The condo building in question.

Allison Kessler, a 25-year-old medical student who uses a wheelchair, filed a complaint Wednesday in the Northern District of Illinois against a condominium association in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood. The complaint alleges that the 401 East Ontario Condominium Association refused to provide reasonable accommodations and also retaliated against the 25-year-old woman’s attempts to assert her right to an accommodation.

Like many other residents at 401 E. Ontario, Kessler owns a dog. Residents of the building are allowed to keep dogs as pets. Under rules of the association, dog owners are not allowed to bring their animals in and out of the building through the main lobby entrance; association rules require that dogs travel into and out of the building through a separate entrance. The alternative route includes a stairwell. Because Kessler uses a wheelchair, she cannot use the alternative dog route.

Kessler requested that she be allowed to walk her dog in and out the main, front door of the building, which is accessible to her, as a reasonable accommodation. She also proposed another route that would enable her to bring the dog in and out through a fire door. The condominium denied each request. Instead, the condominium association insists that she use two alternative routes. These alternative routes require that she travel through the building’s parking garage, share entry and exit lanes in the garage that are designed for use by cars, and travel up or down very steep slopes.

After several unsuccessful attempts to navigate the alternative dog routes proposed by the condominium association, Kessler told the condominium association that the routes are unsafe and inaccessible. Yet, the condominium association continues to demand that she use these routes. Because of the association’s insistence, Kessler has not walked her dog on her own since mid-June and instead relies on her boyfriend and a dog walking company, which she pays for, to walk her dog.

“Like every other dog owner in the building, I just want the chance to walk my dog,” Kessler said.  “I can’t do that because the condo association is not allowing me to take an accessible and safe route in and out of the building with my pet.”

Rather than grant Kessler’s request for a safe, accessible route, the association has alleged that she has violated certain association rules, for which she has been fined $850. Kessler believes that she has followed all the association’s rules, and that the fine was levied in retaliation for her requests for accommodation. In addition to the condominium association’s refusal to provide an accessible dog route and its alleged retaliation against Kessler, it has rejected her request for an accessible parking place.

Kessler believes that the actions by the 401 East Ontario Condominium Association constitute discrimination against a person with a disability under the Fair Housing Amendments Act.  According to the Fair Housing Amendments act, it is illegal to refuse to make accommodations in rules and policies if the accommodations are reasonable and necessary to enable people with disabilities equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling. It is also illegal to “coerce, intimidate, threaten or interfere” with a person protected by the law if he or she is attempting to exercise his or her rights under the law.

The Residential Summit Master Series is designed for those in the trades; homebuilders and the construction industry learn about retrofitting existing homes, marketing green homes and products and green appraisals. For regular people who just want a safe, affordable, green place to live, it is good news because it may increase our opportunities to live green.

Given a choice between a home constructed without attention to environmental concerns and green products and one that is built with regard to LEED standards, for example, most young Chicagoans would opt for the green. For older people, with less familiarity with green, being able to save on energy might be attractive. However, until construction professionals get educated about the hows and whats of green building and retro-fitting, consumers are stuck in a world where they dream of green but have to settle for the status quo.

Greenbuild takes place this year from Nov. 17 – 19 at McCormick Place West. The conference includes educational sessions, an expo, and speakers about the “Green Generation” and trends in the industry and the electorate that will influence construction in the future. Greenbuild comes to Chicago because, as “one of the first cities to adopt LEED for public buildings and the city that is home to more LEED-certified buildings than any other, Chicago is truly committed to leadership as a “next-generation” city – the perfect place for us to celebrate being part of Generation Green.” While we can’t necessarily attend the conference, we can await the further greening of building in Chicago with appreciation and anticipation.

Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica said the “Foreclosure Mediation Program” targets the wrong demographic.

“What disturbs me in particular is that the majority of the people receiving assistance are unable to afford to live in their homes; people with no assets and low net-to-debt ratio,” said Peraica.

The Cook County Board approved the $3.5 million project in November 2009 that provides housing counseling and assistance to some 60,000 people facing foreclosures.

The program — modeled after a similar program in Philadelphia — involves four state and local organizations: Chicago Legal Volunteer Services, The Chicago Bar Foundation, The Chicago Community Trust and The Illinois Housing Development Authority.

Peraica said since the foreclosure program began nearly a year ago, there have been just 28 completed mediations out of the 412 applicants during that period. According to a report handed out at the September 15 Cook County Board meeting, more than 85 percent of the applications end up in default, meaning the applicants don’t follow through with the program, he said.

Judge Dorothy Kinnaird of the Circuit Court of Cook County said the default rates cited in the report were collected before the first mediation period in July, and said the numbers will improve by the end of the year.

“I don’t respond to commissioners,” Kinnaird said. “Commissioner Peraica has his facts mixed up.”

Kinnaird said it’s too early to tell what the default rates are now, but a report will be available during the second mediation period in December.

Periaca responded to Kinnaird’s statement and said he got the numbers from the report that was handed out at the meeting. He said until he sees facts that these kinds of programs are working, he will not change his stance.

Andrew Celis, program specialist at Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, said the first step in dealing with foreclosure is making the applicant aware of the programs available and educating them about their options.

The reason people aren’t responding to the foreclosure programs is because they are embarrassed and unfamiliar with the situation, he said.

“That 85 percent is because of intimidation,” Celis said. “The process of going through foreclosure is intimidating to families who haven’t been in this situation before.”

Celis said he worked with a municipal worker recently who had his hours cut by 20 percent earlier this year. Being the only working member in the household, the applicant found himself in a situation that he never imagined, he said.

Celis was able to save the family’s home by refinancing the mortgage of the property to make their monthly payments more affordable.

He said more homeowners would be able to save their homes if there was more outreach and support from local communities.

“These types of programs work, but the need is larger than resources we have out there. I think we do an excellent job of the resources we do have, however,” said Celis.

Celis said Neighborhood Housing is the only not-for-profit foreclosure program in Chicago, and focuses on strengthening low- to moderate-income neighborhoods by keeping the residents in their homes. When dealing with a legal matter, he said, he refers applicants to the Cook County mediation program.

For more information on upcoming NHS foreclosure events or ways to help with the mediation process, visit nhschicago.org or needhelppayingmybills.com.

The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) has announced a rehab project involving a historic Edgewater building that will create 104 units for seniors and provide about 214 jobs in Chicago.

There’s the smell of fresh paint on the walls in the entryway of 6405 S. Rockwell. But Karry Young, the developer who’s been remodeling the single-family home in Chicago Lawn, is pointing past the paint job and the wooden molding.

“That oak, and it puts so much personality in a house,” he said.

Over the past three months Young and his crew have installed new insulation, plumbing, heating and air conditioning at the Rockwell house.  The previous tenants had turned it into an illegal two-flat – complete with separate stairways and furnaces – and Young’s crew had to do significant construction to get it back to a single-family home.

They’ve redone everything imaginable. But they wanted to maintain the personality of the original house and so instead of tearing down the molding they fixed it up.

It’s that attention to detail that has potential homeowners excited about the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP).

Young is working on several houses in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood, all of which had been foreclosed on, were bought with federal dollars and found their way to him through Mercy Portfolio Services, the city’s non-profit partner in the NSP.

The Chicago Lawn houses are among the first NSP homes in the city to go on the market. A week after Young was showing off the house on Rockwell, he was two blocks away, at Garifuna Flava, a Caribbean restaurant on 63rd Street.

This time he was among an eclectic group of developers, potential homeowners and area residents who gathered to hear a presentation on the NSP houses.

“Think about them not as rehabbed but as renewed properties,” Mercy’s Will Towns told the 40-plus people who turned out for the event.

They came for a variety of reasons. A liaison to the Chicago Police Department spoke, as did representatives from Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago and the Southwest Organizing Project.

Celine Black grew up in Chicago Lawn and has lived there her whole life. She came to reassure potential homeowners that this is a great place to raise a family.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she told the crowd. “I’m a diehard.”

Soon it was time for questions from the audience. What kind of warranty is there on the houses? (A one-year complete warranty.)

Will someone be able to show me how to use the energy-efficient appliances being installed in the homes? (Yes.)

What other areas of the city are involved with the Neighborhood Stabilization Program? (Twenty-five neighborhoods in Chicago – many of them hard hit by foreclosures.)

Then came a question that raised more than a few eyebrows. Can I buy a house and sell it right away? (The answer is yes, although there are caps on the price that it can be sold at.)

But the point of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, the presenters reminded the audience, is to rebuild strong, vibrant communities, not to make a ton of money.

When the questions were complete, everyone – developers, potential homeowners, community organizers and neighborhood residents – began talking to each other.

Jacqueline Pointer lives at 67^th and Honore and said the houses all around her are boarded up. She came to ask “What do I need to do to help get it started on my block?” She got the business card of someone from Mercy Portfolio Services who promised to stay in touch.

Cora Hunter and her 17-year-old son live across the street from an NSP house at 64^th and Rockwell. One day she stopped the construction workers at the house and started asking questions. Now she wants to become one of the first homeowners through the NSP.

“We’re working out the details,” she said.

And then there’s George Havelka, a retired banker, who grew up in Chicago Lawn and came to learn more about the program. The housing stock in the neighborhood was built to last forever, he said, so long as there are families living in and maintaining the houses.

And what does he make of the NSP’s attempts to rebuild the community? “This is exactly what the neighborhood needs,” he said.

On June 12, tours of the Chicago Lawn NSP houses will be available from noon to 4 p.m.

“I wish I had that much power in the community, where my not liking rice on my burrito makes or breaks a major decision,” responded Staniszewski, president of the Portage Park Neighborhood Association.

Staniszewski has lived in the community for more than 18 years and said he has seen the place change, for better and for worse. Being involved in the neighborhood is something Staniszewski spends all of his time on. From Andersonville to Lakeview, Staniszewski has lived in all parts of Chicago, but recognizes Portage Park his home.

“At our very first meeting with Six Corners LLC (a business district in Portage Park), it was brought up that they were courting Chipotle to move into the Klee,” said Staniszewski. “I made a comment that I did not like Chipotle because they put rice on their burritos. Well, subsequently, Chipotle did not come in and I have been blamed for that ever since.”

In truth, the Portage Park Neighborhood Association is against chains, Staniszewski; they prefer local, home-grown businesses. When Klee Plaza started construction under the direction of Marc Sussman, Gerard said they clashed because the association was hassling them about their building project, which was supposed to bring more stores into the neighborhood.

Sussman declined to comment.

Staniszewski admits that the community needs Klee Plaza, a 64-unit condominium, 20,000-square-foot commercial development located in Portage Park’s ‘historic-style’ six-corners shopping district. But, he said, the community doesn’t need to “bend over backwards to do anything the developer wants.”

“Maybe we do not have the cool shops or restaurants, but we have the better neighborhood,” said Staniszweski.

The lack of “cool shops” is what scares Staniszewski, though. When he moved into the neighborhood 18 years ago, the neighborhood was booming, but since then local shops and businesses have left Portage Park.

