SSW 05.23.24

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent non-profit newspaper by and for the South Side of Chicago. We provide high-quality, critical arts and public interest coverage, and equip and develop journalists, artists, photographers, and mediamakers of all backgrounds.

Volume 11, Issue 9 Editor-in-Chief

Jacqueline Serrato

Managing Editor

Adam Przybyl

Investigations Editor

Jim Daley

Senior Editors Martha Bayne Christopher Good Olivia Stovicek Sam Stecklow Alma Campos Politics Editor Music Editor Immigration Editor

J. Patrick Patterson Jocelyn Martínez-Rosales Wendy Wei

Community Builder

Chima Ikoro

Public Meetings Editor Scott Pemberton Visuals Editor

Kayla Bickham

Deputy Visuals Editor Shane Tolentino Staff Illustrators Mell Montezuma Shane Tolentino Staff Reporter

Michael Liptrot

Director of Fact Checking: Savannah Hugueley Fact Checkers: Patrick Edwards Arieon Whittsey Christopher Good Mo Dunne Layout Editor

Tony Zralka

Interim Executive Director

Malik Jackson

Office Manager

Mary Leonard

Advertising Manager

Susan Malone

Webmaster

Pat Sier

The Weekly publishes online weekly and in print every other Thursday. We seek contributions from all over the city.

Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, please contact: Susan Malone (773) 358-3129 or email: malone@southsideweekly.com For general inquiries, please call: (773) 643-8533

IN CHICAGO Museum of Science and Industry name change On Sunday, May 19, the Museum of Science and Industry was renamed the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, after the Citadel founder and CEO donated $125 million to the South Side institution. Originally announced in 2019, this was the largest single gift in the museum’s over ninety-year history.

Marking the occasion, the museum offered free admission and launched several new exhibits.

As part of the move of his business from Chicago to Florida, the billionaire hedge fund manager also donated $130 million to forty Chicago organizations, and has donated millions more to other organizations and projects, including the Lakefront Trail. Simultaneously, Griffin stopped his hundreds of millions in donations to his alma mater, Harvard, to demonstrate his opposition to student protests calling for divestment from companies with ties to Israel’s military.

DePaul University pro-Palestine encampment last to be taken down On May 16, police took down pro-Palestine encampments at DePaul University.

Students at the Catholic institution erected tents in the Lincoln Park campus quad on April 30. Seventeen days later, just after 5:30am, the Chicago Police department raided the encampment, pushing through students who tried to prevent officers from entering, according to CBS 2. While there were no arrests made, the quad and student center were shuttered. The encampment was cleared by 6am and protesters took to the adjacent streets to continue their rally and demonstrations.

The Divestment Coalition delivered ten demands to the University’s engagement team on May 1 that included acknowledgment from the University of the ongoing genocide and scholasticide in Gaza by the Israeli military; disclosure of investments, budgets and holdings of the university; and divestment from companies that advance Palestinian suffering. Also a part of their demands was the removal of “individuals with ties to Israel from board of trustee.” In a press release published after the clearing of the encampments, University President Robert L. Manuel called this demand “antisemitic and antithetical to [their] Vincentian values.” President Manuel also noted that two people were later arrested during the demonstration on Belden Ave. Chicago teen is youngest person to get PhD at Arizona State Dorothy Jean Tillman II is the youngest PhD recipient at Arizona State University.

The seventeen-year-old is the granddaughter of former 3rd Ward Alderwoman Dorothy Jean Tillman, who was elected in 1985 and the first woman to hold the position. AP reports that Tillman successfully defended her dissertation in December for her doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health.

Tillman’s accelerated educational journey began when mother enrolled her at the College of Lake County at age ten. She earned an associate’s degree in psychology from Lake County in 2016. Tillman then graduated from New York’s Excelsior College in 2018 with a bachelors in humanities, before completing her master in 2020 at Unity College in Maine. She was accepted to ASU’s doctoral program in 2021 at age fifteen.

IN THIS ISSUE cpd stats on shotspotter full of holes

A police department report about ShotSpotter alerts and 911 calls failed to include key information, according to data scientists.

jim daley and max blaisdell..................3 public meetings report

A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level.

scott pemberton and documenters.....5 a q&a with alexis lombre, the south side’s triple threat jazz maven

This Chicago jazz kid talks about her relentless journey and influences that are leading her to perform on prominent stages.

dierdre robinson.....................................6 welcome to the wnba hype era

With an influx of fans and star power, the WNBA is entering a new era—and the Chicago Sky could lead the way.

maya goldberg-safir...............................8 city closes woodlawn migrant shelter

Closing after fifteen months in operation, Wadsworth at its peak housed as many as 600 people.

zoe pharo, hyde park herald...............11 in pilsen, gentrification enriches some, squeezes others out

The proliferation of short-term rentals and skyrocketing rents has made it difficult for lifelong residents to stay on the Lower West Side.

alma campos...........................................12 en pilsen, la gentrificación enriquece a algunos, desplaza a otros

La abundancia de Airbnbs y las rentas altas han dificultado que los residentes más duraderos permanezcan en Pilsen y Heart of Chicago.

por alma campos traducido por jacqueline serrato.....15 the exchange

The Weekly’s poetry corner offers our thoughts in exchange for yours.

chima ikoro, claude robert hill, iv....18 chatham flooding mitigation program flounders, but oak park sees success

RainReady was supposed to launch in Chatham in 2019, but is not yet off the ground.

sidnee king, illinois answers project....20 calendar

Bulletin and events.

zoe pharo................................................22 hyde park summer fest comes to an end

Organizers shut down popular hip-hop festival over rising costs, but say ‘South Side still has room for a festival.’

zoe pharo, hyde park herald...............23

Cover illustration by Sydni Baluch

POLICE

CPD Stats on ShotSpotter Full of Holes A report the police department provided to City Council about ShotSpotter alerts and 911 calls failed to include key information, according to data scientists.

BY JIM DALEY AND MAX BLAISDELL

A

report by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) that said officers respond more quickly to ShotSpotter alerts than 911 calls doesn’t make a convincing argument for keeping the technology, according to experts who reviewed it. Eight university professors specializing in data science, sociology and criminology said the report lacked a number of key statistical measurements, and several questioned the accuracy of the report’s response time data.

Mayor Brandon Johnson announced in February that the City’s contract with ShotSpotter will expire in November.

Ald. David Moore (17th Ward) and other City Council members who advanced an ordinance that would allow them to keep ShotSpotter in their wards requested the data from CPD. The ordinance, which the <i>Reader</i> reported was written with help from a ShotSpotter lobbyist, would also direct CPD to collect data on the number of shell casings and weapons recovered as a result of alerts. In April, the Committee on Police and Fire advanced the ordinance to the City Council, which voted on it Wednesday, after this issue of the Weekly went to press. Moore did not respond to a request for comment.

On May 1, the Sun-Times reported that the CPD data bolsters the arguments of alderpersons who support the ordinance.

But the report showed that officers were far more likely to render aid to victims, recover firearms or make arrests when responding to alerts combined with 911 calls than ShotSpotter alerts alone.

The Weekly obtained the CPD report via a public records request. The report used arrival times logged by responding officers to show that between January 2018 and April 2024, officers responded to ShotSpotter alerts more than two minutes faster on average than to 911 calls alone or 911 calls that were accompanied by ShotSpotter

alerts. The difference in response times shrank to seventy seconds between January and April 2024.

A 2023 scientific study found a much smaller gap in police response times to 911 and ShotSpotter than CPD reported.

That study, by researchers at Northeastern University in Boston, used GPS coordinates from officers’ patrol cars rather than selfreported arrival data to measure response times. The results showed Chicago police arrived at the scenes of nonfatal shootings and shots-fired calls only about ten seconds faster when responding to ShotSpotter alerts than 911. That study also found officers arrived at fatal shootings more than three seconds slower when responding to ShotSpotter alerts than 911 calls.

Eric Piza, the co-director of Northeastern’s Crime Prevention Lab who co-authored that study, said via email that arrival times logged by officers aren’t always accurate. “I’ve had police officers in other cities tell me they often mark themselves on-scene before arriving to a shooting as a safety precaution,” he said. “If they are going to arrive to an active shooting, they’d rather devote their full attention to the situation.”

Piza added that patrol car GPS data isn’t skewed by inaccuracies in officerreported arrival times. “That likely explains why our findings differ from the CPD numbers,” he said.

The CPD report’s section on ShotSpotter and 911 response times acknowledged issues with officer-reported data in a footnote: “The calculation for average response time was dependent on the ‘on-scene’ timestamps associated with the events,” it read. “Factors such as responding units who failed to mark themselves as ‘onscene’ or marked themselves as ‘on-scene’ significantly later than when they arrived at the scene affected the average response time calculation.”

CPD declined the Weekly’s request to interview Noé Flores, the assistant director of the Strategic Initiatives Division, which prepared the report. Last week, the news blog The People’s Fabric obtained the data underlying the report and revealed that it was missing a full year’s worth of responsetime data, and that 7 percent of the time, response times were marked as taking zero time at all.

The CPD report also includes data on

the number of gunshots that CPD reported were missed by ShotSpotter sensors. The company’s contract requires ShotSpotter to detect at least 90 percent of unsuppressed outdoor gunfire in the twelve police districts that make up its coverage area. The police department is also required to report verified gunfire incidents for which there was no ShotSpotter alert to the company, via an online portal and email.

According to the CPD report, the department reported 205 misses to ShotSpotter in 2023, a year that had 43,503 ShotSpotter alerts. An investigation the Weekly published in January found CPD reported far more misses to ShotSpotter that year. Between January 1 and December 18, 2023, CPD emailed the company 575 times to report unique gunfire incidents that were missed or mislocated by ShotSpotter sensors.

Ravi Shroff, an applied statistician at New York University, noted that comparing ShotSpotter alerts to misses reported by CPD alerts doesn’t accurately measure how much gunfire the technology is missing.

“That’s probably an underestimate of the actual misses,” Shroff said. “I don’t think it’s absurd to measure that way—it’s sort of hard to measure things you don’t have recorded in data—but I wouldn’t say that’s convincing evidence.”

Several of the researchers noted that the CPD report also failed to include statistics that are commonly used in data analyses, such as the median value, variance, and standard deviation. Together, these measurements show how accurate the data is. None of them are in the report.

David Buil-Gil, a quantitative criminologist at the University of Manchester, said the failure to include such information means there’s no way to tell how reliable the average response times in the report are.

“We do not know if the proportion of cases in which the responding unit did MAY 23, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

POLICE not mark themselves as ‘on-scene’, and took long to do so, vary systematically depending on who initiated the call,” Buil-Gil said via email. “Sometimes average scores are highly skewed by a few very high or very low values, which we call outliers, but we do not know if this is the case here or if outliers have been removed.”

Without such information, Buil-Gil said it’s impossible to know how accurate the average response times are or whether the response times reported for ShotSpotter alerts and 911 calls are statistically different from one another.

Robert Vargas, the deputy dean of social sciences and director of the Justice Project at the University of Chicago, has been a critic of ShotSpotter; in January he wrote an op-Ed in the Sun-Times calling ShotSpotter’s claims of effectiveness “questionable.” Like Buil-Gil, Vargas immediately noted the lack of a median or minimum and maximum values in the CPD report.

