Logan Square Neighborhood Association latest news

Northeastern Illinois University to Receive AACTE Award for Support of Global Diversity

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

(Feb. 6, 2012, Washington, D.C.) – The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) will present its 2012 Best Practice Award in Support of Global Diversity to the Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) College of Education. The award, which recognizes a school, college or department of education that fosters diversity, equity and global awareness as core elements of its teacher education program(s), will be presented February 19 at AACTE's 64th Annual Meeting in Chicago.

According to the AACTE Committee on Global Diversity, which oversees the award, the NEIU College of Education's integrated curriculum, aggressive recruitment of underrepresented students, strong community ties and evident impact on the profession helped to make it a clear choice for this year's award. NEIU's institutional mission is closely aligned with the College of Education's conceptual framework, which emphasizes reflection, collaboration and transformation. Moreover, equity, diversity and global awareness are embedded within the curriculum and community based field experiences designed to serve high-need schools. Identified as a Hispanic-Serving Institution, NEIU produces the largest number of teachers of color in the region.

In addition, the institution and the college, through its collaboration with the state-based Grow Your Own Teachers (GYO) program, has formed close partnerships with local organizations and school districts to recruit parents, community members and paraprofessionals from low-income communities into the teaching profession. NEIU currently manages five of the 16 GYO programs in Illinois. Impact on the community is evident by the 22 GYO graduates who, as of May 2012, are or will be practicing teachers in schools throughout Chicago, the 105 GYO candidates who are still in their preparation programs and the additional 21 students in the GYO pipeline at partner community colleges.

“Northeastern Illinois University's Grow Your Own Teachers program has developed into a source of talented teachers who are not only dynamic pedagogues, but also change agents who intimately understand the neighborhoods in which they live and teach,” said Maureen Gillette, Ph.D., dean of NEIU's College of Education. “Their personal experiences and commitment to their communities strengthen their ability to relate to students, parents, local school council members and others in a way we have never seen before. GYO provides the opportunity for NEIU faculty and our GYO community based partners to exchange expertise on the campus and in the community in ways that improve teacher preparation and the communities we serve.”

“Through the Grow Your Own Teachers program, Northeastern Illinois University's College of Education has demonstrated its leadership and success in collaborating with communities to develop competent, dedicated and culturally aware teachers who are committed to making a difference in their neighborhood schools,” said Sharon Hahs, Ph.D., president of NEIU. “This initiative is an outstanding example of our faculty's commitment to preparing a diverse community of students for leadership and service in Chicago and the world.”

Find more information on AACTE's 2012 award winners at www.aacte.org.

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AACTE: Serving Learners The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education is a national alliance of educator preparation programs dedicated to the highest quality professional development of teachers and school leaders in order to enhance PK-12 student learning. The 800 institutions holding AACTE membership represent public and private colleges and universities in every state, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Guam. AACTE's reach and influence fuel its mission of serving learners by providing all school personnel with superior training and continuing education

The Chicago Tribune & SPS' Big Lie"

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Judging from the Tribune’s attack on its co-chair, the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force must really be raising some hackles among the editorial board’s friends at the Board of Education, in the mayor’s office, and among the coterie of rich folks who are pushing what’s come to be called “school reform.”

Though the task force passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on school closings and other actions, the Trib focuses on Rep. Cynthia Soto. In their zeal to lash out, the editorialists get a lot wrong.

First of all, of course, it was the task force that issued the call for a moratorium, after a public hearing where – as happens every year – parents and teachers complained about a CPS decision-making process that ignores their input.

Second, the Trib declares that legislators shouldn’t meddle in school closing decisions. But the task force is mandated by the legislature to monitor compliance with the new school facilities planning requirements, which the legislature passed in 2009.

It includes legislators along with representatives of CPS, teachers, principals, and community groups, and it represents a first step at giving the public a real voice in the process.

Prior to the task force, there was virtually no accountability for CPS decisions — not since mayoral control was established in 1995. Clearly, some people want to keep it that way.

‘Not in compliance’
“CPS’s historic and continuing lack of transparency and evidence-based criteria for decisions resulted in the pervasive climate of public suspicion about what drives CPS to take school actions and allocate resources, often in ways perceived to be highly inequitable,” as the task force noted in a recent resolution.

The Tribune argues that school closing decisions should be made locally. Sure they should. But does that mean they should be made by downtown administrators with no input from the schools and their communities? The Trib thinks so. The task force says no.

The Tribune’s argument hinges on ignoring the real reason for the moratorium call. The editorial cites a quote from Soto about the new administration needing time to get to know communities better. It ignores the task force resolution, passed this month with only the dissent of the CPS representative, that the school district is “not in compliance” with the requirements of transparency and open process mandated by the law.

The task force maintains that the new CPS guidelines for school actions are just too sweeping. It makes any school designated by CPS as “level 3″ (or probationary) for two years eligible for any of five types of school actions, leaving the field wide open for central office administrators to pick and choose as they like. There’s no way to tell why one school has been chosen over another, or why it’s being subjected to closure rather than any other action. That’s not transparent.

The standard also raises serious questions about CPS’s performance policy, which uses arcane and often-shifting formulas under which better-performing schools can end up on probation. And, as the task force has noted, it raises questions as to whether CPS has met its statutory obligations to plan and assist schools on probation.
The new facilities law requires CPS to consider non-academic factors, but the new guidelines merely list factors to be considered, with no indication of what standards will be applied. That’s not transparent.

For example, how exactly is CPS “considering” student safety – when it’s closing Crane High School and sending students to other high schools where community leaders and elected officials insist they will be in danger?

A policy of disinvestment
Task force members say CPS violated the law when it took no account of public comments on its school action guidelines, and when it issued revamped school utilization standards that ignore the law’s requirements.

They say a $660 million capital plan that shovels money to turnarounds and charters and systematically starves struggling schools (making explicit a longtime practice) violates the facilities law’s requirement of equity in the distribution of resources. CPS is cutting off schools “if we think there’s a chance” they might be closed in five or ten years, chief operating officer Tim Cawley said.

It certainly gives the lie to CPS rhetoric about “a great school for every child.”

On top of it all, the abuses at Guggenheim Elementary, where a new principal was suddenly replaced and an acting principal brought in by CPS set about telling parents the school’s closing is a done deal and they needed to transfer – and the appearance of outsiders paid (by whom?) to support school closings — raise serious questions about the integrity of the public hearing process.

The Tribune can write that “CPS officials followed [the facilities] law.” No doubt they heard that directly from CPS. But the official body tasked with monitoring compliance with the law doesn’t think so. That ought to count for something – a mention, at least.

The Trib argues that since it’s impossible to close every school CPS has declared “failing” – nearly of third of its schools – the only alternative is Jean-Claude Brizard’s “smart long-term strategy” of closing schools and creating charters and turnarounds.

Of course there’s another alternative to the CPS disinvest-and-close approach, articulated recently in a Neighborhood Schools Agenda put forward by a number of community groups – groups that have quite arguably had much greater success improving schools than CPS has. Since the vast majority of CPS students attend neighborhood schools, they argue, CPS is obligated to invest in those schools.

The constant refrain of CPS officials to critics of school closings is that “we can’t wait another year” to send students to better schools. It’s repeated so often that it bears close examination.

It could qualify as the Big Lie of school reform. Even accepting the premise – ignoring the fact that 15 years of mayoral control, school closings, reconstitution and turnarounds have had no significant impact on achievement, or studies that show many minority students are actually worse-served by charters – this “smart, long-term strategy” forces the vast majority of students to wait, indeed to finish out their public school educations in schools which are being intentionally neglected.

Soto’s original school facilities legislation (contrary to the impression given by the Tribune) included a one-year moratorium along with thorough reform of facilities planning. Soto thought it would take time to realign the process so schools and communities could have a real voice.

This year’s experience clearly confirms that judgment. It seems the CPS administration ain’t ready for real school reform. Maybe, to paraphrase another local saying, they should wait till next year.

Aldermen OK Chicago ward remap by enough votes to avoid referendum

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Click for interactive map.

Chicago voters will not have to choose between rival versions of a new ward map when they go to the polls March 20 — but whether a costly legal challenge can be avoided is still an open question.

Without a vote to spare, the City Council on Thursday approved a new Chicago ward map that includes 13 Hispanic wards and two Hispanic “influence” wards” to reward Hispanics for their 25,218-person population gain in the 2010 U.S. Census.

The new map that endangers roughly a half-dozen incumbents also includes 18 black wards, down from 19 currently, despite a 181,453-person drop in Chicago’s black population.

It takes 41 aldermen to avoid a referendum that could set the stage for a lawsuit.

The final vote was 41 to 8. No votes were cast by Aldermen Bob Fioretti (2nd); Roderick Sawyer (6th); Michael Zalewski (23rd); Michael Chandler (24th); Scott Waguespack (32nd); Nick Sposato (36th); Rey Colon (35th) and John Arena (45th).

“A challenge and a referendum costs money. The city can’t afford $20 million for a lawsuit. Hopefully, this map will avoid that,” said Rules Committee Chairman Richard Mell (33rd), who nearly came to blows with Ald. Carrie Austin (34th) at one point during the deliberations.

Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th), Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s City Council floor leader, acknowledged that Thursday’s vote is no guarantee against a lawsuit.

“Nobody’s certain that wouldn’t happen. People file lawsuits all the time. All we could do is strive to have the largest number of City Council members available so that we would not have a referendum — and that’s what we’ve achieved,” O’Connor said.

Fioretti and Sposato, their political survival threatened, tried to “postpone the inevitable,” as Sposato put it, by exercising the right of any two aldermen to delay consideration of any matter for one meeting.

But Emanuel’s forces used an obscure parliamentary maneuver to prevent the delay — by ruling that matters directly introduced to the City Council can’t be postponed.

They were that determined to put the divisive issue to rest and to prevent the hard-fought deal from unraveling.

“This has been hundreds and hundreds of hours worth of meetings and hundreds and hundreds of times staring at a computer and drawing boundaries. This isn’t a rush. This has taken longer than the Sistine Chapel,” O’Connor said.

When Fioretti was informed of the maneuver, he started yelling at an Emanuel operative.

“When somebody comes with a lawsuit, that may be a count. … Whoever challenges it will probably win under an equal protection count,” said Fioretti, who finds himself living in the newly-drawn 28th Ward because of a bizarre, snake-like configuration that pushed the 2nd Ward as far north as Wrightwood to reunite Lincoln Park.

Sposato — whose ward would go from 32 percent Hispanic to 61.2 percent — blasted his colleagues for using heavy-handed tactics to ram through a map that the public has not seen and was still being tweaked hours before the vote.

