Southwest Organizing Project - Latest news

SWOP and Keep Our Homes Campaign Announce Partnership With Bank of America to keep families in Homes

7/15/2009, 3:05 PM

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Southwest Side residents stood along side Bank of America officials yesterday to announce a new partnership to combat the foreclosure crisis in the neighborhood and ensure hundreds of families can stay in their homes.

The announcement came after a two-hour meeting with Bank of America officials Andrew D. Plepler, Global Community Impact Executive and President, Bank of America Charitable Foundation, and Robert Grossinger, Senior Vice President and community resident leaders, from area faith institutions, schools and other organizations that belong to Keep Our Homes campaign at St. Rita Church on the Southwest Side.

Community leaders from the Southwest Organizing Project announced to a crowd of two hundred local residents three key components of the partnership to keep families in their homes on the Southwest side of Chicago: Proactively modify unaffordable loans; Allow families to remain as tenants after foreclosure; and Turn vacant properties into community assets. Local residents erupted in cheers as Plepler told the crowd, they should be “proud of the community advocates who represented their interests” in the meeting and he hoped to see the community “restored to health.”

“The foreclosure crisis upon us is the most daunting challenge we’ve ever faced. The agreement we’ve entered into with Bank of America, causes hope,” said Jim Capraro, CEO, Greater Southwest Development Corporation. “We will begin the methodical work, together, one borrower at a time to seek solutions. But, more importantly we have a top level leadership commitment from the highest level of the bank to imagine and implement new solutions that don’t currently exist. This is a good day for our community.”

The meeting with Bank of America officials resulted from a direct ask from more than two hundred Southwest Side residents who went to the Gage Park Bank of America Branch at 55^th and Kedzie in early May to ask the Branch Manager for a meeting with Bank of America leadership on this issue.

Since January 2008, more than 3,700 homes in the Southwest Side zip codes of 60629, 60632, 60638 and 60652 entered foreclosure. According to numbers compiled by the Southwest Organizing Project, in 2008 Bank of America and its subsidiaries, Countrywide and Lasalle Bank, were responsible for 240 of those foreclosures. Bank of America is on pace to double their numbers in 2009, having already initiated foreclosure on 117 homes in the 1^st quarter alone.

“Although we are delighted and encouraged that Bank of America has decided to partner with the Southwest Organizing Project and our neighborhood to address the terrible foreclosure problems that affect so many families,” said Rabbi Joshua Salter, Associate Rabbi of Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation and a former banker, “I will only be satisfied when concrete relief is felt by our families and their children.”

Local Southwest Side HUD-certified housing counseling agencies have tripled their counseling capacity over the last year and still have waits in excess of 3-4 weeks before a resident can even get an appointment. Each counselor has over 50 clients they are working with at any given time.

With each client taking up to several monthsto work out a solution, they are able to impact only a fraction of the more than 3,000 foreclosures that the neighborhood is facing. With over 45,000 foreclosures initiated in Cook County in 2008, and more expected in 2009, the banking industry’s insistence on approaching this crisis on a one-at-a-time approach is failing. According to the Woodstock Institute, 98% of homes failed to sell at the initial foreclosure auction in 2008, reverting back to the banks. This dramatically increased the number of boarded-up homes, causing existing home values to plummet, which puts more and more homeowners at risk each day.

The Southwest Side is losing vital community leaders like church lectors, parents involved in schools, local business owners, and block club presidents. The cornerstones of these neighborhoods are eroding as empty lots and boarded up homes become the face of once-emergent communities.

“We want to partner not only with Bank of America but all lending institutions to develop effective strategies that protect the strong network of social and financial investments we have helped build throughout the last thirty years,” said Betty Gutierrez, a resident and member of St Mary Star of the Sea Church, a member institution of the Southwest Organizing Project and Board Member of Neighborhood Housing Services, Chicago Lawn/Gage Park. “Our community has worked too hard to watch it all go down the drain because of bad mortgage lending policies - now is the time for a direct conversation and for a real response from the banks.”

To view additional media coverage on this issue please see Chicago Public Radio Feature and article in Chicago Tribune.

SWOP featured in local news media regarding signing of foreclosure grace period legislation

4/14/2009, 1:52 PM

SWOP executive director Jeff Bartow was featured in Chicago news outlets on recent bill signing of foreclosure grace period legislation sponsored by State Senator Jacqueline Collins.

