Community Renewal Society

Obama Returns. President Barack Obama will visit Chicago Friday to discuss the gun violence in his home town. The announcement of his return comes shortly after the funeral of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old student who performed at Obama's inauguration ceremony and was fatally shot on Jan. 30. SRO Protest. The Lakeview Action Coalition had a demonstration outside 44th Ward Alderman Tom Tunney’s Ann Sathers restaurant. The crowd demanded to meet with him, but he wouldn’t come outside. Stay tuned for our slideshow on the incident. Segregation in CHA. How segregated is Chicago’s public housing? This week we use infographics to look at the demographics of the Chicago Public Housing Authority. CPS School Closing Hearings. Another week of community hearings about school closings in Chicago is coming. Some of the hearings so far have been raucous. Ex-offenders’ Employment. The City Council's Committee on Budget and Government Operations will consider an ordinance on whether to extend an employment program for ex-offenders. If passed, the city comptroller will be able to hire people with criminal backgrounds to help perform debt collection for the city.

On last week's Barber Shop Show, we touched on a timely topic here in Chicago: youth violence. Photographer Carlos Javier Ortiz from the Too Young To Die project joined us at Carter's Barber Shop, along with students from the Columbia Links youth journalism program who write about the violence they see happening around them. Here's Ortiz and student Diamond Trusty sharing their own experiences about why they've gotten involved in trying to raise awareness and combat  youth violence: On today's Barber Shop Show, we're taking on the city's black poetry scene. Joining us in studio will be Haki Madhubuti of Third World Press, Young Chicago Authors poet Malcom London, and poet and educator Avery R. Young. Tune in to the Barber Shop Show on Fridays at noon on Vocalo 89.5 FM or 90.5 FM WRTE, or stream it online at Vocalo.org. If you miss the show, you can always catch a rebroadcast on Saturdays from 12 to 1 p.m. or download our podcast.

More than 100 people marched on the campus of the University of Chicago last week to remember victims of gun violence and to ask for a Level I Trauma Center on the South Side. The students also wanted the university to drop charges against four protesters who were arrested the week before at a similar action. Students for Health Equity, one of the groups that marched at the vigil, say the lack of a trauma center for victims over the age of 16 is part of Chicago's "structural acceptance of violence." The University of Chicago says the region's nine trauma centers are already adequately serving the city's South Side.

#2young2die. Every day this week we'll be showcasing a photograph from our Too Young to Die series by photojournalist Carlos Javier Ortiz. Look out for them on our Facebook page. Front Lines. It's women on the front lines of the sex trade who bear the brunt of harsh policing against prostitution. One of our blogs this week contends that will continue to be the case unless the bigger picture, putting the onus on pimps and johns, is addressed. Honoring the victims. Community groups have held a flower vigil to remember the scores of young people lost to violence in Chicago. Our photographers were there to capture the moments. Uncertain Future. Curtis Horton and his partner Henrietta Riley don't know what they are going to do when the Chateau, a single-room-occupancy hotel the two are currently living in, is sold. Read the latest part of their story at Chicago Muckrakers this week. Celebrating Harold Washington. This is the 30th year of the election of Chicago's first black Mayor, Harold Washington. The Museum of Broadcast Communications will hold a month-long series of screening as well as a seminar Wednesday to celebrate his legacy.

We like to feature a range of issues on the Barber Shop Show--some serious, some more light-hearted. Our monthly WTF segment usually brings quite a few laughs. But lately, Chicago's news has been serious and so have we. Last week, host Richard Steele and sports reporter Cheryl Raye Stout discussed a shooting that took the life of a 17 year-old high school student after a basketball game at Chicago State University. Take a look: And this week, we'll be talking about The Chicago Reporter's latest installment of Too Young to Die, a series of documentary photos and articles on youth violence in Chicago. We'll have photographer Carlos Javier Ortiz talking about his six years spent taking pictures of the aftermath of shooting on the city's South and West sides. We'll also have students from Columbia Links, a youth journalism program, who are trying to combat the violence they see in their neighborhoods and create positive change. Today's guests, Lily Moore and Michael Wettig, both of whom contributed to Columbia Links investigative series on violence, "Treating the Violence Epidemic." Tune in to the Barber Shop Show on Vocalo, 89.5 FM or stream it live on Vocalo.org every Friday at noon to 1 p.m. Or if you miss the show, catch the rebroadcast on Saturdays at the same time or download our podcast. 

