SIDE WEEKLY IN CHICAGO
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 12, Issue 12
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
Jocelyn Martinez-Rosales
Community Builder Chima Ikoro
Public Meetings Editor Scott Pemberton
Interim Lead
Visuals Editor Shane Tolentino
Director of Fact Checking: Ellie Gilbert-Bair Fact Checkers: Isabella Bonito
Patrick Edwards
Kateleen Quiles
Lauren Sheperd
Rubi Valentin
Arieon Whittsey
Layout Editor Tony Zralka
Executive Director Malik Jackson
Office Manager Mary Leonard
Advertising Manager Susan Malone
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
Cover photo by Paul Goyette
Over the past couple weeks, efforts to defend communities across the country from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have morphed into mass protests. Sparked by ICE raids on Home Depots and clothing wholesalers in Los Angeles on June 6 and 7, which led to demonstrations in that city that have spread to Chicago, New York, Dallas, and other cities, people have tried various methods at preventing or slowing down ICE activity, from occupying highways to blocking ICE vehicles and surrounding detainment facilities. In Los Angeles, municipal police assisted ICE by shepherding their officers and dispersing crowds, often using tear gas and rubber bullets. The scenes reminded many of the uprisings that occurred five years ago in the wake of George Floyd's murder.
On June 7, President Trump ordered 2,000 National Guardsmen to deploy in Los Angeles to suppress the protests, despite the objections of Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and California governor Gavin Newsom. Two days later, the Trump administration also ordered 700 Marines to head to the city. As troops outfitted in combat gear and assault rifles filed into the city, Trump and administration officials said they were there to “liberate” Los Angeles from “the Migrant Invasion,” calling protesters “foreign enemies.” On June 16, Trump reaffirmed that carrying out his mass deportation agenda was the top priority of his administration and that he was preparing to send the Guard and military into more sanctuary cities, such as Chicago.
This escalation by the Trump administration has rightly sparked fears about an increasingly authoritarian response to protest and the unprecedented use of military force against American civilians. Trump might be testing out how far he can go with deploying the military to serve his domestic aims; today it's assisting ICE operations against immigrants, tomorrow it might be instituting martial law and election interference. A federal judge ruled on June 12 that Trump’s order was illegal, going against the 10th Amendment, and control of the National Guard in Los Angeles should revert back to California; later that day, that decision had been blocked by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In Chicago, people have likewise attempted to block ICE vehicles and operations at offices in the Loop while continuing to lookout for ICE operations through the city and suburbs and spreading the word through local channels. Like in Los Angeles, municipal police—CPD—have apparently coordinated with ICE by protecting their officers and facilitating their operations by holding back or dispersing protesters. These actions raise questions about whether CPD violated the TRUST Act, which prohibits municipal and state police in Illinois from cooperating with federal immigration authorities like ICE. But they also raise questions about the limits of such laws. As mayor Bass said about the LAPD response, “When one branch of law enforcement says they need help, another branch of law enforcement is obligated to respond.”
In this era of increasing authoritarian oppression and resistance, organizers leading the way have emphasized the need to build mass organized political movements. That can start small and local; it might look like participating in a mutual aid network near you, or volunteering in an ICE watch group, or even getting to know your neighbors so that if they—or you—need help, you all have more people to call on.
IN THIS ISSUE
the rink glides into its 50th year Illinois’ only Black-owned roller rink preserves culture and celebrates community in Chatham.
jasmine barnes ........................................ 4
south side sports roundup
The latest results and other news from the Chicago sports world.
malachi hayes ......................................... 6
who benefits from a snap curfew?
What giving police unchecked powers to detain teens means in authoritarian times.
robert vargas 7
public meetings report
A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level.”
scott pemberton and documenters .... 8 impact of artist visa denials ripples through community
Uncertainty for Mexican artists under the Trump administration led to Miche Fest’s cancellation, which means loss of jobs and income for dozens of local vendors.
jocelyn martinez-rosales 9 no due process: inside ice’s deceptive arrests in chicago
Immigrants complying with monitoring were arrested without warning at a South Loop office.
josé abonce 11 dentro de las detenciones engañosas de ice en chicago
Los inmigrantes que cumplían con los requisitos de supervisión fueron arrestados sin previo aviso en una oficina de South Loop. por josé abonce traducido por alma campos .......................................... 13
chicago joins wave of anti-trump protests
Photos from last Saturday’s ‘No Kings’ protest in the Loop.
paul goyette and jacqueline serrato 14 ‘granny flats’ are illegal to build in most of chicago
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) or “granny flats” are illegal to build in most of Chicago, but a pilot program allowing them in some areas showed promising results.
alex nitkin, illinois answers project 16 the graduate’s burden: how illinois is confronting the student loan crisis
With $63 billion in collective student loan debt, new forgiveness programs and innovative solutions aim to help borrowers. But state funding and public awareness remains an obstacle. claire murphy, illinois answers project .................................... 19 cook county medical debt help comes too late
Data shows the majority of medical debt relief was for people who likely should have qualified for free care. binghui huang, illinois answers project .................................... 23 juneteenth calendar Juneteenth events! chima ikoro ........................................... 27
The Rink Glides Into its 50th Year
Illinois’ only Black-owned roller rink preserves culture and celebrates community in Chatham.
BY JASMINE BARNES
Ramona Pouncy can vividly recall the red and black patent leather skates her mother and father wore when they took her as a child to The Rink’s original location on 89th and Ashland for family skate nights.
“We would skate together,” said Ramona, who is now the co-owner of the roller rink she grew up skating in. For her, The Rink has always been a multigenerational, familial space. It’s played a critical role in her family’s lives and served as a community hub in the Chatham neighborhood for half a century. Her husband and business partner, Curtis Pouncy, remembers coming with friends as a teenager to skate and, at times, frequenting The Rink two or three times per week.
The couple purchased The Rink from the original owners in 2019, navigated a temporary closure during the pandemic, and later completed major renovations and improvements. With that in mind, making it to the Rink’s 50th anniversary in June is both a personal and communal victory.
Since taking over, the Pouncy’s have stayed committed to preserving the best of the past and continuing to invest in innovations meant to serve the holistic well-being of the community.
With the closure of many Illinois skate rinks including Orbit Skate Center Palatine in 2018, Lombard Roller Rink in 2023, and Glenwood Roller Rink this year, The Rink is a staple not just on the South Side but in the region. In fact, The Rink remains the only Black-owned roller rink in the state of Illinois.
On June 7th, beloved Chatham native, Chance the Rapper took to Instagram during the Rink’s 50th anniversary weekend to give a shout out to the space that he calls “a powerhouse in our community.”
While the reality of roller rinks closing across the country remains true, the rise in skating during the isolated days of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a nationwide resurgence in interest, especially among young people.
A ‘Safe Space’ to Skate
The entrance to The Rink is easy to miss for anyone who’s not already a regular. As you drive down 87th street, the turn onto a rough gravel driveway leads to a large parking lot behind an industrial building. The roller rink entrance is a small red door with a white sign that reads, “Welcome to The Rink.”
After purchasing a ticket—only $8 on Fridays without a skate rental—a metal detector serves as a threshold between the outside world and the roller rink.
“This is a safe space, and we're going to keep it as a safe space,” said Ramona.
There’s a current of trust that travels throughout the building. New lockers line the wall—an improvement implemented
by the Pouncy’s—but most remain unlocked with some people even leaving bags on top of the lockers.
Young couples venture from the smaller rink for less experienced skaters to the main floor, sheepishly holding hands. A referee in a black and white button-down blows her whistle at rowdy kids. Parents record their children trying new skate tricks. Friends gossip and eat snacks near the concession stands.
The soundtrack of The Rink reflects the many generations present. While older couples skate in slow unison to “Stars” by Kindred the Family Soul and teens perform TikTok dances on skates to “Hellcats SRTs” by Sexyy Red, no one can resist dramatically mouthing the chorus of “Love” by Keyshia Cole.
The smooth moves of JB skating are brought to life by young and senior skaters. The artistic skating style was created by Chicagoans in the 1970s who wanted to mirror the dance moves of James Brown. Skaters show off signature
moves: the “big wheel,” “gangster walk,” “crazy legs,” and “criss-cross.” Dressed casually in hoodies, jeans, and jerseys, skaters balance on one foot, crouch low to the floor, and skate backwards with ease.
When Nate Simpson and Carmen Simpson opened The Rink on June 10, 1975, skating was a central part of Black social life, especially in Chicago. For over forty years the couple owned what became a hub for community celebration; birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries. In 2019, with ticket sales at a low and retirement on the horizon, the Simpsons approached the Pouncy’s, who were already experienced business owners, to see if they were interested in purchasing The Rink and continuing its legacy. At first, the magnitude of the ask was overwhelming.
“We had no intentions of acquiring The Rink,” said Ramona. “We were just skaters like everybody else and we were just trying to help once we heard that it might be closing.”
For months, the Pouncys supported Nate with applying for grants to help offset the cost of repairs and business expenses, but the reality of The Rink’s financial situation and the amount of work needed to remodel was too daunting for the Simpsons to take on. At one point, the Simpons seriously considered selling to a trucking company that would repurpose the skating rink for their corporate offices. Curtis knew that decision would “devastate the community.” The Pouncy’s recognized the importance of the Rink as more than just a place to skate on the weekend.
“We need[ed] to pray about this and count the costs,” said Ramona. “When we decided that this was something that we wanted to do, the deal closed in three weeks.”
In 2019, the Pouncy’s took over ownership of The Rink with the intention
Ramona and Curtis Pouncy pose with their daughter and Ramona's mother as three generations serve celebratory cake to skaters. Photo by Tonal Simmons
THIRD SPACES
of giving skaters “a place that they can be proud of,” said Curtis.
The first few years were challenging. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down the roller rink for months in 2020, and a much needed remodel closed The Rink for a little under a year starting in 2021. Since its reopening in September 2022, The Rink has boasted new carpeting, flooring and lighting, fresh paint, and repairs to the building’s exterior. Despite all the changes, it’s also sustained a communal culture.
“It's more like a family environment, and we want to be able to to keep it as a family environment and at the same time [are] running it as business,” said Ramona. “There's that corporate, business side, but [there’s] also that emotional side that you develop with your skaters.”
Friday nights feel particularly lively, with the Family Skate welcoming teens and children to take to the floor.
Jasmine Bis, a community member and regular at The Rink, has been bringing her nine-year-old son for Family Skate Nights regularly since October. After attending a birthday party at the roller rink, she noticed his excitement for skating and thought coming more regularly might offer him a healthy social activity outside of school.
In the last five months, they’ve only missed a handful of Friday skate nights. “No matter how tired I am, no matter what's going on, we gotta go skating,” said Bis.
“What can we do to positively impact our community, at large?” said Ramona. This is a question she ponders regularly when thinking about ways to make The Rink a space that serves the many needs of the neighborhood.
Ramona noticed during the pandemic that people weren’t able to see their physicians. When it was safe for folks to gather again in person, she began hosting nutrition classes every week, focusing on diet and exercise as natural remedies to health care issues. Ramona provided cooking demos and tested recipes with class attendees. The fan favorites eventually ended up as healthy alternative options on The Rink’s concession menu including her smoothies, salads and sweet potato nachos.
during the 50th Anniversary Glow In the Dark celebration on June 7. Ramona interviewed the four selected muralists— Jess Patterson, Dreama Dickerson, Araic Anderson, and AJ Brown—on The Rink’s Instagram to shine a light on their artistry.
For parents like Jasmine Bis, observing the youth and their creativity and talent brings her joy during her regular weekend visits to The Rink.
“It warms my heart,” said Bis. “These are kids that probably picked up skating three [or] four years ago. They learn fast and they pick it up really fast, even my son. It's just amazing to see what they can do in such little time.”
“Some of these youth we see are probably doing trends from downtown [teen takeovers], but on Friday night, they’re skating,” said Bis. “It's a safe place, a safe environment, to keep them out of trouble.”
Prioritizing Community Wellness
For Ramona, The Rink exists as a space that holds endless possibilities for community care and outreach. As a certified nutritionist, she’s leveraging the recreational space as a way to bring holistic wellness to her community.
“You can still get your pizza [and] your hot wings and all that, but you can have a green drink with it,” she said.
She envisions creating more programs to “uplift our youth” like tutoring to offset the negative toll the COVID-19 pandemic took on students. The Rink recently had an event for Autism Awareness month in April and has been working with a local second chance program that supports previously incarcerated people.
To support the talents and creativity of local artists, The Rink opened a contest for mural ideas that would be featured
A big part of the family feeling at The Rink is the legacy and tradition of JB skating culture that’s been passed down through the generations. The Rink continues to teach and promote the unique skating style by providing affordable skate lessons designed for all ages. As parents like Bis introduce their children to the skating tradition, those unique cultural elements are not only sustained, but grown.
When asked about their dreams for the future of The Rink, the Pouncy’s simply hope it continues to remain open and serve the community with a high quality roller rink experience. It’s especially important that each skater knows how essential their support and use of the space is.
“You support this rink, we're going to be here,” said Curtis. “If you stop coming—you stop supporting this rink— we don't have any customers, we're not going to be here.”