The law would give homeowners facing foreclosure an additional 90 days to remain in thier homes. Lenders would be required to inform borrowers that they are delinquent in their payments in the first 30 days, then send a letter to borrowers informing them that they have an additional 30 days to seek counseling from a HUD certified counseling agency. Borrowers would then have an additional 30 days to report this information on a payment plan back to their lender. SWOP has worked on the issue of foreclosures and predatory lending for more than a decade. To view these articles, please click on the links below:

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=6746289

http://cbs2chicago.com/video/?id=57173@wbbm.dayport.com

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Homeowners-Safety-Net-.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-quinn-foreclosureapr06,0,1044366.story

Leaders Gather for Candlelight Posada Highlighting Plight of Families Facing Foreclosures

12/22/2008, 1:31 PM

Neighbors and community members gathered for prayer and a “posada” to highlight the plight of families facing foreclosures in one of Chicago’s hardest hit neighborhoods this holiday season. Families formed a procession through the neighborhood, beginning at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Catholic Church, and stopping in front of vacant homes hit by the recent rise in foreclosures.

In a re-enactment of the journey of St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary going to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus, families asked for “posada” or lodging for families affected by foreclosures. In traditional posadas, the chorus asks for lodging for the Holy Family with stanzas played by the inn-keepers who refuse them a room. In this posada, southwest side families affected by foreclosures were requesting additional time to stay in their homes and were refused by the banks.

“Compassion I ask of you, beloved Banker, for only some time for my family that I love,” sang the families.

“Sorry, I am simply doing what I am being asked to do, since after all, they pay my salary,” responded the bankers.

The Southwest Organizing Project is engaged in a long-term housing campaign to develop solutions for families facing foreclosures. The Keep Our Homes Campaign, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, is in collaboration with Neighborhood Housing Services, the Greater Southwest Development Corporation and the Southwest REACH Center to provide outreach, counseling, intervention and organize remedies for families facing foreclosure.

The neighborhood of Chicago Lawn is at the epicenter of a national foreclosure crisis. In the first eleven months of 2008, an estimated 1,459 foreclosures were initiated in the 60629 zip code alone.

In June, the Southwest Organizing Project conducted a survey of St. Nicholas of Tolentine parishioners to gauge the impact of the foreclosure crisis on families in the neighborhood. Through these surveys, SWOP learned that 179 families were worried about making their monthly mortgage payments, 116 had boarded up homes on their block, 11 families were in foreclosure and 34 had fallen behind in their mortgage payments.

“We want to convey the message that St. Nick’s stands in solidarity with the families facing foreclosures,” said Letty Sanchez, a parishioner at St. Nicholas of Tolentine and a member of the church’s housing team. “As a church we refuse to cast them away. We are working for solutions to face this issue together.”

More than 200 ESL and GED Students Complete Fall Semester

12/11/2008, 1:21 PM

Students of the Southwest Organizing Project’s ESL and GED program participated in a special ceremony and potluck dinner celebrating their completion of the Fall 2008 semester. The Southwest Organizing Project, working in partnership with Malcolm X College, recognized the achievements of two-hundred forty-six students who completed the sixteen week fall semester. Family members and friends cheered in the Maria High School auditorium as teachers read the names of their students and they walked across the stage to receive their certificate.

The Southwest Organizing Project has been working with Malcolm X College since January 2008 to offer free adult education classes in the mornings and evenings at Maria High School. The number of registered students has steadily increased over the last three semesters with 347 students registered for the fall semester. Maria High School is currently the largest satellite location for Malcolm X College’s Continuing Adult Education program.

SWOP leaders ran a "We Want to Learn English" campaign, resulting in the partnership with Malcolm X College. Leaders organized listening campaigns within their churches and schools to assess the growing need for accessible adult education classes in Southwest Chicago. In August, leaders hosted a fundraiser dance at St. Gall to maintain funds for the program and continue to subsidize costs for a childcare program which enables many mothers to attend the classes.Aracely Perez, leader with SWOP’s ESL Committee, shared that “at this time, we are very proud that we brought classes here and all of our accomplishments this year.”

Senator Durbin Features SWOP in a Senate Subcommittee Hearing in Chicago

12/5/2008, 2:36 PM

Illinois US Senator Richard Durbin held up SWOP and our neighborhoods as an example of the tremendous local suffering caused by the national mortgage crisis during a federal hearing on December 4th at the Dirsken Federal Building in Chicago.

Two days earlier, the Senator was visibly moved by seeing the huge number of foreclosures on maps produced by SWOP at a meeting with our staff and leaders. Father Stan Rataj from St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church, Livia Villarreal from the Southwest Reach Center, Mike Reardon from Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) and SWOP staff Jeff Bartow and David McDowell had arranged the meeting to speak with the Senator about our work fighting the foreclosures on the southwest side. As Father Stan laid out the impact of the crisis on his parish and Villarreal and Reardon shared information about the “Keep Our Homes” campaign recently begun by SWOP, SW Reach Center and NHS, the Senator began thinking with us on ways to bring the key decision makers from the top foreclosing banks to the table to speak with our leaders about local solutions to save our homes.