Margaret and Tony don’t have much, but they get by. Sometimes, Tony jokes, their 12-year-old cat, Jason, eats better than them. Margaret’s rough hands look like they’ve been scrubbed clean, almost to the point of being painful. She has the kind of manners that make you think she was brought up by a very attentive mother—please, thank you and pardon me. She manages polite conversation, even though she’s terribly worried. Tony is too. They live at Hotel Chateau, a single-room-occupancy building in East Lakeview, and it’s recently been sold. If the Chateau goes the way of the handful of other SRO buildings nearby, the couple will soon be priced out. Tony and Margaret’s names have been changed to protect their identity because they fear they’ll be kicked out of the building. Together, they survive on $1,066 a month, with each getting $533 in disability checks. Margaret has epilepsy. Tony has a hearing problem. They’ve been married for 12 years, throughout which they’ve moved from place to place in Chicago every couple of years as the rent became unaffordable. They don’t love living at the Chateau, but it’s a roof over their head. When Tony talks about his neighbors, many of whom are drug addicts and alcoholics, he hesitates to bad-mouth them, knowing they need a place to live too. “Let’s just say that some of our neighbors leave something to be desired,” he says. What will happen to Margaret, Tony and their more undesirable neighbors? Local residents are trying to figure that out. Their Day In Court At a Tuesday court hearing, residents found out that the Chateau will be vacated and gutted. The hearing was on the building’s code violations, but residents had hoped to learn more about the sale. In fact, 46th Ward Alderman James Cappleman had previously said more information about the owners would be revealed at the court hearing. But on Tuesday, Cappleman instead declined to state the buyer's name, saying he had promised the new owner not to reveal the identity. The Chicago Reporter asked Cappleman why he would make such a promise, given that Chateau residents, his constituents, are anxious about the building's fate. He waved his hand and said, “There's something called the First Amendment.” Cappleman also said he wasn’t sure when the owner's name would be disclosed. He emphasized the Chateau's current condition was hazardous to its residents. “My focus right now is on saving people's lives,” said Cappleman. “My first priority is that the residents are safe.” The Chateau has been in housing court ever since an inspection in the fall found numerous building violations, including problems with fire escapes, smoke alarms and trash piling up in hallways and garbage chutes. A new corporation named 3838 North Broadway, the Chateau’s address, was established on Jan. 3, according to the Illinois Corporations Database, which is part of the Secretary of State’s Office. It’s not clear who owns that business, though the database listed attorney Gerard Walsh as its registered agent. Walsh did not answer his phone or return voicemails seeking comment. The attorney who represented the corporation in court, Mitchell Asher, declined to comment on the identity of the building’s new owner. Real estate mogul Jamie Purcell of BJB Properties has already purchased four former SROs in the neighborhood--the Ambers, the Bel-Air, the Sheffield and the Abbott. All of those buildings have been vacated, rehabbed and are being reopened as high-end studio apartment buildings that are not affordable for Margaret and Tony, who pay $575 a month at the Chateau. Purcell did not return several voicemails the Reporter left at his Park Ridge office. Searching For Home Meanwhile, Margaret and Tony are looking for another place to live, but they are not too optimistic. Most nonprofits or programs that have low-income housing don’t allow couples to live together. Or they have a long waiting list. “We are on a number of waiting lists,” says Margaret. When they hear that neighborhood residents are afraid of the people who live at the Chateau, they sympathize. They’re often bothered by their neighbors too. But among the 138 rooms at the Chateau, they say, are people like themselves—working-class people, poor people, ordinary people who do not have any other place to go. Chester Kropidlowski is one of those in the neighborhood who’s bothered by Chateau patrons. Some of them, he says, panhandle in front of the building; others loiter there too or at a bus shelter nearby. Neighbors feel the building’s residents contribute to crime in the area. But Kropidlowski also recognizes that there are people whom he described as “poor souls” living at the Chateau and causing no trouble. He contends that the big problem is how the building is managed. “The same person has owned it for many, many years,” says Kropidlowski, president of the board of the local neighborhood group, East Lake View Neighbors. “Apparently, the person lives in a gated community in Florida, impossible to contact, and he has only responded to concerns in the past when he had no other choice.” Kropidlowski is referring to Jack Gore, who has owned other troubled Chicago SROs. In 2008, Gore relinquished ownership of the Diplomat Hotel, also in Lakeview, when the building began to rack up fines from code violations. The business number for Gore at Cedar Hotel has been disconnected. Gore’s lawyer, Leon Wexler, confirmed Gore no longer owns the Chateau, but he wouldn’t comment further. A Safe Haven, A Safe Community It’s clear the Chateau isn’t the neighborhood’s favorite, but Kropidlowski hopes it can be turned into something he and others would be “proud to have in the community.” In essence, Kropidlowski, Margaret and Tony all want the same thing--a safe Hotel Chateau and a safe neighborhood. It’s just that getting it will likely mean Margaret and Tony can no longer live there. “They’ll straighten it up, and then they’re going to charge a lot more money,” says Margaret. Sreya Sarkar has noticed the decline of available SRO housing in the neighborhood in her job as education and advocacy director at Lakeview Pantry, a food pantry that sits across the street from the Chateau. She estimates that Lakeview has lost at least 400 affordable units over the last two years. Working at the pantry, she gets to meet plenty of Chateau residents like Margaret and Tony. “They’re good citizens,” says Sarkar. “They don’t cause trouble. They don’t have substance abuse issues. They want to live peacefully there. They just don’t have another place to go to because other SROs have closed down.” A local group that advocates for affordable housing, Lakeview Action Coalition, is hoping it can convince the hotel’s new owner to keep at least part of the building affordable. Bharathi Gunasekaran, a housing organizer with the coalition, says many of the Chateau’s tenants come from other places nearby that have closed. “A lot of people have moved from one SRO to another as they’ve been closing,” says Gunasekaran. Gunasekaran was upset to hear that the building would be vacated. “Once the residents move out, they have no chance of moving back in,” she said. After the court hearing, residents of the Chateau surrounded Cappleman, questioning him about the building's future and their own. When Cappleman replied that he was working with the Chicago Department of Family and Supportive Services to help residents find housing, all Margaret could do was sigh. “We're going to end up on the street,” she said.