“The average can be misleading,” Vargas said. “It’s really puzzling to me why anyone would put so much weight on a single report based on a single statistic.”

Other researchers who reviewed the report said the results showing faster response times for ShotSpotter alerts are probably correct, even if all of the officerreported response times aren’t.

Journal of Quantitative Criminology co-editor Greg Ridgeway said that the caveat about response times indicates they could be shorter than what the report indicates, but added that ShotSpotter alerts nonetheless probably get faster responses than 911 calls.

“The average response times shown are overestimates,” he said via email. “If an officer delays or forgets to log the arrival time, then some fraction of the arrival timestamps could be much later than when the arrival actually happened.”

Assuming officers forget to log their arrival times at roughly the same frequency for ShotSpotter and 911 alerts, then the CPD results are probably roughly correct, he added. “It would seem strange (but not impossible) if ShotSpotter calls had more officers recording their timestamps later than their arrival times,” Ridgeway said.

Based on the report’s totals, his “best guess” is that police probably are responding more quickly to ShotSpotter than 911.

University of Chicago data scientist 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MAY 23, 2024

Rollin Rosa

Amanda Kube Jotte agreed with Ridgeway but added that the CPD report should have broken the response times down by police district. Jotte said the report makes a “decent” case for ShotSpotter. “I don’t see anything [in the report] that makes me think that ShotSpotter is not useful,” she said.

For Vargas, regardless of what the figures contained in the report are, CPD did not provide anything linking faster response times to lives saved. Vargas also noted that the report did not account for controls, or offer any explanations for the results—both of which are standard practices in rigorous scientific research.

“It’s meaningless. It’s just numbers,” Vargas said. “The report itself is not saying that ShotSpotter is effective.”

According to the CPD report, between January 2018 and April 2024, when someone did call 911, officers made 1,173 more arrests, recovered 883 more guns, and found 112,592 more shell casings than when they only got ShotSpotter alerts.

Between 2021 and 2024, CPD rendered aid to 349 gunshot victims when they got a 911 call along with a ShotSpotter alert, and 103 times when there was an alert but no 911 call.

“One of the ways that ShotSpotter sells itself is it allows [police] departments to respond faster to shooting incidents, and to the extent that you believe those [CPD] numbers, I feel like that maybe suggests that claim is true,” Shroff said. “Now the question is, are they actually finding anything when they go there?”

Evaluating ShotSpotter’s value is more difficult and multifaceted than simply looking at response times, according to

Graphic by Jasmine Barnes

Shroff. “It’s hard for me to say objectively that this [report] validates a claim that ShotSpotter is a good thing or a bad thing,” he said.

In 2018, when then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the contract with ShotSpotter, his administration cited the company’s ability to “reduce gun violence.”

That was a central claim in ShotSpotter’s marketing materials at the time. A 2011 study commissioned by the company claimed: “Gunfire crime has been reduced since installation, which commanders at least indirectly attribute to ShotSpotter.”

The study also claimed ShotSpotter can help police “get to the scene faster than 911 alone, increasing the likelihood of an arrest and, as we have seen, decreasing the time to get gunshot victims to life saving medical treatment.”

Studies published by the Chicago Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the MacArthur Justice Center in 2021 found alerts rarely led to documented evidence of gun crimes or prosecutions.

In February, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office published a review that confirmed the OIG’s findings.

“ShotSpotter is not making a significant impact on shooting incidents,” the review found, and it only led to arrests in about 1 percent of cases over a five-year period. Of those arrests, almost a third did not involve a firearm. Less than a quarter resulted in criminal charges tied to gun violence.

A 2024 working paper about police response times found that ShotSpotter causes slower 911 responses overall because “police officers are forced to allocate a significant portion of their time to fulfill ShotSpotter

requirements, thereby incapacitating them from attending to 911 calls.” According to the authors of that paper, the increase in 911 response times led to a decline in arrest rates for domestic violence.

Michael Topper, a Ph.D. candidate at University of California at Santa Barbara who co-authored the working paper, said that while policing technologies like ShotSpotter may seem like attractive solutions in communities experiencing high levels of gun violence, they nevertheless involve trade-offs because of how much officer time they demand.

“Departments really need to think about their resource constraints before jumping on board with something like [ShotSpotter],” he said.

David Carter, the director of Michigan State University’s Intelligence Program, said via email that recent research has shown response time is less important than other factors when it comes to assessing ShotSpotter’s impact on gun violence. “It seems that in most cases…the response time did not have an effect on identifying the source of the shots fired,” Carter said.

“What determines if we find someone at the scene of gunfire? [That] would include ShotSpotter notifications, response time, information from callers to the police.”

He added that Kansas City and Indianapolis both canceled their ShotSpotter contracts as a result of that research.

The timing of the report’s release struck Vargas as an attempt by CPD to aid the company in what he called a “product defense strategy,” as ShotSpotter has come under intense scrutiny by academics, journalists, and policymakers in recent years.

“The City Council and a number of elected officials have been asking the police department for this data for a long time.

So you just can’t help but be skeptical that this is finally being shared only after several studies have shown that this product is ineffective,” Vargas said. “If the City were to base any of its decisions in this manner, it would set a really poor precedent for the use of evidence to inform policy.” Jim Daley is the Weekly’s investigations editor. Max Blaisdell is the Weekly’s Investigative Hub coordinator, a staff writer for the Hyde Park Herald, and an Invisible Institute fellow.

POLITICS

Public Meetings Report illustration by Holley Appold/South Side Weekly

A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level.

BY SCOTT PEMBERTON AND DOCUMENTERS

April 26 At its meeting, the Cook County Health and Hospital System Board of Directors received good and bad news. The good news included full accreditation of Stroger Hospital’s Cancer Center by the American College of Surgeons; the launch of a six-week “Unfriend Tobacco: Your Lung, Your Rules” campaign designed to educate young adults about the harmful effects of tobacco products; the expansion of robotic surgery efforts predicted to generate revenue, and that improved efficiency from digitization has saved some 20,000 hours in staff time. The bad news revolved mainly around human resources and labor issues. Nurses in the Chicago area are still asking that the system invest in and support nurses who serve diverse roles and who have demonstrated dedication to patients. Recruitment, onboarding, and retention are the three main focuses of the CCH Human Resources Committee, with recruitment continuing to be a primary challenge. Three major consulting companies are assisting CCH with efforts to improve human resources efficiency overall, reported Interim Chief Human Resources Officer Carrie Pramuk-Volk. Even so, the system has 1,700 unfilled positions, she reported. During the pandemic, unfilled positions totaled about 600. The robotic surgery program is being implemented in cooperation with healthcare services company Intuitive using its Da Vinci system. Robotic surgeries are considered cost efficient because they tend to reduce recovery times and the length of hospital stays. Information on the “Unfriend Tobacco” initiative is available by visiting unfriendtobacco.com, calling 866-QUIT-YES, or texting “Start my Quit” to 36072.

May 6 Along with other communities across the country this summer, Chicago is making a proactive investment in young people facing significant barriers to employment such as housing insecurity, criminal records, or disabilities. The goals are to reduce or prevent violence and to improve other life outcomes, the City Council Committee on Workforce Development: Subcommittee on Youth Employment learned at its meeting. To that end, the city plans to hire 28,000 young people ages fourteen to twenty-four over the summer. During this public hearing with City Council members,

public commenters offered their thoughts. Jack Wuest, executive director of the Alternative Schools Network, told the committee that some 85 percent of Black teens and 40 percent of young Blacks ages twenty to twenty-four are unemployed, arguing that employment can reduce violence by as much as 43 percent. Student commenters said they supported jobs programs, which can provide a sense of responsibility, help them stay off the street, build communications skills, and offer a future. Committee members also heard about the city’s One Summer Chicago (OSC) program. A speaker explained that paid opportunities from community peacekeeping to coding would be available over six weeks. Last summer, Chicago paid out $34 million to participants.

Mayor Brandon Johnson budgeted $76 million for the program. OSC is also active year round, employing individuals ages sixteen to twenty-four in leadership development and civic engagement roles. The Department of Family and Support Services manages the program.

May 7 “Rogue” tow truck drivers may face more roadblocks to their operations, through actions discussed at a meeting of the City Council Committee on Public Safety, including licensing requirements. Concerns about such drivers, in part, are that their pricing “gouges” drivers and that they sometimes hold vehicles hostage outside Chicago city limits. Council members noted that the industry is not well regulated, even though it falls under state-level controls. On the other hand, participants said tow truck drivers are themselves “highly organized,” setting up identifiable territories and applying effective techniques to advance their operations.

May 8 During a highly charged meeting of the City Council Committee on Housing and Real Estate, public housing residents complained of frequent elevator breakdowns, corroded water pipes, mold, insect infestations, and poor responsiveness from Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) staff. Beginning at 11am, thirty public commenters began waiting to speak at the 1pm meeting. The meeting’s start was delayed by attempted disruptions. When she reached the microphone, one resident said, “The elevators are always broken down . . . Sometimes I have to stay home for days and weeks at a time, missing appointments. I would like to know why . . . is this acceptable?” To emphasize that insects are not simply a nuisance, Alderperson Jessie Fuentes (26th) related a story of a boy who lost his hearing because roaches laid eggs in his ears. In her testimony, CHA Chief Executive Officer Tracey Scott defended her track record, including the decision to lease vacant public housing land to the Chicago Fire soccer team. Scott explained the deal was justified because the CHA receives $1 million in return each year. She reported that some 120,000 applicants are waiting for housing on 247 different wait lists. The federally funded Housing Choice Voucher program, which provides partial private market rent subsidies for participating families, for example, has 22,000 names and is closed. Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor (20th) was accepted two years ago for housing after waiting twenty-nine years (she no longer needed it). Eric Garrett, the CHA’s chief operating officer, updated the committee on five hundred unused scattered-site residences that sparked controversy at a previous committee meeting. Garrett reported that forty-seven of those units have been leased and ninetytwo are in the process of being leased. Seventy percent, or 346 of the 500 properties, are undergoing renovations and being assessed for repairs.

This information was collected and curated by the Weekly in large part using reporting from City Bureau’s Documenters at documenters.org.

MAY 23, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

MUSIC

A Q&A with Alexis Lombre, the South Side’s Triple Threat Jazz Maven

This Chicago jazz kid talks about her relentless journey and influences that are leading her to perform on prominent stages.

BY DIERDRE ROBINSON

I

n the ever-evolving world of jazz, Alexis Lombre continues to captivate audiences with a sound that reflects originality, soul, and the diverse range of influences that she grew up listening to as a child.

Born and raised on the South Side, Lombre began taking classical piano lessons at the age of nine, and then switched to jazz lessons. At thirteen, she became involved in the Jazz Institute of Chicago’s ( JIC) training program, which emphasized the importance of learning jazz on the bandstand, and by age fifteen, she had received the JIC Kiewit-Wang Mentorship Award to study privately with legendary pianist Willie Pickens. Throughout high school, Lombre balanced attending classes with practicing her craft.