A few years ago, the local business community hit a low point. There are still pockets where business is strong, said Staniszewski, but more shops and investment into the business side of the community is what will slowly bring it up.

Currently unemployed after six years as a digital print project manager, the 51-year-old spends most of his time making the community a better and safer place. “In reality, it is just what is in me. I love being part of a community …  and it beats watching TV,” Staniszewski said.

One would think that all of the time spent away from the home would negatively affect his relationship with his wife, but it has only made it stronger. As Staniszewski said, they have been married for almost 20 years “with no murders yet.”

Jill Staniszewski was a reluctant first lady when her husband filled the vacant presidency seat in 2004; now she sits on the board and accompanies him as he passes out monthly newsletters and organizes meetings.

According to Jill Staniszewski, their relationship has remained consistent; they talk about issues and weigh in on matters while offering opinions and suggestions.

“I could see that he was a good president, someone fair, who didn’t use the organization to further his own personal agenda,” she said about her husband’s position.

For the last three years, Gerard Staniszewski didn’t have an opponent for the presidency; he says it’s because it takes a lot to become involved in a community, and some people aren’t up for it. For the last two years, he didn’t even want to be president anymore, but nobody was there to take his place.

The alderman’s office has not approved any issues that the PPNA has fought against, demonstrating the power the association holds in the community. Even people who don’t directly work with Staniszewski say he is a great man with great character.

The neighborhood association holds its meetings thanks in part to Lydia Homes, who offers up the use of her building for their meetings. Travis Satterlee, who works for Homes, has met Staniszewski a few times and thinks he is a stand-up guy.

“I believe him to be reliable and conscientious about his work. He was deemed trustworthy to take on the responsibility of president of the PPNA,” said Satterlee. “He has received many votes of confidence from his community members.”

When she leaves for the night, they are still outside roaming the block, which is why Barfield closes her store at 7 p.m.

“I wouldn’t want to be here after eight,” she said. “The area changes drastically.”

Barfield, along with other business owners and workers on Broadway Avenue, said loiterers are keeping people away from their businesses — and the Chateau Hotel, located at 3838 N. Broadway St., is the main cause of their headaches.

“That is the problem,” Barfield said. “That’s where they come out and loiter.”

According to Barfield, the Chateau Hotel is an inexpensive, transient hotel where prostitution, drug use and violence are common.

A hotel manager said he could not disclose prices over the phone but said a one-night stay would be under $100.

Barfield said she understands the people in the hotel need a place to stay, but they are keeping customers away from her store, located directly across from the hotel at 3837 N. Broadway St.

“I don’t want them in front of my store because it discourages customers from coming in, but where do they go? They move down to Subway. They go by Starbucks,” she said.

Fabian Aguirre, 18, an employee at Subway, located at 3821 N. Broadway St., said because the restaurant is open until midnight, loiterers from the hotel try to hang out inside or receive free food.

“Sometimes we have them come in here and try to stay here, and we kick them out,” Aguirre said.

He said when loiterers are not in Subway, they stand in front of the hotel, smoke cigarettes and “do nothing.”

Over the 36 years Barfield has been in the community, she said she has done everything from community walks to meetings with police and residents in order to clean up the hotel.

“We’ve addressed the issue with them across the street. We’ve addressed it with the commander,” she said. “It’s like, well, what do we do?”

According to Barfield, the community has brought Chateau Hotel owner Jack Gore to court multiple times, and altogether the hotel has 89 building and code violations.

Gore could not be located and did not return phone calls for this article.

Denice Davis, chief of staff to Ald. Helen Shiller (46th), could not confirm the number of violations, but said she knows the city previously asked the hotel owner to take care of a flooding issue in the basement as well as a rodent problem. The Chateau Hotel is located at the border of Uptown within the 46th Ward.

Barfield said she sometimes speaks with guests of the hotel, and they tell her of the unsafe conditions inside the building.

“A few people come into the store who live there, so I talk to them to find out what’s going on, and they tell me how bad it is in there,” she said. “It’s a problem, and they move these people in until an ambulance takes them away or something.”

In 2008, three people died in a room at the hotel from an apparent drug overdose, according to news reports.

Despite the hotel’s bad publicity, Davis said the Chateau Hotel, which has been in business before she began working for the ward in 1989, is not as bad as some say.

“The Chateau has been there for years, and unfortunately, just like a lot of other things in our area, when people move in they see what they deem as eyesores,” Davis said. “If you think it’s bad, help to make it better, don’t just sit back and judge it.”

Davis said hotel management follows strict safety precautions such as requiring a state identification card or driver’s license and also run a criminal background check before allowing someone to stay there.

Management runs background checks in order to prevent sex offenders from staying there because of the hotel’s close proximity to Gill Park, located at 825 W. Sheridan Road, and Horace Greeley Elementary School, located at 832 W. Sheridan Road, according to Davis.

She said she does not want to paint a “pearly picture of heaven” about the hotel, but the reality is some people need a place to stay, and business owners should take that into consideration.

“If they’re so worried about it, why don’t they go in there and offer one of them a job?” Davis said. “Let them clean your sidewalk. Let them mop your floors, if you’re so concerned. If not, then run your business.”

Barfield said she relies on the 23rd District police officers to patrol the area, but they can only do so much, because loiterers usually come back.

That is where the local community groups come in.

Jay Lyon, executive director of Lakeview’s Northalsted Business Alliance, said the alliance established a safety council, which works with the police department, neighborhood groups, and social service organizations such as the Center on Halsted, Broadway Youth Center and Night Ministry to keep the community safe.

Lyon said cracking down on loiterers is not as easy as it sounds due to the lack of anti-loitering laws.

“The United States Supreme Court struck down anti-loitering laws, so from a legal standpoint, unless someone is breaking the law, including disturbing the peace, the police are limited in what they can do,” he said.

However, the council found a different approach to the overarching issue of loitering in Lakeview and recently began to coordinate educational programs such as court ad/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=6988vocacy seminars, which train residents how to represent their community in a courtroom after police make an arrest.

The next court advocacy meeting for the 23 rd District is scheduled for May 25.

Jim Ludwig, owner of Roscoe’s Tavern, located at 3356 N. Halsted St., and member of the Northalsted Safety Council, said at a CAPS meeting he believes speaking directly to individuals who are disrupting businesses is the best solution to the problem.

“Hanging out is not an illegal activity, and the more we can engage the people that are just hanging out looking for nothing to do, we’re going to have more success as the time goes on,” Ludwig said.

But Barfield plans to stay inside her store for now.

As she fixed the antennas on the small TV she keeps next to her register, she glanced out her door, across to the hotel, where a group of men stood outside.

“What are you going to do?” she said. “It is all a part of the area here. And I don’t think we’re going to clean it up. Not when you have places like that.”

Read an October 2007 ChicagoTalks article about the Hotel Chateau.

Built in the 1950s, just south of The Harold Ickes on South State Street and north of the Illinois Institute of Technology between 27^th and 30^th Streets, the Dearborn Homes were Chicago’s most diverse and clean public housing buildings.

“The Dearborns were the first projects to have elevators. Everybody else had to walk to stairs to get to their apartments — not us,” said Evelyn Hartmen, a former Dearborn Homes resident.  Now, decades later, the Dearborn Homes are the first Chicago public housing project to be rehabbed, according to the Chicago Housing Authority Web site.

The Dearborn Homes, like many that once lined State Street, consist of many low-rise buildings. As of now, three of the 16 Dearborn Homes have been renovated; according to the CHA, the rest will be completed by 2012.

“I remember the Dearborn Homes falling apart in the 1990s, when me and my mother first moved in. They’re real nice now,” said Natasha Isom, 35, a nurse, as she sat in front of her Dearborn home. When asked why she is still a resident in the homes with her salary as a nurse, Isom said, “This is home, it’s affordable, there’s good people here. I’ve built so many relationships and bonds, and mainly because it’s home to me.”

According to the CHA’s Web site, designer Henry Zimoch, a principal at the Chicago architecture firm HPZS, is the mastermind behind the Dearborn Homes’ internal and external remodeling. A fan of Georgian architecture, Zimoch had the simplest approach to the Dearborn Homes that could have saved many other projects: to “work with the existing cross-shaped buildings and dress them up Georgian style.” The previously flat-roofed buildings are now triangle shaped green and white roofs that etch against the sky. New bricks have been placed in the corners of the buildings, and these once dull buildings now have a sense of texture and design.

The newly developed buildings bring hope for many of the residents, and many complaints of their living spaces have now been fixed. But many of the Dearborn Homes are still in bad shape, and some residents will have to wait up to two years before their homes are renovated.

,Many low-income families would love for an opportunity to reside in the Dearborn Homes — especially those who have been forced to leave previous projects — but according to the CHA’s Web site, the apartments are full.

“Only residents who were living in CHA developments as of October 1, 1999, and have remained lease-compliant are eligible to live at this property,” the Web site states. ” The CHA is currently not accepting new applicants at any of its family properties. Eligible CHA relocates should contact their relocation manager for more information.”

“What’s not fair is the Dearborn Homes are getting remodeled, but if you’re not already a resident, you won’t be able to live there once your project is destroyed,” Hartmen said. “I thought the CHA wanted new mixed-income living spaces, but I’m sure the Dearborn Homes will remain black and poor despite the remodeling.”

Bikes are Fun

The currently scheduled events are outside Chicago in Homewood and Oak Park.  Both suburbs offer good public transportation options, including being able to get downtown easily without resorting to driving a car. These two suburbs are bike-friendly, and they are looking to lure Chicagoans who are used to bike lanes and are considering moving.

The Homewood event will be held Saturday, June 19 and the Oak Park ride takes place Sunday, June 13. The bike tours will include maps featuring open houses, local businesses, schools, parks, transit and other amenities. The Homewood ride is a “led ride”; in Oak Park, riders navigate to the homes by themselves and the realtors show the homes.

“A neighborhood great to ride in is a neighborhood great to buy in!” said Active Trans Southland Coordinator Steve Buchtell. “Search for neighborhoods with good home values, school districts, and walking/biking connections to the things you need, and you get the American Dream without the rude awakening of weight gain, traffic headaches, and dollars down the tank.”

In Oak Park, participants visit  homes at their own pace, and they can pick up a ticket at each stop. Riders can exchange four tickets for a gift or coupon from a local business. Details of the tours are below.

For Chicagoans and anyone else who wants to see what the city has to offer, there is one tour left in the Big Shoulders Realty THE CHICAGO BIKEXPOSITION 2010 series. On Sunday May 23 beginning at 1 p.m. is a ride through Humboldt Park . The ride starts at California and Division (see the starting point .)

Located four miles west of the Loop, Humboldt Park is a community area, a neighborhood and a huge city park, all three named for Alexander von Humboldt, a German naturalist. The neighborhood extends from Western Avenue to Pulaski Road and from Armitage to Chicago Avenues, leaving half the total neighborhood and half the park in the community area of West Town.