Near the front of the building, a decades-old Wall of Fame featuring the portraits of dozens of skaters hangs above the lockers. The faces of skating regulars from over the years light up under the glowing twinkle lights strung across the photographs.
“This is a magical place,” said Ramona. The magic isn’t in the music, or the skates, but the people whose love for The Rink continues to carry it forward. ¬
Jasmine is a writer, facilitator, and community builder living in Hyde Park. You can learn more about her work at www.jasbarnes.com.
A skater glides across the rink.
Photo by Tonal Simmons
Skaters turn with synchronized speed and motion.
Photo by Tonal Simmons
BY MALACHI HAYES
Welcome to the South Side Sports Roundup! Check back every month for the latest news and updates on everything South Side sports fans need to know.
White Sox Show Modest Improvement; Reinsdorf Outlines Future Ownership Plans
The bar is low, but the White Sox have finally shown small signs of life in recent weeks, with performances from several young players offering glimmers of hope despite a league-worst record. They’ve gone 7-6 over their last two homestands after suffering a three-game sweep to the NLleading Cubs at Wrigley Field in mid-May.
Leading the charge has been infielder Chase Meidroth, who ranks in the top five among AL rookies in batting average, hits, walks, and OPS. Acquired as a secondary part in the trade that sent Garrett Crochet to Boston, Meidroth is poised to become a fixture in the Sox infield for the foreseeable future.
Similarly, rookie Shane Smith continues to be the team’s most effective starter in his first big league season. Smith ranks second among AL rookies in ERA (2.37) and strikeouts (64), and third in WHIP. He’s making an excellent case to represent the Sox in July’s All-Star Game.
Speaking of the Crochet trade, the centerpiece of the Sox’ end of the deal is officially in the major leagues, as catcher Kyle Teel made his MLB debut on June 6. Considered one of the top catching prospects in the league, Teel hit .295 with eight home runs in Triple-A Charlotte before receiving the call. He and fellow rookie Edgar Quero will be counted on to hold down the catcher’s spot on the South Side for several years to come.
Of interest off the field, White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf announced earlier this month that billionaire investor Justin Ishbia, who purchased a substantial minority stake in the club earlier this year, would be given opportunities to purchase a controlling stake in the team beginning
in 2029 and concluding in 2034. While Reinsdorf has refused to call it such, the move has been widely interpreted as a succession plan for the 89-year-old, who has owned the White Sox since 1981 and NBA’s Chicago Bulls since 1985.
Sky Aim To Move Past Early Season Struggles
Offseason declarations of progress for the Chicago Sky seem to have been premature. They’ve won just three of their first 10 games of the 2025 season, their first under newly hired head coach Tyler Marsh. Their season opener against the Indiana Fever on May 17th attracted a WNBA-record 2.7 million viewers, but it resulted in a 35-point Sky loss, the first of three defeats of 25+ points through less than a month of play. That’s tied with the 2-8 Connecticut Sun for the most such losses in the league, and certainly not the positive step forward that fans hoped to see early in the season.
“You’ve got to continue to look at the positives for each game,” Marsh told the media after the Sky’s June 10 rematch with the New York Liberty, an 85-66 walloping in front of millions of viewers on ESPN and ABC. “We continue to compete,” he continued. “Once you lose the passion or will to compete, that's the time to worry. We're still putting forth that effort and passion for one another.”
Second-year star Angel Reese notched her first career triple-double against Connecticut last Sunday, a 78-66 win for Chicago. Visible improvements in her playmaking and defense hasn’t quite made up for the regression Reese (10.4 PPG, 11.9 RPG, .357 FG%) has suffered in her overall stats after a record-breaking rookie season, but it is a promising sign nonetheless. Poor team-wide defense has been the primary culprit for the Sky’s struggles, however. The 87 points allowed per game is their worst since 2018, and the offense has been completely disconnected, ranking 12th out of 13 in points scored.
The Sky play at the Wintrust Arena
twice in the coming week, first on Saturday against the Phoenix Mercury, followed by a Tuesday evening bout with the Los Angeles Sparks.
Bears Announce 2025 Schedule, Focus On Arlington Heights Stadium
The Chicago Bears revealed their schedule for the 2025 season last month, headlined by a Week 1 Monday Night Football bout with the division-rival Minnesota Vikings to open the year. They’ll also get a Week 5 Monday Night Football rematch with the Washington Commanders a year after a now-infamous last-minute loss sparked a 10-game Bears losing streak that cost head coach Matt Eberflus his job. Rounding out their prime time schedule is a visit to the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
By opponent win percentage, the Bears have the second-toughest schedule of all 32 NFL teams, making a tough hill to climb for ascendant second-year quarterback Caleb Williams. Speaking to the media at this month’s offseason minicamps, Williams reaffirmed his commitment to the Bears after a controversial report emerged detailing his efforts to avoid being drafted by Chicago. Williams and his family reportedly had major concerns about Eberflus and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, concerns that were ultimately borne out when the pair were dismissed amid an up-and-down campaign for the rookie signal-caller.
“Those are thoughts that go through your head in those situations,” Williams admitted to media members at Bears minicamps earlier this month. “[But] after I came on my visit here, it was a deliberate [and] determined answer that I wanted to come here.”
One challenge that will not be surmounted, however, is the one that involves breaking through the barriers required to build a new stadium on the lakefront. The Bears released a statement last month, originally reported by the Chicago Tribune,
revealing that the team would be shifting their longstanding hunt for a new stadium back to Arlington Heights. They purchased a $200 million tract of land several years ago in the suburb in 2023.
This comes more than a year after Mayor Brandon Johnson championed a proposal from the team for a stadium on Chicago’s lakefront, a proposal that was all but shot down last year amid nearly unified opposition from state lawmakers and lakefront advocacy groups. Johnson acknowledged to the Chicago Sun-Times that the team had informed him of their decision to move on, despite his support. That being said, he added, “the door remains open to Chicago.”
Whether the Bears and state lawmakers—whose approval is required for the public funding the team has asked for— agree with that sentiment remains to be seen.
Kenwood Baseball Wins City Championship
The Kenwood Broncos took home their second CPS championship in top-division baseball last month with a dramatic, lastsecond 10-9 victory over north siders Lane Tech at UIC’s Curtis Granderson Stadium. Led by Hyde Park-Kenwood Legends youth baseball alumnus Brandon Stinson, who went 5-for-5 and recorded the game-winning hit, it was Kenwood who came out on top this time after falling in heartbreaking fashion to Lane in last year’s championship. Kenwood’s first championship came with a win over Walter Payton in 2023. They’re the second South Side team to capture a championship since the resumption of play following the canceled 2020 season, as the Morgan Park Mustangs took home the title in 2021. Moving forward, other South Sides teams looking for similar athletic success may consider a horse-themed mascot as a potential factor in such victories.
Malachi Hayes is a Bridgeport-based writer and South Side native.
Illustration by Shane Tolentino
Op-Ed: Who Benefits From a Snap Curfew?
What giving police unchecked powers to detain teens means in authoritarian times.
BY ROBERT VARGAS
As the National Guard and U.S. Marines take up posts in Los Angeles to respond to protests over the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, a dangerous message is spreading from coast to coast: public safety no longer belongs to the public. In Chicago, we are watching this logic take root in a quieter but equally alarming form. A proposed ordinance would give the Chicago Police Department the unilateral authority to impose “snap curfews” on teens, with no oversight and no clear rules.
Supporters of the measure say it’s about public safety and containing chaos. But history—and data—tell us otherwise. The expansion of unchecked police powers, whether through curfews or militarized deployments, rarely serves the public interest. It consolidates authority in ways that reduce accountability and increase the risk of discriminatory enforcement. In Chicago, these dangers are compounded by another, largely invisible threat: the growing influence of private money in policing.
When Policing Moves Behind Closed Doors
The debate over whether to pass Chicago’s snap curfew ordinance unfolds at a time when an alarming trend is on the rise, namely: private donations to police departments. Through tax-exempt foundations and nonprofit shells, police
departments across the country, including in Chicago, now receive millions of dollars in unregulated private funds each year.
My team’s analysis of national tax records revealed that following the 2020 protests, private donations to police reached a historic high total of $550 million. These donations did not respond to rising crime rates or budget shortfalls. They were in response to protests and, in effect, funded resistance to police reform and abolition efforts. An unregulated system of donations extends police power and incentivizes abuse. It allows police to act unilaterally and without the approval or funds of local governments, all while having a slush fund to pay for lobbyists and pilots of surveillance technologies.
Chicago is no exception. Local corporate sponsors have quietly funded surveillance tech, public relations campaigns, and even equipment purchases. In one case, after 7-Eleven donated to the Chicago Police Foundation, officers made 389 more stops at the convenience store chain’s locations compared to similar businesses the following year. This was not coincidence—it was influence.
Curfews Without Oversight Are an Invitation to Abuse
If the snap curfew proposal passes, CPD could declare emergency curfews for minors without prior approval from the mayor, City Council, or police
district councils. The potential for harm is enormous: curfews have long been enforced disproportionately against Black and Brown youth, and the new plan offers very minimal transparency.
Worse, we risk combining two threats: expanded policing powers, and growing private influence. What happens when police departments with unregulated donor relationships are granted emergency powers? Who will they serve when a sponsor’s retail hub is under threat from teen loitering? What happens when a donor calls for a crackdown during a protest that challenges their business interests?
These are no longer theoretical concerns. For example, in St. Louis, a police foundation literally pays part of the police chief’s salary. In Arizona and Illinois, billionaire donor Howard Buffett used his philanthropy to obtain a badge, weapons, and real operational authority.
A snap curfew, in this context, is not just a policy—it is an invitation for the wealthy to write a blank check. And in a city like Chicago, with a long history of racialized policing and political corruption, we should be far more cautious about who gets to fill it in.
We’re on the Verge of a Privatized Security State
The events in Los Angeles offer a glimpse of what happens when elected officials reach for armed force first and democratic
processes last. But the militarization of public safety doesn’t always come in fatigues and Humvees. Sometimes it comes dressed as policy, passed through rushed legislation and funded by donors whose names we don’t even know.
Chicago’s proposed snap curfew ordinance is a local version of the same authoritarian drift we’re seeing in cities like Atlanta—one where public institutions and public lands are hollowed out and replaced by private interests seeking favors from police.
If we want policing that truly serves communities, the answer is not curfews or crackdowns. It’s transparency, accountability, and a hard line between public authority and private influence.
We’ve been here before. In the 1920s, Al Capone held significant influence in the Chicago Police Department—not through violence, but through cash. Today, he wouldn’t need to break the law. He’d just start a foundation, lobby the City Council to pass ordinances he could weaponize, and write a check. ¬
Robert Vargas is Professor of Sociology and Director of the UChicago Justice Project.
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
May 21
At its meeting, the Chicago Police District 007 Council—Englewood (covering Gage Park, Auburn Gresham, Chicago Lawn, Englewood, Greater Grand Crossing, West Englewood) heard from Dion McGill, who serves on the nominating committee. He reviewed the Felony Review Bypass Program, which was initiated by the State’s Attorney’s office to reduce roadblocks in connection with low-level gun possession charges. This pilot initiative allows some CPD officers to file certain felony gun possession charges directly without review by a Cook County State’s Attorney. The usual process is for police officers to call prosecutors to alert the office to a potential charge, provide the necessary facts, and then wait for a prosecutor to call back with a yes or no as to whether charges are warranted. This process can take several hours, which can also take officers off the street. District Council Member McGill expressed concern that District 7 Council members were not even aware of this program until a community member circulated a press article about it. “I feel like this is a cut of due process,” he said. An invited speaker from the Chicago Police District Council 2, Alexander Perez, that council’s community engagement member, explained the District Strategic Plan (DSP) and its significance. “How do you know these plans are taking place?” an audience member asked. Perez said that more community input is needed and made two explanatory documents available at the meeting. One is a brochure, “Help Your District Council Improve the Police District Planning Process.” The other is “Community Input Handout on CPD’s Strategic Planning Process.” Twenty-two district councils were created by the Chicago City Council in 2021, according to the committee’s web page.
May 29
Should CPD officers be allowed to make “consent” searches of vehicles they stop? If so, under what circumstances? Conflicting answers to those two questions were debated at a meeting of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA). The answers turn, in part, on interpretation of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which protects individuals from “unreasonable searches and seizures” by the government, noted CCPSA Executive Director Adam Gross. Disagreements existed not only among members of the Commission but also among members and CPD. In certain instances police can search a car without consent, including when they have a search warrant or specific information to suspect a car might contain evidence related to a crime, Gross said. Without a warrant or enough information to justify a search, officers can still conduct a search if they have a driver’s permission— in other words, their “consent.” CPD doesn’t have a policy spelling out when and under what circumstances a consent search may be conducted, Gross said: “If a police
officer pulls over a car, they have a lot of discretion about whether to ask to do a consent search… For example, an officer could ask to do a consent search if they just suspect there’s evidence of criminal activity in the car. They don’t currently need anything more specific.” Some commissioners want a stricter requirement; others want written forms. “Consent searches are essentially a short cut,” said Commissioner Aaron Gottlieb. “They’re a way around having probable cause [and] they have been shown to be incredibly ineffective and inefficient… They’re also among the most racial disparate policing tools that exist. From my perspective, they should be used rarely.” A policy would require sign-off from the Illinois Attorney General and the designated independent monitor, who oversees CPD’s adherence to the department’s federal consent decree, which stipulates reforms to be implemented by CPD.
