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AUSTIN WEEKLY news ■
Ford launches advisory referendum petition for new Austin high school, PAGE 3
Vol. 32 No. 31
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August 1, 2018
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austinweeklynews.com
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Also serving Garfield Park
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Remembering R b i V Vall Camilletti, page 6
Home equity program racked by crisis
Galewood residents demand radical changes for Northwest Home Equity Assurance Program By IGOR STUDENKOV Contributing Reporter
If there is one thing both the commissioners appointed to govern it and the property owners whose taxes fund it agree on, it’s that the Northwest Home Equity Assurance Program needs to change. The Northwest Home Equity Assurance Program is one of the three programs that were implemented in the late 1980s throughout what were then majority-white Chicago neighborhoods, including Galewood. The idea was to stop white flight by addressing one of its root causes — the fear that an increase in the minority population would bring down property values. However, in the three decades since its creation, the program has only been lightly used, leading some elected officials, community organizations and property owners to wonder whether the money that is being collected would be better used some other way. During a June 16 meeting of the program’s governing commission, which was See HOME EQUITY on page 8
ALEXA ROGALS/Staff Photographer
WHAT’S YOUR INSPIRATION?: Children gather around a table and make necklaces with handmade clay pieces last Saturday, during the Awesome Austin Art Affair on West End and Mayfield Avenues in Austin.
Art fair lures artists back home The July 28 event spotlighted artists from Austin
By IGOR STUDENKOV Contributing Reporter
The block of South End Avenue between Mayfield and Mason avenues came alive with music, art and yoga on the warm Saturday morning of July 28. The Awesome Austin Art Fair was organized by the nonprofit Redevelopment Management Resources, the Central Austin Neighborhood Association (CANA) and the Third Unitarian Church. The idea was not only to spotlight and provide support for art and culture in Austin,
but to get the residents involved. Residents were welcome to stop by, look at and purchase art. A yoga area with a massage chair was set up for residents who wanted to relax and some of the artists who took part in the event offered free art classes. Serethea Mathews-Reed, president of CANA and a board member for Redevelopment Management Resources, said that they launched the art fair to create “an interactive, multidimensional experience where artists and the Austin community can engage in beauty and peace.”
“The idea is to give people another outlet for relaxing, engaging and communication, and exploring their creativity,” she said. Artist Andrea Odien was among several artists who taught classes at the fair. Odien instructed attendees on how to make teddy bears out of towels. She has been a postal worker for 25 years and she said she started doing art as a way to cope with her mother struggling, and eventually dying from, kidney disease.
Austin Chamber of Commerce on the move... 773.854.5848 • www.austinchicagochamber.com
See ART FAIR on page 4