Last week, Hayida Pendleton was performing at President Obama's inauguration festivities. Today, the body of the 15 year-old girl is in the Cook County morgue. She died yesterday of a gunshot wound to the back, hit by a gunman who opened fire on a crowd of teens gathered under a tent after school, trying to avoid the pouring rain. The story is tragic. The stories about Pendleton and the pictures her family shared are heartbreaking. Her death is one single tragedy, but it's part of a larger story about gun violence in Chicago. Young people are the No. 1 target when it comes to the city's sky-high homicide rate. From 2008 through 2012, nearly half of Chicago’s 2,389 homicide victims were killed before their 25th birthday. That statistic is from our new story in our ongoing series, Too Young To Die, which includes documentary photos from photographer Carlos Javier Ortiz. Ortiz has spent six years documenting Chicago's homicide epidemic, and his photos are gripping. For part of the project, we created a map of every homicide within the city of people under 25 between 2008 and 2012. Each dot is one person, and by clicking on it, you can see where and when they died, their name, race, age and gender. Hayida Pendleton's death is a serious loss. The same goes for the 1,118 young people who were killed over the last five years. We know these kids are too young to die. The question is: What are we doing about it?

If there's one trend in immigration over the past 40 years, it's been that there is more of it. Our recent analysis of immigration data found that there are more foreign-born people in Chicago, more foreign language speakers, and more people deported. And with the change in population, it's no surprise that this has been the case. The foreign-born population took a big jump after the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which removed racial quotas for immigration. The number of people who were born outside the U.S. grew from 9.6 million in 1970 to nearly 40 million in 2010. In Chicago, this is what the changes have looked like: And with them has come a bigger diversity of languages. But not all of the trends have more immigrants coming to Chicago. There are about 11.1 million undocumented people living in the U.S., according to a 2012 report by the Pew Hispanic Center. And for the past two years, the number of people deported has hit record highs. In 2011, 396,906 people were deported. And in 2012, 409,849 people were deported, making it the largest number of people deported in one year so far. U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez told The Chicago Reporter that in the past 40 years he has seen the immigration issue become increasingly politicized. “As Latinos in the ‘70s, there was never a sense that we needed to go out and help those who were undocumented or even challenge ourselves to do better with that part of our community,” Gutierrez said. Now, he says, a decades of protests, and punitive immigration legislation, has inspired people of all backgrounds to fight for comprehensive immigration reform. “We’re going to have it because people in the street are going to demand it,” he said. Read more about the activism behind the numbers in our 40th anniversary issue. Photo credit: Anuska Sampedro