June 3
Chicagoans might not know if their groceries will be taxed in 2026 until after October 1, when the City Council must vote to continue the tax or let it expire. At its meeting, the City Council Committee on Finance: Subcommittee on Revenue reviewed the issues. With the city staring down a one billion-dollar budget deficit next year, the argument is strong to hang onto the eighty million dollars Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget team expects the tax to bring in. The Council must decide because a statewide one percent grocery tax is to be scrapped as of January 1. But individual towns and cities can keep the tax, and many already have. One argument for cities to retain the tax is that consumers are used to paying it and will not notice any new adverse effects. On the other hand, the tax is regressive and hits lower income households harder than wealthier ones. During the meeting, the subcommittee members discussed the broader issue of taxation policy. Some Council members supported progressive taxation in which wealthier residents are taxed at higher rates. “A lot of the taxes we’re talking about here today are still a burden on working-class people, on poor people, on small businesses,” said newly appointed Council Member Anthony Quezada (35th Ward). “We all have our fair share to pay, but we continue to leverage this burden on working-class people… we should be really examining how we make the wealthiest people in our state pay their fair share.” Right now, the flat rate for all income levels is 4.95 percent. Quezada recalled the failure of an attempt at progressive taxation in 2020, the Fair Tax Amendment. The current one percent tax specifically applies to “food prepared for consumption off the premises where it is sold.” Groceries purchased with SNAP benefits are not taxed.
Chicago’s Uber and Lyft drivers demanding safety standards, a living wage, and decent working conditions dominated the public comment portion of a Chicago City Council Committee on Finance meeting—even though the topic was not on the committee’s agenda. Specifically, public commenters were supporting the Chicago Rideshare Living Wage and Safety Ordinance, which covers many of the drivers’ concerns. The drivers are also seeking more transparency by Lyft and Uber in fares and deactivation processes. The issue falls more directly under the Council’s Workforce Development Committee, chaired by Alderperson Michael Rodriguez (22nd Ward), who sponsored the proposed ordinance in 2023. A vote on the measure by the Workforce Development Committee was anticipated in the near future. If passed by the full Council, the ordinance would also create a public assistance fund and an appeals process for drivers facing suspensions. One commenter, a ride-share driver who said he had ten years of experience including 27,000 rides, said there have been discrepancies with Uber not only with underpaying drivers, but also overcharging passengers.
This information was collected and curated by the Weekly in large part using reporting from City Bureau’s Documenters at documenters.org.
Impact of Artist Visa Denials Ripples Through Community
Uncertainty for Mexican artists under the Trump administration led to Miche Fest’s cancellation, which means loss of jobs and income for dozens of local vendors.
BY JOCELYN MARTINEZ-ROSALES
After seven years of the Michelada Festival and its relocation from Pilsen to Oakwood Beach in 2024, the beloved community event had to cancel this year's festivities. In a sudden announcement last month, festival organizers pointed to “uncertainty around artist visas and the shifting political climate” for the cancellation.
The fallout of an up and coming
Chicago music festival underscores how current immigration policies are not only disrupting cultural exchange but also straining local labor and stoking fear within immigrant communities.
“We wanted to be responsible with not only the kind of experience that we give [festival goers], but also their hard earned dollars,” Miche Fest co-founder and owner Fernando Nieto said. “If we’re
going to pull the plug, it’s now, rather than two, three months from now.”
The grassroots South Side festival, which was slated to be held in July, began in Pilsen’s Harrison Park, boasting local mariachi bands and asking attendees for a suggested donation. Last year, the festival moved to Oakwood Beach, upping the scale of the event but still managing to harness community spirit.
Through the years, the lineup has grown to feature artists like Kali Uchis and Junior H while uplifting local talent like Los Kbros and DJs from the likes of Nanoos and Mo Mami. Art installations curated by South Side artists like Sentrock highlighting the vibrancy of Chicago culture became the backdrop for the sounds and smells; at the center of it all, however, always remained the
What happened since Chicago closed 50 public schools in 2013?
Beyond Closure documentary retraces the history of the largest mass school closures in the U.S. history highlighting the inter twined issues of inequity, racism, and injustice. Three closed schools showcase a new pathway - the one of community self-determination. Through the voices of community members on community impact, their setbacks and wins towards redevelopment.
BEYOND CLOSURE
@borderless_studio
michelada.
“It's a perfect representation of our culture,” Big Mich co-founder Javier Garcia said. “When you're able to make someone a michelada, you're going out of your way to squeeze some limes, put the ice in, rim the glass, make sure the beer is cold, the presentation—it's a sign of love.”
The michelada is a spicy Mexican drink, often made with tomato juice, lime, salt and beer with variations depending on the person’s palate. In recent years, local companies across the city have sprouted by either hosting pop-up events or selling their homemade mixes in jars. For many, Miche Fest was a way to introduce their product to the market.
“[Miche Fest] gave us a springboard. They gave us an opportunity to have a platform for like-minded individuals,” Garcia said.
Garcia founded Big Mich alongside his wife Natalie in 2017, just two years prior to the inaugural Miche Fest. Big Mich has had a stand every year since and has now expanded to sell their products in over 500 retailers across the country. This magnifies the impact that the cancellation of Miche Fest has on the community and the ability it provides for small businesses to expand and grow alongside each other.
“We started as a street festival with four team members, and now we have about twenty independent contractors on our team,” Nieto said. But their influence stretches past the core festival team to the vendors seeking involvement to the people outside festival grounds selling homemade merch out of their trunks.
“We hire small businesses that provide our generators, our sanitation, our security, our tent companies…We hire Latino owned, small, independent companies. And so it was a hard conversation letting them know that, ‘hey, we're not doing the event this year’,” Nieto said.
“We pump a lot of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars into community reinvestments through these contracts,” Nieto added, emphasizing how deeply the festival’s operations are rooted in local economic ecosystems.
The current Trump administration launched an “unprecedented crackdown” on immigration that began on day one.
With the goal of deporting one million immigrants annually, Trump has created a spectacle fueled with fear.
Before Miche Fest was canceled, Los Alegres del Barranco were part of the initial lineup. Within 24 hours of dropping confirmed artists on their social media platforms, festival organizers had to replace the Mexican regional group because their visas were revoked after a performance in Jalisco, Mexico.
At that performance, the group projected the image of a notorious cartel leader mentioned in the song, potentially breaking Mexican laws that have been enacted to combat narco/cartel culture.
“I’m a firm believer in freedom of expression, but that doesn’t mean that expression should be free of consequences,” wrote U.S Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau in a post on X.
Mexican regional artist, Julion Alvarez, took to his Instagram account to let his fans know via video that his and his band’s visas were revoked— despite his music being overwhelmingly love songs. Alvarez was due to perform at a sold-out show in Arlington, Texas. Grupo Firme, another Mexican regional talent, had their visas suspended late
Miche Fest organizers created a resource page on their website equipped with information on legal aid, know your rights information and more. “When we say we’re ‘From Chicago, for Chicago,’ we mean it. This isn’t a marketing line for us. It’s what we stand for,” they posted to their official Instagram.
For over four decades, Chicago has been a sanctuary city, with laws that prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration agents, inquiring about immigration status, or detaining individuals based solely on their immigration status.
“It saddens me. Chicago has been very supportive of us being a sanctuary city, and I believe that we have done our part to support all communities, and it's just very unfortunate what we're seeing coming out of Washington, D.C.,” said 4th Ward Alderman Lamont Robinson. The 4th Ward was host to Miche Fest last year.
last month causing them to miss their scheduled performance at La Onda Fest in California.
The administration's policies are trickling down, affecting not only artists' visas but leaving many wondering if ICE raids could be a possibility at community events. Places traditionally protected from ICE raids like churches and schools have now been authorized to be targets for federal immigration authorities.
“We asked the city, and we asked Chicago police, very candidly, what does it look like if ICE shows up at an event that's free versus a hard ticket event that's gated and private,” Nieto said. “And to be quite honest, they really didn't know.”
This uncertainty is being felt in other parts of the country. In South Carolina, the Latino fan base of the Nashville Soccer Club, la Brigada de Oro, posted on social media that they would be canceling their tailgate activities due to recent ICE operations in the area. ICE also showed up at the Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet detaining several people and detained a high school student in Massachusetts on his way to volleyball practice. ICE is not targeting “criminals,” as they claim, but infiltrating all aspects of people’s daily lives.
Robinson also highlighted the financial hit the Chicago Park District is taking due to the two-day festival’s cancellation—a ripple effect that’s now impacting local jobs and the broader economy.
Despite the uncertainty, organizers remain undeterred. Earlier this month, Miche Fest held its first iteration in El Paso, and its parent team continues to build community through events like the Margarita Festival in Pilsen, Michelada 5K and upcoming Mas Flow 5K.
“We're still just South Side kids doing this event at the end of the day,” Nieto said, emphasizing that neither policy nor fear can erase their roots or their mission.
For Garcia and others, the festival may have paused, but the culture behind it hasn’t.
“I don't want to be cheesy, but la gente unida, jamás será vencida,” Garcia said. “Nothing can take us down.” ¬
Jocelyn Martinez-Rosales is a Mexican American independent journalist from Belmont Cragin committed to telling stories from communities of color through a social justice lens. She is also a senior editor at the Weekly.
Last year’s Michelada Festival was hosted on the lake at Oakwood Beach.
Photo by Jesus J. Montero
No Due Process: Inside ICE’s Deceptive Arrests in Chicago
On June 4, ICE agents arrested a community organizer and mother, Gladis Yolanda Chavez Pineda along with at least nine others in Chicago’s South Loop. A petition urging her release has drawn over 10,000 signatures.
BY JOSÉ ABONCE
On the morning of Wednesday, June 4, immigrants arrived at the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) office in Chicago’s South Loop after they received an unexpected notice to appear for a check-in appointment. Apparently, it was a trap.
These ten people, who had been complying with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s surveillance, according to advocates and attorneys, were detained on the spot by ICE officials in what witnesses described as a chaotic scene.
ISAP, an alternative to immigration detention, is managed by private contractors under the oversight of ICE. It requires individuals in deportation proceedings to comply with strict monitoring conditions such as ankle bracelets, phone surveillance, and regular in-person check-ins while people remain in the community as their case progresses.
Attorneys from Beyond Legal Aid and members of Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD) who accompanied clients that day said ICE agents broke from usual protocol by denying them entry to provide legal support or interpretation. Individuals arriving for their check-ins were handcuffed without warning, according to witnesses and organizers.
Advocates and elected officials positioned themselves in front of building exits to keep ICE from taking those they detained. Some family members cried as they were separated from their loved ones. Others scrambled to understand what was happening as ICE officers moved quickly to remove those they detained, placing them into unmarked vans and taking them away.
As the crowd of demonstrators grew, the Chicago Police Department was called and conducted crowd control.
Word of the detentions spread fast. Later that week, on June 6, supporters gathered at the Broadview Processing Center, in Broadview Illinois, where immigrants were taken. Activists and family members demanded the release of those taken and to raise awareness about what they call a deceptive and unjust enforcement tactic.
There were no signs, no official markings, nothing to indicate that this was where ICE processed people after an arrest before transferring them to out-ofstate detention centers. Masked men in unmarked white vans and black sedans moved in and out through a barbed-wire gate nearby.
“We are here to demand the liberation of Gladis Yolanda Chavez Pineda,” said Antonio Gutierrez, member of OCAD. “And for the liberation of everyone who has been detained and who are presently in the building behind me,” he said.
Chavez Pineda, a mother and organizer with OCAD, is one of the ten individuals that were detained during routine checkins at the ISAP office on June 4.
According to AJ Johnson Reyes, attorney and part of Cahvez Pineda’s legal team with Beyond Legal Aid, Chavez Pineda received a last minute notice to appear for an appointment the Monday before, June 2, via the ISAP app on her phone that she used to do weekly video calls as part of her ISAP check-ins.
Gutierrez said it was “odd” because she had just shown up at an appointment two weeks ago and had been fully compliant with her check-ins.
Chavez Pineda was detained that day and was not able to be located for two days. According to officers at the processing center, they had not been able to keep up with updating their records because of the number of detentions that had occurred over the span of two days, said Chavez Pineda’s legal team after being let in to see Chavez Pineda.
This new enforcement tactic comes as the Trump administration set goals for ICE to make an increasing number of daily arrests. These heightened enforcement actions that include the deployment of the National Guard in California and threats by the administration to deploy them in Illinois, contributed to sparking mass protests across the country demanding an end to deportations and detentions.
33rd ward Alderperson, Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, witnessed the ICE enforcement actions on June 4 and spoke out against ICE’s tactics that resulted in Chavez Pineda, a constituent and neighbor, being detained.