The tour is roughly 15 miles and 4 to 5 hours in length and is completely free, but Big Shoulders asks that you make a free will donation to West Town Bikes. Please visit the following link and put “HUMBOLDT PARK TOUR” in the space for “Designation” to make a donation in the amount you see fit.

Here is the fine print for the Homewood and Oak Park tours:

Homewood Tour:

• When: June 19, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
• Register at activetrans.org/greenstreets. The deadline is 5 p.m. June 11.
• What: Tour a mapped route through Homewood with other homebuyers. Maps highlight up to five homes in a range of prices currently on the market, as well as village parks, schools and amenities. Total tour time: 2-3 hours.
• Where: The tour begins and ends at the Homewood Art Festival on Martin Avenue and Ridge Road (one block east of the Homewood Metra Station – bring your bike on the train!). Homewood is located about 25 miles south of the Loop.
• Who: Active Transportation Alliance and the Village of Homewood.
• How it works: Real estate agents will host showings at each stop, and “score cards” will include listing information for each house so you can follow up on your favorite homes. Enjoy a hosted luncheon after the tour at the art festival.

Oak Park Tour:

• When: June 13, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. (No pre-registration needed.)
• What: Take a bike tour visiting homes for sale in Oak Park. Participants use a map to take the self-guided tour.
• Where: Check in at the Pasta Shoppe & Café at 116 North Oak Park Ave. in Oak Park. This is where you pick up a map of the homes that are participating.
• How it works: Participants pick up one ticket at each home. If you bring back four tickets to the Pasta Shoppe after the tour, you’ll get a coupon for a local store or restaurant.
• Who: The Active Transportation Alliance is co-sponsoring the event with the Oak Park Area Association of Realtors and the Oak Park Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Contact the Active Transportation Alliance or call 312.427.3325 for information.

“My mom tried to give me keys to her house. I was afraid because if you touch keys, that’s an escape charge,” said Anthony, who served 12 years in federal prison.

“If you’ve been taken away for a period of 10 years or better, and you’ve been home for a period of 10 days, you still find yourself doing things you’ve (become) accustomed to doing, like not touching keys,” said Anthony, founder and director of the Reaching for Success Foundation.

Anthony founded Reaching for Success in 2005 while still in prison, earning an award for outstanding community activism. With the foundation, Anthony hopes to empower and educate youth in Chicago.

Anthony currently resides in Bellwood, a western suburb of Chicago. Although he’s originally from Chicago’s West Side, Anthony does a lot of outreach work on the South Side of Chicago, working as part of The Black Star Project, an organization started in 1996 whose mission is to empower Black and Latino communities through education and outreach.

According to a report by the PEW Research Center, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., Illinois saw a slight decrease in prisoner numbers between December 31, 2008 and Janauary1, 2010. This marks the first decrease in prisoner counts nationwide in 40 years, and indicates a greater need for services that would ease ex-prisoners’ transitions back home.

Organizations like the Community Renewal Society have been urging the Illinois Department of Corrections and the legislature to implement transition units in prisons for ex- and current offenders.

“These would be units that are specializing in people transitioning home so they’ll be more focused on preparation, including how to reintegrate into your family, what to expect and how you need to understand that there’s a changing dynamic that’s happened since you’ve been incarcerated,” said Alex Weisendanger, lead organizer for the Civic Action Network of the Community Renewal Society.

The Community Renewal Society assists individuals in rebuilding their abused communities. Their current initiative, Children of the Incarcerated, is a combined effort with community leaders, children and parents of incarcerated persons. The goal of the initiative is to connect inmates with their families by arranging visitations between children and incarcerated parents and offering counseling services and funding for travel.

Resources for ex- and current offenders continue to increase as families and community organizers pay closer attention to the issues. Revin L. Fellows, director of the Mission Men Fathers Support Group for Family Focus Lawndale on Chicago’s West Side, has a men’s group that meets every Tuesday.

“My men’s group consists of young men, older men, single men, married men, divorced men, ex-offenders and next offenders,” said Fellows. Family Focus Lawndale provides services for the entire family, including parent-to-parent support groups and mentoring.

Child support is one issue that many ex-offenders encounter, Fellows said.

“They go to jail; they have a child support problem,” said Fellows. Many offenders fail to contact Child Support Enforcement to halt their payments while in prison, he said; then when they are released, their bill has tripled.

Fellows said many ex-offenders also face other barriers — for example, a spouse who lives in public housing. The Chicago Housing Authority has tough stipulations against ex-offenders dwelling with their clients.

“People stereotype him,” said Fellows. “They don’t want an ex-offenders living next to them.”

State Rep. Thomas Holbrook (D-Bellville) introduced a bill, HB5114, that would create stiffer penalties for offenders who target the homeless, veterans, active duty members and reservists of the Armed Forces. Instead of facing up to a year in jail, first-time offenders could spend one to three years in prison, while repeat offenders could receive three to seven.

If passed, Illinois would be the first state to protect veterans under its hate crime law and be one of a handful of states including Maine, Maryland and Washington, D.C., to include the homeless, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and National Coalition for the Homeless.

Shelters, job training and financial aid are not enough to help the homeless and veterans who are being victimized in Illinois every day, proponents say. They argue the bill would encourage victims to come out of hiding and report these crimes. But opponents contend the bill isn’t needed because perpetrators are already prosecuted under current law, and no victims should receive special treatment.

It’s thrill-seeking teenagers who increasingly target the homeless, said Michael Stoops, community organizer for the National Coalition for the Homeless. Between 1998 and 2008, 43 percent of the 880 hate crimes committed against the homeless in the U.S. were committed by 13- to 19-year-olds.

Twenty-two percent of all homeless are veterans, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs. In Chicago, approximately 1,000 veterans are homeless on any given night.

Ed Shurna, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, said he supports the bill and believes it’s necessary to address the violence perpetrated against people without homes. Last year in Chicago, 74,000 people were without a place to live, Shurna said.

“Someone is lying there defenseless and has no protection,” said Shurna. “The police will not write up the cases and tell them they shouldn’t be there in the first place. They’re blaming the victim.”

The Chicago Police Department did not return calls seeking comment.

By and large homeless are victims, not perpetrators, said Shurna. He describes the types of crimes committed against the homeless as being particularly violent and dehumanizing.

“Homeless people are set on fire and spray painted,” said Shurna. “A lot of people who are homeless try to hide and squirrel because they’ll be targeted.”

David Rittgers, spokesman for the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., a public policy research center based on libertarian principles, disagrees the bill is needed because Illinois has laws on the books criminalizing assault and battery.

“There’s overlap here,” said Rittgers. “While the homeless might be a target, it’s already illegal to assault them.”

Rittgers said the bill is not good policy and is discriminatory towards certain offenses.

“We’re supposed to punish crime equally amongst all persons,” Rittgers said.

Johanna Dalton, executive director of Goldie’s Place, a support center for the homeless, said she supports initiatives protecting the homeless against these types of crimes, but it is just one piece of a larger, complex puzzle.

Goldie’s Place serves approximately 1,000 people each year, providing employment training and supportive services. Dalton said 60 percent of their clients are chronically homeless, meaning they’ve been without a home for at the least the last 12 months. Housing opportunities are limited and restrictive and the road to self-sufficiency is long, said Dalton.

“These are the people most in need; for them it’s not a sprint but a marathon,”said Dalton. “And we try to provide a sense of hope, but there are so many gaps in the system.”

Mohamed, who lives in a 1920s property in East Rogers Park, hadn’t noticed any unusual symptoms in Zachary, now 8. She soon learned, however, that her apartment was filled with lead paint.

She was told at the time that her son’s lead level could cause a decrease in I.Q. and difficulties with behavior. Today, although Zachary is “doing excellent,” he was slow in learning to read and sometimes has behavioral issues. That could be attributed to the fact that he’s a typical 8-year-old boy.

“But you sort of wonder,” Mohamed said.

Mohamed was happy to hear about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new Renovation, Repair and Painting regulation that takes effect April 22. Philip King, the environmental protection specialist with the U.S. EPA’s Chicago-based Region 5 office, called the rule’s scope “probably the most comprehensive to date because it covers private homes.”

The regulation requires contractors and other paid workers to be EPA-certified when replacing windows or renovating residential houses, apartments and child-occupied facilities built before 1978, when lead-based paint was banned. The rule protects kids from leaded dust resulting from sanding or demolition in old houses.

Exposure to lead is not safe at any age; it can affect how a child’s brain grows and develops, as well as their behavior, cognitive skills, attention problems and I.Q.

The rule will protect 1.4 million children under the age of 6 annually, said Rebecca Morley, executive director of the Maryland-based National Center for Healthy Housing.

“It’s one of the most major regulations the EPA is doing this year,” Morley said.

There are 8.4 million renovation and repair jobs done annually across the U.S., affecting as many as 212,000 firms and 230,000 contractors, Morley said. Under the regulation, every job site in a pre-1978 house will need a certified renovator that has completed a $186, eight-hour course from an accredited training provider. The cost is $300 to become an accredited trainer.

The regulation will be enforced by the U.S. EPA. However, if Illinois becomes authorized by the EPA to conduct the program, it will become the Illinois Department of Public Health‘s responsibility, said Sam Churchill, manager of the Illinois Department of Public Health’s Illinois Lead Program. Non-compliers could be fined up to $32,500 per day, he said, depending on various factors.

The number of children in Illinois with lead poisoning appears to be decreasing. In 2000, 23,063 Illinois children were identified with a blood lead level of 10 or greater, which is the number that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends taking action at, Churchill said. In 2007, that number decreased to 5,280, and in 2008, slightly more than 5,000 children had elevated blood lead levels. Yet experts say that no level of lead is safe for children.

“What we hope is that the generation of a lead hazard will be decreased in kids,” said Churchill.

Dr. Helen Binns, professor of pediatrics at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine and director of the Lead Evaluation Clinic at Children’s Memorial Hospital, said a survey of lead homes in the United States shows that nationally, 87 percent of homes built before 1940 have lead paint somewhere inside. That number drops to 69 percent for homes built between 1940 and 1959, and 24 percent for homes built from 1960 to 1977.

“So if you’re in an older house, which is most of the city of Chicago, there is a high likelihood lead is somewhere in your home,” Binns said.

Dean Amici, owner of the Chicago-based Amici Builders, said homeowners should now expect to add at least 10 percent cost-wise to a renovation. Property values and home sales on older properties could also be affected, he said.

“It’s gonna jack up the cost of remodeling for the average person through the ceiling,” Amici said.

Amici said he hasn’t seen any information or advertising regarding training or certification. “I think they’re going to have a (tough) time enforcing it,” he said. “It’ll be a field day for the lawyers.”

The Illinois Department of Public Health Lead Program is holding a series of meetings informing the public about the new rule, although none are scheduled in Chicago. Churchill said when scheduling the events, costs of the venue, parking, traffic, etc. were taken into consideration after speaking with possibly attendees.