At the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee Hearing on December 4th, Senator Durbin pointed to two enlargements of the SWOP foreclosure maps that SWOP had shared with him, spoke about the devastating effects of foreclosures on zip code 60629 and related the stories that Father Stan had told him about St. Nicholas parish. He then questioned Neel Kashkari, Interim Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability, Department of the Treasury about what the Treasury Department was doing to specifically help families stay in their homes and heard testimony from Michael Krimminger, Special Advisor to the Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on the FDIC plan to save homes.

Also testifying at the hearing were Lisa Madigan, Illinois Attorney General; Matthew Scire, Director, Financial Markets and Community Investment, U.S. Government Accountability Office; Bruce Gottschall, Executive Director, Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago; and Marguerite E. Sheehan, Senior Vice President and Home Lending Senior Executive, JPMorgan Chase.

SWOP leader Katie Van Tiem from Neighborhood Housing Services, and SWOP Staff Jeff Bartow and David McDowell were present at the hearing and had the opportunity to speak with the Senator and his staff about a continuing partnership to keep our families in their homes in our neighborhood.

Stay tuned to our website for further developments.

VOYCE leaders announce partnership with CPS on Youth-Led Pilot Projects; Release report detailing solutions to Dropout Crisis

12/4/2008, 6:07 PM

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students and CPS CEO Arne Duncan announced the creation of a new student-led pilot project aimed at reducing the city's high dropout rate. The program was launched at a breakfast gathering of the education community in downtown Chicago convened by Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE), a coalition of youth leaders from seven community organizations, including the Southwest Organizing Project, and 12 high schools throughout Chicago. VOYCE worked with CPS to develop the pilot project, one of several recommendations made in the VOYCE report released today detailing solutions to stem the CPS dropout crisis.

“Each CPS high school student faces a unique situation and we believe that the better we understand our students, the more effective we can be at helping students stay on track for graduation,” Duncan said. “We are excited to partner with VOYCE because it gives us another opportunity to have a direct dialog with students and engage them in transforming the Chicago Public Schools.”

Based upon the importance of student input, in its report released today VOYCE details specific initiatives to address the dropout crisis and increase college-readiness. As part of its first phase of implementing the student-led reforms, CPS is committed to work with VOYCE on a pilot-project basis. Among the project's elements:

• Struggling freshmen at eight of the CPS high schools participating in the VOYCE coalition will receive personalized, four-year graduation plans, and will be offered guidance retreats three times a year.

• CPS will also develop a process for all students to give input into ongoing CPS curriculum reform efforts and professional development. This will begin with a set of discussions including students from VOYCE high schools. CPS schools participating in the pilot project include Roosevelt, Kelly, Dyett, Kelvyn Park, Perspectives Tech, Gage Park, Kenwood Academy and Senn high schools.

In addition, VOYCE leaders, themselves, will undertake the following efforts at several of the 12 partner schools:

• The creation of student-led leadership teams with teachers and administrators as adult allies.

• The development of a VOYCE leadership academy to train leadership team members to be effective agents of change on school reform issues.

• Community orientations for teachers as part of ongoing professional development activities aimed at giving teachers a stronger understanding of the wisdom, values, and struggles of the areas in which they teach.

• Potential other pilot projects that promote positive peer to peer influence to keep students in school, improve safety and security, and further develop a college-going culture in the schools.

"This process of engaging youth in their own educational futures is what VOYCE is all about," said Maria DeGillo, a VOYCE student leader and CPS student at Truman Middle College. "Our goal is for CPS to eventually adopt the full spectrum of our student-led initiatives."

The VOYCE collaborative believes the engagement of CPS students, themselves, is vital in helping resolve high dropout and low college-enrollment rates that continue to plague Chicago public high schools. Supported with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Communities for Public Education Reform, the group's student leaders undertook a year-long study of the reasons for these problems and potential solutions that included a statistically significant survey of 1,325 CPS students, in-depth interviews with 208 additional students, 110 teachers, and 65 parents, and site visits to successful schools in six states.

The VOYCE schools include: Dyett High School, Gage Park High School, Kelly High School, Kelvyn Park High School, Kenwood Academy, Mather High School, North Grand High School, Perspectives Calumet High School/Perspectives Calumet Institute of Technology, Roosevelt High School, Senn High School, and Uplift Community High School.

The national site visits were held in the following six states: California at Kearney Digital Media and Design School (San Diego) and Animo Leadership Charter High School (Los Angeles); Illinois at the Al Raby High School and North Side College Prep (Chicago); New Jersey at Science Park Magnet High School (Newark); New York at Paul Robeson High School (Brooklyn, NY); Texas at Hidalgo Early College High School (Hidalgo), Yes College Prep (Houston), and from the South Texas Independent School District: The Science Academy of South Texas, South Texas High School for Health Professions, and Business Education and Technology Academy (BETA); Washington at Garfield High School (Seattle), Mariner High School (Everett), and Clover Park High School (Lakewood).