“It’s very important to point out that constitutional rights are being violated right now. We're all watching as constitutional rights are routinely violated, there is no due process and everybody deserves due process under the Constitution,” RodriguezSanchez said.
ICE claimed the ten individuals they detained at ISAP had final orders of removal, meaning an immigration judge has determined a non U.S. citizen must leave the country. However, Xanat Sobrevilla from OCAD said otherwise.
“It’s a lie. The people here are all not in final orders of removal. They are folks that were complying. They are not the people they are trying to paint,” she said.
ICE did not respond to the Weekly’s requests for comment.
Chavez Pineda arrived from Honduras with her daughter ten years ago seeking refuge and has been in the process of seeking asylum for many years.
About two months ago, Chavez Pineda was randomly scheduled for a check-in. Attorneys and a group of about fifteen people came to that appointment in support of Chavez Pineda, thinking she could be detained. She was not detained that day, but an ankle monitor was placed on her.
According to Reyes, Chavez Pineda has no criminal convictions and has complied with her check-in appointments and surveillance requirements since 2017. At the time she was detained during her ISAP check-in, she had an appeal pending. Her lawyers attempted to deliver a copy of the stay of removal issued by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday to pause her deportation to officials at the processing center as they pushed for her release.
A stay of removal was also submitted to ICE but was still pending. Without ICE’s approval, Chavez Pineda could not be released even though the Seventh Circuit had already granted a stay.
“When making this request today, we were told that the officers at this building no longer have the leeway nor the discretion to release individuals. That all those requests must go through headquarters,” Reyes said. No additional guidance was provided for how to contact headquarters, according to attorneys.
Nadia Singh, a staff attorney at Beyond Legal Aid, said it took about twenty minutes to get let inside the Broadview
processing center after being told to ring a doorbell that they could not find. When they were let in, they were given a moment to see Chavez Pineda.
“We were not allowed to give her a hug. We had to stand at least ten feet back. She was in handcuffs. She wanted to give her appreciation. When she started speaking about her daughter, she started crying,” Singh said.
Lawyers and advocates reported to the media the overcrowded conditions Chavez Pineda and others were experiencing at the ICE processing center, sharing that there were no beds, just chairs.
Chavez Pineda’s legal team believes the order of stay granted by the seventh court, along with the stay filed with ICE that was pending, should have been enough to release Chavez Pineda. However, conversations with officials at the processing center suggested there were additional layers of bureaucracy and backlog processing that may not have made it possible.
Despite that Chavez Pineda has been living in the U.S. for over a decade, has sole custody of her daughter, and has complied with court-related mandates, she was deemed a flight risk, put on an ankle monitor, and subsequently detained, according to Singh.
“A huge part of what's going on is we are not seeing any legality or rationality in ICE's choices of enforcement right now. It's very much just, if we feel like we have some sort of way to deport them, we will,” Singh said.
As the press conference came to a close, advocates and supporters stayed as they received word that ICE was picking people up from the processing center and taking them to an undisclosed location.
Broadview police officers and vehicles patrolled up and down Beach St. and stood in front of the processing center entrance, as well as near the gated fence. When asked by advocates why it appeared that Broadview Police were helping or working with ICE, officers said they were conducting traffic control.
Inside the gated fence, dozens of detained individuals were seen walking out of the processing center, filed in a single line and walking towards unmarked white vans idled in the parking lot.
Supporters outside of the gate shouted, ‘No están solos, aquí estamos!’ (You are not alone, we are here).
About seven to eight vans driven by masked ICE officers, each carrying ten to twelve people, drove out through the gate and onto the clear path Broadview police secured for them. As those unmarked vehicles drove off, more came into the processing center with newly detained people.
The press conference and show of support for Chavez Pineda and others detained at the processing center ended without her release.
”She did have a message to share,” said Reyes. “She wanted to share her thanks and appreciation for all the support for herself and her family and to everyone here today. That's about as much as she was able to give before losing composure.”
After days of uncertainty following last Friday’s rally, ICE updated its locator tool on Monday, confirming that Chavez Pineda is being held at Grayson County Jail in Kentucky.
OCAD organized a call to action and began collecting signatures for a petition to show support for Chavez Pineda and demand her release from ICE custody. The petition has collected over 10,000 signatures since last week.
Since then thousands of Chicagoans and allied organizations have also rallied in demonstrations that continue to demand a stop to ICE detentions and deportations, adding to the country’s growing resistance against the Trump administration.
At least three people were detained by ICE officials on Father’s Day at the ISAP office, following two others who were detained the day before. OCAD members and allied organizations present over the weekend at the Broadview processing center, say that about eighty people who received alerts to check-in over the weekend came out with ankle or wrist bracelets. ¬
José Abonce is the senior program manager for the Chicago Neighborhood Policing Initiative and a freelance reporter who focuses on immigration, public safety, politics, and race. He is an apprentice with The Investigative Project on Race and Equity and a recent New York University Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism graduate.
Dentro de las detenciones engañosas de ICE en Chicago
El 4 de junio, agentes de ICE arrestaron a Gladis Yolanda Chávez Pineda, organizadora comunitaria y madre, junto con al menos otras nueve personas, tras comparecer a una cita de rutina.
POR JOSÉ ABONCE TRADUCIDO POR ALMA CAMPOS
En la mañana del miércoles 4 de junio, varios inmigrantes llegaron a la oficina del Programa de Comparecencia con Supervisión Intensiva (ISAP, por sus siglas en inglés) en el South Loop, en el centro de Chicago, después de recibir una notificación inesperada para presentarse a una cita de verificación. Al parecer, todo era una trampa.
Estas diez personas, que habían estado cumpliendo con la supervisión de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas de los Estados Unidos (ICE, por sus siglas en inglés)
fueron detenidas por funcionarios del ICE en lo que testigos describieron como una situación caótica.
El ISAP, una alternativa a la detención de inmigrantes, es administrado por contratistas privados bajo la supervisión de ICE. Requiere que las personas en proceso de deportación cumplan con estrictas condiciones de monitoreo, tales como monitores electrónicos en el tobillo, vigilancia telefónica y presentarse regularmente en persona mientras permanecen en la comunidad en lo que se resuelve su caso.
Los abogados de Beyond Legal Aid y los miembros de Comunidades Organizadas Contra las Deportaciones (OCAD), que acompañaron a los clientes ese día, dijeron que los agentes de ICE violaron el protocolo normal al negarles la entrada al edificio para proporcionar apoyo legal o interpretación. Las personas
que llegaron para registrarse fueron esposadas sin previo aviso, según testigos y organizadores.
Defensores y funcionarios electos se situaron frente a las salidas del edificio para impedir que ICE se llevara a los detenidos. Algunos familiares lloraban al ser separados de sus seres queridos. Otros intentaban comprender qué estaba pasando mientras los agentes de ICE se apresuraban a sacar a los detenidos, los subían a vehículos sin distintivos y se los llevaban.
A medida que el grupo de manifestantes crecía, la Policía de Chicago acudió al lugar y tomó medidas para controlar a la multitud.
La noticia de las detenciones se difundió rápidamente. Más tarde esa misma semana, el 6 de junio, los manifestantes se reunieron en el Centro de Procesamiento de Broadview en Broadview, Illinois, donde habían llevado a los inmigrantes. Los activistas y los familiares exigieron la liberación de los detenidos y trataron de concientizar a la gente sobre lo que consideran una táctica engañosa e injusta. No había letreros, ni marcas oficiales, ni nada que indicara que allí era el lugar donde ICE procesa a las personas tras su detención antes de trasladarlas a centros de detención fuera del estado. Hombres enmascarados en vans blancas y sedanes negros sin distintivos entraban y salían por un portón alambrado.
“Estamos aquí para exigir la liberación de Gladis Yolanda Chávez Pineda”, dijo
Antonio Gutiérrez, miembro de OCAD. “Y por la liberación de todos los que han sido detenidos y que se encuentran actualmente en el edificio detrás de mí”, añadió.
Chávez Pineda, madre y organizadora de OCAD, es una de las diez personas que fueron detenidas durante los controles rutinarios en la oficina del ISAP el 4 de junio.
Según AJ Johnson Reyes, abogado y parte del equipo legal de Chávez Pineda con Beyond Legal Aid, ella recibió un aviso de última hora para presentarse a una cita el lunes anterior, 2 de junio, a través de la aplicación ISAP en su teléfono, que utilizaba para hacer videollamadas semanales como parte de sus controles con ISAP.
Gutiérrez dijo que era “extraño” porque ella había acudido a una cita apenas dos semanas antes y había cumplido plenamente con sus citas.
Chávez Pineda fue detenida ese día y no se supo nada de ella durante dos días. Según los agentes del centro de procesamiento, no habían podido actualizar sus registros debido al número de detenciones que hubo en el transcurso de dos días, dijo el equipo legal después de que se les permitiera verla.
Esta nueva táctica se produce después de que la administración de Trump impusiera a ICE el objetivo de aumentar el número de detenciones diarias. Estas medidas de control más estrictas, que incluyen el despliegue de la Guardia Nacional en California y las amenazas de la administración de desplegarla también en Illinois, contribuyeron a protestas masivas en todo el país para exigir el fin de las deportaciones y las detenciones.
La concejala del distrito 33, Rossana Rodríguez-Sánchez, fue testigo de las acciones de ICE el 4 de junio y se pronunció en contra de las tácticas de ICE que provocaron la detención de Chávez Pineda, vecina y votante de su distrito.
“Es muy importante señalar que en este momento se están violando los derechos constitucionales. Todos estamos viendo cómo se violan sistemáticamente los derechos constitucionales, no hay un proceso justo y todo el mundo tiene derecho a un proceso justo bajo la Constitución”, dijo Rodríguez-Sánchez.
ICE afirmó que las diez personas que detuvieron en el ISAP tenían órdenes finales de expulsión, lo que significa que un juez de inmigración ha determinado
que una persona que no es ciudadana de EE.UU. debe salir del país. Sin embargo, Xanat Sobrevilla, de OCAD, dijo lo contrario.
“Es mentira. Ninguna de las personas que están aquí tiene órdenes finales de expulsión. Son personas que estaban cumpliendo con la ley. No son las personas que están tratando de pintar”, dijo.
El ICE no respondió a las solicitudes de comentarios del Weekly.
Chávez Pineda llegó de Honduras con su hija hace diez años en busca de refugio y lleva muchos años en proceso de solicitud de asilo.
Hace unos dos meses, Chávez Pineda fue citada para una cita al azar. Abogados y un grupo de unas quince personas acudieron a la cita en apoyo a Chávez Pineda, pensando que podría ser detenida. Ese día no fue detenida, pero le colocaron un monitor en el tobillo.
Según Reyes, Chávez Pineda no tiene convicciones penales y ha cumplido con sus citas y los requisitos de vigilancia desde 2017. En el momento en que fue detenida durante su cita con el ISAP, tenía una apelación pendiente.
Sus abogados intentaron entregar una copia de la orden de suspensión de la deportación emitida por la Corte de Apelaciones del Séptimo Circuito el jueves a los funcionarios del centro de procesamiento mientras presionaban por su liberación.
También se presentó una suspensión de su deportación a ICE, pero aún estaba pendiente. Sin la aprobación de ICE, Chávez Pineda no podía ser liberada, a pesar de que el Séptimo Circuito ya había concedido una suspensión.
“Al hacer esta solicitud hoy, se nos dijo que los funcionarios de este edificio ya no tienen la libertad ni la discreción para liberar a las personas. Que todas esas solicitudes deben pasar por la sede”, dijo Reyes.
Según los abogados, no se proporcionó ninguna orientación adicional sobre cómo ponerse en contacto con la oficina central.
Nadia Singh, abogada de Beyond Legal Aid, dijo que tardaron unos veinte minutos en poder entrar al centro de procesamiento de Broadview después de que les dijeran que tocaran un timbre que no podían encontrar. Cuando les dejaron entrar, les dieron un momento para ver a Chávez Pineda.
“No nos permitieron darle un abrazo. Tuvimos que permanecer al menos a tres
metros de distancia. Estaba esposada. Quería expresar su agradecimiento. Cuando empezó a hablar de su hija, se puso a llorar”, dijo Singh.
Abogados y defensores informaron a los medios de comunicación de las condiciones precarias en las que se encontraban Chávez Pineda y otras personas en el centro de procesamiento de ICE, y señalaron que no había camas, solo sillas.
El equipo legal de Chávez Pineda cree que la orden de permanencia otorgada por la Corte del Séptimo Circuito, junto con la suspensión presentada ante ICE que estaba pendiente, deberían haber sido suficientes para su liberación. Sin embargo, las conversaciones con los funcionarios del centro de procesamiento sugirieron que había niveles adicionales de burocracia y retrasos en el procesamiento que pudieron no haberlo hecho posible.
A pesar de que Chávez Pineda ha vivido en los Estados Unidos durante más de una década, tiene la custodia exclusiva de su hija y ha cumplido con los mandatos judiciales, fue considerada un riesgo de fuga, se le colocó un monitor en el tobillo y posteriormente fue detenida, según Singh.
“Una gran parte de lo que está pasando es que no vemos ninguna legalidad ni racionalidad en las decisiones de ICE en este momento. Es como si dijeran: si creemos que tenemos alguna forma de deportarlos, lo haremos”, dijo Singh.