“What is their rush? You have three years [until] the next election,” Sposato said.

“There’s no doubt in my mind the city is gonna get sued over this and we’re gonna have to be spending money that we don’t have to defend a lawsuit. That’s what I’m mad about.”

The current City Council is comprised of 22 whites, 19 blacks, eight Latinos and Ald. Ameya Pawar (47th), who is of Indian descent.

Hispanic majority wards are at least 60 percent Latino, influence wards 35 percent to 40 percent, and super-majority wards at least 65 percent.

The political version of musical chairs could leave several incumbent aldermen without seats when the music stops.

Ald. Toni Foulkes (15th) would be remapped out of her South Side Ward, which would go from majority black to 68.3 percent Hispanic. That would either force her to move and run for re-election in a majority Hispanic ward or stay where she is and challenge fellow incumbent black Ald. Joann Thompson (16th).

Ald. Michael Zalewski’s 23rd ward would go from 54 percent Hispanic to more than 60 percent.

Zalewski remains adamantly opposed to the changes, but he did not join in the failed attempt to put off Thursday’s vote.

“If you’re gonna have your tooth pulled, let’s get it done today and not wait until tomorrow,” he said.

Moments after the odyssey ended, Emanuel hailed the vote as a political “milestone” — but not as important as another one.

“Last night we had a milestone. It was the first time in about a year where the city did not have a single shooting or a single homicide,” the mayor said, as aldermen applauded.

“And while the political boundaries are important, I don’t think there’s a person in this room [who] doesn’t know that what happened last night into the wee hours of the morning was not more important to this city’s future.”

"a cord of three strands" is on Best Books of 2011

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0600

"a cord of three strands" is on Teaching for Change's best books of 2011. Here.

New jobs don't really help displaced factory workers

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0600

It’s coming up on six years since a group of then-soon-to-be-unemployed factory workers sat me down in a church basement to sketch out what quite honestly struck me as a quixotic proposal.

Their employer, Cooper Lamp Co., was shutting down its big old factory on Diversey Parkway just east of the Kennedy, and the workers had teamed up with some of the building’s neighbors in hopes of preventing it from following the fate of seemingly every other old industrial building on the North Side — conversion to residential condos.

Their goal, they said, was to make sure future owners of the landmark building used it in some way that would continue to generate jobs and put people in the neighborhood to work. Perhaps light industrial, they imagined, or a business incubator of some sort.

As I say, I was skeptical. A prospective developer was already trying to get the property rezoned for condos, and if there’s one thing I thought I’d learned over the years, it’s that you can’t stop real estate from market forces. Like water, it seeks its own level. If the market wanted that location for residential development, I figured, then residential it would have to be.

On Tuesday, though, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that Coyote Logistics will be adding 400 jobs this year at its new location in the Green Exchange, 2565 W. Diversey, which will bring its total work force at the site to more than 1,000 employees. The Green Exchange, if you haven’t guessed, is what used to be the old Cooper Lamp factory.

So this must be a great victory for those workers and neighbors who dug in their heels years ago, right? And proof that people can redirect the real estate market?

Well, yes and no. It’s never that simple.

“It is a victory in the sense that this community invested in a strategy to bring jobs to the neighborhood before the recession hit,” said John McDermott, a community organizer with the Logan Square Neighborhood Association. “But it comes several years later than we thought.”

The Logan Square group backed the organizing effort that enlisted the support of then-Ald. Manny Flores (1st), who blocked the condo project. Flores embraced an alternative plan that became the Green Exchange, which bills itself as the country’s “largest sustainable business community.” It was envisioned as a Merchandise Mart for environmentally friendly businesses.

As it happened, the Green Exchange couldn’t sustain itself during the economic downturn, and the building sat mostly vacant for years while the developers looked for new financing.

That finally came in the form of a $15 million federal HUD loan, repayment backed by a $10 million commitment of tax-increment financing from the city.

In addition to the $10 million TIF subsidy to the developers, the city has also approved another $2 million TIF subsidy to Coyote Logistics to help pay for building out its space in the Green Exchange, which it began occupying this past summer.

So it wasn’t exactly market forces, but instead subsidies that enabled this particular piece of real estate to take a different direction.

The upside is all those jobs coming to town. Coyote was located in Lake Forest.

But so far, these haven’t been the kind of jobs those displaced factory workers or their blue-collar neighbors might fill.

McDermott said that continues to be a major concern. “We desperately need jobs that displaced workers in their 40s and 50s can transition to,” he said.

McDermott and Ted Wysocki, president and CEO of the Local Economic & Employment (LEED) Council, said they are working with the Green Exchange and Coyote to identify job opportunities for neighborhood residents. A for-profit day-care center is considering a lease, and other prospective tenants have been approached.

But McDermott conceded, “This is not the range of jobs we had initially hoped for.”

Still, his goal now is to use the same reasoning to protect the Elston-Rockwell industrial corridor, just north of the Green Exchange, from residential encroachment, to preserve its manufacturing jobs.

Those Cooper Lamp workers succeeded in a way they hadn’t envisioned. They did create jobs for workers from the neighborhood, only those turned out to be the young college-educated workers at Coyote, who like the neighborhood just fine.

At Lathrop Homes, CHA's talk of transformation brings worry

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0600

When Mary Thomas talks about the Julia C. Lathrop Homes, she likes to reflect back to a time when the public housing complex was filled with a diverse mix of working residents, many of them active in contributing to the community.

But these days, nearly all of the historic apartments in Lathrop Homes are boarded-up and locked behind tall, dingy gray fences. What was once a vibrant neighborhood is nearly deserted, patrolled by private security guards. Few cars pass and few people wander.

Thomas, like several others, has chosen to live in Lathrop among the boarded-up buildings, vacant units and neglected playgrounds so she can stay involved in the redevelopment of the site, she said. Hers is one of about 170 households still left in the sprawling Lathrop Homes complex, which has 925 units and was once considered by many to be one of the safer and more attractive public housing complexes in Chicago.

For more than a decade, the Chicago Housing Authority has planned to transform the Lathrop Homes into a mixed-income development, with only a third of the units to be made available for public housing. Though the CHA pledged in 2006 that reconstruction was imminent, the agency once again is asking for feedback from the community, saying it's still trying to determine how the complex will be redeveloped.

The CHA Plan for Transformation is part of a national movement to replace public housing complexes with mixed communities, where poor residents can live side by side with more prosperous homeowners and stakeholders. But Chicago's revamping of public housing is years behind schedule, and for many residents, it's a tedious and scary process.

Thomas and her neighbors said they live with anxiety and fear, unsure what the future holds.

"This is where I grew up. I don't want to leave," Thomas said. But because of the vacancies and poor conditions, Thomas said she feels she is being subtly pushed out: "I've spoken to all my neighbors, and I tell them, 'Please stop running. Please don't go.' The more who go, the less we have to fight."

Situated on the borders of the Bucktown and Roscoe Village neighborhoods, near West Diversey Parkway and North Clybourn Avenue, Lathrop Homes is now surrounded by expensive homes and upscale shopping outlets. But the few residents left have been relocated to the southern end of the complex, isolated from the booming community around them.

There are no final plans yet for how Lathrop Homes will look after the transformation, and CHA officials said they have not determined how many units, if any, will be sold at market rates. They do know only a third of the final complex will be used for public housing. But officials don't know if they will rehab the current units or build new structures, said Veronica Gonzalez, development manager with the CHA.

For now, officials are seeking feedback from residents, activists and the public.

"It is important for Lathrop residents and neighbors to be involved in the process because CHA is listening," said James Isaacs, director of the Office of Development Management at the agency. "We are excited about having a dialogue with people to see what we need to do at Lathrop."

The CHA has budgeted $1.45 million in the planning and preplanning phases for the transformation, Gonzalez said. But there is no timeline for when construction begins.

"So much is up in the air," she said.

Despite CHA's statements that no plan is set, residents and activists fear the worst. Once the site is revamped, many of the low-income residents won't be there to reap the benefits.

"This is the beginning of the planning process, but not the beginning of the struggle," said John McDermott, a housing and land use director with the nearby Logan Square Neighborhood Association. "CHA has paid some lip service and said, 'We know Lathrop is different.' But then they revert back to the mixed-income formula that they have used at many of the other developments."

McDermott and many others are discouraging the CHA from one proposal by a working group to develop 1,200 apartments and turn a third of them into market-rate units. He argued that nearby Lincoln Park has enough condominiums and private homes. What the community is slowly losing is affordable housing for the working poor, he said.

"This is a community where, unfortunately, only affluent families can access homeownership," he said. "There is no way you can argue that the surrounding community needs the government to spur market-rate development. To sustain economic diversity and ethnic diversity, the best way to do that is preserve the affordable housing stock."

Preservationists say Lathrop Homes should be restored, not demolished.

Built in the 1930s, Lathrop Homes was designed by first-rate architects such as Robert S. DeGolyer and Hugh M.G. Garden, who were out of work because of the Great Depression, said Jonathan Fine, executive director of Preservation Chicago, which advocates for preserving historic architecture.

The complex still features handsome brick archways that lead into parks, playgrounds and public areas. Unlike many public housing high-rises of the past, Lathrop Homes is a low-rise complex on the Chicago River, with curving walkways along the water's edge. There is ample green space, carefully designed by famed landscape architect Jens Jensen, Fine said.

In 2007, Landmarks Illinois, a preservation group, named Lathrop Homes one of the state's 10 most endangered historic places in Illinois and has pushed for a redevelopment plan that would restore the historic site.

Though the complex needs some renovation, its architectural significance and community-friendly design make it public housing worth preserving, Fine said.

"What's interesting and ironic is Lathrop Homes, in its current form, is already what CHA's plan for transformation set as its goal in 1999," he said. "They wanted to get rid of the high-rise housing complexes with elevators surrounded by asphalt parking lots. They wanted more green space and a more friendly environment. Lathrop already embodies all of that. It's really beautiful. If it's not broke, don't fix it."

Lathrop also has a place in the community's history, with residents who helped diversify the area and push for change. After the housing complex integrated in the 1960s, it became one of few that retained a diverse mix of residents, McDermott said.

Many of its residents worked, formed community organizations and helped shape the neighborhood as they raised families there, McDermott said. One organization made up of Lathrop residents helped push for jobs, job training programs and a living wage at factories and retailers in the neighborhood. Other residents took part in building a church that still remains.

For more than 22 years, Sandra Cornwell has lived in Lathrop Homes. The sounds of children playing and neighborhood block parties are gone, and yet she wants to stay. She, too, fears that as the complex is redeveloped, she'll be forced to move and won't make her way back.

