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AUSTIN WEEKLY news ■
Vol. 31 No. 51
West Side Clergy demand Jackson stay atop CPS,
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December 20, 2017
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austinweeklynews.com
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Also serving Garfield Park
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‘Where are the black contractors?’ some ask County spent $165M on medical purchases, $3.5M with black firms By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
As of October of this year, the Cook County Health and Hospitals System had spent around $165 million on contracts to purchase things like medical supplies and equipment, according to data provided by the county’s Office of Contract Compliance. Most of those contracts, 80 percent, went to companies ostensibly owned by white males while 20 percent went to companies that are certified minority- or womenowned. African American-owned companies were awarded just 2 percent, or roughly $3.5 million, of those contracts — and all of them were subcontractors. “This is shameful,” said Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin (1st), whose district covers a large part of the West Side, during a phone interview on Dec. 15. Boykin said he brought the issue to the attention of his board colleagues after discovering the disparity a few weeks ago. The commissioner emphasized that the $165 million total doesn’t include construction-related spending. Boykin weighed in on the issue during a Dec. 11 press conference held at the county’s administration building in Chicago and also during a Dec. 13 finance committee meeting. “President Preckwinkle and the entire county board should be ashamed that these See BLACK CONTRACTORS on page 6
TIMOTHY INKLEBARGER/Staff
A GROWING PROBLEM: Vincent Palacios, a heroin addict in Chicago, has been receiving services from the Chicago Outreach Intervention Projects for years. He gets fresh hypodermic needles, known on the streets as ‘rigs,’ to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. Chicago Outreach says opioid addiction is increasing in the city — the same conclusion doctors are reaching in Oak Park.
On the frontlines of the opioid crisis Chicago Outreach Intervention Projects fights to save, protect heroin users
By TIMOTHY INKLEBARGER Staff Reporter
On a chilly Monday afternoon in the West Side neighborhoods of Austin and West Garfield Park, the streets are quiet. “Need rigs? Need rigs?” Vincent Lee, an outreach worker with the Chicago Outreach Intervention Projects (COIP), a program run by the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, calls out the window of COIP’s mobile services van to one of his regular clients.
“Rigs” are hypodermic needles used to shoot heroin — the group’s mission, which it takes on the road to various areas of the city five days a week, is to get users into treatment and help prevent the spread of HIV, Hepatitis C and other infectious diseases. The outreach workers find their clients by cruising popular spots where heroin is sold, putting them in the middle of some of the most dangerous parts of the city. About three years ago, the COIP van pulled into an area just minutes after a
gang-related shooting left one dead, four injured and a vehicle full of bullet holes, according to Lee. He said Monday was a slow day because of the weather. Their first client of the day steps into the van asking for rigs and for Narcan, a drug used to rapidly reverse the effects of opioids if a user overdoses. Lee said the mobile services unit and the brick-and-mortar sites COIP runs in Aus-
Austin Chamber of Commerce on the move... 773.854.5848 • www.austinchicagochamber.com
See HEROIN on page 12