Al finalizar la conferencia de prensa, los defensores y las personas que los apoyaban recibieron la noticia de que ICE estaba recogiendo a personas del centro de procesamiento y las estaba llevando a un lugar desconocido.
Agentes de policía y vehículos de Broadview patrullaban por la calle Beach St. y se situaban frente a la entrada del centro de procesamiento, así como junto a la cerca. Cuando los defensores les preguntaron por qué parecía que la Policía de Broadview estaba ayudando o trabajando con ICE, los agentes respondieron que estaban controlando el tráfico.
Dentro de la cerca, se vio a decenas de detenidos salir del centro de procesamiento, formados en una fila y caminando hacia vans blancas sin distintivos en el estacionamiento.
Las personas que apoyaban a los detenidos gritaban desde fuera de la cerca: ¡”No están solos, aquí estamos!”.
Entre siete y ocho vans conducidas por
agentes de ICE enmascarados, cada una con entre diez y doce personas a bordo, salieron por la cerca y se dirigieron por un camino despejado que la policía de Broadview les había abierto. A medida que los vehículos se alejaban, llegaban más personas recién detenidas al centro de procesamiento. La conferencia de prensa y la muestra de apoyo a Chávez Pineda y a otras personas detenidas en el centro de procesamiento terminaron sin su liberación.
“Ella tenía un mensaje que compartir”, dijo Reyes. “Quería expresar su agradecimiento y aprecio por todo el apoyo que han recibido ella y su familia, y a todos los que están aquí hoy. Eso es todo lo que pudo decir antes de perder la compostura”. Tras días de incertidumbre tras la manifestación del viernes pasado, ICE actualizó su herramienta de localización el lunes, confirmando que Chávez Pineda se encuentra detenida en la Cárcel del Condado de Grayson, en Kentucky.
OCAD organizó un llamado a la acción y comenzó a recolectar firmas para una petición en apoyo a Chávez Pineda y exigiendo su liberación de la custodia de ICE. La petición ha recolectado más de 10,000 firmas desde la semana pasada. Desde entonces, miles de residentes de Chicago y organizaciones aliadas se han unido en manifestaciones que continúan exigiendo un alto a las detenciones y deportaciones de ICE, sumándose a la creciente resistencia en el país contra la administración de Trump. Al menos tres personas fueron detenidas por agentes de ICE el Día del Padre en la oficina de ISAP, luego de otras dos que fueron detenidas el día anterior. Los miembros de OCAD y las organizaciones aliadas presentes durante el fin de semana en el centro de procesamiento de Broadview afirman que algunas ochenta personas que recibieron alertas para acudir a sus citas durante el fin de semana salieron con monitores electrónicos en el tobillo o la muñeca. ¬
José Abonce es el gerente principal de programas de la Iniciativa de Policía Vecinal de Chicago y reportero independiente enfocado en seguridad pública, política, raza y planificación urbana. Es aprendiz del Proyecto de Investigación sobre Raza y Equidad y se graduó recientemente de la Escuela de Periodismo Arthur L. Carter de la Universidad de Nueva York.
Chicago Joins Wave of Anti-Trump Protests
BY PAUL GOYETTE AND JACQUELINE SERRATO
An estimated 75,000 people showed up in downtown Chicago on Saturday, June 15, as part of a national wave of protests called “No Kings”—coinciding with Flag Day, President Donald Trump’s birthday, and a D.C. parade honoring the 250th anniversary of the Army.
Families, community groups, activists,
and voters showed up to advocate for a variety of issues, from taxing the rich, to a ceasefire in Gaza, and against the Trump administration's actions that increasingly resemble a dictatorship, such as the deployment of the National Guard and the Marines in Los Angeles against the wishes of city and state officials.
In this and in smaller demonstrations
this month, immigration advocates protested ICE’s fear campaign and detention tactics in Chicago and Cook County. The most recent display of excessive power had ICE agents summoning compliant immigrants wearing ankle monitors to an office in the South Loop and disappearing them for days before confirming they were being
sent to detention centers out of state.
The local No Kings protest was mostly peaceful, with no more than a dozen arrests by Chicago police and no incidents. ¬
Paul Goyette is an independent protest photographer and Jacqueline Serrato is the Weekly’s editor in chief.
Photo by Paul Goyette
Photo by Paul Goyette
Photo by Paul Goyette
Photo by Paul Goyette
Photo by Paul Goyette
Photo by Paul Goyette
Photo by Paul Goyette
Photo by Paul Goyette
Photo by Paul Goyette
Photo by Paul Goyette
‘Granny Flats’ Are Illegal To Build In Most Of Chicago
A pilot program allowing them in some areas showed promising results. City officials are divided over their full legalization.
BY ALEX NITKIN, ILLINOIS ANSWERS PROJECT
This story was originally published by the Illinois Answers Project as part of their series Making it in Chicago: Detours and Dead Ends on the Path to Opportunity.
For most new parents, finding lastminute childcare usually means an afternoon of frantic phone calls and around $100 dropped on a trusted babysitter.
For Brian and Fiona Peterman, it means walking across their backyard.
In 2021, Fiona’s mother, Louise D’Agostino, was scanning pricey apartments near Brian and Fiona’s Lakeview home so she could live closer to them after she retired—until Brian learned about a new city program that would let the family build a second, smaller house on their own property.
After nearly two years of navigating regulatory red tape and approximately $300,000 in construction costs, D’Agostino was able to move into a 700-square-foot, two-bedroom house on top of Peterman’s garage in 2023.
Nowadays, D’Agostino goes on walks with her 18-month-old granddaughter nearly every day. D’Agostino cooks the toddler recipes from her native Malta that she learned from her own mother, and she’s teaching her to speak Maltese.
D’Agostino pays rent to her daughter, Fiona, and son-in-law, Brian—much less than the cost of the mortgage at her previous home, but still a steady and meaningful source of income for the Petermans to supplement the salaries from their day jobs.
“‘Life-changing’ is probably the cleanest way of saying it,” Brian Peterman said. “By having her there, we always have that backup plan in case something goes awry in our normal lives.”
Homes like D’Agostino’s, typically called coach houses, carriage houses or “granny flats,” are illegal to build in most of Chicago. Their construction was banned in 1957 by city leaders who feared residential overcrowding. Chicago has since lost approximately 800,000 residents.
City officials under three mayors have been pushing for at least six years to unravel the prohibition of so-called accessory dwelling units, or ADUs—a term used to describe both coach houses and unused basement or attic spaces that are converted into apartments. In the legalization campaign, bureaucrats and policy researchers consistently highlight ADUs as a low-risk tool, free to taxpayers, that’s been proven to provide a limited but effective release valve for other cities’ affordable housing crises.
For D’Agostino, it meant finding an affordable home in an affluent neighborhood while providing extra income to offset childcare costs for her daughter and son-in-law while keeping her granddaughter close.
A three-year pilot program that legalized the units in some areas showed that outcomes like the Petermans’ are widely replicable, opening up more housing options in neighborhoods where cheap apartments have become increasingly rare. But the burst of construction seen so far is a pittance compared to the more than 100,000 affordable units experts say it would take to satisfy demand.
“ADUs are our path to economic mobility,” said state Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago), who sponsored legislation that would prohibit Illinois cities from banning the units. “They turn underutilized space into income-generating property, which is a big deal.”
Many City Council members remain
skeptical of ADU legalization, wary of any move that would limit their ability to guide new development in their wards.
That’s one reason why a proposal to legalize the units citywide has been sitting on the shelf for more than a year.
In the meantime, property owners inside the pilot zones, like the Petermans, are straining to build ADUs amid daunting costs and regulatory barriers.
City Hall discussions on how to expand and ease construction are clouded by a political stalemate over how far the program should reach, and by a little-understood federal complaint targeting Chicago’s housing segregation. And policymakers have struggled to craft an ordinance that would encourage ADU construction across the city—not just in wealthy, dense areas, where they’ve overwhelmingly been added during the pilot.
As Chicago leaders sit on their hands, proposals to permit ADU construction across Illinois are gaining support in Springfield, where lawmakers are pushing their own measures. Adding to the momentum is Gov. JB Pritzker, who recently endorsed ADUs as a tool to increase the state’s stock of affordable housing.
“Think about carriage houses,” Pritzker said in an April 30 episode of the Volts podcast after an interviewer asked the governor about his housing agenda. “We’ve got neighborhoods where people are not allowed to have those as separate dwellings—or just the idea that we can, if we make a few tweaks here and there, we can significantly increase the amount of housing with the existing housing stock.”
A pilot program to test the waters
Chicago planning officials under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel first promoted the idea of legalizing accessory dwelling units in 2018, saying they “can offer relatively affordable housing for tenants and can help moderate income families become homeowners with the additional income.” Researchers had taken note of new construction in Portland following the legalization of ADUs there years earlier, and a 2016 California law had already unlocked an explosion in construction of the relatively low-cost units across that state.
A 2019 study by the AARP found that in seven U.S. cities, ADU rents were hundreds of dollars lower than the rents
of comparable one-bedroom apartments and could provide “a substitute for nursing home care, a means to age in community, an opportunity to live with other family members in multi-generational living arrangements, as well as a source of earning extra income to supplement fixed incomes in their retirement years.”
In 2019, the newly reconstituted Chicago Department of Housing recruited the Chicago-based Urban Land Institute to lead a task force with dozens of developers, architects, affordable housing advocates and lenders to draw up a list of recommendations for how Chicago could legalize ADUs.
The result was a 44-page report, published in May 2020, detailing the challenges of ADU legalization in other cities and ways Chicago could overcome them.
Within a month of the report’s publication, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot had introduced an ordinance legalizing coach house construction and basement unit conversions in Chicago, incorporating some of the task force’s recommendations.
It got a chilly reception in the City Council.
“This will be a blanket approval … it will allow two-flats to become threeflats, three to become four and four to become five,” said then-Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11th), who represented the city’s Bridgeport and Chinatown neighborhoods. “If someone wants to change a two-flat to a three-flat, in my ward, we do a community meeting. All of my neighbors—the community comes out and has participation. Not a bureaucrat at City Hall making a decision for my community.”
South Side Ald. David Moore (17th) was more direct.
“I want some aldermanic control over this,” Moore said.
After months of negotiations, the council approved a test ordinance that legalized accessory dwelling ordinance in five “pilot zones”—two on the city’s North Side, one on the West Side and two on the South Side—all in areas represented by alderpeople who supported the initiative. However, the West and South Side zones were established with additional restrictions at local council members’ request, including a requirement that the new units could be built only on owner-occupied properties.
In May 2021, the Chicago Department of Housing began accepting applications for coach houses and basement unit conversions. The ordinance called on city officials to report back to the City Council three years later with data and insights.
Peterman, who had been following the ordinance closely, was among the first in line to apply.
It was a year before his coach house project would break ground.
Peterman became tangled in a weekslong back-and-forth with zoning officials in the city planning department over the dimensions of his porch. Because the city requires homes like his to have at least one parking space, he needed to figure out how to build the coach house on top of his garage. And even after housing and planning officials gave him the go-ahead, he had to get a fresh approval from the Chicago Department of Buildings, which regulates all construction in the city.
“It took us a very long time compared to a normal [housing] permit, which would have been one-tenth of the time if [the ADU] was already part of the zoning code,” he said.
Just as difficult, Peterman said, was financing. It typically takes between $50,000 and $100,000 to build a new unit in a basement or attic, but building a new coach house can run upwards of $250,000. Peterman and his wife had so much difficulty finding a loan package that they ultimately took out a new line of credit on their existing home to pay for the project, he said.
Despite the hurdles, more than 300 accessory dwelling units have been permitted for construction across the five pilot zones since 2021. They overwhelmingly comprised basement unit conversions, as opposed to coach houses— not surprising, observers said, considering how much cheaper it is to renovate than to build a new free-standing structure.
More than 90 percent of the new units were located in one of the two North Side zones. City officials chalked up the disparity to the overwhelming demand for new housing in wealthier parts of the city—and to the added barriers placed on construction in the South and West Side zones.
‘We need them in our neighborhoods’
A May 31, 2024 memo sent to the City Council by commissioners of the Chicago
planning and housing departments recommended expanding the pilot citywide. A review of data found that most of the new construction in the pilot program added garden units below existing walk-up apartment buildings. The belowgrade units are typically less costly to rent.
Cook County faces a shortage of more than 150,000 affordable homes—in large part due to the disappearance of apartments in two- to four-unit apartment buildings that have either been demolished or converted into lavish single-family homes in recent years, according to the DePaul University Institute for Housing Studies.
As a result, a renter who earns the median income in Chicago today has sharply fewer housing options than they would have had twenty-five years ago, a WBEZ investigation found earlier this year.
Chicago’s ADU pilot has seen hundreds of units crop up in neighborhoods made up of squat two- and three-story apartment buildings, showing that their legalization has been “spurring investment in exactly the kind of neighborhood type” where added housing options are most badly needed,” city commissioners wrote in their memo to the City Council.