"This is all about making poor people move. 'Get those pesky poor people out; we don't want them here,'" she said.

Because the planning process is taking so long, residents said they don't know what they will have to return to, or when.

"Once Lathrop is gone, it's gone," said the Rev. Liala Beukema, former pastor of the Church of the Good News, built by Lathrop residents. "The opportunity to provide safe, secure housing for people in this area probably won't come in a lifetime if we let this go."

Obama Plans Change in Immigration Rule on Waivers

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0600

The Obama administration proposed a rule change Friday to reduce the time that undocumented immigrant spouses and children are separated from their American relatives while they try to gain legal status in the United States.

Currently, many undocumented immigrants must leave the country before they can ask the government to waive a three- to 10-year ban on legally coming back to the U.S. The length of the ban depends on how long they have lived in the U.S. without permission.

The new rule would let children and spouses of citizens ask the government to decide on the waiver request before they head to their home country to apply for a visa.

Immigration advocates, including the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), cheered the Obama plan.

Under current procedures, relatives in many cases need to pursue their applications in their native countries—but may mean being barred from returning to the U.S. for up to 10 years if they leave. Waivers to the rule can be requested, but the waiver can only requested after they leave the U.S. If the waiver is denied, the immigrants are trapped outside the U.S., away from their families.

“These families face a heart-breaking dilemma,” said ICIRR executive director Joshua Hoyt. “Do the immigrants proceed with getting their permanent status, but separate from their families for up to 10 years—or do they remain in the U.S, with their families but remain vulnerable to immigration detention and deportation?”

The Obama Administration is proposing a regulation that would enable these immigrants to apply and get decisions for their applications for hardship waivers before they leave the U.S., and have assurance that when they leave, they can soon return.

“Once this change becomes final, families will know that they will not need to face long-term separation and will eventually all be together in the U.S. legally,” said Hoyt.

The waiver shift is the latest move by President Barack Obama to make changes to immigration policy without congressional action. Congressional Republicans repeatedly have criticized the administration for policy changes they describe as providing “backdoor amnesty” to undocumented immigrants.

The proposal also came as Obama gears up for a re-election contest in which the support of Hispanic voters could prove a determining factor in a number of states. The administration hopes to change the rule later this year after taking public comments.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, on Friday accused the president putting the interests of immigrants ahead of those of Americans.

“It seems President Obama plays by his own rules to push unpopular policies on the American people,” the House Judiciary Committee chair said in a statement.

Immigrants who do not have criminal records and who have only violated immigration laws can win a waiver if they can prove their absence would cause an extreme hardship for their American spouse or parent. The government received about 23,000 hardship applications in 2011 and more than 70 percent were approved.

It currently takes about six months for the government to issue a waiver, said Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Immigrant advocates have long complained about the current system, which can split up families for months or years. And since there’s no guarantee a person will win a waiver to return, many immigrant families refuse to take the risk of going abroad to apply for one.

“We are pleased with this announcement since it is common sense solution to a problem that causes families to be separated,” said Raul Godinez, a board member for CARECEN, the Central American Resource Center.

“We advocate for family unity and know that the American people do not want to see children separated from their parents.”

Laura Barajas, a 42-year-old stay-at-home mom in Orange County, Calif., is due to travel to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in two weeks to try to get her papers. She and her U.S. citizen husband are trying to stay positive, but she is afraid to leave him and their two young children behind.

“I don’t want to be separated for a long time from my children,” said Barajas, who came to the U.S. illegally to find work to support her parents and siblings then met her future husband and stayed. “I’m not going to risk taking them to a place that I don’t even know after 18 years.”

Immigration has become a difficult issue for Obama ahead of the November election. As a presidential candidate, he pledged to change what many consider to be a broken immigration system.

To that end, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced plans last year to review some 300,000 pending deportation cases in an effort to target criminal illegal immigrants, repeat immigration law violators and those who pose a national security or public safety threat.

Napolitano said the DHS would delay indefinitely the cases of many illegal immigrants who have no criminal record and those who have been arrested for only minor traffic violations or other misdemeanors.

A pilot program to review about 12,000 cases pending in immigration court in Baltimore and Denver was launched in November and ends next week. The review is expected to expand to other jurisdictions later this year.

While the Administration’s proposal may eventually help families, it does not by itself change any existing legal standards, and does not entitle anyone to legal status or create any new program to apply for one. “Do notbelieve anyone who tells you that they can get you a green card now based on this announcement,” warned ICIRR policy director Fred Tsao. “This announcement is only the first step in changing a complicated process—it does not change anything yet.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton also issued a memo in June outlining how immigration authorities could use discretion in deciding which illegal immigrants to arrest and put into deportation proceedings.

Morton wrote in the memo that discretion could be used in a variety of cases, including for people with no criminal record and young people brought to the country illegally as children.

Congressional Republicans have decried the policy changes, arguing that the Obama administration is circumventing Congress to essentially provide amnesty to countless illegal immigrants.

Several attempts at an immigration law overhaul have failed in recent years, including the so-called DREAM Act, which would have allowed for some young illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to earn legal status if they went to college or joined the military.

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Taxin reported from Santa Ana, Calif. Associated Press Writer Alicia Caldwell in Washington and Kathy Mulady, Equal Voice News reporter, contributed to this report.

Chicago names Mexican-American to Head Immigrants' Office

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday named Mexico-American activist Adolfo Hernandez to be the director of Chicago's just-created Office of New Americans, which will attend to matters concerning immigrants.

"Chicago is a global economic hub because of generations of immigrants who used their new freedoms and opportunities to make this city stronger and more vibrant," Emanuel said in a statement, vowing to make the Midwestern metropolis "the most immigrant-friendly city in the world."

Hernandez, the son of Mexican immigrants, was born and raised in Chicago's Little Village/La Villita neighborhood and has experience in community initiatives related to health and quality of life.

His mission will be to train immigrant small businessmen so that they can get access to available local, state and federal resources.

Also, the office will seek to increase the participation of immigrant parents in the Chicago Public Schools and to centralize education, public safety and health policies so that they can be communicated to the public more efficiently.

The Office of New Americans will also be in charge of coordinating the free services that exist in Chicago to teach English to immigrants.

Also, Hernandez will be in charge of supporting the fulfillment in the city of the Illinois Dream Act, a local version of the law that is stalled in the U.S. Congress which uses private funds to support undocumented students who want to go to college.

"Our city is built on a remarkable diversity of thought and diversity of people; our vibrant culture and economy are buoyed by the constant infusion of new and different ideas," Emanuel said. "Adolfo has a proven track record and will work to ensure every Chicagoan has access to the resources they need to contribute to this thriving global city."

Mayor Emanuel Announces Initiatives to Support Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Create Jobs Led by Office of New Americans

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a series of new initiatives today to expand opportunities for immigrant entrepreneurs and create jobs in communities across Chicago. The efforts will be supported by a newly-created Office of New Americans (ONA) in the Mayor’s Office.

“Chicago is a global economic hub because of generations of immigrants who used their new freedoms and opportunities to make this city stronger and more vibrant,” said Mayor Emanuel. “These initiatives will make Chicago the most immigrant-friendly city in the world.”

The strategy includes initiatives to:

Expand immigrant business owner outreach and education events;
Provide training to immigrant small business associations to help them better educate their members and access City resources more effectively; and
Enhance language capabilities in Department of Business Affairs & Consumer Protection (BACP) small business workshops

ONA will build on the existing resource fair conducted by BACP, creating temporary one-stop-shops for immigrant business owners. Currently, BACP holds one annual fair in a targeted immigrant community. ONA will work with BACP and relevant stakeholders to ensure that these fairs are quarterly events, each held in a different immigrant business district. Relevant city staff and community partners will be on hand to provide educational information to business owners about navigating the licensing and inspections processes. ONA will work with community organizations to ensure volunteer translators are on hand to provide language access.

Through a workshop at the beginning of every year ONA will “train the trainer” by educating immigrant business associations and immigrant groups on the range of services offered by the City and established chambers of commerce.

Mayor Emanuel also announced Chicago-native Adolfo Hernandez as Director of ONA — an office dedicated to improving access to city services and engaging Chicago’s global immigrant communities through enhanced collaboration with community organizations, educational institutions and the private sector.

“Our city is built on a remarkable diversity of thought and diversity of people; our vibrant culture and economy are buoyed by the constant infusion of new and different ideas,” Mayor Emanuel. “Adolfo has a proven track record and will work to ensure every Chicagoan has access to the resources they need to contribute to this thriving global city.”

As Director of ONA, Hernandez will work to forge partnerships with community organizations, educational institutions and the private sector to:

Expand opportunities for immigrant business owners and entrepreneurs;
Enhance coordination between City government and community organizations to increase access to existing city, state and federal programs;
Expand immigrant parent engagement throughout Chicago Public Schools by learning from successful models like the Logan Square Neighborhood Associations’ Parent-Mentor program;
Establish a centralized language access policy for the City of Chicago that ensures important information about education, public safety, healthcare and City services is transmitted in a culturally competent and effective manner;
Expand English language educational resources and opportunities in community settings;
Support the launch of the Illinois DREAM Act to ensure Chicago’s students have access to funds to attend to college; and
Promote U.S. citizenship by working with community organizations and federal agencies that provide immigration and citizenship services.

About Adolfo Hernandez:

Adolfo Hernandez has more than eight years of experience working in Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods and is dedicated to the health, wellness and quality of life of residents in underserved communities. Hernandez rose from Community Liaison at the Active Transportation Alliance to be its Director of Advocacy and Outreach, working to create opportunities for community members to engage with the process of improving their neighborhoods and creating healthier living environments. Prior to his work at the Active Transportation Alliance, Hernandez worked with communities, families and children as the Health Coordinator at the McCormick Tribune YMCA. Hernandez has helped build coalitions across community organizations, Chicago’s business community and City agencies to help address needs of Chicago’s neighborhoods and increase access to resources that promote healthy living in underserved communities. Hernandez also served two consecutive terms as the Logan Square Neighborhood Association’s Board President, committed to empowering and maintaining these communities as diverse, safe, and affordable neighborhoods in which to live and work, learn and grow. The son of Mexican immigrants, Mr. Hernandez was born in Chicago and raised in the Little Village/La Villita community.

What Inspired Me to Study Parent and Community Engagement

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:00:00 -0600

As is true for many teachers, I have fond and not-so-fond memories of my first year teaching. It was a year both of trial and error, of extreme joy and disappointment—that led to self-doubting about my effectiveness as a teacher. The first couple months were, at times, terrifying and discouraging. There seemed to be little I could do to assemble order and cooperation in the classroom. I found myself raising my voice, pleading for cooperation, and scrambling to find valuable instructional time. All I had learned in my training seemed futile and irrelevant in those first weeks on the job.