Lombre, who today leads the eponymous Alexis Lombre Quartet, has toured throughout the United States, Canada, and internationally with artists such as Jon Batiste, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Marcus Miller, Keyon Harrold, Endea Owens & The Cookout, Dan Wilson, Nicole Mitchell, Jamila Woods, Kassa Overall, Tia Fuller, DJ D Nice and the Miles Davis Electric Band.

Still in her twenties, Lombre has been awarded with the 2022 New Music: Next Jazz Legacy Award and the 2023 Luminarts Award.

South Side Weekly caught up with Lombre to discuss her musical journey, the inspiration behind her music, and upcoming projects. Stay tuned with Lombre’s jazz journey by following her on IG @alexislombre, X @aglombre, and at alexislombre.com, where you can catch her latest performances and receive 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MAY 23, 2024

so I had to lay low and go to school, come home, play the piano. Growing up was interesting. I think there’s a different kind of toughness when you’re actually from the South Side inner city. And the time where I came up in was an interesting time, but also there’s a lot of programs in the city that kept me busy like Gallery 37 and Ravinia and Merit School of Music and the Jazz Institute. I know I’m forgetting somebody, but that kept me busy with plenty of extracurricular activities. So there was tons of stuff for a young musician to do.

Are you an only child?

Alexis Lombre

updates on new releases.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You recently returned to Chicago to perform at the Harris Theater with your Alexis Lombre Quartet. What did that mean to you?

Well, Harris Theater, that’s my first large, ticketed venue. I think Harris Theater has like 1,500 seats. And to be headlining it under my own name, with my own band, in my hometown, was huge for me. It just meant so much to me because the Harris Theater put me up on these banners downtown and in Grant Park and, I don’t know, I just felt really seen and celebrated by my city. So, yeah, I feel very supported and encouraged.

Photo provided

You’re originally from Chicago, right?

And, grew up on the South Side?

Yes, ma’am. I grew up in the Chatham neighborhood. The very first place I lived was in Englewood and then I lived in Hyde Park. And then I spent the most of my years in Chatham, through middle school and high school.

What was it like growing up on the South Side of Chicago?

You know, it’s funny, I don’t have a framework to compare it to anywhere else. I mean, growing up on the South Side… I guess now that I’ve traveled, I realize I’ve taken for granted the good food that’s around, and food was a little more affordable back then… a lot more affordable. I stayed in the house and practiced. There was a lot of gang activity,

I have an older sister. She’s also an artist.

She’s a dancer and a poet by the name Sunshine Lombre. She’s definitely a brilliant mind, and very deep spiritually as well.

I understand that you attended Whitney M. Young Magnet School.

So, you’re a Dolphin, like me. What was it like attending Whitney Young and what influence did your attendance there have on your interest in music, particularly jazz?

What was interesting was I was just too young to go to Whitney Young at the same time that Vic Mensa was there and all these other people who were in selective enrollment schools. Chance [the Rapper] went to Jones and there’s this whole renaissance of young artists who were killing it and I was just too young, I just missed them. But I remember looking up to them and being like, “Oh, they go to Whitney Young. I gotta go to Whitney

MUSIC Young.” It was between ChiArts and Whitney Young, and I ended up going to Whitney Young because seeing Vic and that whole scene of young musicians coming out of Whitney Young…and also you could get out of school early.

ChiArts doesn’t get out until 5 p.m.

And at Whitney Young, there are so many things for you to get into at a high level. So there were lots of opportunities to do competitions and stuff. Whitney Young was supportive, especially in my last couple of years in high school. I was gigging a lot on the scene, playing in pit orchestras and doing these things, and they had this senior experience program where it was like I could do my musicianship as an apprenticeship, and they were just very supportive letting me do what I wanted to do.

Growing up, what kind of music was played in your household and who was playing it?

It was a lot of jazz, and the jazz in my household came from my grandmother, Shirley May Lombre. She loved Dinah Washington. I grew up on a lot of Dinah Washington, I grew up on a lot of Stanley Turrentine and Shirley Scott. Those were my sounds coming up. Lots of Ray Charles, Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson…

So that’s the bag that I came up in. You know, real soulful.

As a young woman on the jazz music scene, have there been any obstacles you’ve experienced that may have been gender-specific? And how did you deal with them?

I could answer that question in a whole lot of ways…I think sometimes that the way that I am doesn’t translate very well as a woman. I feel like perhaps if I were male, my natural sense of exuberance…I definitely felt like growing up there was like this thing of like “Oh, God, she’s exuberant, she has this thing about her, we gotta watch her, we gotta treat her like she’s normal, we gotta calm her down because her thing is too much.” And I do feel like if I was male, they would have let that fly more. Whereas, with women we’re more like, “Sit back, be receptive,” whereas my natural personality is just aggressive

and loud and exuberant. So some of my issues came from that. I mean, there’s other issues about, you know, power dynamics…but as I know who I am and know my own inner power, I realize that is something that intimidates men. And they project on me like I have a problem, when it’s really them. So realizing that helps me get through a lot of the issues, but it’s an ongoing thing. And now I’m starting to find more of my people and feel better.

You’re still in your twenties and have already accomplished so much. But when you’re not Alexis Lombre the vocalist, composer, and pianist, are you engaged in other things besides music?

This is something that I’ve been working on, because I’ve just been so [focused on] work. And you don’t have a work-

or unresolved emotion. Was there a particular experience living on the South Side that motivated you to write it?

I wrote all the songs while I was in high school, and I wrote “I’m Tired” because I really was tired. I know, it’s simple. I was in high school doing these AP courses and doing all these classes and then [being a] full-time professional musician: playing the Chicago Jazz Festival, the Hyde Park Jazz Festival—back in the day when Room 43 was still open. I think Room 43 was a critical place on the South Side for my development, I would say. Yeah, the first time I felt the Holy Spirit was at Room 43, in a jazz club. I felt it come through me while I was playing. That was my first time. So it was like most of my time in high school was going to high school all day, doing these extracurricular

at right now. So it’s mixed with R&B, soul…but I’m always gonna be a jazz baby. That’s just how I came up. Some Chicago musicians are like church kids.

I’m like a jazz kid, I didn’t really grow up in church, even though I love the Lord—but I grew up in jazz clubs. Jazz to me is as much as hymnals are to most musicians. However, yeah, this new one, “Boundaries,” is more eclectic. It’s about the importance of personal space and boundaries and, especially as a woman, just respecting my body in this space.

My intent with this record: I wanna brainwash the masses to understand how important boundaries are. So that there will never be a case of sexual abuse ever again…That’s my intent. I just want to eradicate it with the power of frequency.

That’s what I want to do.

When do you anticipate “Boundaries” will be out?

“Boundaries” is scheduled to drop June

“Some Chicago musicians are like church kids. 6 and it will be exclusively on Apple for their Juneteenth campaign.

I’m like a jazz kid, I didn’t really grow up in church, Music I’ll be included on a playlist full of many even though I love the Lord—but I grew up in other artists, such as Endea Owens, Kamasi Washington, J. Hoard. It’ll be a jazz clubs. Jazz to me is as much as hymnals promotion that lasts for a few months and then it will be everywhere later. This are to most musicians.” – Alexis Lombre is just a launch specifically on Apple Music.

life balance when you love what you do, because if I play a gig, then I wanna go home and then play some more, because I love music. But then sometimes it’s like “Okay.” So I’m actually learning how to have hobbies and have leisure time. I’ve started crocheting. It keeps my hands busy. I like to learn languages for fun. I think that’s fun. I haven’t done that in a while. But I mean, that’s really something.

You gotta come back to me on that one because that’s something I struggle with.

Your debut album, South Side Sounds, released in 2017, was described as a “soulful, straight-ahead reflection of your upbringing on Chicago’s South Side” by the Museum of Contemporary Art. It features a track called, “I’m Tired,” which has a super smooth melody that seems to take the listener on a journey of unspoken heartache

music programs, playing gigs for those, and then playing at Room 43, playing at Annie’s, playing at Jazz Showcase, doing all these things. And I just remember feeling tired because all I did was work.

Are there plans for a South Side Sounds follow-up? Can you tell us about what you’re currently working on?

I was hoping you would ask because I got something to tell you! And this is good timing. So I have a single coming out called “Boundaries,” and I got a lot to say about this. I have this kinda different sound that I’m in right now, which is not so much instrumental straight ahead; it’s kind of a genreless kinda mix of stuff.

I’m in the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) right now. So I’m all free, I’m doing what I wanna do. That’s kinda where I’m

Any future projects in Chicago?

I’m in Chicago on August 27 at the Museum of Contemporary Art. That’s under my own name. That’s my own project. And then there’s this other show I think the South Side is gonna like at the Little Black Pearl. It’s gonna be with Keyon Harrold, Lizz Wright, Ledisi, and Terri Lyne Carrington—right on 47th, you know what I’m saying? That’s June 14. Dierdre Robinson is a writer and accounting manager in Chicago. She has a BA in Journalism from Michigan State University. She last wrote about the South Side Home Movie Project.

MAY 23, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

SPORTS

Welcome to the WNBA Hype Era With an influx of fans and star power, the WNBA is entering a new era—and the Chicago Sky could lead the way.

BY MAYA GOLDBERG-SAFIR

T

his year’s WNBA draftees are poised to make a unique impact on the sport, and there’s a chance Chicago will be at the center of it all.

As the 2024 WNBA season begins, attention on the league is snowballing.

But though the WNBA has experienced numerous transformations since its founding in 1996, we owe its current spotlight to a new group—a cohort of twenty-two-ish-year-olds with generational talent and true cultural relevance. It’s the league’s most hyped draft class in its history. And here in Chicago, the Sky’s two first round picks— Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese— could lead the team to an unprecedented rebirth.

The 2024 draft class emerged from a thrilling NCAA tournament in March.

This year, it was Women’s March Madness that kept the basketball internet rapt with frenetic attention and instantly broke viewership records. And, of course, there was the absolute star-power of this year’s senior class: Reese and Cardoso, as well as Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink, Rickea Jackson, Nika Mühl, and so many more.

On April 7, the women’s tournament ended with the South Carolina Gamecocks defeating the Iowa Hawkeyes to cap off their 38-0 season with a national championship trophy. It was a statement win after the Gamecocks lost to superstar Caitlin Clark and the Hawkeyes in the 2023 NCAA Semifinals. Not this time.

Dawn Staley’s team managed to shut Clark down with the kind of dogged defensive pressure possible only when seeking the ultimate revenge.

Just eight days later, these NCAA stars headed to the WNBA draft. And while inequities continue to mark the identity of the league—from low pay to 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MAY 23, 2024

frustrating broadcast deals to difficult schedules—the 2024 draft class embodies a striking confidence. As children of the new millennium, these new draftees were all born well after the WNBA began in 1997, growing up with professional women’s basketball as a fact of existence.

Their generation is known for using TikTok and Instagram instead of Google.

