for the trust fund was supposed to come from contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but those sources were suspended when both organizations fell into financial disarray during the recession. The trust fund would provide communities with money to build housing for very low and extremely low-income families. The money, according to the coalition’s proposal, could come from changes to the mortgage interest tax deduction, including capping the deduction at $500,000 of a home’s value, down from $1 million, creating additional tax revenue to fund the construction of affordable housing. “The savings from reforming the mortgage interest deduction and investing those funds in the National Housing Trust Fund would generate $200 billion over 10 years,” Palmer said. He added that Illinois would receive about $9 billion and be able to “fund the creation or preservation of approximately 109,000 units.” U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota will soon be reintroducing legislation to bankroll the trust fund, according to his press office. “The challenge of getting it funded through the mortgage interest deduction savings is the competition with deficit reduction,” Palmer added. “The Obama administration has supported funding the trust fund, but their support hasn’t resulted in funding.” Those 109,000 actually add up to about 45 percent than the current affordable housing deficit in the Chicago metro area alone, according to the coalition’s data. That number is 239,699--the difference between the number of extremely low-income families looking and the number of available and affordable units--and it’s been growing in recent years. So even if the trust fund gets established--which may be a long shot considering all that’s troubling Congress these days--poor folks in Chicago might still have a tough time finding a place they can hang their hat without hurting their pocketbook. Photo credit: Shutterstock/housing prices

About this time last year, Mick Dumke, a senior writer at the Chicago Reader, decided that he wasn’t going to bite his tongue any more. Dumke and I had privately been going back and forth about how to pry court records from the office of Dorothy Brown, the clerk of Cook County’s massive court system. We both wanted to probe what was happening within our local criminal justice system where, according to our analysis of the U.S. Department of Justice, expenditures top $1 billion each year. “Our criminal justice system is rife with disparities along lines of race, income and power,” Dumke wrote last March in a pointed article aimed at shaking the data loose. “Yet it’s impossible to confront or even monitor the system’s flaws without first overcoming a troubling disparity of another sort: the gulf between the public’s right to know and the access offered by our institutions of justice.” The sort of electronic court records that Dumke and I were after is not subject to open records laws in Illinois. Local officials have complete control over who they will give electronic files to and at what cost. I was asking for more than 11 years’ worth of data that would tell us who’s been convicted of a crime in Cook County, for what, where they came from and, to some extent, how much it is costing taxpayers. Lucky for us, Timothy C. Evans, chief judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, approved our request. But Brown’s office told us that it would cost $7,000 to process our request--purportedly to cover the time and effort to pull the records. As a nonprofit news operation, we couldn’t afford it, so we decided to start a fundraiser. But Evans eventually waived the fees for us. That was just the beginning of the end, though. While Dumke waited for his records, “Seasons changed; crops were harvested; babies were born; the Bears collapsed,” he wrote. His data finally arrived in March (but a $1,400 bill still stands between him and the records*.) Mine didn’t. I continued to make phone calls, send emails, and make a stink on Facebook. Then I waited some more. Finally, the data arrived in May, about seven months after I filed my first request. I used the data as a basis for three of my stories for The Chicago Reporter. One just came out as the cover story in the March/April issue. Here are just a few of the facts that we’ve been able to glean--thus far:

• In just more than a decade, more than 147,000 prison sentences were handed out to Chicagoans, costing taxpayers an estimate $5.3 billion. The bulk of those folks came from just 2 percent of the city’s blocks;
• Three decades after the “war on drugs” was first waged, fear continues to not only drive new harsher laws but send more black men into state penitentiaries;
• A growing number of those adult felons are actually children. Not only does the number of 17-year-olds arrested in Chicago trump all other major cities, they nearly equaled the total of arrests in Los Angeles, Houston and Philadelphia combined;
• Enough people have been convicted of a felony in Cook County during the past decade to fill the seats of Soldier Field more than three times over. Four out of five of those defendants were represented by public defenders who carry crushing caseloads that are the highest in the nation.