At some point during that first month of teaching, I realized that while I had many demands and expectations of myself as a teacher, I lacked something that everyone else in the school building had—prior relationships with others in the school. I called a class meeting with my fourth graders—the first of weekly meetings we would have that year—and told them that I wanted to start over. I began building one-on-one relationships with each child, either during lunch or before/after school. Rather than negotiate for their cooperation, I earnestly sought to get to know each one of them on a personal level. We talked about our progress as a group during class meetings, where we also learned to speak honestly, openly, and with respect to one another. By the end of October we were a different classroom. In fact, I recall one student saying that we were becoming more like a family. I can still feel the rush of emotion that overcame me when he made that statement.

Maybe I was a naive 23-year-old, but I was never prepared to understand just how important it was for a classroom teacher to be relational. I came in with theories and strategies of graduate training, but I soon learned that without mutual relationships centered around trust and caring, the knowledge and skills amounted to nothing. As I got to know my students, I learned about the people who were important in their lives—siblings, cousins, parents, grandparents—as well as the places, activities, and traditions they cherished in their communities (locally and in native countries their families had emigrated from). I decided to extend this relationship with students’ families to communicate what I was learning about their child and to share a moment of kindness, community, and caring. I wanted this to happen early in the school year, so I made a commitment to call each student’s family within that next month of school to have this conversation.

With each phone call home, I noticed a trend. When I explained who I was and that I was calling about their child, there was almost always an awkward silence on the other end of the call. When I explained that I wanted to share a moment that we were proud of or an uplifting event that happened that day, the silence was almost always followed by a deep sigh of relief that the child wasn’t “in trouble.” These initial conversations were an important first step in engaging with families. Over time, I wanted to build a closer connection to my students’ families. Yet, when I used the few strategies I knew, such as parent-teacher conferences, open houses, and other school events, I achieved infrequent and superficial interactions and only with some of the parents. I began to see how disconnected schools could be to a student’s family and community life.

This experience—the isolation between school and family life—is not unusual, particularly in urban schools where the majority of students are students of color and are taught by White teachers who often live outside the school community. Racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic differences abound between school staff and students’ families. As we place greater emphasis on academic success defined by increasing standardized test scores, schools focus singularly on the instructional practices inside classrooms that will produce the “right” results. If and when parents are consulted, it is often to educate them about the ways they can support a school’s agenda. Under this pressure, teachers have little incentive to build meaningful relationships with parents, particularly when these efforts require added time and the benefits are ambiguous. As my experience confirms, this is made more challenging by teacher training programs that fail to recognize the significance of a teacher’s responsibility to build deep and meaningful connections with families and communities.

In A Cord of Three Strands: A New Approach to Parent Engagement in Schools, I document the evolution of one model of parent engagement in Chicago that goes beyond the superficial and universal practices that are commonly seen in schools. In these Northwest Side schools, we see parents everywhere—they work in classrooms, plan assemblies, read with students in hallways, patrol the playground, participate in school committees, and lead local school councils. They develop close relationships with teachers that inevitably break down layers of distrust and misunderstanding. At the same time, teachers find ways to work collaboratively with parents and learn about students’ families—for example, by conducting home visits that are often a teacher’s first experience in the local community. These elements are part of a model developed by the Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA), a community organization with deep ties to the Latino immigrant families in Chicago’s Northwest Side. In a community where schools struggled to connect with families, this community institution served as a bridge. The book is an exploration into how we build these necessary relationships when present models fail us. Out of this successful collaboration between schools, families, and communities there emerges an important framework for reimagining parent engagement that is useful to us all.

http://www.hepg.org/hep/book/136/ACordOfThreeStrands

Community Groups Unite Against Coming School Closings

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 12:00:00 -0600

A week before Chicago Public Schools is set to announce its list of school closings and consolidations this year, nine neighborhood groups said they are uniting to fight shutdowns of poor-performing schools in their communities.

At a news conference Tuesday, members of Action Now, Albany Park Neighborhood Council, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Enlace Chicago, Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, Logan Square Neighborhood Association, Organization of the Northeast, Southwest Organizing Project and TARGET Area Development Corporation said they want CPS to focus on improving neighborhood schools rather than closing them down.

"CPS policies have destabilized schools in our community," said Jeanette Taylor, a parent leader with the Kenwood group whose children attend Mollison and Robinson schools, both of which have been on academic probation for several years. "We're all fighting together. They aren't closing any more schools until they do right by us."

On Dec. 1, CPS plans to announce a series of moves, including closings of schools, consolidations of schools or moving two schools into one building. Every year, the announcements are met with community angst as parents protest against potential violence from children crossing gang boundaries for newly assigned schools.

Community activists see the closings as a way for the district to bring in more charter schools, which the activists say do not enroll many neighborhood students.

"We do not need new schools," said Leticia Barrera, an education organizer for the Logan Square Neighborhood Association. "Let's try to fix those schools that are in the neighborhood."

CPS officials said they welcomed the input from community groups. "We are excited and encouraged that community organizations are engaging with CPS to demand quality schools in their communities," said district spokeswoman Marielle Sainvilus.

The district says about 42 percent of district schools are on probation for low academic performance. With a new online tool that allows Chicagoans to read school reports for each school, district officials hope a more comprehensive look at a school's performance will lead some parents to demand better academic options, which would mean grass-roots support for closing failing schools.

Jitu Brown of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, which has developed its own blueprint to improve failing schools in Bronzeville, said he and members of other local organizations met with schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard and other officials this week. They tried to get him to agree to a one-year moratorium on closing schools in Bronzeville, Brown said.

While Brizard did not agree to a one-year stay, he asked the community groups to submit written proposals for improving schools in their neighborhoods, Brown said.

"On the positive side, they are reaching out to us. But it's more about them telling us what to do as opposed to listening and exchanging ideas," Brown said. "What they want is a buy into what they want to do."

Community Groups Band Together Against School Closings

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:00:00 -0600

With a week left before Chicago Public Schools leaders announce school closings, nine community groups came together Tuesday to try to alter the conversation from shuttering neighborhood schools to investing in them.

The organizations representing groups from the far North Side of the city to the far South Side issued what they called “A Neighborhood Agenda for Schools.” They want CPS to work more closely with organizations to make all neighborhood schools community schools, an effort supported by former CEO Arne Duncan to bring services from after school programs to GED classes onto campuses.

They also want CPS to officially embrace Grow Your Own Teachers, which encourages people from low-income communities to go into teaching, and VOYCE, an initiative that empowers teenagers to come up with solutions to problems in schools.

“If they would listen to us, they would see the results they want to see,” said Julio Contreras, a Gage Park High School student who is involved with VOYCE.

Janette Taylor-Smith, a parent leader at the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, noted that studies have found that it takes six months for students of closed schools to adjust to a new school, and that during that time their academic performance declines.

“Why is it always our children that have to go through this?” asked Taylor-Smith, who serves on the local school council for Mollison Elementary, which was on a closings list two years ago but spared after community protest. “Why is it always black and brown children?”

Another study released on Tuesday confirms some of Taylor-Smith’s concerns. To realize any academic benefits, students from closed schools need to go to substantially higher-performing schools, according to the study by the Rand Corporation, Vanderbilt University and Mathematica Policy Research.

CPS officials have said that they won’t close a school unless there’s another higher-performing school to send them to. However, they have yet to quantify how much higher performing a school needs to be in order to receive students from a closed school.

Community organization leaders say they have met with CPS and city leaders to present their plan and, while the officials were polite, they made no promises and had no specific reactions.

In response to the neighborhood agenda’s release, CPS issued the following statement: “We are excited and encouraged that community organizations are engaging with CPS to demand quality schools in their communities and we are joined with them in working towards creating higher quality school options to help boost the academic achievement of our students.”

But the statement reiterated a sentiment Chief Portfolio Officer Oliver Sicat has been saying as he goes out to community hearings on school closings: “We may not always agree on the actions we need to take in getting there, but we all agree that the academic success of our children must always come first,” according to the statement.

Not a new debate

The press conference on Tuesday, in which about 40 people jammed into the lobby of the Logan Square Neighborhood Association’s headquarters, was another attempt by long-time community organizations to interject their opinions into the debate on school closings. Some of them have also been involved in Community Action Councils—developed by former CPS officials to come up with plans for their neighborhoods.

At the time the councils were formed last year, some school leaders hoped they would identify schools to close, taking the burden off of them. Instead, most of the councils came up with plans to attract more neighborhood students to their underutilized schools. For example, Humboldt Park’s plan was “the community as a campus,” with local schools adopting a specialty so that families would consider them rather than magnet or charter schools outside the neighborhood.

Jitu Brown, an education organizer with the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, said his group came up with the idea of taking five underutilized schools, including Dyett High School, and aligning their curriculum around the idea of global leadership.

But Brown had little hope that CPS leadership is open to the idea. The Bronzeville/Grand Boulevard neighborhood has more schools that meet the criteria for closing than any other neighborhood. He said the new CPS administration has done a good job of connecting with community organizations, but has not opened up a dialogue.

And they appear to be embracing the same strategy of former administrations, Brown said: Closing schools, firing entire staffs of schools and opening charters in their wake.

Community Groups Offer Plan to Counter School Closings: Invest in schools instead of shutting them down, groups say.

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Nine community groups from Albany Park to Roseland Tuesday presented a “Neighborhoods Agenda for Schools,” a wide-ranging plan that calls for significant investment in struggling neighborhood schools rather than school closures.

Chicago Public Schools is expected to announce this year’s list of schools to be closed in the coming days. It will be the first round of closings overseen by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s hand-picked schools team.

Arguing that parents and communities have a better idea of how to fix failing schools than “CPS bureaucrats,” the groups said they want guaranteed preschool slots for three- and four-year-olds, full-day kindergarten, revamped bilingual and special education programs, more social services, lower class sizes, and a commitment to keep schools open into the night to serve families.

Several dozen representatives gathered at the Logan Square Neighborhood Association to make their announcement. LSNA has won attention for its efforts to get parents involved in schools.

“For too long, top-down reforms have been imposed on our communities, on our schools, on our children,” said South Side parent Jeanette Taylor-Smith, a parent leader with Kenwood Oakland Community Organization. “Chicago Public Schools has rolled the dice consistently with our children’s education.”

Taylor-Smith has children at two schools. Both have been rated “Level 3,” making them eligible for closure. One of the schools, Mollison Elementary, was slated to be shut down in 2009.

“They took us off [the list] and still did not give us the resources. So we’re gonna be on the list every year ‘til they figure out how to resource that school. It’s what’s going on in the building,” said Taylor-Smith, a member of Mollison’s local school council.