Three Chicago-area meetings will be held at the following locations:

* Aurora Meeting
Tuesday, March 23
9 a.m. – noon
(8:30 a.m. Continental breakfast)
Holiday Inn, 2424 W. Sullivan Road

* Gurnee Meeting
Thursday, Feb. 18
9 a.m. – noon
(8:30 a.m. Continental breakfast)
Vista Hotel & Conference Center
6161 W. Grand Avenue

* Lisle Meeting
Wednesday, Feb. 17
9 a.m. – noon
(8:30 a.m. Continental breakfast)
Hyatt – Lisle Ballroom
1400 Corporetum Drive

On Thursday, Feb. 11, Access Living will host a Historic Six-City Listening Tour organized by the U.S. Dept. of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP).  U.S. Labor Department Assistant Secretary Kathleen Martinez will participate in the Chicago event. ODEP wants to hear from you and the rest of the interested public, including people with disabilities,  on these three areas of interest:

Access Living is a unique place, inside and out.

• Effective ways to increase employment of women, veterans and minorities with disabilities
• Identification of federal and state systems that are effectively collaborating to achieve successful employment outcomes for people with disabilities
• Top issues on which the federal government should focus to support an increase in labor force participation of people with disabilities

Employment is higher among people with disabilities than it is among the rest of the population.

Martinez will be joined by officials from key federal agencies, including the:

• Veteran’s Employment and Training Service, U.S .Dept. of Labor,
• The Employment and Training administration
• Woman’s Bureau and Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs of the U.S. Dept of Labor and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services
• Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services of the U.S. Dept of Education
• U.S. Office of Personnel Management
• U.S. Social Security Administration

The Chicago stop of the Listening Tour  will be held on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010,  from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Access Living, 115 W. Chicago Ave., 4th Floor, Chicago. This is an accessible location.

For registration information, contact (703) 684-0029 or visit www.disabilitylisteningtour.com. For information about Access Living, contact Gary Arnold at (312) 640-2199 or [email protected].

Robert Davidson, president of the Lathrop Homes Local Advisory Council, said the CHA wants to move forward with soliciting developers to revamp the 35-acre site, despite the protests of residents.

“There’s no consensus on that,” Davidson said.

Renters, preservationists and community leaders have been pleading with Mayor Daley and the CHA to preserve the 35-acre Logan Square property since the agency announced plans in 2006 to level it and build a mixed-income development in its place.

It is not an uncommon occurrence. For the past 10 years, the CHA has been renovating and tearing down housing projects and replacing them with mixed-income communities as part of its “Plan for Transformation.”

Since March, Lathrop resident groups and CHA officials have been arguing over how much of the rehabilitated project should be set aside for public housing; residents are pushing for half, while the CHA wants one-third, said Stephanie Villinski, an attorney representing the community council.

The number of units is also a concern, Villinski said, with CHA officials backing plans for 1,200 units, almost 300 more than currently sit on the site.

Scott Shaffer, a former resident and leader of a Lathrop “alumni” organization, said the changes promoted by the CHA would destroy the character of the development, which is located at the intersection of Clybourn Avenue and Diversey Parkway.

“The CHA’s push for 1,200 units would lead to massive demolition at Lathrop,” Shaffer said. “It would take away the playground, the sports fields and green spaces and replace them with parking lots and buildings as tall as eight and nine stories.”

The CHA responded on Wednesday with a written statement saying that no decisions have been made on the number of units or income breakdown in the rehabbed Lathrop Homes, and that there are “no plans to demolish Lathrop.”

The statement provided no timetable for when a decision on the complex would be made.

However, USA Today on Wednesday quoted William Little, CHA’s executive vice president of development, as saying work would begin next year.

Preservationists are also pushing for the development to be preserved and re-used, arguing that its 27 Depression-era brick buildings and open site plan were created by a “dream team” of architects and landscaper designers.

“These historic brick buildings are structurally sound, still, 75 years later. They can easily be reconfigured for larger housing units,” said Jim Peters, president of Landmarks Illinois. In 2007, the state-wide preservation network added Lathrop Homes to its list of the “Ten Most Endangered Historic Places in Illinois.”

Since the CHA announced plans to redevelop the site, the agency has ceased to accept applications for Lathrop apartments and the population at Lathrop has dwindled. Today only about 210 of the development’s 924 units are occupied.

George Baez, 59, recalls sitting on a waiting list for 17 years before he landed a two-bedroom row house for his family in 1987. Today, he says, he and his wife are surrounded by empty homes and boarded windows.

Still, Baez said, Lathrop is his home.

“I feel safe there,” he said at a downtown press conference organized to stir interest in saving Lathrop. “When I wake up, I open my door, and it’s open until I go to sleep. They’re good people there.”

The focus of last week’s meeting at Harry S. Truman College was the ongoing problems of safety and appearance around the two-block avenue between Broadway and Wilson Avenue. Clifton is a one-way street with a sign at the Wilson crossing that says, “Do Not Enter.”

On Clifton, or “Blood Alley,” several small groups of people sit in chairs or on the curb. Other groups of people with change-cups or their beverage of choice are always hanging around. On the sidewalks, the dumpsters are frequently used as bathrooms for the homeless and other occupants of “Blood Alley.” In the alley itself, empty beer cans and bottles and an abundance of trash are everywhere.

No one is sure where the “Blood Alley” nickname came from, but everyone seems to have their own theory.

State Rep. Gregory Harris (D-Chicago) said it received the long-standing nickname from the heroin epidemic that hit the streets in the late ’60s. He said people used to go down the avenue and shoot up drugs.

To date, Clifton Avenue is more of a social gathering point for homeless and loiterers in the community. Harris said two types of loiterers occupy the alley.

“There are people who are doing illegal activities,” he said. “And then there are people who are doing what you consider your public nuisances, like peeing in the alley.”

Ald. Helen Shiller (46th) said loiterers used to roam more freely, but now seem to have centralized on Clifton Avenue. She said it is a problem, but it is better than it was in the past.

“It’s an ongoing process,” she said. “People go out there all the time. I think the fact is, that it is so much more localized, it used to be everywhere.”

Simon Malek, a commercial property manager for Zifkin Reality & Development, off the corner of Wilson and Clifton Avenues, said the people on the street are homeless, and they are members of the community. He said he there is no fear of violence, and they have always left his store front when asked.

“There is only so much that can be done,” he said. “We have added lights, we have added signs that said no hanging out there, but there is only so much as a property owner we can do. The city and the police department have to step up, which they have.”

Joyce Dugan, president of Uptown United, a business development community organization, said no one is sure if the loiterers are even from the Uptown area.

“I don’t know if the loiterers are exactly homeless,” she said. “We don’t know who the real troublemakers are; we don’t know where they live. That’s part of the confusion, because some of the folks who make trouble are not necessarily from the area, but come in and spend their time there.”

Kathleen Boehmer, the 23rd district police commander, said the police have made Clifton one of their main concerns, but can’t arrest people for hanging out.

“We don’t get rid of loiterers or homeless people,” she said. “We arrest people who are doing illegal activity, people who are causing problems on the street. So what we have done—we have increased our foot patrol enforcement there, and we’ve done some surveillance. We have arrested some people dealing narcotics there.”

Sandy Ramsey, director of Cornerstone Community Outreach off Clifton, said she instituted a plan that if you were part of her shelter, you could not hang out in the avenue if you wanted a place to sleep or eat.

The next meeting concerning Clifton Avenue will be on Jan. 17. The scheduled time and location has yet to be determined.

Christina is one of a 100+ youth involved with TLP and its many services.

If the effort is successful, Teen Living could receive enough funding to provide services to many of the 2,000 youth who are homeless in Chicago each night.

Teen Living’s Virtual Volunteer campaign was prompted by the Chase Community Giving event—an online event to help Chase Bank identify recipients for $5 million in charitable donations. Facebook members “become a fan” of Chase Community Giving and then vote for their favorite non-profits to receive a donation. The bank is donating $25,000 to 100 organizations in the first round of giving, and then $100,000 to five organizations plus $1 million to two organizations in the second round. Voting in the first round ends on December 11, 2009.

“Receiving a donation from Chase would be unbelievable, but we also see this as an opportunity to build something long term; to show the community that there are many ways they can help our youth, even if they can‟t volunteer in person,” says Nia Tavoularis, director of communications for Teen Living Programs.

Tavoularis says virtual volunteering is a concept that is right on for the times and believes it can be a powerful tool for non-profits.

“The economy has really hurt the non-profit world. To close the funding gap, we need to expand our donor base, and to expand our base we need word of mouth. Obviously, the goal is to raise money, but we also need people, whether they donate or not, to talk about Teen Living Programs and to introduce our organization to their family and friends. Social networking is a very efficient way to do that,” Tavoularis says.

Coincidentally, just prior to learning about Chase Community Giving, Teen Living Programs launched its own social networking campaign targeting individual donors. The “Tell a Friend in 2010” campaign features a special website (http://www.support TLP.org), Facebook page, YouTube channel and Twitter account with educational information and ideas for spreading the word about Teen Living Programs online and offline.

Tavoularis says virtual volunteering can be fulfilling for the volunteers as well.

“People are busier than ever today. But it doesn’t take a lot of time to do a little research, post a thoughtful message and let 200 friends know about something that’s important to you. If that leads to a donation somewhere down the line, then your virtual effort is felt in a very real way by the youth in our programs,” she says. “That’s what ‘Tell a Friend’ is all about.”

For now, Teen Living hopes it can find enough “friends” to raise a million dollars.

The “Ravenswood Station” mixed-use development would be built on a now-vacant Sears parking lot at the corner of Lawrence and Ravenswood Avenues, between the department store and the Metra commuter rail line.

Wilmette-based Crossroads Development Partners is revising its plans for the project, and the new layout will be made public in “late 2009 or early 2010,” said Robert Rawls, communications director for Ald. Gene Schulter (47th).

Original plans called for a supermarket, fitness center and a parking garage to be shared with Metra passengers, as well as a series of townhouses and an 11-story condominium building, said Dan Luna, Schulter’s chief of staff.

That large residential component drew the ire of 150 neighbors who showed up to view the proposal at a community meeting last June. While the community did not vote at that meeting, Luna said, residents’ opinions were clear.

“The temperature of that meeting sent the developers and the property owner back to the drawing board,” he said.

Ravenswood resident and realtor Eric Rojas attended that meeting at McPherson Elementary School. While he supports transit-oriented development and approves of the stores and parking garage, he worries that the condo building is too large for today’s market.

“I think six or seven (stories) may be fine, but 11 is going to be weird,” Rojas said. “If they’re all market rate condos, they’re not going to sell unless they’re priced absurdly low… Some would have to be rentals.”

Rojas and other residents may get a second crack on the proposal at a meeting scheduled for Dec. 1, according to a Vivian King, a spokesperson for Roundy’s Supermarkets, which will likely lease a spot in the development.

Representatives of Crossroads Development referred questions to their partner, Chicago-based Sierra Realty Advisors, who did not return phone calls by press time. Planners in the Chicago Community Development Department said they had no new information on the project.

Luna declined to comment on how the alderman felt about the original proposal or how the plans may have changed, but said he “would hope” that the condominium complex has been scaled back.