Each of these stories stands on its own. But at the Reporter, we’re trying to connect the dots. The same goes for Dumke, who has done more than his fair share of trying to make sense of a criminal justice system that, at times, just doesn’t. What we can say for certain is this: Without public records, we wouldn’t even be able to begin trying.   *Correction: This post originally stated that Dumke had received the the data that he requested. While the information was made available, the cost was prohibitive and he is currently requesting a fee waiver from Judge Evans' office.

Tenants and community members gathered Thursday to demand that either 46th Alderman James Cappleman or the new owner of the Hotel Chateau to protect current residents from possible homelessness. The Chateau, a single-room-occupancy hotel located in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, has functioned as the housing of last resort for the working poor in the area for decades. It has housed minimum-wage workers, those on fixed incomes and those with bad credit. The building was recently sold and will be gutted and rehabbed. The residents fear it will be reopened as higher-end studio apartments like other former SROs in the neighborhood. “If they close Chateau down, where will these people go,” said concerned resident Anne Sullivan. This collection of photographs is part of a series of images that focuses on homelessness and poverty that will be published on www.chicagoreporter.com. —Photographs by Jonathan Gibby

In his budget address Wednesday, Gov. Pat Quinn went over his top budget priorities for fiscal year 2014. He placed the speech’s main focus on the state of underfunded pensions. In case you missed the speech, we’ve pulled out some of the key statements. Public sector pensions Quinn stressed that some public employees would no longer have the cost of living adjustments as part of their pensions, and that the amount of adjustments would need to be changed going forward. “There should be adjustments to pension benefits to fundamentally resolve this crisis. These adjustments should include reforms to the pension cost of living adjustment. The [cost of living adjustment] is currently 3 percent compounded annually. That’s unsustainable for taxpayers. For those with higher pensions, the cost of living adjustment should be suspended until the entire pension system achieves better balance.But the pension reform solution should include cost of living adjustments going forward. A larger contribution of payments to pension funds should also come from employees themselves, Quinn said. In addition, employees should adjust their own contributions to their pensions. A few weeks ago, I attended the summit called by representatives of public employees. I listened to them. I was pleased that they volunteered to raise their employee contribution to help resolve the pension crisis. This offer should be part of the solution. Other cuts Education spending will also take a cut in Quinn’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2014, with a proposed 3.5 percent decrease in general state aid to schools. But in his speech, he didn’t mention this cut, touting instead that the budget “preserved investment in early childhood education” and “[Monetary Award Program] scholarships for Illinois college students who are in financial need.” The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services would also see a 2.2 percent cut in its general operations budget. The Illinois Department of Human Services, meanwhile, would receive an overall budget increase of 10.4 percent, but some individual programs would see a cut. The Domestic Violence Partner Abuse Intervention Program would see a 13.7 percent decrease in its funding, while Mental Health Permanent Supportive Housing would have a 24.2 percent cut. Who’s the blame for these cuts? Quinn pointed to the Illinois General Assembly’s inaction on pensions. There are significant reductions in this budget that I do not want to make—and that none of you will want to make either. These reductions are the direct result of the General Assembly’s lack of action on public pension reform. Our pension obligations have squeezed out funding for core services. And every day that passes without pension reform, the problem gets worse.” Photo credit: ChrisEaves.com