In Logan Square, Christina Torres’ children are the third generation in her family to attend Funston Elementary, which also meets the criteria to be shut down. She wants the school to be around for her grandchildren to attend.

“It’s a big part of me, it’s a big part of the community,” said Torres. She says she’s in the school regularly and doesn’t agree with its “Level 3” designation.

In a written statement, Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman Marielle Sainvilus says the district is encouraged by community organizations’ demands for high quality schools, but may not agree on the best way to get there.

Among the organizations supporting the “neighborhoods agenda” is the Organization of the Northeast, where Jamiko Rose was director before being tapped by CPS to oversee parent and community engagement. Rose helped facilitate a hearing last week on the district’s school closing criteria.

Raising up teachers in your backyard

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Nancy Ballesteros is completing a remarkable three-year journey from being a low-paid single mom of two kids to being a full-fledged Chicago Public Schools teacher … and all-around inspiration to kids in her Little Village neighborhood.

“I can say to my students, hey, I know what you’re going through. I know how you feel. I grew up in this neighborhood.”

PHOTO: JOHN MCCARRON

Nancy Ballesteros has completed the life journey from low-paid single mom to Chicago Public Schools teacher.

Ballesteros told her story Nov. 10 to a group of college professors and education majors gathered to learn about a potentially game-changing innovation in urban education developed right here in NCP neighborhoods. And they celebrated a new book on the phenomenon:Grow Your Own Teachers: Grassroots Change for Teacher Education,published by Teachers College Press at Columbia University.

“I do believe that Grow Your Own is the future of teacher education,” said Dean Maureen Gillette of Northeastern Illinois University’s College of Education, who moderated a panel that included Ballesteros.

LSNA the hotbed
The unconventional idea that moms and dads of children in predominantly minority schools could be directly involved in the classroom—and in some cases even become certified teachers—traces its beginnings to Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood.

The Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA) was active in the school reform movement well before coming aboard NCP as a lead agency in 2002. For a decade prior to then, LSNA had campaigned successfully to relieve overcrowding with new and expanded school buildings and to win places for Hispanic parents on reformist Local School Councils.

But in 1995 LSNA took it a step further.

“We developed a vision of opening the doors of ‘fortress’ schools and helping them function as centers of community,” remembers Joanna Brown, LSNA’s lead education organizer. It began at Funston Elementary when an innovative principal OK’d an LSNA proposal to train some Spanish-speaking moms in tutoring skills so they could supplement classroom instruction, often by pulling out kids in need of one-to-one or small-group sessions.

PHOTO: JOHN MCCARRON

Charlene Campbell, 51, who raised seven children and chaired the Local School Council at Reavis Elementary, has entered the Grow Your Own program and hopes to teach at Reavis once she's finished.

The Parent Mentor Program worked so well that other Logan Square principals were quick to sign up, and even to add new wrinkles developed by LSNA. These included Literacy Ambassadors—parent-teacher teams that call on homes of students who are truant or falling behind—and Community Learning Centers, where parent-tutors provide after-hours help and enrichment to kids while their parents take GED or ESL classes elsewhere in the school.

The benefits proved two-fold. Parent involvement increased dramatically the academic performance of the children, a result confirmed by standardized tests. But just as important, it brought out the latent leadership abilities of hundreds of immigrant parents, especially of mothers who were isolated by language and culture from mainstream community life.

Little wonder other NCP communities and lead organizations—such asEnlace in Little Village and Southwest Organizing Project in Marquette Park—have sought LSNA’s advice in launching their own Community Schools programs. And little wonder other neighborhoods have been quick to recognize the potential of LSNA’s next big step—helping standout parent-mentors go on to attain the formal baccalaureate education it takes to be certified as a CPS teacher.

Grow Your Own
The parents-to-teachers process began tentatively in 2000 with a federally funded pilot partnership between LSNA and Chicago State University. Early success then bred formation of a statewide Grow Your Own Task Force that drafted and won passage of a GYO Teachers Education Act.

According to Anne Hallett, director of a successor organization called GYO Illinois, the 2004 law aims to: reduce teacher turnover; create a pipeline for teachers of color; and prepare teachers for hard-to-staff positions at schools with many low-income students. With the help of state scholarships and forgivable loans, a goal was set to prepare 1,000 GYO teachers by 2016.

That is requiring a scale-up of recruitment and resources, which is one reason behind GYO Illinois’ Statewide Learning Network Meeting, held Nov. 10-11 at National Louis University, located at 122 S. Michigan Ave.

Attendee Chris Brown, who oversees educational programming for LISC/Chicago—and who was named recently to succeed Susana Vasquez as director of the NCP—said LISC is right in the middle of the scale-up. For instance, the Elev8 middle-school enrichment program funded by Atlantic Philanthropies and managed here by LISC is making a $52,000 grant to expend parent-mentor activity in five NCP neighborhoods.

“We’re already doing Grow Your Own at Marquette School in Chicago Lawn,” Brown said of the hoped-for progression. “We’re trying to get parents more involved in Elev8 and GYO is a way to do that.”

Parents transformed
The transformative potential of that involvement is illustrated by Maria Trejo, a certified teacher and director of the Elev8 program at Ames Middle School in Logan Square. She was one of GYO’s first graduates and the first in her family to graduate from college.

PHOTO: JOHN MCCARRON

Elizabeth Skinner (left), assistant professor of education at Illinois State University, is co-editor of the book, Grow Your Own Teachers: Grassroots Change for Teacher Education, which drew in part on the lessons learned by grow-your-own pioneers at Logan Square Neighborhood Association, led by Nancy Aardema, executive director.

“I did my [college] homework sitting next to my daughter at the dining room table,” Trejo told the GYO conference. “Now, 13 years later, that daughter is 20 years old and in her second year at Western Michigan University. My youngest is in her first year at Western Illinois. ... I’m very proud of my girls.”

A similar story was told by Nancy Ballesteros, who got involved with GYO through Enlace and hopes to start teaching language arts soon at Madero Middle School on 28^th Street, a few blocks from where she grew up.

And new GYO stories are waiting to be written, like that of 51-year-old Charlene Campbell. After 21 years working as a practical nurse at a downtown hospital, and after raising seven children, she’s been accepted to GYO and hopes eventually to teach at Reavis Elementary, where, as a parent, she chaired the LSC.

Now three of her children are in college, and Campbell says her goal as a teacher will be “to give all the kids at Reavis a college vision.”

Ripple effects
Elizabeth Skinner, assistant professor of education at Illinois State University and a co-editor of the new GYO book, told the gathering that, when she started 10 years ago teaching GYO’s teachers-to-be, she could hardly imagine what the program has become.

She cautioned there is much work ahead and challenged schools of education to support GYO candidates “when and where they need it.” For example, participating colleges actually bring classes close to GYO students at venues such as Malcolm X College and Little Village High School.

It’s the ripple effects, though, that ultimately make schools programs like GYO the secret weapons of community development work.

Said Nancy Aardema, who fostered the GYO concept from the start as LSNA’s executive director: “We didn’t want our schools to be separate from the community. Now our schools and our community are doing better as a result.”

More information:
Anne Hallett, GYO Illinois, annehallett@sbcglobal.net www.growyourownteachers.org

Joanna Brown, LSNA, jbrown@lsna.net, 773-384-4370

Buy the book: http://store.tcpress.com/0807751936.shtml

See more photos of the Nov. 10 event:http://www.flickr.com/photos/deborahmccoy/sets/72157628119640592/

Chicago Elev8 Stories

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Five days before her first birthday, Vanessa’s family moved into their present apartment on the west end of Logan Square, a predominantly Latino neighborhood. Her parents, who adopted her at birth from a relative, have two older sons. Vanessa’s father works at the Blommer Chocolate Factory and her mother is at home due to illness. Both immigrated from San Luis Potosi a city in central Mexico, and speak only Spanish.

Vanessa has mostly fond memories of attending the elementary school across the street from her home, except for 6th grade, when she felt she didn’t fit in socially and had few friends. She didn’t join any afte-school programs that year, and doesn’t remember that many were available. “I just wanted to go home.”

The year that she entered Ames Middle, a 7th and 8th grade school, was a difficult one for her family, and it showed in Vanessa, said Ames Elev8 Director Maria Trejo.

“She was depressed," said Trejo. "She walked with her head down all the time. She cried a lot. [In groups], she didn’t participate.”

Vanessa had signed up for the Elev8 summer program that Ames offers to all incoming 7th graders from its feeder elementary schools. She enjoyed the activities and the field trips and the chance to meet new people. So when fall came, she signed up for the Elev8 after-school program—but often skipped.

Realizing that she needed some extra support, Trejo, then the Elev8 program manager, invited Vanessa to check-in with her before and after school. She soon convinced Vanessa to attend the after-school program regularly, and also referred her to a licensed professional counselor from Illinois Masonic Hospital who works at the Ames school health center.

The Elev8 school health centers, a cornerstone of the initiative, provide a full-range of primary health services to students on-site. Counseling is in high demand—nearly a third of student visits are for mental health. Vanessa said she went once a week to talk and get advice. “That would be a way to cope with my problems.”

Elev8 staff also paired her with a mentor from Big Brothers, Big Sisters. “I got to get out of the house and go to places. It was also a person to talk to and have fun with.”

Taking chances

Joining a leadership group in the Elev8 after-school program was another turning point in Vanessa’s 7th-grade year. It happened unexpectedly.

One afternoon, an instructor walked into the lunchroom where the Elev8 students congregate before their activities. He passed out invitations to join a new club called Impacting our Community. Some of Vanessa’s friends got one, but she didn’t, and her curiosity was piqued.

Fearing she might have been excluded because of a recent infraction—running through the hallways—she approached the leader and made her case. “I told him, ‘I got written up, but I’m a good kid. I’ll stay out of trouble.’

“He was laughing. He said, ‘You can come.’”

Vanessa said she didn’t even know what the group was about. “I just wanted to go see. I walked in and [found it] was a leadership group, I was like, ‘Oh, cool!”

The club became a place to make friends—“That group was like family,” she said—and to get her first experience at public speaking, an effort that didn’t go off perfectly.

The students had organized a summit for their peers to hear from a panel of community leaders on neighborhood safety. Vanessa’s job was to ask the panel a question. “I was shaking. They didn’t understand me, I repeated the question. Public speaking was not natural to me.”

But she was hooked. “Even though it’s scary, it’s exciting,” she said.

In her 8th-grade year, that club was replaced by one lead by the Mikva Challenge, a Chicago non-profit that helps youth develop skills as civic leaders. For Vanessa, a highlight of the year was a speech competition with Mikva participants at Chicago’s four other Elev8 sites.