Most important to the alderman is the presence of a grocery store and parking facility in this spot, Luna said.

“That’s really the driving force behind this,” he said.

Roundy’s Supermarkets, the Milwaukee-based owner of Pick ‘n Save, Copps, Rainbow Foods and Metro Market stores, is “moving forward toward getting approval” for a spot in Ravenswood Station, King said.

Planners are still considering several possible fitness centers, Luna said.

Metra spokesman Michael Gillis said the rail corporation will continue talks about sharing the cost of the proposed parking garage.

“We’re always interested in cooperating with the community and developers to help out on the parking situation near our station,” Gillis said.

The home of the now-shuttered Michael Reese Hospital campus, located on prime real estate near 31st Street and South Lake Shore Drive, could be transformed into mixed-income housing, commercial development or an offshoot of the McCormick Place convention center, said Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th).

Preckwinkle is scheduled to meet Friday behind closed doors with city planners at City Hall to discuss development of the site. She declined to state who would be attending the meeting or what specifically they would discuss.

Hopeful politicians had been eying the 37-acre campus as a potential home for nearly two-dozen dormitories that would have housed athletes during the 2016 Olympic Games. The city purchased the land earlier this year for $86 million, but under the terms of the sale, the price tag jumped to $91 million when Chicago lost its Olympic bid last week.

“We’re going to tear them down, except for Old Main,” Preckwinkle said Wednesday. Only the oldest building on the campus, the “Old Main” hospital, was designated as a historic building by the city and will be preserved.

That’s bad news for architectural preservationists, who argue that not just one, but eight of the buildings — all designed by renowned architect and Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius — should be saved.

Tagged with demolition spray paint and surrounded by bulldozers, the campus’s plain, squat buildings may not appear worthy of attention. But architecture buffs note that the buildings, built between 1945 and 1960, are classic examples of modernism.

Grahm Balkany, president of the Gropius in Chicago Coalition, a group formed to oppose the demolition of the campus, said he expects Friday’s meeting to be critical in the fate of the campus.

“Now is the proper time, perhaps the only time, for Chicago to re-think its misconceived plans,” Balkany wrote in an e-mail. “Our failure to win the 2016 Olympics is the perfect reason to put the brakes on this process, which otherwise seems to be a speeding train headed for certain disaster.”

Still, Jonathan Fine, executive director of Preservation Chicago, said the loss of the Olympics has given him and his fellow supporters hope.

“From my point of view, the opportunities just multiplied infinitely,” Fine said.

Preckwinkle paused when asked what her constituents would like to see on the old hospital site.

“We’re not there yet,” she said. “I would presume we’ll have a planning process as we go forward that will involve community residents.”

There were earlier discussions with the city to use the space to house students from the area colleges, but that may no longer be the case. Preckwinkle said that if universities are interested in that land, they have not come forward.

The Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) campus is close to the site. Jeff Bierig, spokesperson for IIT, said that it expressed interest in the land if Chicago won the Olympic bid, but that offer is off the table now.

“Any interest in the Michael Reese site from IIT is premature because there has been no determination made by the city of what to do now,” Bierig said.

Preckwinkle said she expects to flesh out plans for the site and start accepting developers’ applications within the year.

Angelica Jimenez contributed to this report.

In a packed auditorium at Swedish Covenant Hospital, a North Side audience snacked on chocolate Macadamia nut cookies donated by a local Costco and got a few lessons in gangbanging.

Much of the information presented at last week’s community gang awareness seminar hosted by Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s office and the North Side Community Justice Center is already available on law enforcement web sites. For example, it would have been helpful to know how to discern a teenager who is following fashion trends by wearing a baggy, white T-shirt with his pants tucked under his butt cheeks from the neighborhood gangbanger.

Still, the seminar was not without some eye-opening moments as the CAPS-savvy audience listened raptly to a Chicago gang enforcement officer explain the hieroglyphics of gang tattoos and graffiti, so the next time some thug spray paints your garage door, you’ll know which gang he or she belongs to.

Five-point crowns, three-point crows, pitch forks, teardrops, 9’s, 4’s, martini glasses, top hats, the Playboy logo, backward Swastikas, it’s all so dizzying. The words “insane” and “maniac” also appear to be popular gang monikers.

“I have a theory that if you tattoo a “P” in the middle of your forehead, I think you’ve pretty much decided that you’re not going to be a productive member of society,” said Lt. Thomas Waldera of the Belmont Area 3 gang enforcement section.

While it’s tempting to laugh at the sheer stupidity and absurdity of gang symbols, the presence of even one apartment or home occupied by gang members can wreck havoc on the quality of life of one block or an entire neighborhood.

Displaying a city-wide map of gang infested neighborhoods Waldera acknowledged that North Side does not have near the gang-related violence of neighborhoods on the South and West Sides.

“Up in Area 3 it’s good block, good block, what’s wrong with this block,” Waldera said.

There wasn’t a lot that Waldera was able to share publicly about ongoing gang investigations and enforcement operations, but he did assure North Side residents that much of his unit’s police work goes unseen.

The Area 3 gang enforcement section, which oversees operations in the 19^th, 20^th, 23^rd and 24^th police districts, tracks and monitors all gangs and gang conflicts, documents gang hierarchies and leaders, and responds to all shootings and homicides to determine whether  or not the crimes are gang related. The unit also cultivates confidential informants who are paid for the information they provide.

“We have a very structured program. We can’t trust everybody, but they’ve been very helpful in Area 3,” Waldera said.

Three operations in Area 3 target gang leaders. The unit also works closely with federal law enforcement agencies including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency and Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and works with Chicago suburban police in Skokie, Evanston and the North Shore.

Area 3 holds monthly strategy meetings consisting of gang, tactical and saturation teams, gang enforcement and intelligence, CAPS, the narcotic and detective divisions, and high school officers, who review recent shootings and homicides.

There is also a “ten most wanted” list targeting the 10 most violent known gang members in Area 3, which encompasses Rogers Park, West Ridge, Ravenswood, North Center, Uptown and Lake View. Gang enforcement officers use every available resource, from the Mayor’s Gang Task Force to the Department of Buildings’ problem buildings section, which is able to root out gang members residing in rental buildings. The Illinois Department of Corrections also works extensively with Chicago police in identifying newly paroled gang members, who are often prohibited from reentering old gang turf as a condition of their parole.

“One guy getting paroled out after 10 years wants to take over again,” Waldera explained. “What we can do is get a geographic description on them. The parole violation sends them back to the penitentiary. It has been very successful and makes it harder for them to assume control.”

The oldest, Hispanic gang in the city is the Latin Kings, which has 70 different factions and over 3,000 active members. The Project Latin Kings caters in narcotics and has most of the Lathrop Homes along the Chicago River near Damen and Clybourn, under its control. Waldera said the Chicago Housing Authority has initiated a one-strike program that bans residents convicted of gang-related crimes from entering CHA properties. The CHA signs criminal trespassing complaints and works with Chicago Police gang investigators and the FBI in running sting operations at CHA properties.

The slaying of a top leader of a Latin King on the West Side 18 months ago has had a chilling effect on North Side Latin King gang members.

“”Like any organization, if they got strong leadership, wow, are they a problem,” Waldera said. “If you can take out the leaders it lessens our problems to some extent.”

Other gang hotspots include the 24^th Police District in Rogers Park, West Ridge and a portion of Edgewater. Belmont and Sheffield are still considered the purview of the Gangster Disciples, which is heavy into prostitution.

“It’s a nice area but 2, 3, 4, 5 o’clock in the morning it’s a very interesting place,” Waldera said.

The two main gang factions operating in the 20^th District are the Latin Kings and Gangster Disciples, distinguished by their “Lost World” tagging for Lawrence and Winthrop. The Conservative Vice Lords control Clarendon Park in the 23^rdDistrict, and the Black P Stones, which up until five years ago fought for control over the Lathrop Homes with the Project Latin Kings, are now ensconced on the 4400 and 4500 blocks of Magnolia. The P-Stones are also moving north from Winthrop and Winona into the 24^th District.

One case that continually nags at Waldera is the unsolved homicide of Truman College student Francis Oduro, an innocent bystander who was slain by gang crossfire near Broadway and Wilson in May 2008.

“We think [the Black P-Stones] are responsible. We’re fairly certain [the shooters] ran back to Magnolia,” Waldera said. “It’s probably our number one homicide and we’ve put in every extra effort that we can with that. We got informants out there and some leads. That’s one that we’d really like to solve.”

Gangs on the street aren’t as much of a problem as they are in schools. Schools have become active lately as hotbeds for gang recruitment, where most gang conflicts are resolved with violence. Area 3’s gang enforcement unit meets regularly with school officers to seek out conflicts.

“Silly as it sounds, someone might diss someone else’s girlfriend and all of sudden five people are being shot,” Waldera said. “You wouldn’t think that, but they’re young guys who don’t think of the ramifications. We hear there’s going to be a Latin King party and we’re all over that.”

What recourses to do community members have in rooting out gangs from their once pleasant, North Side neighborhoods? It may help to have the local alderman on your team. Citing a situation in the 47^th Ward two years ago, residents noticed an upsurge in tagging from Ashland Avenue west to the Chicago River and a sudden influx of Latin Kings where they weren’t there before.

Resident took photos of gang graffiti and sent them to Ald. Gene Schulter’s (47th) office. An astute staff aide immediately e-mailed them to the 19^th District CAPS office. Eventually, the photos landed on Waldera’s desk. The gang enforcement unit started a mission right away, contacted IDOC for new parolees, and enlisted paid informants to make drug buys at a Lawrence Avenue tavern.

“It was almost in real time,” Waldera said. “Turned out Thursday was Latin King night. They put up the butcher paper on the windows, opened the place up, it was really jumping.”

Police served the bar with a search warrant resulting in the arrests of 16 gang members, and wrote out 95 contact cards on the rest. The city shut down the bar.

“[911 calls] for shots fired and gangbangers all dropped,” Waldera said. “Six community members got awards from the Chicago Police Department. That’s the best way I’ve seen in how to handle that.”

Last month the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University released a study, which found a significant increase in Chicago rental vacancies, from 5 to 5.7 percent in the last year.

Such findings seem intuitive.

As the Chicago region’s unemployment rate rose to double digits throughout the recession, most recently nearing 10.6 percent, many renters were forced to leave their apartments, either doubling up with friends or moving back home.

But perhaps less intuitive is that the internal deficiencies within the pre-recession rental market may have directly caused our economic meltdown.

“The genesis of the subprime mortgage crisis is the lack of affordable housing,” says James Shilling, professor of finance at DePaul University and director of the Institute of Housing Studies.

While discussing his department’s recent study last month with Lake Effect News, Shilling dropped a policy bombshell, one that may change the way cities like Chicago approach the problem of affordable housing.

To comfortably afford the median rent of a two-bedroom apartment, $1,004 according to 2009 HUD guidelines, a family must earn more than $39,000 annually.