The results of the ADU pilot were promising, but they were also underwhelming in the context of the city’s mammoth affordable housing crisis, said Daniel Hertz, who served as director of policy, research and legislative affairs for the Chicago Department of Housing from 2019 to 2024.
“It hasn’t completely transformed the face of any neighborhood,” Hertz said. “But I think 300 additional units that by and large are going to be moderately priced for the neighborhoods that they’re in … and having done that without basically any subsidy from the city — that’s a good thing.”
Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st), whose ward is inside the Northwest Side pilot zone, was an early supporter of accessory dwelling unit legalization. What he’s seen during the pilot has been “fantastic,” solidifying his position on the policy, he said.
“I’ve been in these units. They’re great. We need them in our neighborhoods,” La Spata said. “They’ve allowed families to develop and stay together intergenerationally.”
AARP Illinois, which supported
Chicago’s ADU pilot ordinance, has since thrown its weight behind efforts to allow construction of the units statewide. A spokesperson for the seniors’ advocacy group said the housing type can provide an ideal option for older Illinoisans who want to live independently while downsizing to a smaller, more affordable home.
AARP found in its 2019 study that the average ADU in Seattle rented for $1,500, compared to nearly $1,900 for a comparable one-bedroom apartment in the same city. The price difference was even sharper in Oakland, Calif. and Washington, D.C.
Proponents argue the financial benefits of ADUs also apply to Chicago.
La Spata noted that the city spends millions of dollars each year to subsidize housing for people with low incomes. Legalizing basement unit conversions, assuming a $100,000-per-unit cost by private developers, represents an easy and efficient way to bring more affordable units into the market without spending taxpayer money, La Spata said.
“If I told someone tomorrow that we could develop fifty units of affordable housing for all of a $5 million investment, that would be the most efficient affordable housing development in the city,” he said.
La Spata supports a proposal from Ald. Bennett Lawson (44th), whose Lakeview ward straddles a pilot zone, to legalize the units across the city.
The addition of new ADUs in Lawson’s ward has “really worked out well,” Lawson said. The new units haven’t drawn any complaints from neighbors or worsened traffic or parking.
“A lot of them are legalizing spaces that were never properly permitted … and making that housing legal and safe for more people in my neighborhood,” the North Side alderperson added.
Lawson met some resistance to the proposal among his colleagues, but he tweaked the ordinance in April 2024 with a compromise that would add an additional hurdle to approval in low-density residential neighborhoods on the city’s outskirts.
Lawson said he believed the amended ordinance had ample support in the City
Council and could pass easily if taken to the floor.
A year later, the ordinance remains on the shelf.
Delays and disputes gum up legislation
Lawson’s proposal can’t move forward until Ald. Walter Burnett (27th), who chairs the City Council Committee on Zoning, brings it to a vote.
Burnett is holding the proposal back. But not because he’s against the policy.
He said the hold-up is coming from Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration.
The housing and planning departments under the mayor rejected Lawson’s proposal, saying its built-in hurdles for construction in less dense neighborhoods make it too restrictive. Instead, the Johnson Administration is pushing for zoning that allows ADU construction in every corner of the city.
“Allowing ADUs by right is essential to meaningfully addressing Chicago's housing shortage and building on the success of the pilot program,” Chicago Department of Housing spokesperson Felicia Bolton wrote in a statement.
Burnett also blamed the delay on an obscure legal snag.
In 2019, a coalition of fair housing groups led by the Shriver Center on Poverty Law filed a legal complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development alleging that “aldermanic prerogative,” the unwritten rule that gives Chicago alderpeople vast power to dictate zoning changes and other approvals in their own wards, stymies proposals for new affordable housing in wellto-do neighborhoods. The case led federal officials in 2023 to send Chicago leaders a letter ruling that local aldermanic veto power violates federal civil rights law because it “perpetuates segregation” and “effectuates opposition to affordable housing based on racial animus.”
Nearly two years later, the plaintiff groups and city officials all declined to comment on the status of the legal complaint, saying they agreed to stay quiet while the parties negotiate a mutual resolution to the complaint.
Burnett blamed the grinding legal talks for freezing progress on citywide legalization of accessory dwelling units. City attorneys told the zoning committee chair that Lawson’s compromise ordinance,
with its added regulations for low-density neighborhoods, would complicate the path to a legal resolution by opening a new avenue for the “aldermanic prerogative” that the plaintiffs are seeking to roll back.
“The law department were the ones that said, ‘hold off until we get past this lawsuit,’” Burnett said.
Chicago Department of Law spokesperson Kristen Cabanban wrote in a statement that city and federal officials are “negotiating a resolution to a complaint regarding the distribution of affordable housing throughout the city.” She declined to comment on the status of the negotiations or on Burnett’s characterization of them.
If city leaders delay on the ordinance much longer, their efforts could be eclipsed by pending state legislation that aims to allow coach houses and basement units across Illinois.
Buckner’s proposal, which would pair a ban on local prohibition of accessory dwelling units with a list of measures designed to boost their construction, missed a key deadline for consideration in the spring 2025 legislative session. But the legislator is also supporting a parallel legalization bill, backed by the powerful trade association Illinois Realtors, that cleared a key committee vote and remains in contention.
“I just hope we can put a little fire under them,” Buckner said of his counterparts on the Chicago City Council. “I want the city to lead this conversation—I really don’t want the state to have to do this. But we will, if we need to.”
Peterman has become a vocal advocate for the legislation, even opening up his home to show Buckner and other state representatives how an ADU can work. He hopes statewide legalization of coach houses helps more families move closer together into affordable homes just like his mother-in-law did.
Legalizing the units in some parts of Chicago “has not changed the character of these neighborhoods,” Peterman said. “All it has done is given people more options for the property that they already own.” ¬
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
The Graduate’s Burden: How Illinois Is Confronting The Student Loan Crisis
With $63 billion in collective student loan debt, new forgiveness programs and innovative solutions aim to help borrowers. But state funding and public awareness remains an obstacle.
BY CLAIRE MURPHY, ILLINOIS ANSWERS PROJECT
This story was originally published by the Illinois Answers Project as part of their series Making it in Chicago: Detours and Dead Ends on the Path to Opportunity.
With $49,000 in student loan debt, Josue Villalpando figured becoming a homeowner was a long way off.
“The thought of purchasing a home was definitely floating around, however I never actually looked into it knowing that I had such a big burden with my student loans,” he said.
A recent graduate of the University of Illinois Chicago, Villalpando, twenty-nine, took out private loans to pay for college. Unlike federal student loans, private loans typically have higher interest rates and fewer forgiveness programs, making them harder for borrowers to pay off.
That’s when his fiancé came across the SmartBuy program—an initiative set up by the state to help incentivize residents to purchase a home while paying off their student loan debt, one of the leading factors delaying homeownership among young adults.
SmartBuy pays up to $40,000 in student loans and contributes up to $5,000 towards a down payment or closing costs at the time of purchase.
“He showed it to me and said, ‘Hey, maybe, let's fact check it, and let's make sure it's a real thing, because it's almost too good to be true, right?,” said Villalpando, who received his degree in communication.
Records obtained by the Illinois Answers Project show that a total of 755 houses have been purchased through the program, with 482 still in process from the
second round of applications.
Villalpando closed on his home in Lansing, Illinois in March.
“With my student loans being fully paid off, I know I can comfortably pay my mortgage without having to worry about financial constraints,” said Villalpando. “The SmartBuy program is what made me take the initiative.”
But the long-term viability of SmartBuy remains uncertain.
Renewal for the program is dependent on reallocation of state funding. After the first round closed in 2021, it took the state more than three years to reopen the program, which closed for the second time in February.
The uncertain timeline for program renewal raises questions about it being a viable option for tackling the staggering
$63 billion in collective student loan debt the state faces.
Illinois has the seventh highest average state debt in the nation. Coupled with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, the burden of these loans become even more substantial for some borrowers, effectively delaying the purchase of a home, the decision to start a family and progress towards economic advancement.
With federal student loan programs in disarray, innovative, state-level programs like SmartBuy offer an alternative answer to combating the crisis. But federal funding, legislative approval and borrower awareness remain barriers to sustained coverage and widespread success.
Student loans are also preventing qualified applicants from pursuing professions with costly higher education
requirements, like legal and medical careers.
“Tuition for undergraduate and law school has grown at something like three to five times the rate of inflation over the last forty years,” said Bob Glaves, executive director of the Chicago Bar Foundation, which promotes equitable access to justice and legal aid in Chicago.
“We don’t have a way to measure [this], but I think everybody knows how many people, particularly from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, are not even pursuing these careers, not even pursuing higher education, because they see the price tag and the amount of debt they’d be taking on and just aren’t going to do that,” said Glaves.
The burden of this long-term debt has created a financial paradox for many graduates.
“When we think of the American dream and [how] everybody should have equal opportunity, this is a big part of it, education,” said Glaves. “Being able to make that realistically accessible to everybody in a way that's fair to everybody. We're falling short of that in the system we have right now.”
What does student loan debt look like in Illinois?
Nicole Johnson, thirty-five, is currently on track to receive her fourth higher education degree by the end of September—a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School.
This will be her third master’s degree in the past twelve years.
Johnson is a strong advocate for education, having worked in numerous
EDUCATION
public service roles, including as a former 3rd grade teacher in Chicago Public Schools. In 2019, Johnson ran in the 20th Ward aldermanic election, losing to Jeanette Taylor in the general runoff.
“I wanted to be part of being able to provide young people with a good education, because education was the thing that opened so many doors for me and exposed me to a new world,” said Johnson.
Growing up in Englewood, Johnson was exposed to disparity and inequity at a young age.
Motivated by the stark economic inequities she witnessed in her own community, Johnson sought out numerous higher education degrees as a means to increase her earning potential.
“Your economic outcomes and possibilities are going to be quite limited unless you do some type of investment,” she said.
Her degrees haven’t come for free. Johnson’s current student loan balance is over $200,000, a number that would take decades to pay off without any kind of repayment or forgiveness program.
Johnson isn’t alone. Nearly 1.6 million Illinoisans are currently living with student loan debt.
The average borrower in the state owes about $39,000 in student loans, according to the Education Data Initiative, a research group that collects data and statistics on the U.S. education system.
More than half of all borrowers in the state are under the age of thirty-five, and only 13.4 percent of student borrowers owe less than $5,000. A majority of borrowers owe more.
25-34 year olds account for the most borrowers of any age group—more than 558,000. But 35-49 year olds like Johnson have the highest total outstanding debt of over $22 billion. Together, the two age groups account for almost 68 percent of the state’s federal loans.
While residents like Johnson have sought relief from federal forgiveness options, recent changes and cuts at the federal level have made the future of these programs uncertain.
The current status of loan forgiveness
The Department of Education has been
the U.S. government’s administrator of all federal aid programming since 1965, but this is soon to not be the case.
With the Trump administration’s announcement that student loan oversight will be moved to the SBA, and the U.S. Department of Education being effectively cut in half, many borrowers are left wondering how this will impact their relief options.
In February, former President Biden’s SAVE program—the lowest monthly income-driven repayment plan to date— was issued an injunction by a U.S. appeals court. Several Republican-led states rejected the plan and sued the Biden administration, citing that it was “unlawfully trying to mass cancel hundreds of billions of dollars of loans.”
Monthly payments for those enrolled in SAVE have been placed in a period of forbearance until the court reaches a final decision.
On May 5, the Federal Student Aid office resumed its collection of many student loans, which had been effectively paused since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since Johnson has returned to school, her loans have been in deferment. But when she purchased a home in 2021, she said student loan and credit card debt notably impacted the mortgage rate she was able to qualify for. “It was definitely an impediment,” said Johnson.
The dissolution of the U.S Department of Education has left millions of student loan borrowers, including Johnson, confused and wondering what the future of their repayments will look like in the wake of a departmental restructuring.
Rae Kaplan, a Chicago-based attorney specializing in student loan law and bankruptcy solutions, said she has witnessed despondency in a number of clients as a result of student loan debt.
“I’ve had people come in and tell me that they didn’t want to get married or have a family because their student loans were so daunting,” said Kaplan. “And the point is that student loans were meant to lift people up, not to be this weight dragging everybody down,” she said.
According to Kaplan, a majority of clients don’t even realize what options are out there.
Several federal and state-based forgiveness solutions can provide effective relief for borrowers over a period of time, even amidst the disorder of the FSA. They just need to know what their choices are, said Kaplan.
Relief options for Illinois residents
Johnson was formerly enrolled in the SAVE program, but like many other federal borrowers, qualifies for other incomedriven repayment plans like Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
To qualify for PSLF, individuals must work full-time for a governmental body or select non-profit organization. PSLF forgives the total remaining balance on all federal student loans after 120 monthly payments determined by a qualifying repayment plan.
“Essentially, you only have to make payments on your loans for ten years… and the payment is very reasonable, because it's about 10% of your discretionary income,” said Kaplan. “So for a lot of people, that means the monthly payment is no more than their cell phone bill,” she said.
Working on and off in the public sector for nearly a decade, Johnson already has ninety-three qualifying monthly payments towards her student loans. Her nearly six figure balance will be completely forgiven
once she completes the remaining twentyseven over the next two years.