In her speech, Vanessa spoke out against the stereotyping of teens based on their dress or other superficial characteristics. She didn’t win, but she enjoyed it.

Her growing skill with public speaking didn’t go unnoticed in the classroom. Her 8th grade English teacher Renata Sapa said she used Vanessa as an example for her other students. “She had notes on index cards, eye contact.”

At the end of the year, that skill, along with her writing ability, got her selected as one of the five student speakers at her 8th grade graduation, an experience she later recalled in an essay about the proudest moment of her life that was “three to four pages longer than anyone else’s,” according to her 9th-grade writing workshop teacher.

Moving up

While Vanessa’s didn’t win admission to her first choice high school, one of the city’s most selective, she did well enough in middle school to enroll in nearby Prosser Career Academy, where the average incoming student posts test scores near the 75th percentile, according to a school administrator. (Neighborhood high schools in Chicago typically enroll students with test scores averaging well below the 50th percentile.)

The transition to high school can be a difficult one, but Vanessa got off to a fast start, and was quickly promoted to honors geometry and science. She said that she’s more organized this year and reports using a strategy emphasized in the Elev8 after school tutoring program—keeping a list of all her homework assignments in one place.

Also, “I know now the consequences of slacking off,” she said, a mistake that she says led to some Cs in middle school. She expects first quarter to earn As, Bs, and only one C, which she intends to raise to an A by the semester’s end.

In high school, as in middle school, extracurricular activities have been a source of new friends for Vanessa, and above all—confidence.

No longer shy in any situation, her social network is deep and wide. She continues to visit Trejo at Ames, who is coaching her to research her options for college. She still has her Big Sister mentor and keeps in touch with her former Mikva Challenge leader, who she is lobbying to start a Mikva Challenge group at Prosser. Down the school’s crowded hallways, Vanessa shouts loud greetings to friends and teachers alike.

The best thing Elev8 taught her, she said, is to try new things. “I learned that if there’s something you don’t know about, you should try it. You never know what you’re missing. You’ve got to see what it’s about.”

This fall, her experience with Mikva led her to join Aspira, a leadership group that supports teens in organizing their own events, civic action projects and field trips around four themes— community, government, education and culture.

“I want to continue with the leadership. I want more of it,” she said. “I want more experience—more public speaking. More of all of it.”

Vanessa said that her career goals are to be an 8th grade math or writing teacher and a published author. If she does ultimately purse a teaching career, her enthusiasm for extra-curricular activities may serve her even better than her rising G.P.A.

A recent study by Angela Duckworth, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist, found that teachers who had had consistent participation and high achievement in college extra-curricular activities produced higher standardized test score gains in their students than those who did not. A teacher’s college G.P.A. and SAT scores, however, did not predict their effectiveness in the classroom, as measured by student test score growth. Passion and perseverance in pursuing one’s interests are qualities that made a difference in a teacher’s job performance, the researcher concluded.

Vanessa has both in spades. Her trumpet instructor, Major Herman Sheppard said, “I have a lot who give up very quickly on an instrument. They say it’s too hard. She has never said that. She will not give up.”

And while public speaking still scares her, the fear doesn’t stop her.

On a Thursday afternoon in Prosser’s poetry club, Vanessa clutched a poem on loose leaf paper that she was too nervous to begin reading, and instead laughed and paced in a corner of the classroom. Finally, her friend Adrianna offered to join her in a primal scream, a strategy the poetry club leader recommended for relieving tension.

After a scream and more laughter, Vanessa began, and the poem she read was a powerful one. Built around the refrain “Where I’m from,” she described all the experiences that made her who she is: the family dynamics, the neighborhood dangers, the Spanish-speaking household, the struggles of growing up and the loneliness she left behind.

“I am from being on my own for awhile,” the poem concludes, “but no mas.”

Planting the Seed: Models for Other Communities

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:00:00 -0600

COLUMBIA — Of the 50 communities participating in the Health Kids, Healthy Communities project, Columbia has been designated one of the nine "leading cities" with providing an example to others through mentoring.

Here's a look at how three of the other leading cities are trying to reduce obesity:

In Chicago, the focus has been park-centric. Since the snack vending contract for the city's parks expired about the time the partnership began, Chicago was able to explore healthier options, said Lucy Gomez-Feliciano, lead health organizer in the Logan Square Neighborhood Association and director of the Chicago Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities Partnership.

By the end of 2011, the 98 vending machines in Chicago's parks will offer snacks that contain less sugar, calories, sodium and fat, such as baked chips and pretzels.

The city's beverage contract expires in the spring; Gomez-Feliciano said she hopes the winter will be spent talking about getting similar options in those machines as well.

Chicago has also taken a policy approach by reducing the speed limit in parks that are connected by a boulevard system to make it safer for pedestrians.

King County, Wash., has directed its attention to culturally diverse public housing communities.

New standards are being tested that guide how much time children should spend in front of a TV or computer, the kinds of snacks they eat and the amount of physical activity they get. The King County Housing Authority plans to adopt these standards for child care providers who work in the housing communities, said Elizabeth Westburg, resident services manager at the housing authority.

She said the county housing authority hopes to develop similar guidelines for summer and after-school programs as well. The housing authority has also replaced food in convenience stores with healthier options and plans are under way to increase overall pedestrian safety.

These projects were selected because after program leaders asked community members what their concerns about childhood obesity and obesity prevention were, Westburg said.

For the Central Valley, Calif., area, a focal point has been the public schools. In Fresno, where there are few parks, the largest elementary school in the city opened its classrooms and green spaces to the community for yoga classes and pickup soccer games.

Even though the outcome isn't directly related to obesity prevention, the benefits are evident, said Sabina Gonzalez-Erana, community building specialist for the Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program.

"You just see a flood of kids every weekend," she said. "There's more of a sense of community in that neighborhood."

Soda has been removed from the vending machines in the area's public schools and drinking water is now more readily available to students. The barrier was the perception that kids don't like drinking water.

"They drink it," Gonzalez-Erana said. "They drink it, and it's not a problem."

October Newsletter 2011

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:00:00 -0600

You may download a pdf copy of the October 2011 newsletter here.

LISC Launches Neighborhood Revitalization Loan Fund to Drive Affordable Rental Housing Development with Funding from Morgan Stanley Capital Magnet Fund

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 12:00:00 -0600

The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) has leveraged a $5 million grant from the federal Capital Magnet Fund to launch the Neighborhood Revitalization Loan Fund - an affordable housing loan pool designed to stimulate the development and preservation of multifamily rental housing for low-income residents.

Noted Audrey Choi, Managing Director and Head of Morgan Stanley's Global Sustainable Finance group: "We are pleased to provide this focused capital to help LISC launch this fund and meet the needs of communities across the country. LISC has built an innovative program to mitigate the funding risks that have hindered development of the affordable housing sector. Morgan Stanley's loan is the latest reflection of our commitment to support community development through targeted deployment of capital to areas in need." The first loan for the new pool closed recently in Chicago, providing $3.6 million to bridge local Tax Increment Financing for Zapata Apartments, a new 61-unit development in the city's Logan Square neighborhood. Lack of full financing stalled the project for two years, though it was championed by Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation, one of the city's leading nonprofit developers.

Last fall, LISC was one of 23 organizations awarded $80 million in grants from the federal Capital Magnet Fund, an initiative created by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and managed by the Treasury Department's Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund). The Capital Magnet Fund aims to spur development of affordable rental housing and other community facilities, as well as to attract significant private capital to the effort.

With its Capital Magnet Fund grant, LISC laid the groundwork for the Neighborhood Revitalization Loan Fund, which will be used for predevelopment, acquisition and construction loans. The Fund also will provide liquidity and Section 8 guarantees which enable developers to borrow adequate funds to complete and operate projects in an environment in which investors are uncertain about federal funding commitments. The LISC Fund will focus on Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) projects.

Development of affordable housing is central to LISC's Building Sustainable Communities strategy. "It anchors communities," noted Michael Rubinger, LISC President and CEO. "It also creates jobs, boosts nearby property values, expands local tax receipts, and supports the businesses in its vicinity - it also often results in large-scale revitalization. Particularly in this economic environment, it is vital."

"The Neighborhood Revitalization Loan Fund is a terrific example of modest federal funding attracting private capital to address gaps in a tight credit climate," said Greg Maher, LISC's Senior Vice President for Lending.

The Neighborhood Revitalization Loan Fund will aid us in pushing LIHTC projects forward, noted Joe Hagan, President and CEO of the Chicago-based National Equity Fund, LISC's LIHTC affiliate. "To say the LIHTC market has been up and down over the last few years is an understatement," Hagan said. "This new LISC fund will help put shovels in the ground, support developers that are critical to community revitalization, and move struggling families into decent, affordable homes."

"The critical need for affordable housing has been made worse by the scope and depth of the economic downturn," noted Susana Vasquez, LISC Chicago's Executive Director. "Even the most experienced, committed developers in the city struggle to obtain financing to complete their projects. LISC's Neighborhood Revitalization Loan Fund will make a difference between building - or not building - new low-income housing to meet the growing need."

About LISC: LISC combines corporate, government and philanthropic resources to help nonprofit community development corporations revitalize distressed neighborhoods. Since 1980, LISC has raised $11.1 billion to build or rehab 277,000 affordable homes and develop 44 million square feet of retail, community and educational space nationwide. LISC support has leveraged nearly $33.9 billion in total development activity. For more information, visit www.lisc.org .

About Morgan Stanley: Morgan Stanley is a leading global financial services firm providing a wide range of investment banking, securities, and investment management services. The Firm's employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments, institutions and individuals from more than 1,300 offices in 42 countries. Since 2006, Morgan Stanley has executed more than $3.6 billion in investments to strengthen underserved communities. For more information about Morgan Stanley, please visit www.morganstanley.com .

About Capital Magnet Fund: Through the Capital Magnet Fund, the CDFI Fund competitively awards grants to CDFIs and qualified nonprofit housing organizations. Capital Magnet Fund awards can be used to finance affordable housing activities as well as related economic development activities and community service facilities. Awardees are able to utilize financing tools such as loan loss reserves, loan funds, risk-sharing loans, and loan guarantees to produce eligible activities whose aggregate costs are at least 10 times the size of the award amount. For more information visit www.cdfifund.gov.

Contacts:Greg Maher, LISC Senior Vice President for Lending212-455-9860 or gmaher@lisc.org.