Currently, an estimated 550,000 Chicagoans demand affordable housing, according to Shilling, while the market bears but 350,000 such units, leaving at least 200,000 residents without a viable renting option.

The picture grows bleaker.

“Not only is it a big gap,” Shilling said, “but the gap is increasing over time.” In the next 15 years, Shilling estimates that 75,000 more residents will be in need of affordable housing, housing that costs 30 percent or less of a tenant’s income. And in that time the existing stock of affordable housing will continue to drop, Shilling said.

This stock has already been deeply compromised by the economic boom of the last decade.

“Because credit was flowing, people were buying and converting,” said Shilling, of affordable rental apartments. In an unfortunately ironic twist, this created a housing economy that allowed the seedlings of the subprime mortgage crisis to fester.

“People were finding that their monthly mortgage payment was at the same level of their rents, or maybe lower,” Shilling said.

And the ethically-questionable banks seized the day.

“The financial institutions responded by offering subprime mortgages,” added Shilling.

What ensued is old news. From 2007 to 2008, the United States lost an estimated $10 trillion in household wealth.

But the crisis is not over. A second wave of foreclosures is upon us.

In the next two years, “there is $1.3 trillion worth of commercial mortgages are that are coming due, a large part of which are multifamily loans,” Shilling said.

And as rental vacancies rise, Shilling contends, “we’re likely to have another round of defaults.” Building owners won’t have the necessary rents to pay their mortgages.

For a neighborhood like Uptown, in which an estimated 25 to 50 percent of residents are not finding affordable housing, the country’s response to the economic sequel of 2008 is critical.

“In Uptown and other places the consequences are huge,” Shilling said. “We really need a stabilizing force.”

But contrary to the aldermanic wisdom, which has invested more than $100 million to create 178 new affordable housing units, Shilling hopes both the state and federal governments step in to preserve existing buildings for affordable housing, not finance new ones.

“There are various government programs that encourage the construction of multifamily affordable housing,” said Shilling.

“In this current [economic] environment, that’s not what you want.”

The meeting will feature a panel of local experts who will discuss the challenges of dealing with condo construction defects, irresponsible or unresponsive developers and general contractors and the resulting excessive assessments. This issue faces many homeowners in today’s real estate market. Fioretti will use the meeting and the discussion there as a guide to development of legislation to help diminish future opportunities for shortchanging or penalizing owners and associations. The meeting will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at Merit School of Music, 38 S. Peoria St., Chicago, IL.

The 2nd Ward newsletter suggests these websites if you are having trouble with burgeoning mortgage payments: President Obama’s Making Home Affordable Program, and the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago encourages homeowners to apply for loan modifications through the President’s program when they face difficulty paying for their home in the current economic downturn. Additional information is available by calling the HAMP Support Center, at 866-939-4469.

Residential Parking Bulletin

Parking in the City is a perennial problem and since the City leased its parking meters, many residents of the 2nd Ward are calling for residential parking in their immediate area, particularly in Printer’s Row, the South Loop and the West Loop. The South and West Loop parking and traffic studies set up by the 2nd Ward office are nearing completion. In tandem with those studies, Ald. Fioretti expects to discuss the expansion of some residential parking zones in areas of the ward where parking is challenging.

If you live on a block where street parking is scarce and there are few or no garages and feel residential parking is warranted, you can contact Pasquale Neri at at (312) 263-9273. Mr. Neri is handling these requests and can provide all the necessary information, including what is necessary to start the process and the requirements of the Department of Revenue to create a residential parking zone.

2nd Ward Infrastructure Improvements Include Lighting and Trees

• New lighting is being installed on Wabash Avenue, from Roosevelt Road to Cermak Road. The date for the installation of this lighting is not yet set, but it will be coming around the time the Wabash reconstruction north of Roosevelt is completed in mid-November. These lights feature decorative poles and higher wattage bulbs.
• New trees were planted on 1400 block of West Van Buren Street. These trees were planted as a small part of a program to make West Side sidewalks and streets greener. Look for more trees to be growing soon!

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For the generations of McKeevers, Browns, Clarks, Jenkins, Thurmans, Austins, Grays, Lewises, Joneses, Colliers and Bakers that grew up on the 4600 block of North Winthrop, most thought it was just a place where their folks wanted to live.

The sons and daughters of railroad porters, department store clerks and domestics, the families that comprised the North Side’s oldest black community handled the cold reality of enforced segregation with aplomb, forming a close-knit extended family. Consigned as second class citizens to one short block in Uptown in the early 20th century, the families of Winthrop thrived. They held block parties, watched out for each other’s children, left their front doors unlocked, gathered on summer nights to watch outdoor movies beamed on the brick wall of a Hillman’s grocery store, started businesses, fought in two world wars, and did an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.

On Saturday, descendants of the first black families to settle on the 4600 block of North Winthrop turned ugliness into beauty once more, this time dedicating the Winthrop Avenue Family Historical Garden on a vacant lot once overgrown with weeds and trash.  Five years in the making, the project involved dozens of community groups, new Uptown residents and members of the original pioneer families.

Photo from Lake Effect News

“This has been an exciting process,” said Ald. Helen Shiller (46th), whose office played a major role in facilitating the garden for the Winthrop families. “It encompasses the history of our community in a unique way. The garden is a way to bring that history together in the present while acknowledging the past.

The dozen garden plots will be used by neighborhood groups to grow flowers and vegetables, with a plot front and center to be maintained by descendants of the original Winthrop families. Among the partners involved the project are NeighborSpace, the Chicago Department of the Environment, Greencorps Chicago, Uptown United, Manske Dieckmann Thompson architects, 46th Ward Streets and Sanitation, and Hitchcock Design Group.

Volunteers from Jesus People USA, McCormick Boys & Girls Clubs, Alternatives, Inc., Truman Square Neighbors, nearby condo associations, and the extended Winthrop Family also pitched in make the garden a reality.  The community garden will be held in perpetuity as a permanent green space for generations to come.

In her book, “Legends and Landmarks of Uptown,” author Jacki Lydon notes that in 1940:

“The Central Uptown Chicago Association spent $14,000 to get a city restriction which said that ‘No Negro person can buy, own, or rent property in this district except on that block which is inhabited entirely by Negros.’ That block was a hideaway corner of Winthrop Avenue between Wilson and Leland Avenues. A black chauffer, whose employer left him a home on the block in his will, was the first to live there… In order to obtain a legal injunction, the Central Uptown Chicago Association needed 90 percent of the neighborhood’s property owners to sign a petition. It took several years to collect the necessary number of signatures, since many property owners lived outside the neighborhood.” (Source: CompassRose)

Through its decades of legally enforced segregation, Winthrop Avenue produced the city’s first black priest, Rollins Lambert, to be ordained by the Archdiocese of Chicago, and one of its first black police detectives, Judson Jenkins. The small, white building that still stands today in the lot on the southeast corner of Winthrop and Leland, was home to Collier’s Famous Chicken, owned by one of the original Winthrop families and arguably the city’s finest fried chicken restaurant back in the day.

Members of the original families returned on Saturday for the garden’s dedication, gathering with new residents to barbecue and dance the afternoon away. Surviving family members who grew up on Winthrop during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s recalled the hideaway street, where, as a kid, “if you did something on one end of the block, before you reached the other end somebody, most likely your parents, would know about it.”

Earline Clark, matriarch of the Winthrop Avenue Family, recalled some of the early black families, many of them grandchildren and great-grandchildren of slaves, who migrated to Chicago from Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama.

“In 1910, soon to be 100 years, some of the first Afro-Americans, including my grandparents moved to Winthrop Avenue,” Clark said. “They came to Winthrop because it was the only block in Uptown that would rent to Afro-American families. The families became one big happy family. This happiness was due to the love and support they gave to each other.”

While segregated neighborhoods on the South Side, known as “the black belt” flourished, establishing their own business communities and churches, what made Winthrop unique was that it was one block on the North Side.

“There must have been some kind of underground communication among black folks that said, ‘Hey, ya’ll, come on up to Winthrop,’” recalled Emmanuel  Lewis, who grew up on the 4600 block during the 1950s. “We continued to grow as a family and stick together. There was no violence. Everybody looked out for each other.”

Tonia Lorenz said she was unaware of the block’s history when she bought her condominium in one of the street’s new buildings.

“When I moved here 11 years ago, I didn’t know [that the 4600 block] had an extended family that came with it,” said Lorenz, who with other Truman Square neighbors spent a lot of time filling dumpsters with trash and weeds from the vacant lot across the street from her building.

“The Winthrop Avenue pioneers had to deal with something far uglier than a weedy lot. They had to deal with enforced legal segregation, but they didn’t let it stand in their way,” Lorenz said.

While many of the original apartment buildings and rooming houses have been razed since the original families began moving away in the 1970s and 1980s, Saturday’s dedication was about family.

“This is the first block of Winthrop. This is where the street starts and keeps going north,” Lewis said. “It’s kind of ironic that this first block was inhabited by the most decent, dignified, classy black folks that I’ve ever been around in my life.”

With construction of the Wilson Yard development at Montrose and Broadway proceeding at breakneck speed, developer Peter Holsten can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, including an ongoing lawsuit filed by Fix Wilson Yard, rentals of the affordable senior housing units are targeted for next January, with affordable family housing units expected to open up in February. Smaller retail build-outs are expected to begin in April 2010, followed by the grand opening of the new Target in July 2010.

Artist rendering of Wilson Yard development from 46th Ward website

“I think it will be a nice set of amenities for the neighborhood,” said Holsten, president of Holsten Real Estate Development, the Wilson Yard project’s sole developer.

Holsten said his firm will begin reviewing a waiting list of prospective tenants for the senior and family housing next month. The firm will also start advertising, putting up signs and placing ads.

“We’ll be marketing to Truman College. It will be good to have folks just walking to work,” Holsten said. “We’ll get the word out to Truman and neighborhood groups.”

In an interview with Chicago Journal last December, Holsten said they’ll be looking for tenants “who are working and are good citizens.”  Just how mixed the housing will be in terms of income is still being debated by some community members, who claim that most if not all of the rental units will be below market rate.

Holsten, whose firm has built more than $500 million in affordable, mixed-income and low-income housing developments, as well as commercial developments throughout the city, said they’ll be looking for a balance of tenants with annual household incomes of $20,000, $30,000 and $40,000, with the cutoff being $50,000.

“We’re very management intensive. We’re in people’s faces all the time,” Holsten told Chicago Journal last year. “We’ll screen tenants and do monthly apartment checks for overpopulation, cleanliness, etc.”

The current recession, however, is affecting commercial space rentals. Holsten said the development has 23,000 square feet of commercial storefronts to lease, one-third of which has been leased to an AT&T cellular store, a Subway sandwich shop, a nail salon, and a game’s store.

“This is a very tough retail market,” Holsten said. “Not a lot of retail [companies] are expanding right now.”

Holsten said his firm is talking to and/or in negotiation with prospective national retail and restaurant tenants including Chili’s, Sally’s Beauty Supply and XSport Fitness. Talks are also in progress with the Panera Bread Company to lease the corner space at Broadway and Montrose.