And today, college athletes like Reese can make millions of dollars as students thanks to rule changes by the NCAA allowing endorsement deals for name, image, and likeness. They already have nicknames, brand deals, and hundreds of fans who watch them eat fast food and

sunglasses, statement accessories, tailored pantsuits, Cartier jewels, and custommade designer gowns with slinky sparkles and dramatic asymmetrical cuts. It was a far cry from the outfits of ten years ago when players were encouraged to wear stiff business casual styles, and it left many downright emotional. Under the dramatic dome of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I think everyone sensed that things without words were coming into existence, anew.

First came the much-hyped number one overall draft pick, with the Indiana Fever selecting Clark. I love Clark (yes, I’ve said it), but she also has the makings

“Women’s basketball has always been something tenuous and imperfect and dear, regardless of whether others understand. It’s been something for us.” talk shit when they go live for hours on end. Many college basketball stars have shared popular social media content with thousands of fans before ever getting broadcast on national television.

In other words, when it was go time on April 15, the 2024 WNBA class came ready. That day, I joined the flood of fans in downtown Brooklyn for the live broadcast of the draft. When I arrived, swarms of people were lined up outside just for the athletes’ walk from the tinted tour buses to the front doors for the traditional WNBA orange carpet.

The players wore knock-out looks: head-to-toe Prada, teeth jewels, gradient

of a true Chicago rival: a Midwestern foe siding across state lines, now an Indiana prodigy who can shoot impossible threes and has a tendency to argue with the referees. Not only that, but she and Reese are known for going head-to-head with dialed-in intensity and trash talking (Though they’ve also expressed the kind of mutual respect and admiration that makes me love women’s sports so very much.)

After Clark came number two overall pick, Brink, drafted by the Los Angeles Sparks, who immediately broke down crying. “I’m so proud of all of us,” Brink said under the bright lights next to

ESPN’s Holly Rowe. “Look at all we’ve done.”

Then, finally, came Chicago’s turn: two national champions, and our third and seventh overall picks, Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese.

The crowd screamed, and I screamed with them.

We screamed because the Sky had selected arguably the most recognizable and marketable players remaining in the draft—and rivals at that. We screamed because Cardoso left her home in Brazil at fifteen to pursue her dreams of being a professional basketball player, and as she was drafted, her mom and sister watched from the auditorium floor. “I had a goal to be here tonight and give my family a better life,” Cardoso said from the stage.

We screamed because Reese brings impeccable toughness and resilience to her professional career, and to Chicago.

“This is for the girls that look like me, that’s going to speak up on what you believe in,” she once told reporters after winning the 2023 NCAA championship.

“It’s unapologetically you.”

We screamed because we’re hungry for more stars in women’s basketball, for the WNBA to champion more Black players, who make up more than seventy percent of the league. And while I’m not sure about the others, I screamed because something was clear in these draft choices: The Chicago Sky must keep rebuilding not just their roster but their organizational infrastructure. Because though other WNBA ownership groups have brought an influx of capital to teams like the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty, including new practice facilities and somewhat scandalous chartered flights, the Sky have caught flack in recent years for not even providing their

SPORTS

change. Women’s basketball has always been something tenuous and imperfect and dear, regardless of whether others understand. It’s been something for us.

players with lockers. In fact, Chicago’s team continues to practice at the Sachs Recreation Center in Deerfield, which has 3.8 stars on Yelp and was once, “in simpler times,” a place where the Bulls practiced in 1987.

And while the front office has said building a dedicated practice facility is a priority for the franchise, nothing speaks of the absolute necessity for change like drafting Cardoso and Reese. These two are stars with stock on the rise. In fact, Reese is already valued at $1.8 million.

Both bring widespread popularity and parasocial followings that create a new kind of pressure to usher in change.

I

F

andom around women’s basketball has been steadily growing. “It’s one of the most authentic and energetic celebrations of female physical power that you can go to,” said Chicago Sky fan Isa Vázquez, who purchased a season ticket package after the Sky’s championship run in 2021. “Anytime I run into another Sky fan it’s like an instant connection—we’re cosmically drawn together.”

That energy has been magnified tenfold with the draft class of 2024.

The arrival of new fans was marked by a swell of outrage around Clark’s base rookie salary, which like all other WNBA rookies is roughly $76,000.

“If you’re new to the party, welcome,” said writer and podcaster Chris Pennant.

He described the prominent feeling toward thousands of newcomers: “You’re welcome here, please come. We’re glad you’ve finally caught on.”

But “here” has not always felt like this.

Historically, loving the WNBA meant taking pride in a league that often induces eyerolls and shrugs and downright hate following its mention.

As a college student, I wrote an undergraduate thesis about this, stalking the corners of early Twitter for typical comments like, “Women’s basketball... it’s just like watching men’s basketball, if men’s basketball were played in three feet of water.”

I was particularly obsessed with the hatred inspired in men by Brittney Griner, who at the time was a 6’8’’ superstar at Baylor University known for

Illustration by Sydni Baluch

dunking since high school. Those tweets, comments, and even headlines about Griner were so vile that I wouldn’t dare repeat them anywhere.

In 2013, Griner made history by coming out as a lesbian as she entered the league, something no one had ever done before. She also later revealed in her memoir In My Skin that Kim Mulkey, her former coach at Baylor, had actually prevented her from coming out during college. “We just can’t have that stuff out there,” Griner recalled Mulkey telling her, behind the closed door of her office, referring to a message of love and acceptance by an LGBT group that Griner had tweeted out.

Just ten years later, the WNBA has transformed into a league known for being audaciously queer, inclusive, and overwhelmingly led by Black women who continue to boldly advocate for social change. In large part this is because

economic conditions for players remain subpar. Players have typically flown commercial to away games, and the salary cap is $1,463,200…for an entire team.

And there are only twelve of them. In fact, there are so few roster spots in the WNBA—144 in total—that the draft is something of a false summit; while the league drafted thirty-six players in 2023, only fifteen actually made it onto their team’s final roster by opening day.

Pennant put it this way: “We’ve seen how attuned the players in this league are with social issues and some of that, for better and for worse, comes with the fact that they’re not making as much money.…I think that makes them more aware of what’s right and what’s wrong, about morality.”

Yes, this is WNBA fandom: full of highs and lows, laced with heartbreak, shadowed by histories of suppression.

But it’s also alive with the possibility of

n October of 2021, the Chicago Sky franchise was at a high point, clinching their first-ever WNBA championship with the leadership of Candace Parker, who’d returned to her hometown with the single-minded focus of winning a title.

But the era of Sky glory soon ended.

After failing to return for a second WNBA championship series in 2022, the all-star veterans left one by one, including Parker. Former head coach and general manager James Wade traded away the team’s 2024 first-round pick and 2025 first-round swap with the Dallas Wings in exchange for Dallas guard Marina Mabrey.

Then things got worse. Halfway through the 2023 season, with the Sky scraping by, Wade abruptly announced his departure from the team—and the league—in favor of an assistant coaching position for the NBA’s Toronto Raptors.

With the off-season came more departures, including a trade of the Sky’s franchise player Kahleah Copper to the Phoenix Mercury, reportedly by her own request. “It was bleak,” Vázquez told me, recalling that time. Many were growing despondent.

But by that time, in October of 2023, the franchise had hired a new head coach in WNBA legend Theresa Weatherspoon and Jeff Pagglioca as her general manager.

The two set their minds on a “true rebuild” for the team, looking to build momentum on the third overall draft pick acquired from Copper’s trade to Phoenix. And just a day before the 2024 draft, the Sky also traded to acquire the seventh overall pick from the Minnesota Lynx. Bring on Cardoso and Reese.

Of course, even with new stars like these, the league will stumble: No anecdote makes that more evident than the fact that the Chicago Sky’s first preseason game against the Minnesota Lynx on May 3 was completely unwatchable for anyone outside of Minneapolis’ Target Center.

Across social media, fans seethed with anger over limited broadcast contracts, MAY 23, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

SPORTS

WNBA app errors, and the league’s lack of preparation for such an influx of interest.

Then things started to shift.

First, a fan known only as @ heyheyitsalli began streaming the game on their cell phone via X, formerly known as Twitter. The grainy footage has been watched millions of times. Just days later, in response to fans’ backlash and committed cell phone viewership, the league announced Chicago Sky’s next preseason game would be livestreamed on their app for all to see. (The game featured Reese less than twenty-four hours after attending the Met Gala on her twentysecond birthday.) That same day, even more incredibly, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert told reporters that the league planned to invest $25 million for all teams to take full-time chartered flights this season. By the time of Chicago’s first home game at Wintrust Arena on May 25, who knows what other seismic shifts could occur.

And for a league leading with outspoken advocacy and stalwart fans, change is not just possible but necessary.

Otherwise we could see a new kind of reckoning, and nowhere would it make more sense than here in Chicago (or Deerfield). As Pennant told me, “This is the league where, if something doesn’t happen, if ownership is not committed to bettering the conditions, this is the league where we could see a strike.”

So “Welcome to the W,” as we say when a veteran player knocks a rookie to the ground, then asks if they’re okay.

It’s a kaleidoscopic moment in women’s basketball history: all at once beautiful, kind of trippy, and colliding into the new. Maya Goldberg-Safir is an independent writer and audio producer based in Chicago (and sometimes Oakland, where she was born and raised).

Kamilla Cardoso FaceTimes with Chicago Sky coach Teresa Weatherspoon for the first time, just minutes after being selected as the third overall pick.

Photo by Maya Goldberg-Safir 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MAY 23, 2024

IMMIGRATION

City Closes Woodlawn Migrant Shelter

Closing after fifteen months in operation, Wadsworth at its peak housed as many as 600 people.

BY ZOE PHARO, HYDE PARK HERALD This story was originally published by the Hyde Park Herald.

T

he city quietly closed the Wadsworth migrant shelter in Woodlawn on Monday, May 13, the latest shelter closing amid resettlement efforts and facility consolidation.

In a May 13 announcement, the city said it had “recently decompressed” the shuttered elementary school turned shelter, located at 6420 S. University Ave. Closing after fifteen months in operation, Wadsworth at its peak housed as many as 600 people, most of whom were single men from Venezuela seeking asylum.

According to the city, those who remained in Wadsworth at the time of its closure were relocated to nearby city-run shelters.

As of May 3, more than 500 people still resided at Wadsworth. A spokesperson for the mayor did not respond to the Herald’s question of how many residents remained in the shelter at the time of its closure.

In Monday’s announcement of the closure, the city said it has reduced the total number of migrant shelters from twenty-seven to sixteen over the past year.

It cites collaboration with the county and state, cost-saving measures and “creative partnerships” with nonprofits as key to the city’s resettlement efforts.

“When I took over this Mission a year ago, there were thousands of asylum seekers sleeping on police station floors with almost a thousand more living at our City’s airports,” said Mayor Brandon Johnson in the statement. “I’m proud of the work that we have accomplished this first year to move folks out of police stations and into temporary emergency shelter where they have received medical services, become part of our public education system, and have made major strides on the path to independence and self-sufficiency.”

The city statement boasts cost

Residents of the Wadsworth migrant shelter, 6420 S. University Ave., stand outside on Wednesday, March 20, 2024.