LISC Launches Neighborhood Revitalization Loan Fund to Drive Affordable Rental Housing Development with Funding from Morgan Stanley Capital Magnet Fund

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Supported by a $19 million loan from Morgan Stanley [NYSE: MS], the new fund is expected to fuel $100 million in affordable housing development by providing the early financing and loan guarantees required by investors and construction lenders. The fund will be disbursed through 30 LISC urban programs around the country, as well as through Rural LISC.

For more information visit www.cdfifund.gov. Contacts:Greg Maher, LISC Senior Vice President for Lending212-455-9860 or gmaher@lisc.org Sandra Hernandez, Morgan StanleyCorporate Communications212-761-2446 SOURCE Local Initiatives Support Corporation Copyright (C) 2011 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

Cramped Chicago: Half of city's 2.7 million people live in park-poor areas (10/09/11)

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Chicago's high-toned Latin motto, "Urbs in Horto" (City in a Garden), makes it sound as though the expansive open spaces of the city's lakefront extend to every corner of the city.

They don't.

Despite former Mayor Richard M. Daley's much-ballyhooed push for new parks and playgrounds, one-half of Chicago's 2.7 million people still live in community areas that fail to meet the city's own modest standard: For every 1,000 people, there should be 2 acres of open space, an area roughly the size of Soldier Field's entire playing surface.

Many of these areas have so little parkland that it is no exaggeration to call them "park deserts," a name that suggests a similarity to "food deserts," where healthy, affordable food is hard to obtain.

Indeed, the park deserts extract a comparable human toll, denying children and adults a place to exercise, cutting them off from contact with nature, and robbing them of a chance to form bonds of community.

In Brighton Park, just south of the industrial corridor along the Stevenson Expressway, 45,368 people share just 10.6 acres of open space. By comparison, northwest suburban Buffalo Grove, population 41,496, has more than 400 acres of parks, playgrounds, sports fields, bicycle trails and picnic areas.

"We need more parks," Danny Martinez, 11, said last Sunday as he tossed a football to his brother on the sidewalk in the 3900 block of South Artesian Avenue.

"Sometimes we play in the backyard," Danny added, "but it's boring."

In Avondale, part of a cluster of park-poor communities along the Chicago River on the Northwest Side, there is so little open space that Esmeralda McCullough and her 6-year-old son play volleyball on a makeshift court that consists of the family's tiny backyard and the alley. A black metal fence between them serves as the net.

"Chicago should invest in some parks," McCullough said.

The severe open-space shortage confronts new Mayor Rahm Emanuel with a major policy challenge: How to expand the city's network of parks and other open spaces at a time of fiscal austerity?

The implications go beyond greenery: For centuries, parks have played an essential role in making cities livable, providing a respite from noise and clutter, bringing together people of different races and classes, and creating a framework that boosted real estate development.

Due to the foresight of urban planners like Daniel Burnham, Chicago has by and large realized these benefits along its spectacular lakefront. But turn a spotlight on the city's little-noticed inland neighborhoods, and the picture changes:

•Thirty-two of Chicago's 77 official community areas don't meet the city's 2-acres-per-1,000-people open-space standard, according to a new open-space inventory by city officials. The population of these areas is nearly 1.35 million people, half the city's total.

•Twenty-nine of the deficient areas are off the city's lakefront, while just three — the Near North Side, Edgewater and Rogers Park — are along the shoreline. Ironically, many communities with names that suggest pastoral tranquillity, such as Brighton Park, West Lawn and Avondale, are in fact park-poor.

•At least a dozen more community areas meet the city standard but harbor sub-areas where residents live more than half a mile from the nearest open space in Chicago. Public space advocates say such a distance makes it difficult for people to walk to parks, discouraging everyday use.

•A majority of the city's community areas do not meet 1990 national guidelines for providing enough playgrounds, baseball diamonds and swimming pools, new city statistics show. The Chicago Park District, which once followed those guidelines, now characterizes them as an artificial, one-size-fits-all standard.

•The open space shortage transcends racial and economic lines. It affects neighborhoods that are predominantly white, black and Hispanic, as well as neighborhoods whose household incomes are above and below the city average.

While park acreage is the most popular yardstick, open-space advocates and public officials around the country are increasingly looking at a complex variety of factors that determine whether public spaces truly serve the public:

Is it easy for pedestrians to reach them? Does public transit go there? Do people feel safe there or threatened by gangs? How up-to-date and well-designed are their facilities? Do the parks invite use by people of all ages? Are they meeting demand or overwhelmed by demand?

Consider what's happened to a year-old artificial-turf soccer field and running track in the park-poor Northwest Side neighborhood of Albany Park. At times, the field is so overcrowded that players limit their game to one half of the field, playing from side to side rather than end to end. Unable to use the real goals at the ends of the field, they drag in plastic garbage cans to serve as makeshift goals.

"When I go to the suburbs, it's a whole different story," said Arnel Gredelj, 23, who goes to the field a few times a week. "There's space everywhere. Here, it's very limited."

Parks behind profits

What exactly is open space? And how much of it is enough? Cities are different from suburbs, after all. They thrive on dense clusters of homes and businesses. But cities can also be too dense for their own good.

Kathy Dickhut, a deputy commissioner in the city's Department of Housing and Economic Development, defines open space as outdoor land that's open to the public and can be used for recreation. The city's 12,000 acres of open space include Chicago Park District parks, Cook County forest preserves within the city's borders, land around Lake Calumet, community gardens and playgrounds at public schools. The city's historic boulevards, with their grassy medians, also count.

For years, nationally accepted standards called for 6 to 10 acres of parkland for every 1,000 residents. But in the 1990s, the National Recreation and Park Association also suggested that each city establish its own standard based on its growth patterns.

In Chicago, those patterns were defined by building booms that transformed the city after the Great Fire, covering block after block of the city's relentless grid of streets with homes, shops and factories. As Chicago's population exploded from less than 300,000 in 1870 to a peak of more than 3.6 million in 1950, parks invariably ranked behind profits on the civic priority list.

"The older industrial areas were so jammed by the expansion of factories that any kind of open space was considered to be sort of a luxury," said Perry Duis, a University of Illinois at Chicago historian. Beer gardens and amusement parks provided open space, but the drinks and the rides were not free.

"It's just logical," Duis said. "Chicago is the most thoroughly capitalistic city there is."

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a trio of great inland parks — Humboldt, Douglas and Garfield — brought picturesque lagoons and vast meadows to the city's West Side.

Yet despite these and other spasms of reform, such as the innovative neighborhood parks built amid the South Side's tenements in 1905, things did not change much. Even the 1909 publication of Burnham's "Plan of Chicago" gave only a minor push to inland parks, putting its major emphasis on the creation of a continuous chain of lakefront parks and a network of forest preserves.

When millions of African-Americans moved to Chicago from the South during the "Great Migration" from 1916 to 1970, a new factor compounded the city's chronic shortage of open land: the intersection of public space and racial politics.

In 1982, the federal government filed a lawsuit alleging that the Chicago Park District had discriminated against black and Hispanic neighborhoods in providing programs and facilities. To address the inequities, Park District officials scrambled to add land that would allow them to build new facilities. Yet when the district set open-space goals in 1990, Chicago's neighborhoods were so densely built that planners stuck to the city's longtime standard of 2 acres of open space for every 1,000 residents.

"Our regional park system can easily mislead us … into thinking that Chicago meets high standards of park and recreation needs," the district's 1990 Land Policies Plan stated. "Unfortunately, very many neighborhoods throughout the city are woefully underserved with recreational opportunities."

That report, issued one year after Daley began his 22-year run in office, and a 1998 city-backed plan called CitySpace set the tone for an aggressive expansion of open space that reflected the mayor's reputation as a tree-hugger.

Concrete and asphalt around public schools were turned into playgrounds — more than 270 acres of them. More than 13 miles of riverfront trails were added. Overall, the city's total open space rose to some 12,000 acres, or 4.45 acres per 1,000 residents.

Despite these gains, Chicago will rank 14th among 19 densely populated U.S. cities in parkland per 1,000 residents in a soon-to-be-released survey by The Trust for Public Land, a San Francisco-based advocacy group.

Roughly a quarter of Chicago's 12,000 acres of open space remains concentrated on the lakefront.

Local parks away from the shoreline are "the missing link," said Erma Tranter, president of the Chicago group Friends of the Parks .

'Very few places for kids'

To grasp the human impact of that problem, come to the city's most park-poor neighborhood, Brighton Park.

Brighton Park used to be heavily Polish and Lithuanian, but from 1990 to 2010, immigrants from Mexico dramatically changed its character and density, driving up its population by nearly 41 percent. Yet since 1998, city statistics show, the neighborhood added less than 3 acres of open space. In contrast, the neighborhood's Corwith intermodal hub, where workers transfer shipping containers between trains and trucks, sprawls over 388 acres, an expanse larger than Grant Park.

Brighton Park's largest park, the 7-acre Kelly Park at 41st Street and California Avenue, is tiny by comparison. And it must double as a Chicago Park District venue for outdoor recreation and a practice field for the sports teams at the adjoining Kelly High School. Such overuse turned its grass and dirt into a bumpy moonscape. Facilities, like a playground with an old metal jungle gym and wood chips on the ground, are outdated. The park has no continuous loop for walking or jogging, an absence that park advocates say reflects a mindset from another time.

"In industrial times, people's jobs were physically demanding," said Lucy Gomez-Feliciano, a health organizer for the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, who confronts similar problems on the city's North Side. "Now you're seeing adults using parks to stay fit."

The lack of space for exercise blunts efforts to control childhood obesity.

"There are very few places for the kids to play," said Patrick Brosnan, executive director of the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council.

Local parents agree. Wary of Kelly Park because it's overcrowded — and, they say, infiltrated by gangs — they keep their children at home.

"If there was more space, (the children) would have more freedom. … They would be able to socialize more," said Amalia Montoya, mother of two children.

Another mother, Mayra Garcia, recounted how her landlord, fearful that grass will be trampled, does not allow her children to play in the backyard. Last year, her teenage son Jose was outside and crossed the street when he heard the bells of an ice cream truck. A fast-moving car hit him, bruising his ribs, Garcia said.

A boulevard barrier

At first glance, a ready answer to Brighton Park's open-space problems appears just across Western Avenue. It's McKinley Park, whose nearly 70 acres include a serene lagoon. Last Sunday, russet-brown mallards paddled across the waterway, a man fished from a boardwalk and another man jogged nearby with his dog on a leash.

Getting to this Shangri-La from Brighton Park, however, is no easy task. For pedestrians, Western Avenue is a virtual Great Wall of China. Its grassy median is surrounded on each side by four traffic lanes, over which cars and trucks typically rumble by at 40 mph. At Pershing and Western, parkgoers run into a forest of pillars supporting two rail lines and the CTA Orange Line tracks.