“We don’t have a commitment yet,” Holsten said of Panera Bread, who described Panera as “seriously looking.”

Holsten will also be reaching out to non-profit groups to lease available commercial space. One possibility is an adult daycare provider for the 3,000-square-foot retail space on the ground floor of the senior housing building.

As for other possible non-profit tenants: “The rents may be a little out of reach along Broadway,” Holsten said.

By LISC Chicago’s New Communities Program

Enjoy three short tours of South Chicago online, thanks to YoChicago.com and NewHomeNotebook.com.

Class instructor Dean Rennie (red shirt, front row), with students Carmika Young and DeAndre Estes. In second row are Joel Jacinto, Paul McNealy, Charleston R. Motley, Nathan Hudson and Burke Greenwood. Photo by Eric Young Smith

Residents of four New Communities Program (NCP) neighborhoods completed training for entry-level, green-collar jobs earlier this summer under a pilot program launched at the Local Economic Employment Development (LEED) Council.

The 27 residents, referred by NCP lead agencies Logan Square Neighborhood Association, Greater Auburn-Gresham Development Corp., Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance and Claretian Associates of South Chicago, enrolled in the five-week training program to learn weatherization skills.

The LEED Council — a nonprofit CDC serving businesses in the North River Industrial Corridor from Milwaukee Avenue, Kinzie and DesPlaines (southeast) to Belmont Avenue and the Kennedy Expressway (northwest) — provided the curriculum and training in its building at 1866 N. Marcey St. LISC/Chicago provided funding through NCP.

President Obama has said that for the U.S. to truly transform the economy, protect our security and save the environment from the ravages of climate change, the country needs profitable and renewable sources of energy – a green economy – to be competitive.

Weatherization is one of the fastest-growing segments of the green economy, offering career opportunities in protecting the interiors of single and multi-family buildings, building maintenance and property management, and jobs in energy efficiency with additional training and education, said Margie Gonwa, LEED director of workforce development.

“We want to prepare people with good skills,” she said.

“This field is really going to explode,” said Dennis Rennie, LEED skills trainer. “A lot of what people learn here will become mandatory by the government. The Obama administration is pushing real hard to get things rolling. This will create jobs, lots of jobs.”

Hoping for Explosion
That’s what Juan Martinez of South Chicago is hoping. Martinez currently does not have permanent employment and is working side jobs in construction as a day laborer.

The 27-year-old said participating in the training program offers “the opportunity to be informed and gain more job skills.” He will take the knowledge he learns from the program and use it with his 15 years of experience in construction to make his next job better and smarter. “I like to do things the right way and by the book,” he said.

Carmika Young, also of South Chicago and unemployed, had no construction experience and knew nothing about weatherization prior to the program.

“But it sounds like a good program,” said the 27-year-old. “I’m always up for learning new stuff. I figured I could do this. And it will be helpful for the community, that’s another plus.”

Beyond the nuts-and-bolts of weatherization, the LEED Council hopes to impart a broader sense of energy conservation-related issues. Photo by Eric Young Smith

The pilot program fits into LISC/Chicago’s goal to build sustainable communities, which includes fostering a livable, safe and healthy environment.

One of the program’s goals, said Gonwa, is to prepare a pool of people who would take the results of an energy audit and implement a work plan. This could include adding insulation to an attic and applying caulking and weather stripping to doors and windows. In an extreme situation the people in the program would replace windows, she said.

The program combines classroom instruction in math, measurement and energy efficiency principles with hands-on, workshop-based training in carpentry, house sealing and mechanical systems. Jobs as energy auditors require higher levels of job training, said Gonwa, adding that another program goal is to prepare people for jobs beyond weatherization.

Beyond the nuts-and-bolts of weatherization, the LEED Council hopes to impart a broader sense of energy conservation-related issues.

The training program included field trips to home improvement stores like Home Depot to check out weatherization materials and different window types. Program participants visited homes to observe a weatherization in progress — or to do the actual work themselves.

A Broader Vision
In addition to the field trips, the LEED Council building has a mock up of a house for participants to get hands-on experience installing insulation or caulking.

“We don’t want to train people for a task – to caulk a window or nail a door sweep,” Gonwa said. “We want them to have a more conceptual framework about how energy efficiency affects people, a building and the planet. We want people to learn the effects of the task they are doing.”

Gonwa said with the advent of the assembly line in the manufacturing industry, people were taught to do one task. Workers in the auto industry, for example, learned to install windows in a car while another group of workers installed the hood.

The LEED Council envisions a different approach for the 21^st Century. “We want to make this training as a foundation to move around in the energy efficiency field,” she said.

Dean Rennie shows students how to weatherize a window sash. Photo by Eric Young Smith

Program participant Alanda Turner has watched a lot of the construction on Chicago’s West Side through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Turner, 41, of East Garfield Park, said the skills she learned would be put to good use as she helps her father, who owns property, renovate his buildings, and in her work with the non-profit Community Male Empowerment Project.

Burke Greenwood, an architect from Logan Square, entered the program because of his interest in community growth. The 36-year-old said he will use the skills he acquires to rehab existing housing as well as work with new construction.

“This [the training] will make sure housing is built right and energy efficient,” Greenwood said.

For Terrence James of Auburn-Gresham, the program is an opportunity to build up his resume and skills. The 38-year-old is an ex-offender who was released from prison after serving 17 years. James has experience in landscaping, volunteer work, planted flowers and demolition. He sees the program as a way to “get into my own business of heating, ventilation, air conditioning and self-growth.”

The LEED Council is assisting graduates with job placement. Gonwa said the pilot program is testing out the curriculum, the program design and partnerships. Once the pilot is completed, there will be a review and revisions.

“We want to be ahead of the curve to develop, revise curriculum and align ourselves with different entities which are going to get weatherization money,” she said.  “Other agencies do energy weatherization training just as we do this pilot.”

The LEED Council also will identify and set up meetings with contractors who are expected to do weatherization for the City of Chicago, Chicago Housing Authority, and the Community of Economic Development Association (CEDA) of Cook County.

In addition, the agency will look at other employers who don’t do government work, such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning companies, as well as home retrofitting and weatherization businesses.

“We would like to implement this as a permanent course starting in the fall,” Gonwa said. “We need funding and we need employer relationships beyond the course.”

The Chicago Plan Commission has given a thumbs up to a new South Loop dormitory that could house 1,200 students.  If the plan receives approval from City Council, the 37-story dorm at the corner of East Van Buren Street and South Wasbash Avenue could be finished by 2012.

Despite the Plan Commission approval, Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd) is not completely sold on the project because of  its impact on vandalism and other crimes in the neighborhood.

“I’ve talked with the police department, and we’ve been working on vandalism, and serial graffiti in the area,” said Fioretti at last month’s Plan Commission meeting. “We have proof that the crimes increase every fall and every spring, and every summer and winter they decrease,” he said.

And there is a second problem which Plan Commission member Lyneir Richardson raised – there is still not a college or university attached to the project.

“I don’t want the building to get built, and then sit there for months or years while you wait for someone to purchase the space,” said Richardson, the only commission member to vote against the project.

The dorm plans have been stalled for nearly a year, and according to Plan Commission Chair Linda Searl, it was finally time to “move forward.”

The dorm developer, Buckingham/Wabash LLC,  is confident the space will be leased.  The company constructed a 27-story building, Buckingham Phase I,  adjacent to the proposed dorm which Columbia College now leases for student housing.

The developers zoning lawyer, John J. George said there is nothing set in stone at the moment, but he is hopeful Columbia College will also lease Buckingham Phase II.

Columbia’s Residence Life office has heard nothing about the project and the college’s Campus Environment Office was unavailable for comment.

The architect plans for Buckingham Phase II  include common areas for residents on the first two floors, as well as restaurants and shops. The roof  would be eco-friendly with plants and flower to absorb the heat and to help cool the building .

There are other issues surrounding the project other than finding a tenant and crime. South Loop resident Enrique Perez shared his concerns in an e-newsletter.  Perez wrote that he was worried the people in the neighborhood were not included in the discussion before the proposal went to the Plan Commission.

“I am primarily opposed to the Wabash building because no community meeting has been held to discuss this development,” said Perez. “…The local community deserves the opportunity to weigh in on these issues with city officials before this massive development is approved.”

Ald. Fioretti told the commission that the plan for the building would be presented at neighborhood association meetings before anything was finalized, but Ald. Fioretti’s office had no community meeting scheduled at this time.

June 22, 2009 – Amid its recurring budget crisis, the State of Illinois has yet to comply with a ten-year-old Supreme Court ruling that would save money by giving nursing home residents the choice of moving out and obtaining less expensive community services.

And projected budget cuts could increase the cost of noncompliance.

Disability rights advocates will gather Monday (June 22, 11:00 a.m., State of Illinois Building, 100 W. Randolph) to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which found that denying people with disabilities alternatives to institutional care violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Ten years later, Illinois’ method of allocating long-term Medicaid funds — heavily weighted toward nursing homes — forces people who want to live with their families and friends into institutional settings, because community-based services are chronically unavailable, said Gary Arnold of Access Living.

And there’s imminent danger that it could get worse — Illinois “could move backwards on Olmstead if the current budget is implemented,” he said. Cuts in funding for home services — providing the personal assistants who allow people to living independently — could force more people into nursing homes.

Since home services are far cheaper than nursing home care — costing half as much or less, by one estimate; saving as much as $36,000 a year per individual, by another — the state’s failure to comply only adds to its fiscal problems. It reflects the political connections and large campaign contributions of the state’s nursing home lobby, advocates say.

In recent years, efforts in the state legislature to bring Illinois’s funding system for long-term care into compliance have been blocked, and the state has fought lawsuits charging it with violating Olmstead (though a settlement in one case is pending judicial approval).

After disability activists pressured the state to participate in a federal grant program to encourage de-institutionalization, a maze of state agencies took so long working out departmental perogatives and budgets — and created such a complex bureaucratic process — that after three years, only one person has been moved out of an institutions, said Tom Wilson of Access Living.

In the past twelve months, Access Living has helped three dozen people move out of nursing homes and into community settings, he said.

Along with Access Living and the ACLU, Equip for Equality has filed three class action lawsuits charging Illinois with violating Olmstead. In Ligas v. Maram, filed on behalf of 6,000 people with developmental disabilities who now live in large private facilities, a settlement has been reached and is set to be ruled on next month, said Barry Taylor of Equip for Equality. The settlement would require annual independent reviews for all residents of such facilities, and establish a timetable for moving those who so choose into community settings, he said.

Similar settlements in two similar suits — one on behalf of 5,000 people with mental illness living in private institutions and one for 30,000 people with disabilities in nursing homes — would “move us along very far toward compliance,” Taylor said. He notes that the state is still litigating those suits, as it did with Ligas up to the trial date last year. But there’s also been a change of administration since then, he adds.

