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Uptown residents march for low-income housing

Uptown residents march for low-income housing

by David Harrell News Editor

“What do we want? Affordable housing! When do we want it? NOW!” Armed with militant chants, pounding drums and even bagpipes, an estimated 200-250 demonstrators took to the streets in Uptown on Friday, Nov. 9. The march, organized by the Organization of the NorthEast (ONE), was held to protest what the activists see as runaway development that’s driving away low-income residents. Specifically targeted during the march were three sites slated for redevelopment into condominiums, to range in price from $155,000 to the mid-$200,000s: the old Goldblatt’s building at the corner of Broadway and Racine, and two vacant lots at Leland and Kenmore avenues. Speakers from neighborhood groups and ministries affiliated with ONE demanded that local, state and federal officials hold real estate developers accountable to the community, and that developers set aside 30 percent of all new developments as “affordable” units. Beginning at Truman College, 1145 W. Wilson Ave., the marchers went east to Broadway, then north toward the intersection of Broadway and Racine, repeating chants such as this one sung to the tune of “Jingle Bells”:

Rising rents, rising costs, rising every day, This is our community, But we are pushed away, Oh... Rising costs, Rising costs, Rising every day, We will keep on fighting back And this is where we’ll stay. At the old Goldblatt’s building at Broadway and Racine just south of Lawrence Avenue, the group stopped for a few minutes for fiery speeches denouncing the developers’ plans for 37 residential condo units and a Border’s bookstore—commonly seen as a Wal-Mart-like behemoth that drives small local booksellers out of business. “I work and live in this community and I don’t want to be displaced,” shouted Gloria Ramos of the Chicago Uptown Ministry, to cheers from the audience. “I belong to this community and I want to stay here. We need affordable housing in Uptown.” Because the developer, Joseph Freed and Associates, is asking for over $6 million in funding from a TIF district, the development by law must include “affordable housing.” However, according to ONE, the seven most “affordable” units at this site will be one-bedroom condominium units for $155,000 apiece. The march went back south on Broadway and then east on Leland, arriving at two dirt lots on the northwest corner of Leland and Kenmore. On one of the lots, ground has already been broken for a new development. The owner of one of the lots has met with ONE members and said he’d consider making some contribution to affordable housing. But the owner of the other lot said he wouldn’t be building any affordable units, according to information supplied by ONE. At the site, social worker Maureen Rigney took the megaphone. She said that although federal housing mandates say “affordable housing” should cost no more than 30 percent of one’s income, some people in Uptown are paying up to 60 percent for housing, leaving little left for food, medicine and utilities. “For these folks ... every day is a struggle,” Rigney said. “People came to Uptown because it used to be a mecca of affordable housing. This is no longer the case.” Pastor Bob Lesher of Chicago Uptown Ministry said he’d lost 25 people from a congregation of 40 due to the rising cost of housing, which chased them out of the neighborhood, the city of Chicago—and in some cases, even the state. Lesher said people are being “displaced for dollars and cents.” The city’s definition of affordable housing is so elastic that “no one in our community can afford them,” he said. Comparing gentrification to the Jim Crow laws of the old South, Lesher remarked: “The people who did these things were doing what was legal, but they were not doing what was moral. ... What is moral is more than what is legal, and what is legal must always be what’s moral.” Pa Joof, principal of Prologue School, an alternative high school for at-risk youth, exhorted the marchers to “organize, organize for housing.” “We live here,” Joof shouted through the megaphone. “We have been here for over 30 years, and we are going to fight to stay in Uptown and help the young people who otherwise would be in jail.” Joof said the struggle was “against an oppressive systems that are exploiting people in our neighborhoods, gentrifying them. It’s part and parcel of the capitalist structure that we know. And we should not kid ourselves as to who our friends are and who our enemies are.” The march was infiltrated, however, by an agent of a loose-knit group that some of the advocates might have viewed as the “enemy”: A man was present in front of Truman College as the march began, passing out flyers headlined “Every child deserves safe housing.” Similar to flyers passed out at a CAPS anti-crime march two weeks ago, condemned by Ald. Shiller as “inflammatory,” it provided a laundry list of recent violent crime and drug offenses in Uptown, especially in Beat 2311, the area near the college. At the CAPS march, members of ONE, Shiller and others clashed with members of the Uptown Chicago Commission and local block clubs over the problem of crime and its alleged roots in nearby CHA public housing units. ONE is a 25-year-old community association serving the northeast side of Chicago, Currently its membership includes 74 congregations, nonprofits, businesses and ethnic associations.