"In order to enjoy green space you have to engage in dangerous activity," Brosnan said.

Such access problems occur throughout Chicago as rail lines, highways and major arterial roads raise intimidating barriers to parkland.

The presence of gangs, either in parks or on streets around them, raises another hurdle that discourages people like Noemi Velazquez and her sons from using open space.

Standing on her porch on the 4200 block of West Iowa Avenue, Velazquez said she takes the boys to Lincoln Park to avoid the gangs. "If I bring my kids (to Humboldt Park), the gangs will mess with them," she said. Other city parents drive their children to close-in suburbs, such as Oak Park and Evanston, to reach safe parks.

Even when Chicagoans are lucky enough to reach open space, they may find that it suddenly stops, instead of running continuously, as it does along the 18.5-mile lakefront trail.

A classic example occurs around the Addison Street bridge over the Chicago River, a few miles west of Wrigley Field. On one end of the bridge is Clark Park. On the other, California Park. The only way for parkgoers to get from one to the other is to maneuver onto heavily trafficked Addison and cross the bridge. Few do. City officials would like to build a pedestrian bridge to close this gap, but it won't appear for at least five years, they acknowledge.

Without links between the trails, "it's more difficult to walk and bike places, plain and simple," said Ron Burke, executive director of the Active Transportation Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates for walking, biking and transit. Short trails are fine for getting to the grocery, Burke said, but the city needs a network of trails connecting people to key destinations, along with the on-street protected bike lanes that Emanuel's administration has begun to build.

Weeds, broken glass

In contrast to the park-poor communities of the Northwest and Southwest sides, where the problem is too little open space, the problem in some parts of the South Side is too much.

Drive south from the Loop down Halsted Street, past the old Chicago Stockyards and into a tier of heavily African-American neighborhoods, and you see once-prosperous commercial streets lined with vacant lots.

Of Chicago's 33,144 vacant lots, about half are concentrated on the South and West sides, according to Kelley Quinn, a spokeswoman for the Cook County assessor's office.

In areas like Englewood, which lost nearly a quarter of its population during the last decade, Chicago is a shrinking city, one that resembles the vast emptiness of inner-city Detroit. Yet this open space, with its weeds and broken glass, is the last place parents would want their kids to play.

In still-dense South Side areas, such as Greater Grand Crossing, surface streets and elevated highways, such as the Chicago Skyway, cut off people from large parks.

"What happens is that we all crowd into Hoard Park," said Ayoka Samuels, senior program director at the Gary Comer Youth Center at 72nd and South Chicago Avenue, referring to a 21/2-acre park near the center.

Because of the lack of room, she said, boys put basketball hoops in the street and play there. Or kids turn to other things, not all of them positive.

"Sometimes they will engage in risky sex practices because they don't have anything to do," Samuels said. "Sometimes they dabble in drugs. Sometimes they'll dabble into the gangs. Sometimes they'll dabble into crime." Or the kids stay at home "and do nothing. They watch TV and they eat Oreos and that's it."

Finding an answer

So what can be done to create more parkland in the city's off-lakefront neighborhoods?

The Chicago Park District's 2011-15 capital improvement plan foresees more than $306 million in projects. That sounds like a lot of money. But it's not much compared with the more than $1 billion that Chicago lavished on two lakefront mega-projects in the first decade of the 21st century. The city and private interests spent $600 million on the renovation of Soldier Field and about $500 million on Millennium Park.

Chicago's controversial tax-increment financing districts, which are supposed to use anticipated gains in tax revenue to finance improvements to parks and other infrastructure, have supported more than $75 million in park district projects, district officials said. But city neighborhoods without TIFs — or those whose TIFs aren't generating new revenue — can't use this tool to create or improve open space.

"If you're not a community that benefits from that tool, then we just need to work harder to find partners for those projects or do it on our own dime," said Gia Biagi, the district's director of planning and development. By "partners," she was referring to state grants or private contributions for parkland.

Emanuel has signaled his willingness to tackle the issue, declaring in his transition plan that "despite increases in park acreage, many neighborhoods remain underserved." And he promised that a task force of public space experts would "create a vision and plan for city spaces."

That vision was to be unveiled during the mayor's first 100 days in office.

As of Sunday, though, it is 47 days overdue.

bkamin@tribune.com

Lathrop Residents Pray for Preservation

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Residents of Lathrop Homes, joined by religious leaders, are planning to march through the threatened CHA development Thursday night, stopping to pray for the preservation of their historic neighborhood.

They’re concerned that as CHA seals off sections of the development, buildings will deteriorate. They’re calling on CHA to maintain the condition of vacant units.

CHA recently signed a $1.1 million loan agreement with a development team selected last year over the objections of Lathrop resident leadership. The contract has not yet been made public, said John McDermott of Logan Square Neighborhood Association, which is working with residents in the Lathrop Leadership Team.

CHA was recently challenged for its high rate of vacant units, at a time when its Plan For Transformation is stalled. The agency responded that “off-line” units are not to be counted as vacant, though some have been off-line for years, in some cases following rehab.

Insistence on including market-rate housing in Lathrop’s redevelopment would hold up work for years in the current climate, McDermott said. And it would be “missing the forest for the trees,” he said.

In its approach to developing mixed-income housing, CHA focuses “on a micro scale within their developments” but misses “the real historical barriers to breaking down poverty tied to Chicago’s history of racial segregation,” he said.

“Are we really breaking up concentrations of poverty if we insist on sharply limiting the number of low- and moderate-income families that can access jobs, schools, and shopping in an economically thriving North Side community?” he asked. “Or are we really reinforcing larger patterns of segregation and patterns of gentrification and displacement?”

He points out that Lathrop is located “in a part of the city that has seen tremendous displacement of African American and Latino families and a dramatic loss of affordable housing.”

In his first press conference last month, new CHA chief Charles Woodyard said that “given the bare reality of this real estate market” CHA would have to “be outside-the-box thinkers” to turn “our current assets…into real housing opportunities.”

He was asked what “outside the box” meant, but Mayor Emanuel stepped to the microphone in front of him before he could answer, the Sun Times reported.

But the CHA’s biggest “box” – particularly given a housing market that shows no signs of recovery – is the agency’s strict insistence on a formula of one-third market, one-third affordable, and one-third public housing in redevelopments.

Lathrop residents say it isn’t appropriate there. Their prayers will be heard – but willtheir plan ever be considered?

Purchase Halloween Shakedown Tickets Here for Thursday October 20th Fundraiser

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 12:00:00 -0600

LSNA presents the LSNA HALLOWEEN SHAKEDOWN, Thursday, October 20, 2011 from 8pm to Midnight at the Logan Square Auditorium, 2539 N. Kedzie, Chicago, IL!

featuring MUCCA PAZZA

AMI SARAIYA & THE OUTCOME

Thursday, October 20
Logan Square Auditorium
8:00p.m. - doors open at 7:30 p.m.
21 and over
$15

Buy Ticket Here

Mucca Pazza is the marching band that thinks it's a rock band. They began seven years ago as an 8-piece group rehearsing in a lot next to the Finkle and Sons Steel Foundry in Chicago and have grown into a 30-piece force to be reckoned with. They've played benefits for West Town Bikes, Co-op Image, The Public Media Institute, Young Chicago Authors, Iraq Veterans Against the War, as well as large-scale festivals, tiny-scale clubs, parades, street performances, and on the Chicago River in a dozen canoes. They are proud to be playing a benefit for the Logan Square Neighborhood Association this fall.

There's drama when Ami Saraiya and her band, The Outcome, take the stage. It's a dark atmosphere, but it swings baby-a worldly staging of folk punk and jazzcabaret. And amongst the accordion, the violin and the guitars, it's Ami's sultry voice that recalls Piaf and Holiday which takes the spotlight. Then, there are the song-stories-often saturnine, often employing magical realism.

Fandanguero is the name of a hummingbird species that inhabits the woods in Veracruz, Mexico. The foundation of Fandanguero originated from Son Jarocho, a traditional musical style of Veracruz, Mexico is called Sotavento. It represents a fusion of indigenous (primarily Huastecan), Spanish, and African musical elements, reflecting the population which evolved in the region from Spanish colonial times. The instrumentation consists of traditional acoustic instruments: jarana, requinto, quijada de burro (donkey jaw) and caj-n from Peru and non-traditional instruments: acoustic guitar, electric bass, congas and pandeiro.

Buy Ticket Here

Family and Community Engagement: How one Chicago Program Makes the Grade

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Article in September 2011 LULAC Newsletter.

Where are Poor Chicagoans to Live?

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:00:00 -0600

The Barbershop Show on Vocalo 89.5.

Coming to you live each week from Carter's Barber Shop in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood, The Barber Shop Show is your weekly dose of real talk, straight from the shop floor. No punches are pulled and no topic is considered off-topic. Hosted by the Chicago Reporter's Kimbriell Kelly and WBEZ's Richard Steele. Produced and Directed by Sarah Lu. Engineered by Nick van der Kolk.

Join us live at Carter's - 3622 W Cermak Road, or follow the conversation online.

Via twitter - @vocalo or @chicagoreporter

Listen to episode 47 featuring Lathrop Homes Leader Miguel Suarez and distinguished panelists here.

Quinn pauses hospital tax decisions

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:00:00 -0600

CHICAGO -- Gov. Pat Quinn has ordered state officials not to issue any new rulings that could deny tax-exempt status to nonprofit hospitals, saying he hopes to work with the hospital industry to find a legislative compromise.

In a letter to the Illinois Hospital Association released to The Associated Press on Thursday, Quinn called for a solution that would be fair to both the hospitals and Illinois taxpayers. The letter follows the Illinois Department of Revenue's decision last month to deny tax exemptions to three hospitals, citing a 2010 Illinois Supreme Court ruling. The denials signaled that the state would get tough on hospitals it believes are operating more like businesses than charities.

"I trust that (the Illinois Hospital Association) and the hospital community will make every effort to be a constructive partner in finding a solution to this issue that is fair to both hospitals and taxpayers and meets the requirements of the Illinois Constitution," Quinn wrote in his letter dated Monday.

The tax-exemption decisions have raised uncertainty for hospital executives. Officials at Hopedale Medical Complex in central Illinois have said they are delaying construction of a replacement hospital because of uncertainty about whether the property would be tax exempt.

At stake are millions of dollars in tax revenues that the hospitals could contribute to cities, parks and schools by paying taxes. No state tax revenue is at stake because the exemptions are for local property taxes.

Quinn's move is intended to create breathing room during talks on new legislation that could clearly define what hospitals must do to earn tax-exempt status. He wants recommendations on the legislation by March 1.