In his budget address Wednesday, Gov. Pat Quinn went over his top budget priorities for fiscal year 2014. He placed the speech’s main focus on the state of underfunded pensions. In case you missed the speech, we’ve pulled out some of the key statements. Public sector pensions Quinn stressed that some public employees would no longer have the cost of living adjustments as part of their pensions, and that the amount of adjustments would need to be changed going forward. “There should be adjustments to pension benefits to fundamentally resolve this crisis. These adjustments should include reforms to the pension cost of living adjustment. The [cost of living adjustment] is currently 3 percent compounded annually. That’s unsustainable for taxpayers. For those with higher pensions, the cost of living adjustment should be suspended until the entire pension system achieves better balance.But the pension reform solution should include cost of living adjustments going forward. A larger contribution of payments to pension funds should also come from employees themselves, Quinn said. In addition, employees should adjust their own contributions to their pensions. A few weeks ago, I attended the summit called by representatives of public employees. I listened to them. I was pleased that they volunteered to raise their employee contribution to help resolve the pension crisis. This offer should be part of the solution. Other cuts Education spending will also take a cut in Quinn’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2014, with a proposed 3.5 percent decrease in general state aid to schools. But in his speech, he didn’t mention this cut, touting instead that the budget “preserved investment in early childhood education” and “[Monetary Award Program] scholarships for Illinois college students who are in financial need.” The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services would also see a 2.2 percent cut in its general operations budget. The Illinois Department of Human Services, meanwhile, would receive an overall budget increase of 10.4 percent, but some individual programs would see a cut. The Domestic Violence Partner Abuse Intervention Program would see a 13.7 percent decrease in its funding, while Mental Health Permanent Supportive Housing would have a 24.2 percent cut. Who’s the blame for these cuts? Quinn pointed to the Illinois General Assembly’s inaction on pensions. There are significant reductions in this budget that I do not want to make—and that none of you will want to make either. These reductions are the direct result of the General Assembly’s lack of action on public pension reform. Our pension obligations have squeezed out funding for core services. And every day that passes without pension reform, the problem gets worse.” Photo credit: ChrisEaves.com

Food Center Uprooted. The Uptown Salvation Army has one month to find a new home where it can continue to feed low-income Chicagoans, after Alderman James Cappleman told the charity it could no longer serve from his ward, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The move has angered some residents, who will protest outside his office on Wednesday. Final School Closing Meeting. The last chance for parents and community members to tell Chicago Public Schools their opinion on the planned school closing is Monday. The community hearing for the Pilsen-Little Village school network will finish more than a month of hearings all across the city. Behind the Kitchen Door. Restaurant workers not only earn low wages, but work in some of the harshest conditions. The founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Center, which seeks to organize restaurant workers,  will speak Tuesday about the lives of these workers and how better work conditions would improve the meals that arrive at restaurants' tables. Radical Slavery. Professor Anthony Bogues will discuss what stories about slavery have not been told, and why it is important to hear those stories, in a lecture Thursday at the University of Illinois at Chicago.   -by Natasha Hemley -image from Tojosan

With 129 Chicago Public schools on the potential closings list, many are wondering if their local school is going to be shut down. Chicago's South and West sides  are bearing the brunt of the school closure list. And in North Lawndale, in the few miles around the home of The Barber Shop Show, Carter's Barbershop, there are eight schools waiting to find out whether they will open their doors again next September. Take a look at this Google map that our producer, Ayana Contreras, put together. View North Lawndale/Austin schools on preliminary CPS closure list in a larger map In the shop today, we'll have Lorraine Forte of Catalyst Chicago to talk about the impact of school closures across the city. Catalyst recently put up a timeline of the last few years of school closings under Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Will this year's closures play out in a similar way, even with new CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett at the helm? We'll ask Lorraine. Also on today's show is Allison Beaulieu, an art teacher at Dett Elementary, a school in the footprint of the former Henry Horner Homes. The school's students are 98.4 percent black and 98.8 percent low-income. Beaulieu and others from the school are fighting to stop Dett from being closed. We'll hear about that fight and what impact the school closing might have on the community. Is your local school on the closings list? Tell us your concerns. You can leave a comment hear for us to read on air, or connect with us on Facebook or twitter. As always, don't forget to tune into the Barber Shop Show on Vocalo 89.5 or 90.5 FM from 12 to 1 p.m. or stream it live from Vocalo.org. If you miss the show, you can catch a rebroadcast on Saturdays at noon or download our weekly podcast. Photo credit: Antonio Perez, Chicago Tribune