Kaplan estimates that nearly 30 percent of Illinois residents qualify for this program, along with additional statebased loan forgiveness and repayment opportunities.
According to the Education Data Initiative, only about 18 percent of eligible student borrowers end up applying for loan forgiveness at all.
“We go on WGN TV, we go on WGN radio, and try to get the word out that if you are an Illinois resident and you work in the public sector, there are some really good options out there to get your loans reduced and forgiven, but people think that it must not apply to them,” Kaplan said. “I hear all the time.”
Johnson says borrowers may also remain unaware of forgiveness programs because of prevailing social taboos. “Honestly, student loan debt is not a conversation,” she said. But specialists like Kaplan are working to change that by speaking openly about local repayment options.
The Illinois Student Assistance Commission, a state-based government agency that provides higher education resources to students and families, administers a number of relief programs for residents.
ISAC FORGIVENESS PROGRAMS AND ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS
Dollar amounts for each award are subject to annual reviews by the Illinois General Assembly and the Office of the Governor, but last year the state awarded nearly $4 million in loan repayments to qualifying residents through their seven ISAC-administered programs. ISAC has increased funding for most of those programs for the 2025 fiscal year.
Last year, 649 residents enrolled in an ISAC repayment program, but many more than that qualify for the award, according to Kaplan. Frequent federal policy changes and extended loan repayment uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to lowered demand, according to ISAC.
“We’ve been in an extended period of uncertainty with respect to loan repayment since 2020,” said Lynne Baker, managing director of communications at ISAC. “There were extended forbearances as a result of the pandemic, which meant that there was a period when people didn’t have to pay on their loans and likely were not focused on loan forgiveness programs,” she said.
Although a majority of borrowers’ student loans are federally allocated, in 2019 to 2020 approximately 10% of college graduates in Illinois had private student loan debt.
In response to growing concerns about the impacts of large private student loans, The Office of the Illinois State Treasurer created the Student Empowerment Fund in 2024, a $1.5 billion investment fund providing capital for lower-rate private loans for residents attending in-state institutions.
“This program aims to alleviate student debt burdens in Illinois and make it possible for more students to pursue higher education,” said Eric Krol, director of communications for the Treasurer's Office.
Kaplan said while it’s essential to know what relief programs exist, the best way to tackle student loan debt is preemptively.
“Having a good plan and strategy, knowing the laws, knowing who should be the federal parent, plus borrower, and exactly what those payments are going to look like is really key, and can really avoid wasting a lot of money,” she said.
“For 90% [of borrowers] there's something you can do to lower your
payments and even get on track to have your loans forgiven. I just don't want people who have loans to feel hopeless, because I talk to a lot of people every day who feel hopeless about their loans,” said Kaplan.
The SmartBuy solution
Illinois will have the greatest decline in the number of new homeowners in the next two decades—a decrease of more than 7 percent by 2040, according to the Urban Institute, a non-profit economic and social policy research firm.
While multiple factors can be linked to this decline, data from the Federal Reserve suggests historic levels of student loan debt are to blame.
A little over 20 percent of the decline in homeownership rates among 24-32 year olds from 2009 to 2014 can be attributed to rising student loan debt across the country.
“Student loan debt is one of the single largest barriers delaying younger households from achieving their dream of homeownership,” said Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) Executive Director Kristin Faust in a press release.
The state came up with SmartBuy as a proposed solution. The program was created using a $25 million capital bill fund from Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s 2019 Rebuild Illinois Plan.
“Through SmartBuy, we have seen that this targeted relief can help new buyers overcome this financial burden and secure a home much earlier, allowing for a better opportunity to start building equity,” Faust said.
The first round of SmartBuy paid off an average of $26,700 in student loan debt per buyer, with the second round expected to average $28,800 per buyer.
Of course the program does come with specific eligibility requirements.
A buyer’s full student loan debt must be paid off at the time of purchase. If their debt exceeds $40,000, they must make up the difference at the time of closing. Villalplando said he needed to come up with an extra $9,000 before closing on his Lansing home.
Buyers also need to have a minimum credit score of 640 and live in the home for at least three years after closing or repay
a portion of the debt assistance. IDHA determines the interest rate on the home’s mortgage.
So far, of the 631 loans closed in the first round, 15, did not make it through the three year forgiveness period. IDHA told the Illinois Answers Project they do not possess data as to why the borrower had to sell.
Chicago residents must have a household income of less than $134,000 and the purchase price for a one unit home must be under $610,000 and no more than
$754,000 for a two-unit.
“There is no requirement in terms of where the home is or the census tract it’s in,” said Jason Finn, a Chicago-based realtor who works with SmartBuy applicants.
According to data obtained from IDHA, about 87 percent of homes purchased in the first round and 75 percent of homes purchased in the second round of the program were located in the Chicago region of Illinois.
“This is the sixth different IDHA program that I’ve worked with, and, for the
EDUCATION
folks that can benefit, I think it’s a bigger boom than any of the other programs they've had,” said Finn.
“I've had a lot of clients that have huge amounts of student debt, well into the six figures. Many of them aren't working in a career that was envisioned when they incurred all that student debt. So, I'd love to see more opportunities like this.”
What begins as an investment in future prosperity can become a prolonged financial strain that limits career choices and delays other life milestones. The SmartBuy program hopes to make Villalpando’s story a more common one.
“I know many people who have student loan debt just following them for 15 plus years, and it seems like it's never ending,” said Villalpando.
“So I just hope [SmartBuy] keeps going,” he said.
A new proposal on student loan debt
Even with available state-sponsored and federal forgiveness programs, and unique opportunities like SmartBuy, eligibility for these options can be so specific that many borrowers still fall through the cracks. For example, the borrowers who work in service-oriented careers but don’t qualify for PSLF.
That is what led members of the Chicago Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Chicago Bar Association, to develop a comprehensive legislation proposal addressing the coverage gap.
“We had an advocacy committee that really started this process of getting feedback on, how did [student debt] get like this? How did we get to this position now where it costs so much to go to school and we have people graduating with these mortgage sized debts?,” said Glaves.
The proposed legislation includes a simplification of current repayment programs by incorporating a multi-tiered income-based repayment program that places stricter limits on borrower loan sizes.
“It really has to be done with some more accountability on the amount that's borrowed in the first place, both on the schools and the borrower,” said Glaves. “Otherwise taxpayers are on the hook for a lot of this.”
Glaves believes setting realistic borrowing limits will also mitigate national student loan default rates, which have
declined in recent years, though such limits may prevent students from accessing sufficient funds to cover their educational costs.
The initiative also suggests Congress should allow bankruptcy options as a last resort. While not impossible, Glaves said filing for bankruptcy is extremely difficult within the current financial aid system.
“Someone gets in a situation where that income based approach isn't going to work for them, there should be an option to file for bankruptcy at that point, as there is in every other kind of instance, in our country,” said Glaves.
Filing for bankruptcy typically results in additional consequences for borrowers, impacting their credit score and ability to acquire future loans. But if necessary, this option can substantially aid borrowers who, for reasons out of their control, aren’t able to complete their degrees and now have a mountain of debt to pay off.
The proposal has received support from the Illinois delegation and a general recognition from Congress of the need for a unified legislation approach, but Glaves expects it will not be passed during the current political term. Still, he remains hopeful.
“This is just one of those issues that, because it really does require some bigger changes to the system, we're going to continue to work on,” said Glaves. “Even if there isn't a lot of promise to have this happen in the short term politically.”
With an uncertain political landscape and climbing student debt, borrowers like Johnson wonder what the future of education will look like without a clear plan in place.
“Education is going to look different in twenty years, who knows what’s going to happen,” said Johnson. “In my mid 30’s I’m thinking, okay how are my kids going to go to school?” ¬
Cook County Medical Debt Help Comes Too Late
Cook County became the first local government to buy medical debts in bulk. But data shows the majority of debt was relieved for people who likely should have qualified for free care—a sign that hospitals are failing to screen for some of the region’s poorest patients.
BY BINGHUI HUANG, ILLINOIS ANSWERS PROJECT
This story was originally published by the Illinois Answers Project as part of their series Making it in Chicago: Detours and Dead Ends on the Path to Opportunity.
The day before Christmas eve in 2023, Andrew Ciaccio was up all night trying to soothe his stomach pains.
When he woke, he could barely sit up. Something was wrong.
“It was pretty intense,” he recalled. “I was vomiting and really sweating and really feverish and just really in rough shape. [I] couldn’t even put shoes on.”
Panicked, his partner looked up the nearest hospital: Advocate Masonic Hospital.
Once Ciaccio got to the hospital, a new panic set in. What should he expect to pay for the surgery? Would the medical care be covered by his insurance? He and his partner didn’t get any answers as forms were thrusted upon him to sign to get him into an emergency appendectomy, a surgery that removes an inflamed appendix.
He asked multiple people for a good faith estimate but none could provide one. Months later, he’d become one of
hundreds of thousands of Cook County residents buried under medical debt. Ciaccio, who earns between 60,000 and 70,000 a year, is slowly paying off the more than $10,000 in medical bills that the hospital has moved to collections. It will take Ciaccio two to three years to pay it off, delaying his goals of saving for retirement and threatening his ability to rent an apartment and buy a car.
His debt was not part of Cook County’s medical debt buy program. But with his income level and the amount of his debt, he possibly could have qualified.
Since 2022, Cook County has spent more than $4 million to forgive nearly $500 million worth of medical debt for some 278,000 residents, becoming a pioneer among local governments and garnering waves of positive publicity for their efforts.
But an analysis of Cook County’s debt relief accounts show that many people like Ciaccio saddled with debt should have qualified for free care, a sign that local hospitals are failing to screen for some of the region’s poorest patients even as some use aggressive tactics to collect debt. And commercial insurance companies are shifting more and more costs onto patients,
sinking them into debt.
The data from the Cook County Medical Debt Relief Initiative revealed that a significant number of people whose debts were forgiven through the program made less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, a threshold that nearly every major hospital system in Cook County accepts for providing free care. Researchers say this indicates a common problem: patients are not getting the charity care they qualify for at hospitals, and health care policy efforts need to shift to make sure financial help is provided much earlier in the billing process.
Undue Medical Debt, the nonprofit contracted with Cook County to negotiate debt buys with health systems and collections agencies, said there are several reasons the majority of accounts forgiven are from people making below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Some of it could be inadequate charity care assessment by providers and reluctance by patients to ask for help or fill out paperwork with their financial information, said Eva Stahl, the Vice President of Public Policy and Program Management at Undue Medical Debt.
Patient income data is collected when the debt is bought. That could be years after a health crisis, and the health crisis itself may have sunk some people into a lower income bracket, according to Undue Medical Debt.
Data from three years of the county’s debt relief program also reveals that insurance holders, like Ciaccio, make up the biggest share of debts forgiven, a sign that insurance coverage is often too thin to handle major medical needs.
Daniel Lempert, a spokesperson for Undue, said Medicaid makes up a small portion of the county’s overall debt because the insurance requires little copayment. Medicare requires higher copayment, but not comparable to those required by commercial insurance and plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
One accounting firm analyzed debt from nearly 1,500 hospitals across the country and found that debt from commercial insured accounts increased from 11.1 percent of total debt in 2018 to 57.6 percent in 2021.
“Patients are the collateral damage”
Commercial insurance plans have been shifting costs to patients for decades by increasing monthly premiums and making patients pay increasingly bigger shares of hospital bills. That means that more people making middle-class salaries need help paying for medical care.
The hospital and insurance industries have been pointing fingers at each other for years, blaming the other for saddling patients with crippling debt. Hospitals say insurance companies are covering less to pad profit margins and insurance companies say hospitals’ massive bills forced them to shift costs to patients.
“There is this unsustainable lobby in this war back and forth between these two massive entities that make up a double digit chunk of the US economy. These are Goliaths and patients are the collateral damage," said Eli Rushbank, the director of policy advocacy at Dollar For, a nonprofit helping patients access charity care.
Sarah Panahi, for example, made about $70,000 a year as a grant writer in Chicago when she was hospitalized in 2023, which would disqualify her from almost every financial aid and charity care program.
But she was already under massive debt, from helping her family with rent, groceries and utility bills and after a drunk driver hit her car so badly she needed to buy a new one.
In an unfortunate twist, the stress of her debts triggered a mental health crisis that required a five day stay at the psychiatric wing of a hospital in December of 2023 that she could not afford.
“My insurance, BlueCross BlueShield PPO, I feel like that’s one of the best you can get,” she said. “I just didn’t know the
deductible would be so insane,” she said, referring to the nearly $3,000 she owed for the five day stay. Insurance paid about $10,400, but she owed some $2,000 for the deductible, a $200 copay and another $700 in coinsurance, the billing split between
Deductible
Deductible is the amount the patient has to pay before insurance pays anything for hospital stays, tests and procedures.
Copay is what the patient has to pay each time they go to the doctor’s and sometimes emergency room.
Coinsurance, which is a somewhat more recent development, is the split between what the insurance pays and the patient pays. So if a patient has a 20 percent coinsurance, they’d have to pay $2,000 of a $10,000 bill in addition to the deductible.