Roonie Bradford, who’ll join Taylor at the speaker’s podium Monday, just got out of a nursing home in September, thanks to Access Living’s de-institutionalization program. He ended up there without intending to: after a landlord took his rent but didn’t pay his water bill, Bradford went to the police station, the city’s Department of Aging was called, and he found himself spending several months in a series of homes.

He tells of weekend passes being arbitrarily revoked, and nurses refusing to give him pain medication for severe arthritis according to his prescription. Now 59, he’s used a wheelchair for years, since being seriously injured in a fall while working as a window washer.

In one nursing home a staff member put him in touch with Access Living. In the next, the business office demanded he sign his disability check over to them. “They were already getting $4,500 from the state for me,” he said. “They told me I owed them another $1,300.” He called a friend who took him out to lunch, and he never returned. Within days Access Living’s program workers had approved an apartment for him and provided a security deposit and first month’s rent check, along with furniture and kitchenware.

“It feels like I broke out of jail,” said Bradford. “I’m independent. I can sit in my yard when I want to.”

The nursing homes “don’t want to let you go because they want that money they get from the state,” he said.

“Now I visit everyone I know in nursing home and bring them folders with information on how to get out. They won’t let me into the wards because they know I’m with Access Living, but they let me go in the dining room.

“I want to help as many people as I can to get out. Because it’s not a nice place to live.”

June 3, 2009 – A condominium development in Wicker Park might soon be  Chicago’s first residential property to receive a top green ranking by the U.S. Green Building Council, a nonprofit that promotes green technology in building construction.

According to USGBC,  110 commercial building’s in Illinois meet the energy efficiency criteria and green standards that earn a top LEED certification.  LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.   Seventy-one of those buildings are in Chicago including the Exelon headquarters and the nonprofit Center for Neighborhood Technology.  Both have the group’s premiere LEED ranking of platinum, but so far no residential building in Chicago is platinum certified.

Tom McGrath, a Wicker Park developer,  hopes his near Northwest  Side condo project is the first.  McGrath said Wicker Park is the perfect spot for the groundbreaking construction.

Work has already started on the garage of  McGrath’s two-flat development on N. Honore St. that  he hopes will earn that coveted platinum ranking.

McGrath’s garage will use Smart meters that allow residents to see how much electricity they are using every day, instead of every month.  The project will also have a canopy of solar panels.

McGrath started on the garage portion of his development first, so he could tap the electricity generated by the solar-powered garage for the rest of the construction.

Sixty-five percent of the energy used in McGrath’s condo will be solar generated and should produce between 650 and 700 kilowatts per month, he said.  McGrath said that energy-efficient windows and insulation are among the most important investments for a green builder.

“The world needs to drastically change,” says McGrath. “Only one percent of buildings each year are being constructed green.  We need to change that in this community by doing at least one at a time.”

According to the Center of Neighborhood Technology’s Rachel Scheu, the key features of  green buildings are energy and water efficiency, eco-friendly ventilation and insulation,  plus the use of recycled materials in materials like carpets, wall panels and flooring.

“We look at everything including paints, carpets, ventilation, insulation and  low-flow water systems,” said Scheu.

Ald. Manny Flores (1st) said his Ward is a great location for green building technology because of the residents’ environmental and social values.

Federal grants of up to $25,000 are available to developers of green construction projects, according to city’s Department of Environment.  Developers can use the money for heating and cooling systems such as solar water heaters, solar panels and geothermal electricity.

According to the City of Chicago Sustainable Development Policy financial assistance will be given to multi-unit green buildings including money for building certification costs.

June 1, 2009 – Hyde Park on Chicago’s South Side is generally considered an upscale community with lakefront property, moderate-to-high-income households and the Midwest home of President Barack Obama.

But as the economy worsens, Hyde Park demonstrates that even a neighborhood with a median household income of $44,142 is not immune to the mortgage foreclosure crisis.

Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) expressed her concern for her constituents at a foreclosure prevention and intervention seminar held in April.

“Hyde Park is right in the middle of the pack when it comes to foreclosures,” said Hairston.  “We don’t have the most, but we definitely don’t have the fewest.”

According to Irma Morales of the Chicago Department of Community Development, there were 13,872 foreclosures in Chicago in 2007.  That number rose to 20,592 in 2008 with 68 foreclosures in Hyde Park.  The department expects the number to continue rising in 2009.  According to the Woodstock Institute and EveryBlock.com, there have already been 21 foreclosures in Hyde Park this year.

“We all know the foreclosure crisis is a national epidemic,” said Gregg Brown, president of the South Side Community Credit Union.  “But now we’re starting to see it hit closer to home, in our communities.”

In fact, some foreclosed homes in Hyde Park are abandoned.  Paula Grantt, Business Development Officer at Shore Bank and a Hyde Park resident, said that when buildings sit abandoned in a neighborhood they can cause property values to drop and increase the crime rate of an area.

“It becomes a blight on the neighborhood,” said Ald. Hairston.  “In our ward, we’re cracking down hard [on maintaining abandoned buildings].  You’ve got to have it secured, you’ve got to have it boarded-up, you’ve got to have it lit.  We still have active people living in the community with these abandoned buildings.”

Hairston said banks that own the mortgages on the buildings will eventually be fined by the city if the properties are not kept up.

Mike van Zalingen of the group Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago said that about 20 percent of  foreclosures in the city will be prevented by homeowners who work with their lenders and applying for loan modifications.

Hairston said education and support are key in preventing and fixing mortgage foreclosures.  “It’s not that people are unaware,” said Hairston.  “It’s that they’re scared and embarrassed. Educated people who have always paid their bills on time are finding themselves losing their jobs and not being able to pay their mortgages.  These are my constituents, people who have fallen on rough economic times and people on fixed incomes.  These are the people I am trying to help.”

May 26, 2009 – After being shuttered for 20 years, St. Boniface church is nearing salvation, or destruction.

A 90 day hold on the church’s demolition expired March 5, but talks about the building’s future continue. The city and the archdiocese are currently looking into a land-swap deal as a last resort to preserve the 105-year-old near West Side church.

Jonathan Fine, executive director of  Preservation Chicago, a non-profit devoted to preserving historic architecture, said if the land-swap goes through, the city would work with a private developer to turn St. Boniface into an assisted living center.

St. Boniface raises a related issue that has pitted preservationists against church leaders. A clause in the city’s landmarks ordinance requires the consent of a church before a building can be dedicated as a landmark—a privilege not afforded to private owners. However, the clause only applies to churches that are currently being attended.  In the case of St. Boniface, the city can technically grant landmark status because it has been shuttered, but the issue remains relevant.

Church leaders say it is a matter of separating church from state, while preservationists argue that religious organizations are given unnecessary advantages.

“It’s a matter of real estate,” Fine said. “[The Archdiocese] just don’t want people to tell them what to do with their property.  They have never been interested in seeing it preserved for any historical reason.”

Although the Archdiocese has received offers to preserve the building, none of them has been enough to cover the actual value of the property, Fine said.
In the past, the Archdiocese has estimated they would need a $25 million donation to salvage St. Boniface.

Even though the building has been deteriorating for 20 years, Lee Bey, a former architecture critic for the Sun-Times who also worked as deputy chief of staff for Mayor Daley, said the building can be preserved.  He said preservationists do a good job of raising awareness about at-risk buildings, but often expect the developer to make the building pay for itself.

“The question is the millions upon millions it will cost,” Bey said. “Could they not just build a church from the ground up, using new architecture? Make it sustainable, green and actually benefit the community better that way, instead of saving a relic at a cost that will be astronomical.”

Martin Jablonski, a real estate advisor for the Archdiocese, said each religious organization must be able to adapt to the mission of that church and the parishioners. Sometimes, instead of a church, they need a gymnasium, a library or a school he said.

“That is not just a landmark special exemption, but it goes back to the constitution separating church from state,” he said.

Some argue the clause, which indirectly provides the right to demolish, gives this special right to one group of private owners at the expense of the well-being of Chicago.

“Church owners have undertaken the demolition themselves in order to engage in land-banking for later sale—all under the guise of religious freedom,” Fine said, while explaining the clause.

With pressure from both preservationists and the Archdiocese, the building remains standing but unoccupied as talks continue.

“I’d be hard pressed as to hazard a guess whether it will be weeks or months,” Jablonski said. “It’s a complex matter involving several agencies and subsets within the archdiocese in terms of coming to an appropriate [agreement].”

The landmarks commission of Chicago wouldn’t comment on the progress of the closed-door meetings beyond the March statement that reads, “The City continues to work with Ald. Walter Burnett, Jr. (27th), and the Archdiocese to find a viable reuse option to preserve the building and is considering a possible ‘swap’ with the Archdiocese of the St. Boniface property for a publicly-owned property.”

In this situation an agreement needs to be reached between the archdiocese and the city sometime soon, although it is unclear what that agreement would look like.

“We hope that [the deal goes through] because it looks like it’s the absolutely only thing that will save the church from demolition,” Fine said.

“There are some wonderful things they could do with the church structure that would preserve it architecturally from the exterior, but also provide large public spaces that would preserve some of those interior spaces,” Fine said. “There have been lots of opportunities to save this building over the years, and we’re hoping this one will work.”

Currently there are 363 open parishes, according to the Archdiocese of Chicago Web site.  Of those, there are four parishes nearby St. Boniface: Holy Innocence, St. Stanislaus, Holy Trinity and St. John Cantius.  Jablonski said he would guess that most of the St. Boniface congregation migrated to Holy Innocence after St. Boniface closed in 1989.

“As with any time they closed a parish, there were a minimum of three years that were dedicated to meetings because you’re really talking about upsetting, not just bricks and mortar, but social connections that people have,” he said.

In an email conversation with Peggy Lavelle, an archivist for the Archiocese, she named six Catholic churches in the Chicago area currently on the National Register of Historic Places: Holy Name Cathedral, Notre Dame de Chicago, St. James at Sag Bridge (church and cemetery) in Lemont, Old St. Patrick’s, St. Thomas the Apostle and Holy Family in North Chicago.
Currently, there are only three buildings owned by the Archdiocese with city landmark status — the Assumption School Building on Illinois St., the Cardinal Meyer Center (an office building) and St. Gelasius Church, Lavelle said.

St. Gelasius was landmarked by the city in 2004. The main difference between the two churches is that St. Gelasius was in better condition than St. Boniface, Fine said.

Bey, who examined St. Boniface in 2003 for Mayor Daley as his deputy chief of staff, said St. Boniface is an interesting case.

“Clearly there other churches in Chicago that are more beautiful, that are more worthy of landmark status just on the basis of architecture,” Bey said.

On a scale of one to ten, ten being the most beautiful church in Chicago, Bey gave St. Boniface a five, and said it’s an average church of its era. But the location of the church plays a larger role.

“What makes St. Boniface interesting is that it’s built to a proper scale—as a building it’s not to big, and it’s not too small,” he said. “There’s a park across the street, and there’s a good relationship physically and visibly between the park and the church. It’s kind of like an ensemble—[an] ensemble that’s worth maintaining.”