Photo by Marc Monaghan

savings resulting from its sixty-day shelter limits, facility consolidation and the renegotiation of its contract with Favorite Staffing—the company staffing most city-run migrant shelters— amounting to more than $200 million in estimated savings over the next year. (Last year, according to reports, Chicago spent about $138 million to care for migrants; the state spent about $478 million.)

The city opened Wadsworth in February of 2023 as part of its shelter network for the thousands of migrants sent to Chicago from the country’s southern border since the prior August.

Like many of the other shelter openings around the city, Wadsworth was met with pushback from some of the surrounding Woodlawn community.

At contentious community meetings ahead of the opening, residents expressed exasperation at city officials moving ahead with the shelter without community input in a neighborhood that many said the city has neglected for decades. In meetings after its opening, some neighbors expressed grievances about problems of littering, physical

altercations, illicit activities, noise and decreased parking availability in the area.

At the time of its opening, city officials promised to only use the building for two years and estimated a cap of 250 inhabitants. But as migration picked up—as of last Monday, more than 41,000 people seeking asylum have traveled independently or been sent to Chicago since 2022—capacities increased, drawing more criticism from neighbors.

More than 23,000 have been resettled in the Chicagoland area or reunited with sponsors or family since August of 2022, a number the city attributed to partnerships with the state.

The city also reports that its

temporary shelter system currently is housing fewer than 8,000 people, which is half of the roughly 16,000 that were living in shelters at its peak in December of last year. It also reports that Chicago Park District sites used as temporary shelters have all returned to normal use.

The city will still receive migrants at the “landing zone,” the area where buses transporting migrants into the state are supposed to drop people off and where those evicted from a shelter can make a new shelter request. Zoe Pharo is a reporter for the Hyde Park Herald.

BENEFITS ARE WITHIN REACH! Get connected!

The Benefits Access Network is working to connect our neighbors in Englewood and across Chicagoland to food and medical benefits like SNAP and Medicaid. Assistance is free.

TO LEARN MORE, VISIT: chicagosfoodbank.org/BAN Benefits Access Network This institution is an equal opportunity provider and employer. This project has been funded at least in part with Federal funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The contents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the view or policies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

MAY 23, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

HOUSING

In Pilsen, Gentrification Enriches Some, Squeezes Others Out

The proliferation of short-term rentals and skyrocketing rents has made it difficult for lifelong residents to stay on the Lower West Side.

BY ALMA CAMPOS

G

entrification has already pushed property taxes in Pilsen and Heart of Chicago, two neighborhoods on the Lower West Side, up in recent years—and now, residents are beginning to worry that the proliferation of Airbnbs in the area will push them even higher.

Residents said they aren’t necessarily worried about people occasionally renting out Airbnbs long-term. It’s more about the hotel-like Airbnbs operated by affluent people in struggling communities, especially when the people involved aren’t from the community.

Airbnbs can stimulate gentrification.

A 2017 study found that short-term rentals like Airbnb take away already scarce housing and landlords may encourage tenant evictions so they can earn more.

Local home prices also go up. Higher prices result in higher property value and taxes which forces homeowners to increase the rent or force people who cannot afford the taxes to sell their homes.

There are over 1,000 Airbnb listings in Pilsen and Heart of Chicago, according to Airbnb.

Casa Corazón, an Airbnb on 24th and Damen, is one of the many short-term rentals that have proliferated in Pilsen in recent years. It’s owned and operated by Amanda Gentry, an artist who bought the two-story home in 2004 for $259,000. It’s near public transportation, with the Pink Line Damen stop minutes away, and the Damen and Western Avenue buses nearby.

The Stevenson Expressway is about a mile away.

Last month, the house went on sale with an asking price of $500,000.

According to her Airbnb listing, Gentry operated it as a short-term vacation rental for more than a decade. The three12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MAY 23, 2024

An iron gate on 1545 W. 18th Street where the sign reads, “Bienvenidos a Pilsen.”

Photo by Zoe Kauder Nalebuff

bedroom Airbnb, which lists rooms at $82 per night, boasts positive reviews from hundreds of tourists. In big cities like Chicago, short-term rentals are typical for tourists going to concerts or summer events, and rentals peak in June and July. Gentry’s sculptures and paintings sell for between $650 to $37,000 a piece. According to the short-term-rental data site rabbu.com, Casa Corazón’s three listings may earn, on average, close to $45,000 annually.

Gentry did not respond to requests for comment.

As of press time, the house is listed as “contingent” on Redfin, meaning an offer has been accepted, but additional criteria must be met to complete the sale.

It was listed by @propetries Christie’s International Estate, a global network of luxury real estate brokerage firms that claims $29 billion in annual sales owned by

Mike Golden and Thaddeus Wong.

A spokesperson for @properties said that over the last two years they’ve been involved in about fifty real-estate transactions on the Lower West Side.

They’ve represented both buyers and sellers, and the property types include both residential and commercial, the spokesperson said.

The brokerage company @properties was a key driver in the gentrification of various North Side neighborhoods, including Wicker Park. In a 2007 Bloomberg article, Wong talked about what attracts investors. “You have to bring people in with art galleries and restaurants,” he said. “That’s how people become familiar with neighborhoods.”

He also said that people want a good transportation infrastructure, and that communities gentrify faster when zoning

laws are flexible. In 2018, Wong evicted Uptown Underground, a burlesque venue, because tenants could no longer afford to pay the $12,000 monthly rent. In 2023, he bought an ornate Victorian home in Lincoln Park and ordered its demolition despite pushback from preservationists.

Between 1970 and 1996, Pilsen fought against development projects to prevent gentrification. But those efforts were challenged in 1996 when alderman Danny Solis was appointed to the 25th Ward by then-mayor Richard M. Daley, who both welcomed gentrification.

Gentry bought the home at 24th and Damen around the time when some community organizations began demanding Solis push back against development that was driving up the cost of living. In 2004, a network of about two dozen community organizations and local churches asked Solis to involve residents in all development decisions. Through a referendum, Solis created the Pilsen Land Use Committee (PLUC), a closed committee of neighborhood leaders that he himself appointed.

The Weekly interviewed John J. Betancur, a professor of Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois in Chicago who has studied gentrification in Chicago for decades and co-wrote the 2016 book Claiming Neighborhood: New Ways of Understanding Urban Change.

While there was pushback against outside developers, especially from organizations like Pilsen Alliance, other organizations supported “balanced development,” which Betancur said was “a nice way to hide the gentrification from the agenda.”

He said that organizations such as The Resurrection Project, Alivio Medical

HOUSING

Dolores Delatado is selling snacks from her cart in front of her apartment on April 30, 2024.

Photo by Alma Campos

Center, and Pilsen Neighbors Community Council supported Solis. Despite having a mission of guarding against displacement, they “jumped on the bandwagon of what is called a nonprofit industrial complex and became more interested in building themselves than saving the neighborhood,” he added.

While rental prices grew unaffordable for some residents, affluent individuals were able to profit. “They [took] advantage of the fact that they already have a starting point, profession, a good job and great access to resources and knowledge of the market,” Betancur said.

Julia Madera has lived on 24th and Damen for thirty-two years. In 1998, Madera and her husband bought a multifamily home on the block for $152,000.

She raised her three children who are now thirty, twenty-nine, and thirteen in that house.

They all attended early childhood programs at the community organization El Valor, and went to nearby Irma Ruiz Elementary School. “It’s really calm here,” Madera said. “I like it because everything is within walking distance. The schools, the clinic, my church, the buses.”

Madera said their neighbors have left over the years, moving to other neighborhoods and suburbs where homes and rent are less.

Betancur said that when families leave due to gentrification, they sacrifice a lot of the benefits of being in a metropolitan area, such as the schools being within walking distance and developing systems

of support like churches and community organizations. “It just means dissolution of the extended family…that’s what gentrification produces,” he said. “That’s

Recently, Pilsen activists have fought back against the record-high property tax hike and Alderman Byron Sighco-Lopez (25th Ward) supports expanding the more than twenty-five-year-old Pilsen Industrial Corridor TIF district to build affordable housing.

But not everyone in the community is on board. Some residents fear that property taxes will increase. Betancur agrees and adds that affordable housing is not necessarily affordable.

In order to be eligible for affordable housing, he said, people need a steady income, employment, and at times, good credit—resources that people who are struggling tend not to have. “It’s a poisonous idea.” He added that affordable housing also causes the value of the surrounding properties to go up.

“I understand people's concerns,” said Sigcho-Lopez, who was previously the director of Pilsen Alliance and isn’t a fan of TIFs. “When the market gets that this is not

“Most of the people in City Council are realtors themselves and make their money speculating, or are attorneys themselves heavy in the industry…They make money with gentrification.” what society doesn’t care about.”

Madera said she wants to keep the home in the family, which is why in 2016, she and her husband sold the building to their eldest son. Madera and her husband live in one of the units, while their two sons, their wives and their children, occupy the other two. Her grandchildren now attend preschool programs at El Valor.

The house and property taxes are currently being split between three different incomes—her husband’s and their two sons’. Her husband and oldest son work as cement truck drivers and the younger son is a butcher at Casa del Pueblo in Pilsen and a Tony’s Fresh Market.

Madera said that even though it’s hard to pay for the family home, she wouldn’t want to leave. But every now and then, she is tempted. “I truly want to stay here. Things happen here, but it’s a lot safer than other neighborhoods,” she said. “I don’t imagine living anywhere else.”

about bringing luxury development and not about bringing luxury businesses, and that

this is actually an amendment to address displacement in the neighborhood… I think the market will adjust based on those expectations.”

He also said they are working on legislation that would allow TIF dollars to also be used directly to assist homeowners and small businesses impacted by the tax increases.

Sigcho-Lopez said ultimately he sees an immediate need for development. “We want to make sure that the creation of new housing is done by the community, and that it is in writing, as a requirement, not as an option.”

In the last couple of years, Madera said some of her neighbors left for Back of the Yards where rent is more affordable and home prices are much less. “They leave to 50th and Damen. It’s sad because they actually end up losing because it’s a high crime area.” Madera said that some of her neighbors also moved to the southwest suburbs, Cicero and Berwyn.

A neighbor on Coulter Street, Dolores Delatado, said she has lived in the Heart of Chicago area for thirty years. She raised nine children along with her husband, but they always rented. In the last decade, she said she has seen a huge change with more güeros, or white people, coming to rent and buy homes.

In 1990, the Lower West Side, where Pilsen and Heart of Chicago are located, was 88 percent Latinx. By 2020, the percentage of Latinx residents had dropped to 71 percent.

A for sale sign was displayed on April 30, 2024, on the window of a two-story building on the block of W 24th Street in the Heart of Chicago neighborhood.

Photo by Alma Campos MAY 23, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

HOUSING Delatado’s daughter, who works as a manager at a Dunkin Donuts, lives with her and helps support her. Delatado sells elotes and ice cones from a pushcart in front of her house for extra money. “It’s a little help,” she said.

Delatado and her daughter pay $1,000 for a three-bedroom apartment unit. When she first moved in thirty years ago, the rent was $250, or about $540 in today’s dollars.

She told me her neighbors next door are paying more than $3,000 each month. I got to meet them on the same day I met Delatado. They were moving out on April 30, heading to Kenwood.