Premium is the monthly cost of having insurance.
patient and insurer.
“I just have anxiety now, like, even more anxiety than before,” she said. “Am I gonna be able to pay this month? Are they gonna come after me?”
Panahi recently called the hospital pleading with them, but the most help they could offer was a payment plan, a couple hundred dollars a month for the next few years.
That means she doesn’t go out to eat, can’t go on dates or other social events.
“I can’t remember the last time I bought a latte,” she said.
The whole experience, including a hospital stay that she found unpleasant and traumatic, has made her scared of going back to an emergency room for care.
“I do not want to step foot in the hospital for as long as I can,” she said.
“I’m trying to take as good care of myself as I possibly can. If I have to go to the hospital for any reason, I literally don’t know what I would do.”
The county’s debt relief program, managed by the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, buys up debt that’s anywhere from eighteen months to seven or more years old. At that point, patients have likely suffered through aggressive collections tactics, experts say.
An Illinois Answers Project analysis of some of Cook County’s largest hospital systems show that many of them use harmful tactics to force payment out of residents, some of whom are among the poorest in the county. Hospitals might deny medically necessary care, put a lien on homes, garnish wages or hire collections agencies that call and text threatening messages regularly.
Since the early 2000s, hospitals, especially nonprofit hospitals that have financial obligations to serve community needs, have come under pressure to reform collections policies as frustrated patients and advocate groups demand change.
Advocate Masonic Hospital where Ciaccio and Panahi were admitted is in the middle of a multi-year effort to scale back harmful collections policy. Last year, Advocate announced it would cancel liens placed on homes and real estate as part of previous efforts to collect on debt. And in 2022, Advocate Health said it would stop reporting debts to credit agencies, make more people eligible for charity care and stop filing lawsuits and seeking liens as part of its collection efforts.
But that’s not what happened for Ciaccio after his health crisis in 2023.
A few months after his procedure, once his bills were overdue, debt collectors threatened to send his bill to the credit agencies, which would have tanked his credit score. He was able to set up a monthly installment plan, but the process took a toll.
“Every time I’d get a letter from them, I’d get this shock or adrenaline or cortisol or just feel fear,” he said. “It’s a scary
interaction to have with them because they have all the cards and you’re talking about a lot of money.”
A representative for the hospital did not address the discrepancy but stressed that the hospital is “among the most generous in the country, offering full charity care to patients earning up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level and significant discounts for many others.”
Relief, but too late
Medical debt relief is still a relatively new concept. Does it work?
That’s what a group of researchers wanted to find out.
Of course, for individuals stressed over debt, the cancellation can be a huge relief.
But one of the first efforts to study the effectiveness of medical debt relief in 2024 revealed that its effectiveness is limited.
Researchers working with Undue Medical Debt found that relief programs are often too late to make a difference.
“We were studying debts forgiven at least a year and a half and sometimes up to seven years after the precipitating event. The debt has already been picked over by debt collectors,” said Neale Mahoney, a Stanford University economics professor and co-author of the study. “People may have already been hardened to the debt collection process. If they get used to ignoring phone calls and letters, they’re outside of the window for follow-up care.”
sooner and supporting financial counseling and insurance coverage navigation to prevent debt.
into effect forbidding credit bureaus from factoring in medical debt in credit reports and scores.
“All of these things culminating went from [making debt] something that was manageable to a thing that was suffocating and really dictating every aspect of my life,” they said. “A big chunk of my paycheck was immediately going to paying recurring fees.”
Eventually, Searl had to take a leave of absence from work and their friends set up a GoFundMe to help them pay off medical expenses. Searl now qualifies for Medicaid.
Medicaid is only available to the people making some of the lowest income, about $26,650 for a family of three and about $15,650 for an individual. Those who make more but still qualify for charity care often slip through the cracks. About two in three people whose debts were forgiven were making less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or $31,000 a year, the level that would qualify them for these programs and help them avoid medical
One study estimates that there’s some $14 billion in undistributed charity care that ends up as debt, according to Dollar For, a nonprofit that helps people claim financial aid and charity care from hospitals.
“One thing to realize is that the system itself is broken,” said Stahl.
That’s why charitable organizations and nonprofits can buy older medical debt for a tiny fraction of the original bill: hospitals have largely given up on collecting older debts and efforts to get payments have already done their harm to the patients.
“The advice I’ve given to policy makers, local and federal level, is that the research is starting to tell us that we want to pair downstream debt relief with intervention with medical debt closer to the source,” he said.
Undue Medical Debt responded to the study's conclusions by noting that the organization has made a number of changes since 2018 to 2020, the years researchers examined the group’s impact through buying up debt. Those changes include shifting eligibility to buy debt from higher-income families, erasing debt
That could look like improving financial aid provided by hospitals at the front end so that patients won’t have a medical debt burden or other policies aiming to curb harmful collections practices. In the last few years, Undue Medical Debt has been developing a policy advocacy operation to expand its debt relief platform beyond buying up debt.
“They faced some criticism, including from me, saying, focusing entirely on forgiving old medical debt might not really be the solution we think it is,” said Dr. Luke Messac, a doctor and medical debt relief advocate. “It’s really just bailing out debt collectors and hospitals that are particularly unforgiving and doing not as much as we’d hope for the patients.”
One concrete benefit of debt relief, even in the late stages, is that credit scores can go up to allow people to rent better apartments and get better rates for big purchases.
But legislators have also been making changes. In January, an Illinois law went
That follows a policy shift among three major credit bureaus that erased medical debt under $500 from its reports in 2023.
Medical debt shouldn’t be a measure of a person’s ability to pay back loans because people often don’t choose to need medical care, said Mahoney.
“It’s the result of bad luck, not bad financial behavior, right?” he said. “You choose to max out your credit card. You choose to buy a car. Most people don’t choose to go to the ER.”
“People are falling through the cracks”
Shepard Searl took a job at Starbucks because they heard the company offered good health insurance.
But as their health deteriorated and monthly health insurance costs went up, it was harder to work the hours needed to cover the cost of managing multiple chronic illnesses.
After a few health emergencies, they went into debt.
“We are going to capture people that have gotten lost and fall through the cracks.”
Dollar For found through a survey that more than half of the people eligible for financial assistance never apply, said Rushbanks. That’s because the majority of those people didn’t know they could get financial help and some were confused by the process.
By 2014, Illinois required every hospital to develop a policy that fast tracks certain groups of vulnerable and low-income patients for charity care without requiring them to apply for aid, including several mandatory categories like homelessness and those eligible for medicaid but uninsured when receiving care.
Hospitals in urban areas are also required to automatically provide aid for people whose incomes are below 200 percent federal poverty level or who are eligible for government assistance.
These policies are meant to prevent people who qualify for charity care from getting saddled with debt because they
After a health care emergency in 2023, Andrew Ciaccio ended up with $10,000 dollars in medical bills. The debt, he says, is impacting his future.
Photo by Akilah Townsend for Illinois Answers Project
struggle to navigate the financial help application process. But the policies don’t always work, Rushbanks said.
There’s not always an enforcement mechanism. Sometimes patients are required to provide paperwork and documentation that they don’t end up submitting. Other times hospitals may not have a good system for catching people who fit these categories.
And patients, like Searl and Ciaccio, say hospital staff didn’t talk about financial aid until they explicitly asked them about it.
Prevention, not just relief
Once the debt goes into collections, the repeated texts and calls begin.
For Searl, the debt collector with Evanston Hospital was Harris and Harris.
“They would call multiple times a week, send texts multiple times a week, and email multiple times a week,” Searl recalled. “If I answered, they'd try to get me to pay everything upfront. I would explain that I was on a payment plan but couldn't keep up with larger bills, and then it would be a back and forth until I got them off the line.”
Endeavor Health, the parent company of Evanston Hospital, said they send statements over the course of 120 days before sending the debt to a collection agency and “ensure interactions are respectful and aligns with our values.”
An Endeavor spokesperson also wrote in an email that the health system “proactively” screens patients for charity care eligibility and provides “free care based on a patient’s income in relation to the federal poverty level.”
Decades ago, hospitals would keep debt records without trying to collect them, said Messac. But several big changes at the federal level, after the creation of Medicaid and Medicare programs in 1965, heavily impacted the industry.
For one, hospitals pulled back on charity care, arguing that the most vulnerable people now have government insurance, he said.
The IRS then changed the standard for nonprofit hospitals—from a model of providing as much charity care as financially possible to a more vague standard of benefiting the community, said Messac.
“But it's kind of nebulous, and
hospitals don't really lose tax exemption if they don't do enough,” he said.
And as hospitals grow into billiondollar regional health systems that compete for market dominance, many turned to aggressively pursuing debt to make up for Medicaid and Medicare, which typically reimburses less than private insurers.
Despite its limitations, Cook County’s debt relief program has multiplied in other parts of the country: more than twenty government medical debt relief programs to be exact, according to Rachel Ruttenberg, deputy chief of staff for the Office of the Cook County Council President.
“We started a bit of a movement,” said Ruttenberg.
But the program alone won’t solve medical debt, she said. The ultimate goal is to have accessible and affordable health care for everyone.
“And it honestly allows us to continue talking about medical debt. We understand
in this country.”
There have been pockets of success throughout the country when it comes to debt collection reform.
Los Angeles County followed suit with its own medical debt relief program a few years after Cook County. But they don’t just buy up debt.
The county also requires hospitals to disclose key data regarding financial assistance provided and debt collections efforts, including placing a lien on patient’s property, seizing bank accounts, suing patients, garnishing wages or denying care due to debt.
Messac, a longtime advocate for regulating medical debt, also points to North Carolina as an example of successful government intervention.
There, Gov. Roy Cooper leveraged federal funding in exchange for nearly 100 hospitals wiping out billions of dollars of debt and adopting standards that allow more patients to get financial aid.
For Cook County, the lesson is likely the need for medical debt prevention in addition to debt relief, which she said is also critical, said Mara Heneghan, the former director of policy at the office of the Cook County president. She was part of the team that worked on the launch of the medical debt relief program.
that this is not a strategy for solving medical debt, but instead, we want to eliminate as much medical debt as possible while continuing to bring attention to the serious issue of medical debt and just showcase how much of a financial burden it is on people,” said Ruttenberg. “The real fix is to have universal health care coverage
Brand
“Ultimately, it’s unsurprising that it’s more helpful to cancel debt earlier on,” she said.
“We need to think about prevention of medical debt, so we're not putting people in that position.”
Rachel Heimann Mercader and Meredith Newman contributed to this story. ¬
new One Bedroom Apartments for Low Income Seniors
Juneteenth Black Joyride
Grant Park, DuSable Museum. Thursday, June 19, 2pm. Free.
Black Joyride is hosting their sixth annual Juneteenth community bike ride on June 19. The group will meeting at Grant Park in the Formal Gardens at 1pm, and head to DuSable Museum of African American History to join their community cookout at the end of the ride. For more information, check out their Instagram @blackjoyride (Chima Ikoro)
SHAPESFest
Navy Pier. Friday, June 20, 6pm–10pm. Free. posh.vip/e/shapesfest
Join studioSHAPES for their first festival on Friday June 20 at Navy Pier at 5pm. This
free event will feature several Chicago artists including South Siders Mick Jenkins, J Bambii, Recoechi, Sonny, and more. RSVP at posh.vip/e/shapesfest. (Chima Ikoro)
South Africa to the SouthSide
Thalia Hall, 1807 S Allport St. Friday, June 20, 8pm. $58.65 for GA, $77.95 for seated balcony. bit.ly/4jSt1JW
afrotrak and Black Yacht Weekend presents a Juneteenth celebration bridging the diaspora on Friday, June 20 at Thalia Hall. Featuring the Chicago debut of South Africa's Kabza De Small along side Mobu and the City's own Duane Powell, the evening will be a blend of Amapiano, AfroHouse, and Chicago House music. Doors are at 7pm, and tickets can be found at https://www. thaliahallchicago.com/. (Chima Ikoro)
Juneteenth Jubilee
Sand Ridge Nature Center, 15891 Paxton Ave, South Holland, IL 60473. Saturday, June 21, 12pm–4pm. Free. fpdcc.com/events/tag/juneteenth
Join the Forest Preserves of Cook County at their free Juneteenth event on Saturday, June 21 from 11am-3pm. The event will take place at Sand Ridge Nature Center in the south suburbs, and will feature face painting, food (free and for purchase), tie-dying, games, music, vendors and more. There will also be guided nature walks, and the Reptile and Amphibian Room in the nature center will be open. Visit fpdcc.com/events/tag/ juneteenth to learn more. (Chima Ikoro)
Open Lab Hours at The Darkroom Chicago
Tuley Park, 501 E 90th Place. Saturday, June 21, 2pm–5pm. Free for elders and youth or to tour the space, $28.52 for other community members to have full access.
The Darkroom Chicago is having open lab hours from 1-4pm on Saturday, June 21 at Tuley Park (501 E 90th Place). The space aims to expand access to analog photography, and community members are encouraged to utilize access to tools and meet other creatives this weekend. Their programming is free for youth and elders, and there is a communal fee for those that are able. RSVP at thedarkroomchicago.com. (Chima Ikoro)