The couple, Andrea Kenerew and Andrew Cass, moved to Heart of Chicago three years ago to provide their son with a good environment and heard good things about the nearby schools. “It’s a nice family block,” Cass said.

But in the last year, their landlord jumped the rent from $2,750 to $3,150.

They let me see the duplex, which has three bedrooms and a den. They said that the landlord lives in Morton Grove.

“This definitely fit the bill at first but

they were coming up on our rent crazy,” Cass said. “It was already at the highest end of our price range.”

Betancur said gentrification is not inevitable. He pointed to rent control as one measure and assessing homes not on its property market, but the income of the owners so that people don’t have to pay taxes on the basis of the market value of the building. Betancur also said he thinks it’s important to lower taxes for homeowners who are struggling to pay. Finally, “don’t approve more construction permits, or rezonings. Leave them as they are. Those are tools that exist in the book.”

The problem, he added, is getting elected officials on board.

“Most of the people in City Council are realtors themselves and make their money speculating, or are attorneys themselves heavy in the industry of appealing taxes and are heavy in the business assisting with real estate transactions,” he said. “They make money with gentrification.” ¬

On Saturday, October 15, 2022, around 4:15 P.M. this couple was driving westbound on Archer Avenue. There was a driver going eastbound at a reckless speed, well above the speed limit, in a Jeep Cherokee that T-boned this couple’s Nissan Murano at the intersection of Poplar Street & Archer Avenue. The wife was in the passenger seat and died instantly at impact. The husband died in the ambulance en route to the hospital. It took the fire department over 45 minutes to pull the wife’s body out of their vehicle. They were married 65 years. Their family and friends are seeking justice through the court system with the help of a witness or video.

If you witnessed the crash on that day please call this number:

708-522-7332

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VIVIENDA

En Pilsen, la gentrificación enriquece a algunos, desplaza a otros

La abundancia de Airbnbs y las rentas altas han dificultado que los residentes más duraderos permanezcan en Pilsen y Heart of Chicago.

POR ALMA CAMPOS TRADUCIDO POR JACQUELINE SERRATO

L

a gentrificación ha elevado los impuestos a la propiedad en Pilsen y Heart of Chicago, dos barrios del Lower West Side, y ahora los residentes están empezando a preocuparse de que los Airbnb en el área puedan subirlos aún más.

A los residentes no necesariamente les preocupa que la gente ocasionalmente rente los Airbnbs. Se trata de los Airbnbs tipo hotel operados por personas adineradas en comunidades que están navegando, especialmente cuando los propietarios no son de la comunidad.

Los Airbnb pueden estimular la gentrificación. Un estudio de 2017 encontró que las rentas a corto plazo como las de Airbnb eliminan vivienda que ya es escasa y los propietarios pueden animar los desalojos de los inquilinos para que puedan cobrar más.

Los precios de las viviendas locales también suben. Los precios más altos dan como resultado un valor de propiedad e impuestos más altos, lo que lleva a los dueños a aumentar la renta o obliga a las personas que no pueden pagar los impuestos a vender sus casas.

Según Airbnb, hay más de 1,000 anuncios de Airbnb en Pilsen y Heart of Chicago.

Casa Corazón, un Airbnb en las calles 24th y Damen, es uno de los muchos alquileres a corto plazo que han proliferado en Pilsen en los últimos años. Es propiedad de Amanda Gentry, una artista que compró la casa de dos pisos en 2004 por $259.000. Está cerca del transporte público, con la parada de la Línea Rosa en Damen a minutos de

Una hilera de casas en la cuadra de la 24th y Hoyne en el vecindario de Heart of Chicago.

Foto por Alma Campos

distancia y los autobuses de Damen y Western Avenue cerca. La autopista Stevenson está a aproximadamente una milla de distancia.

El mes pasado, la casa se puso a la venta con un precio inicial de $500,000.

Según su listado de Airbnb, Gentry lo operó como vivienda vacacional en renta a corto plazo durante más de una década.

El Airbnb de tres cuartos, que se renta a $82 la noche, cuenta con críticas positivas de cientos de turistas en el listado. En las grandes ciudades como Chicago, estas unidades son típicas para los turistas que van a conciertos o eventos de verano, y los alquileres alcanzan su punto máximo en junio y julio. Las esculturas y pinturas de Gentry se venden entre $650 y 37,000 la pieza. Según el sitio de datos de alquileres a corto plazo rabbu.com, las tres unidades

de Casa Corazón pueden ganar, en promedio, cerca de $45,000 al año.

Gentry no respondió a las solicitudes de comentarios.

Al cierre de esta edición, la casa figura como "contingente" en Redfin, lo que significa que se aceptó una oferta, pero se deben cumplir criterios adicionales para completar la venta. Fue incluido en la lista de @propetries Christie's International Estate, una red global de firmas de bienes raíces de lujo que alega $29 mil millones en ventas anuales propiedad de Mike Golden y Thaddeus Wong.

Un portavoz de @properties dijo que en los últimos dos años han estado involucrados en unas cincuenta transacciones inmobiliarias en el Lower West Side. Han representado tanto a compradores como a vendedores, y los

tipos de propiedades incluyen tanto residenciales como comerciales, dijo el portavoz.

La empresa @properties fue un impulsor clave en la gentrificación de varios vecindarios del lado norte, incluyendo Wicker Park. En un artículo de Bloomberg de 2007, Wong habló sobre lo que atrae a los inversionistas.

"Hay que atraer gente con galerías de arte y restaurantes", dijo. "Así es como la gente se familiariza con los barrios".

También dijo que la gente quiere una buena infraestructura de transporte y que las comunidades se gentrifican más rápido cuando las leyes de zonificación son flexibles. En 2018, Wong desalojó Uptown Underground, un local de burlesque, porque los inquilinos ya no podían pagar la renta mensual de $12,000. En 2023, compró una casa victoriana en Lincoln Park y ordenó su demolición a pesar de la oposición de los conservacionistas.

Entre 1970 y 1996, Pilsen luchó contra los proyectos de desarrollo para evitar la gentrificación. Pero esos esfuerzos fueron desafiados cuando el concejal Danny Solís fue nombrado para el Distrito 25 por el entonces alcalde Richard M. Daley, quienes acogieron la gentrificación.

Gentry compró la casa en 24th y Damen en la época en que algunas organizaciones comunitarias comenzaron a exigir que Solís rechazara el desarrollo que estaba elevando el costo de vida. En 2004, una red de unas dos docenas de organizaciones comunitarias e iglesias locales le pidió a Solís que involucrara a MAY 23, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

VIVIENDA

los residentes en todas sus decisiones de desarrollo. A través de un referéndum, Solís creó el Comité de Uso del Terreno de Pilsen (PLUC, por sus siglas en inglés), un comité cerrado de líderes del vecindario que él mismo nombró.

El Weekly entrevistó a John J. Betancur, profesor de Política y Planificación Urbana en la Universidad de Illinois en Chicago, quien ha estudiado la gentrificación en la ciudad durante décadas y ayudó a escribir el libro de 2016 sobre la urbanización, Claiming Neighborhood: New Ways of Understanding Urban Change.

Aunque hubo rechazo contra los desarrolladores de fuera, especialmente de parte de organizaciones como Pilsen Alliance, otras organizaciones apoyaron el "desarrollo equilibrado", que según Betancur era una manera "de ocultar la gentrificación de la agenda".

Dijo que organizaciones como el Proyecto Resurrección, el Centro Médico Alivio y Pilsen Neighbors Community Council apoyaron a Solís. A pesar de tener la misión de protegerse contra el desplazamiento, se sumaron "a lo que se llama el complejo industrial sin fines de lucro y se interesaron más en agrandarse ellos mismos que en salvar el vecindario”, agregó.

Si bien los precios de las rentas se volvieron inasequibles para algunos residentes, las personas adineradas pudieron beneficiarse. “Aprovecharon que ya tienen un punto de partida, una profesión, un buen trabajo y un gran acceso a recursos y conocimiento del mercado”, dijo Betancur.

Julia Madera ha vivido en la calle 24th y Damen durante 32 años. En 1998, Madera y su esposo compraron una casa multifamiliar en la cuadra por $152,000.

En esa casa crió a sus tres hijos que ahora tienen 30, 29 y 13 años.

Todos asistieron a programas de primera infancia en la organización comunitaria El Valor y asistieron a la Escuela Primaria Irma Ruiz cercana.

“Aquí hay mucha calma”, dijo Madera.

“Me gusta porque todo está a poca distancia. Las escuelas, la clínica, mi iglesia, los autobuses”.

Madera dijo que sus vecinos se han 16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MAY 23, 2024

ido a lo largo de los años y se han mudado a otros vecindarios y suburbios donde las casas y las rentas son menores.

Betancur dijo que cuando las familias se van debido a la gentrificación, sacrifican muchos de los beneficios de estar en un área metropolitana, como el que las escuelas estén a poca distancia y desarrollen sistemas de apoyo como iglesias y organizaciones comunitarias.

"Simplemente significa la disolución de la familia extendida... eso es lo que produce la gentrificación", dijo. "Eso es lo que a la sociedad no le importa".

Madera dijo que quiere mantener la casa en la familia, razón por la cual ella y su esposo le vendieron el edificio a su hijo mayor en 2016. Madera y su esposo viven en uno de los apartamentos, mientras que sus dos hijos, sus esposas y sus nietos ocupan los otros dos. Sus nietos ahora asisten a programas preescolares en El Valor.

Los impuestos a la propiedad se dividen actualmente entre tres ingresos: los de su marido y sus dos hijos. Su esposo y su hijo mayor trabajan como camioneros de cemento y el hijo menor es carnicero en La Casa del Pueblo en Pilsen y en Tony's Fresh Market.

Madera dijo que aunque es difícil pagar la casa familiar, no quedría irse.

Pero de vez en cuando lo considera.

“Realmente quiero quedarme aquí. Aquí pasan cosas, pero es mucho más seguro que otros barrios”, dijo. "No me imagino viviendo en ningún otro lugar".

Recientemente, los activistas de Pilsen han luchado contra el aumento récord del impuesto a la propiedad y el concejal Byron Sighco-Lopez (distrito 25) apoya la expansión del distrito TIF del Corredor Industrial de Pilsen de más de 25 años, para construir viviendas asequibles.

Pero no todos en la comunidad están de acuerdo. Algunos residentes temen que aumenten los impuestos a la propiedad.

Betancur coincide y añade que la vivienda asequible no necesariamente significa que sea asequible.

Para ser elegible para la vivienda asequible, dijo, la gente necesita un ingreso estable, empleo y, en ocasiones, un buen crédito, cosas que las personas

que ya tienen dificultades tienden a no tener. "Es una idea venenosa". Añadió que la vivienda asequible también hace que aumente el valor de las propiedades circundantes.

“Entiendo las preocupaciones de la gente”, dijo Sigcho-López, quien anteriormente fue director de Pilsen Alliance y no es fanático de los TIF. "Cuando el mercado comprenda que no se trata de generar desarrollos de lujo ni negocios de lujo, y que en realidad se trata de una enmienda para abordar el desplazamiento en el vecindario... creo que el mercado se ajustará basado en esas expectativas".

También dijo que están trabajando en una legislación que permitiría que los dólares de TIF también se utilicen directamente para ayudar a los dueños de casa y negocios pequeñas afectados por los aumentos de impuestos.

Sigcho-López dijo que, ultimadamente, ve una necesidad inmediata para el desarrollo. “Queremos asegurarnos de que la creación de nuevas viviendas sea realizada por la comunidad y que esté por escrito, como un requisito, no como una opción”.

En los últimos dos años, Madera dijo que algunos de sus vecinos se fueron a Back of the Yards, donde la renta es más asequible y los precios de las viviendas son mucho menores. “Se van hacia la 50th y Damen. Es triste porque en realidad terminan perdiendo porque es una zona con alta criminalidad”. Madera dijo que algunos de sus vecinos también se mudaron a los suburbios del suroeste, Cicero y Berwyn.

Una vecina de la calle Coulter, Dolores Delatado, dijo que ha vivido en el barrio de Heart of Chicago durante treinta años. Crió a nueve hijos junto con su marido, pero siempre rentaron. En la última década, dijo que ha visto un gran cambio: más "güeros" vienen a rentar y comprar casas.

En 1990, el Lower West Side, donde se encuentran Pilsen y Heart of Chicago, era el 88 por ciento latino. Para 2020, el porcentaje de residentes latinos había caído al 71 por ciento.

La hija de Delatado, que trabaja de gerente en Dunkin Donuts, vive con ella

y la ayuda. Delatado vende elotes y nieve en un carrito frente a su casa para ganar dinero extra. "Es una pequeña ayuda", dijo.

Delatado y su hija pagan $1,000 por un apartamento de tres cuartos. Cuando se mudó allí por primera vez hace 30 años, la renta era de $250, o algunos $540 actualmente. Dijo que sus vecinos de al lado pagan más de $3,000 cada mes y que se mudarían el 30 de abril para Kenwood.

La pareja, Andrea Kenerew y Andrew Cass, se mudó a Heart of Chicago hace tres años para brindarle a su hijo un buen ambiente y escucharon cosas buenas de las escuelas cercanas. "Es un bonito bloque familiar", dijo Cass.

Pero en el último año, el dueño les aumentó la renta de $2,750 a $3,150 en su dúplex de tres cuartos y un estudio.

Dijeron que el propietario vive en Morton Grove.

“Este lugar definitivamente cumplió los requisitos al principio, pero estaban exagerando con la renta”, dijo Cass. "Ya estaba casi fuera de nuestro presupuesto".

Betancur dijo que la gentrificación no es inevitable. Señaló el control de la renta como una medida y el asesoramiento de las propiedades no basado en el mercado inmobiliario, sino en los ingresos de los propietarios, para que la gente no tenga que pagar impuestos en base al valor de mercado del edificio. Betancur también dijo que cree que es importante reducir los impuestos para los dueños de casa que tienen dificultades para pagar. Finalmente, “no aprobar más permisos de construcción, ni rezonificaciones. Déjenlos como están.

Esas son herramientas que están a la disposición”.

El problema, añadió, es lograr que los funcionarios electos se unan.

“La mayoría de las personas en el Concejo Municipal son agentes inmobiliarios y ganan dinero especulando, o son abogados que trabajan mucho en la industria de apelar impuestos o trabajan mucho en el negocio de ayudar con transacciones de real estate”, dijo. "Ganan dinero con la gentrificación". Alma Campos es una editora principal del Weekly.

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LIT

T

Our thoughts in exchange for yours.

he Exchange is the Weekly’s poetry corner, where a poem or piece of writing is presented with a prompt. Readers are welcome to respond to the prompt with original poems, and pieces may be featured in the next issue of the Weekly.

Out South Circuit

by chima “naira” ikoro

whenever nintendo decides to add a Black character, i will one hundred percent eat it up some times i buy into the illusion of inclusion cause i don’t have the bandwidth to be pissed off. dustin’ folks playing a blonde hair blue eyed princess just doesn’t give i hope that DLC is Black as hell. so Black, the new race track is modeled after Out South instead of throwing banana peels we are throwing italian fiesta slices instead of a sound canon the new Black Princess Plum turns around and sprays got2b glue on whoever’s behind and they get fused to the concrete she uncaps a jar of shine and jam, and everyone slides out of her way she is riding on a bike she borrowed from her cousin who borrowed it from some kid down the street after saying he promises to bring it back you’re literally never getting that damn bike back. as toadette drifts past Plum, she doesn’t suck her teeth (hating don’t make you no paper) instead, she says okay mushroom, c’mon mushroom! her nitro boost is a song she really likes a sound that reminds her of summer crossing the finish line in the final lap she pops a wheelie and sticks her tongue out ah! period!

Chima Ikoro is the Weekly’s Community Builder.

THIS WEEK'S PROMPT: “WRITE YOURSELF INTO YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE, VIDEO GAME OR TV SHOW.” This could be a poem, journal entry, or a stream-of-consciousness piece. Submissions could be new or formerly written pieces.

Submissions can be sent to bit.ly/ssw-exchange or via email to chima.ikoro@southsideweekly.com

18 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MAY 23, 2024

LIT

T

Our thoughts in exchange for yours.

he Exchange is the Weekly’s poetry corner, where a poem or piece of writing is presented with a prompt. Readers are welcome to respond to the prompt with original poems, and pieces may be featured in the next issue of the Weekly.

FEATURED BELOW IS A RESPONSE TO A PREVIOUS PROMPT FROM A READER. THE LAST POEM AND PROMPT CAN BE FOUND ONLINE.

Chi Town Violence Steals Away the Community by claude robert hill, IV

I am somebody Shot in the Head...

Found the bullets.

Coroner Said.

A child of God struck dead.

Gang related disputing Fools.

Aiming cowardly bullets right at you.

I guess praying prayers just won't do.

There is no safe in these hard knocks realities' Truths.

Our Sista child!

Our mother child!

All the while the bodies pile.

Her body now adds to that 'the shootings aren't as bad as last year' body count.

Can't even stand anywhere in your city NOW? Something has to truly give.

There's a plague of rigid legalities, relaxed moralities, and political realities stealing the 'safe' from our dying breed.

The Black man withering away in siphoning inequalities.

Doubling unemployment stretches outward like a statistical wild fire....

Our present fact.

There is a genocidal component to these criminal acts.

Chima Ikoro is the Weekly’s Community Builder.

THIS WEEK'S PROMPT: “WRITE YOURSELF INTO YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE, VIDEO GAME OR TV SHOW.” This could be a poem, journal entry, or a stream-of-consciousness piece. Submissions could be new or formerly written pieces.

Submissions can be sent to bit.ly/ssw-exchange or via email to chima.ikoro@southsideweekly.com

MAY 23, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19

ENVIRONMENT

Chatham Flooding Mitigation Program Flounders, But Oak Park Sees Success

A program called RainReady has proven to help mitigate flooding—so much so that there’s a waitlist in Oak Park. But despite Chicago’s promise to launch in 2019, it’s not yet off the ground.

BY SIDNEE KING, ILLINOIS ANSWERS PROJECT This story was originally published by the Illinois Answers Project.

I

n October, the city’s top environmental official told City Council members that Chicago is “laser-focused on collaboration and bold solutions” to help homeowners battle flooding problems.

Angela Tovar then pointed council members to the program RainReady, created in Chatham to provide grants to homeowners in the South Side neighborhood to install flood-control devices on their properties that can significantly reduce susceptibility to flooding.

RainReady is the brainchild of a local environmental nonprofit group the Center for Neighborhood Technology.

The program has had several iterations in Chatham since its development more than ten years ago by CNT and a group of residents.

RainReady works, according to homeowners—including residents in west suburban Oak Park who benefited from the low-cost flood prevention fixes including rain gardens, backflow valves and cisterns.

It is so successful that there is a waiting list, officials said.

But it didn’t get the chance to work for most Chatham residents, the Illinois Answers Project learned. Despite Tovar’s assertions and the city’s promise to launch it in 2019, RainReady has yet to get off the ground. The few Chatham residents who did receive RainReady grants worked directly with CNT prior to 2019.

The different outcomes potentially highlight the difficulty of administering the RainReady program at a larger scale.

While CNT walked away from the city’s project in 2021—citing a lack 20 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MAY 23, 2024

Ora Jackson by her house in the Chatham neighborhood of Chicago on April 5, 2024.

Photo Victor Hilitski for the Illinois Answers Project

of “staff capacity” in an email to Sean Wiedel, then an assistant commissioner at CDOT in charge of citywide services—the nonprofit group found a way to work with government agencies outside of Chicago on similar projects. A CNT official suggested that Chicago presents unique challenges.

The village of Oak Park made the project work on a smaller scale. Data shows that its RainReady program that ran between 2017 and 2021, administered

by CNT, left neighbors satisfied with the results.

“People were looking for solutions.

And this is one of the things that we were trying to … provide,” said Oak Park Neighborhood Services Manager Jeff Prior.

Despite its success, the future of RainReady is unclear in both communities.

The village is looking for a new administrator for the program and is uncertain whether grants will be awarded this year, despite opening applications in March.

The city also is searching for a new partner to run its RainReady program. Until it finds one, Chatham will benefit from

other programs that the water department has implemented, said Brendan Schreiber, chief engineer of sewers at DWM. Those include Green Alleys and Space to Grow, Tovar said in a statement.

“They’re getting resources that we spread across all fifty wards,” Schreiber said.

Why Chatham Floods Chatham is flat, low-lying and sandwiched between two of the city’s big reservoirs that collect rainwater, making it one of the last neighborhoods to empty into a sewer system that can often already be full.

A confluence of topography, aging infrastructure and limited funding have made the neighborhood—known for its distinct architecture and history of Black art and culture—a point of struggle for the longtime residents who’ve invested in it.

In a 2017 analysis of flood insurance data by CNT, Chatham was ranked highest in insurance payouts for flood damage. Onefourth of residents affected by flooding surveyed by CNT reported flooding

damages cost them at least $20,000. And in 2023, Chicago’s 8th Ward—where most of Chatham is located—had the fourth highest number of 311 calls for flooding in the city.

Ora Jackson has lived in the historic community for forty-seven years. She still remembers the first time her basement flooded several years ago after a day of heavy rainfall. Her grandson, who had converted the basement into an apartment, called her from upstairs in a panic.

She rushed to the basement to find him standing on his mattress surrounded by water. He was terrified to wade his way to the stairs, fearing he could be electrocuted.

“It was frightening because I’d never seen anything like that before,” said Jackson, who told Illinois Answers she had no clue how severe the flooding problem in her duplex would grow over the years.

After enduring multiple floods in her duplex—and continually replacing rugs and furniture and paying out of pocket to repair damages—Jackson finally found some relief when she joined the resident steering committee for RainReady in 2014 and received a grant.

“We were just desperate for anything,” said Jackson, who got her downspout disconnected and a rain barrel installed through the program. “It was an education for everybody.”

Harriet Festing, an environmental activist who worked for CNT when RainReady was designed, said she was shocked to hear widespread “horror stories” of flood damage were in Chatham.

“People couldn’t live in their homes anymore because the mold was so bad,” she said.

RainReady’s early steps in Chatham were successful, Festing said, because the

ENVIRONMENT

Ora Jackson credits the rain barrels in her backyard with halting flooding to the basement of her Chatham duplex. April 5, 2024.

Photo Victor Hilitski for the Illinois Answers Project

program tackled urban flooding by focusing on small measures that could direct rainwater away from homes to reduce or avoid the basement seepage that resulted from water pooling around the home.

Long-time Chatham resident Lori Burns received a free inspection through that early program. She paid for the installation of a rain garden and backflow valve at her home and another garden at her mother’s home in Calumet Heights.

The results: the basements at her two properties never flooded again, she said.

Burns, fifty, called the result “fantastic” in an interview with Illinois Answers.

“And that’s why we thought we were going to be able to expand again. Really bring it to the city and say, ‘Look, we have proof of concept,’” said Burns, who was among the group of residents working with CNT to develop the program in 2014.

But the city’s program sputtered and Chatham residents in recent years faced some of the most significant flooding damage in years.

“We needed for it to work, so that 2023 didn’t have to be as bad as it was,” said Burns.

For Oak Park resident Nicole Chavas the flooding wasn’t as bad.

Chavas said that when her neighbors were struggling with flooding in July, the

RainReady-subsidized rain garden helped prevent water basement seepage in her Victorian home. In contrast, she and her husband found their basement flooded with rainwater after a torrential storm in 2020.

Chavas says that the rain garden along with other flood prevention devices the couple installed on their own make them more prepared for serious rain.

“It was all like doing what it was supposed to be doing and that was a really rewarding feeling,” said Chavas.

The village is susceptible to flooding for many of the same reasons that Chatham is—including aging infrastructure and lowlying topography.

Bill McKenna, the village engineer and co-director of the Public Works Department, said that after spending several years studying flooding patterns in the community, the city determined that a home-based solution program would work best.

Testing resident interest, Oak Park launched a pilot program in 2016 that granted $1,300 each to ten homeowners in the village. In 2017, the village expanded the program to include thirty homes and

to test a pilot program in Chatham, due to outreach by CNT and residents.

In 2019, the city’s Water and Transportation departments struck a deal with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District to funnel $600,000 from the city and the MWRD into a pilot expanding the program. The City Council and MWRD’s board of commissioners signed off on the agreement and it went into effect that year.

The plan included a $400,000 commitment from MWRD and $200,000 from the city. CNT would administer the program and be reimbursed by the city for any costs associated with running the program.

Under the agreement, the program participants would receive assessments to determine the appropriate flood control devices for their homes. Those devices included rain gardens, which use native plants to collect and absorb rainwater runoff from roofs, driveways, and other surfaces, and backflow valves which prevent sewage from backing into basements when the system is at capacity.

The program empowered CNT and its contractors to coordinate inspections and installations. CNT was also responsible

A November memo from Tovar to a City Council committee shows that $800,000 was budgeted for the RainReady Chatham program. Nothing had been spent. concluded the pilot in 2019.

“By doing those projects on private property … we can relieve the burden on the village’s sewer system and reduce the likelihood and severity of sewer backups in people’s basements,” McKenna said.

for surveying participating households for feedback over time.

Invoices from CNT acquired through a Freedom of Information Act Request show that CDOT paid CNT at least $36,000 for work related to the program

between October 2019 and May 2020.

After progress on pilot study halted due to the pandemic, the three agencies agreed to revamp the program and extend its deadline to the end of 2022. But shortly after the amendment passed, CNT’s thenCEO Robert Dean, told the city in an email that it could no longer continue as program administrator.

“CNT no longer has the staff capacity to administer construction related programs of this nature. We remain strong supporters of the concept… but playing the role described in the above agreements is no longer within our organization’s skills set,” the email read.

Illinois Answers asked CNT why the organization no longer has the capacity to run the program in Chatham but is still doing so in other neighborhoods.

“We continue to talk to [the city] on a regular basis to try to explore ways to make things happen,” said Ryan Scherzinger, a project manager at CNT overseeing the $6 million RainReady project recently funded

by Cook County for six suburbs in the Calumet City Corridor. “Working with the city… has its challenges. I’m not sure that we’ve cracked that nut, so to speak.”

Still,Tovar boasted about the program’s future in that October meeting and told aldermen that the city is energized to “protect our most vulnerable Chicagoans.”

A November memo from Tovar to a City Council committee shows that $800,000 was budgeted for the RainReady Chatham program. Nothing had been spent.

Reporting on equity issues by the BGA is supported by Joel M. Friedman, president of the Alvin H. Baum Family Fund. ¬

What Happened to RainReady Chatham?

The city’s plans floundered for years in bureaucratic back-and-forth and delays due to the pandemic, records show.

Years of negotiations and bureaucracy slowed RainReady’s implementation to such an extent that not a single Chatham resident of the forty planned participating households received grants from the program, according to records from the city.

The city’s water and transportation departments in August 2016 began negotiating an agreement with the MWRD MAY 23, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 21

Mole De Mayo Festival

18th Street and Halsted Street. Friday, May 24–Sunday, May 26, 6pm–10pm.

Free, suggested donation of $5 for individuals and $10 for families. bit.ly/MoleDeMayo This annual Pilsen festival is an outdoor mole cook-off celebrating Latino culture and Mexican cuisine. After community pushback, the festival moved from 18th and Ashland to Halsted. Since 2009, this tradition has local chefs and restaurants vying for the coveted titles of “Best Mole” and “People’s Choice” award. The three-day festival will feature an open-air mercado with local merchants, crafters and artisans, lucha libre wrestling, music, Aztec danza and the smells of savory mole dishes. Ride service or public transportation is recommended to access the festival. (Zoe Pharo)

‘They Don’t Really Care About Us’ Conversation Haymarket House, 800 W. Buena Ave. Saturday, May 25, 2pm. Free.

Join the Poor Peoples Army and Haymarket House for “a radical conversation in Chicago about the state of the world, featuring Sedan “Suliman” Smith, Cheri Honkala and Minister Caliph Muab’ El. Direct any questions to ppehrcorg@gmail.com or 215-8694753. (Zoe Pharo)

‘The Peace Love Forgiveness: Poetry & Comedy on the Block’ DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, 740 E. 56th Pl. Sunday, May 26, 1pm–4pm. Free. dusablemuseum.org/events/

22 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MAY 23, 2024

The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center is hosting a poetry and comedy event feature Blaq Ice and presents by KGPR-LA.com and BYBCS. To perform, message @ fashion_lights_camera_action.

(Zoe Pharo)

Chicago Gospel Music Festival

Millennium Park. Saturday, June 1, 5pm–10pm. Free. bit.ly/ChicagoGospelMusicFestival

The first festival to kick of the Millennium

Park season, headliners will include The Clark Sisters, Todd Dulaney, Maverick City Music and artist Anita Wilson.

(Zoe Pharo)

Chicago Blues Festival

Millennium Park. Thursday, June 6– Sunday, June 9, 12:30pm–9:00pm Admission free to opening night event with RSVP, free to Millennium Park. bit.ly/3wB6yi7 The largest free Blues festival in the world, per the Department of Cultural

Affairs and Special Events, returns to Millennium Park, including a special opening night performance at the Ramova Theatre in Bridgeport featuring living legend Buddy Guy as part of his “Damn Right Farewell” tour. The three stages will welcome more than thirty-five performances and 250 artists celebrating the city’s renowned Blues legacy.

Additional headliners include Shemekia Copeland, Mr. Sip and centennial tributes to Jimmy Rogers, Dinah Washington, Otis Span and others.

(Zoe Pharo)

MUSIC

Hyde Park Summer Fest Comes to an End Organizers shut down popular hip-hop festival over rising costs, but say ‘South Side still has room for a festival.’

BY ZOE PHARO, HYDE PARK HERALD This story was originally published by the Hyde Park Herald.

H

yde Park Summer Fest is over after nine years in the neighborhood.

An organizer told the Herald that they’re shutting down the popular hip-hop music festival this summer, citing rising costs for running the two-day event.

Wallace Goode, the executive director of the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce who helped organize last year’s festival, told the Herald that as the event came to a close last summer, founder Jonathan Swain and the chamber mutually decided that “we aren’t going to do it again.”

“As the festival becomes more expensive, it challenges the price point for attendees,” Goode said.

Rising costs were largely due to increased security, which Goode said they “quadrupled” in recent years after mass shooting events in Highland Park’s 4th of July parade and at music festivals in Texas and Las Vegas. The added costs were passed on to attendees in the form of higher ticket prices.

“As we do events outside, it becomes a whole different event in terms of security, because you have a 360 view and tall buildings to secure,” he said. “Even though revenue increased, expenses increased exponentially.”

Tickets were $89 for single-day pass and $149 for a two-day pass last year, though some were also donated to local nonprofits, schools and other organizations.

Even with these prices, Goode said, the festival was barely breaking even.

Swain founded the festival in 2014.

Originally called Hyde Park Brew Fest, the event took place on 53rd Street and was intended as a promotion for his liquor store, Kimbark Beverage Shoppe, which he sold in July. Swain noticed that attendees were most interested in seeing the live music, and that the event filled a void on

Tobe Nwigwe performs on the Midway Plaisance at Hyde Park Summer Fest on Sunday evening, June 18, 2023.

Photo by Spencer Bibbs

the South Side.

The festival was paused during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and started up again in 2022. That year, it moved from 53rd Street to the Midway Plaisance and pivoted from a free block party to a twoday lineup of performances with a tiered ticketing system, VIP areas and amenities.

NPB companies, a global event and security firm that works for Lollapalooza, was contracted to staff the event.

The 2022 festival drew more than 25,000 people from fifteen different states, Swain told the Herald that year. Ahead of last year’s festival, Swain anticipated that the event would draw more than 40,000 people over two days.

Last year’s headliners included 2 Chainz, The Clipse, Lil’ Kim and Robert Glasper.

Swain could not be reached for comment as of press time.

In an interview with the Herald after last year’s event, Swain said, “As long as the community keeps supporting what we’re doing and we’re in that vein … we’ll keep doing the event.”

With Summer Fest over, Goode said organizers don’t have another event in the

works to take its place. But, he added, “I think the South Side still has room for a festival of this caliber.”

“A couple of people have at various times said they might be interested in producing a festival, and I’d be happy to discuss it with them,” Goode continued.

Jake Austen, the entertainment director for The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. W, said the music venue is still planning its July Passport Vibes Festival, which brings African food vendors, children’s activities and DJs to the parking lot behind the Promontory.

This event, “can help fill some of the Hyde Park payout, but obviously not at that

scale,” Austen said.

Eric Williams, owner of the 53rd Street boutique the Silver Room, also confirmed that he has no plans to resurrect the store’s longtime block party, which ended last summer after an eighteen-year run.

The Silver Room will, however, continue to co-host the monthly Harper Court Summer Music Series this summer in partnership with the University of Chicago. Zoe Pharo is a reporter at the Hyde Park Herald.

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MAY 23, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 23

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