During the youth-led process, student leaders and researchers envisioned improved schools and learning environments, developed survey questions based on their own educational experiences, identified appropriate data collection methods, performed ethnographic mapping of school communities, made site visits to successful school in Illinois and across the country, reviewed relevant literature, and collated all data and responses to identify common themes and perspectives.

Among the coalition's findings:

• Students in Chicago Public Schools have internalized the problem of the dropout rate and believe that they are the ones to blame for the failures of the school system. It is only through a deeper critical analysis that students come to realize the systemic problems impacting public education.

• Additionally, youth researchers found that dropping out is not something that students plan or anticipate. It is something that happens slowly over time.

• VOYCE found that while teachers, parents, and students agree that relevance in curriculum is critical to students’ engagement in school, students feel that relevance is largely missing in their schools. This lack of relevance leaves students without a clear sense of purpose when it comes to their education.

• Through school site visits in Chicago and nationally, the student researchers came to understand that curriculum needs to both relate to students’ culture and real-life situations, and explicitly make the connection that school is a stepping stone to college and future careers.

• Students state that family and friends influence them the most, above teachers and counselors. 58% of students said that the best thing about their school were the students. This shows the importance of increasing the influence that teachers and counselors have on students, and also highlights the importance of peer-to-peer influence in motivating students to stay in school.

• For a learning environment to be safe, students must not only feel physically safe, but also feel safe to express themselves. In order to create a physically and emotionally safe environment in schools, strong relationships, high expectations, and challenging coursework must be in place.

"It's unfortunate that any student would believe they are the cause of a nationwide problem," said VOYCE leader Hennessy Williams, a VOYCE student leader and CPS student at Kenwood Academy. "It is the mission of VOYCE to help students realize they are instead part of the solution."

Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE) is a citywide youth organizing initiative created to address the high dropout rate and low college enrollment rate for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students. VOYCE’s leadership includes students from seven community-based organizations and 12 CPS high schools who have committed themselves to organizing their schools and communities to create lasting change. VOYCE's organizational partners include Albany Park Neighborhood Council, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Organization of the NorthEast, Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, Logan Square Neighborhood Association, Target Area Development Corporation, and Southwest Organizing Project. For more information, please visit www.voyceproject.org.

To download a copy of the report, please click here.

Access to Religious Ministry Passes Illinois General Assembly

11/24/2008, 4:41 PM

On November 20, HB 4613, the Access to Religious Ministry Act unanimously passed the Illinois General Assembly. The Access to Religious Ministry Act (HB 4613), ensures access of religious workers to immigrant detainees in county jails across the state.

HB 4613, sponsored by State Representatives Daniel Burke (D-Chicago) and Julie Hamos (D-Evanston) and State Senators Iris Martinez (D-Chicago) and Jacqueline Collins (D-Chicago), has the support of religious institutions and leaders including the Sisters of Mercy, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), Southwest Organizing Project, and the Resurrection Project.

The Access to Religious Ministry Act would ensure that immigration detainees in county jails have the same access to priests, nuns, ministers, rabbis, imams, and other clergy as the criminal populations in these jails. Religious workers would be able to meet with immigration detainees who wish to consult with the religious workers regarding their spiritual and other needs.

The jails would need to provide religious workers with reasonable access to immigration detainees during scheduled times. Such ministries would not count against any visitation to which the detainees would otherwise be entitled. The facility would work to bring in religious workers from various faiths that reflect the religious diversity of the facility’s immigration detained population.

“Access to religious ministry is a basic human right that we all deserve, especially in times of need,” said Rep. Burke. “The passage of this bill is a step forward towards compassion for the most needed and it will provide some relief for the spiritual needs of thousands of immigrants held in detention for days or months.”

Immigration authorities are detaining increasing numbers of immigrants throughout the country, requiring more space to house the detainees. Many of these detainees are seeking asylum and are being detained while awaiting their day in court. Others are there solely for lacking immigration status, without having been charged with any criminal offense.

“Immigrants are suffering after being separated from their families and communities, with very limited access to spiritual counseling,” said Rep. Hamos. “Enabling ministry to these immigrants is a basic but compassionate improvement in the conditions that they face.”

“We want to recognize the work of the sponsors Reps. Burke, Hamos and Senators Martinez and Collins,” said Lawrence Benito, ICIRR Associate Director. “Especially now that raids and deportations had increased tremendously, the passage of HB 4613 marks a huge victory against the politics of fear in our state, and a signal that our state stands for humane detention practices.”

SWOP Organizer Receives Cardinal Bernadin New Leadership Award

11/24/2008, 3:04 PM

Organizer Stephanie Garza, 25, was chosen as this year’s recipient of the Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership Award for her remarkable work with immigrant parents through the Southwest Organizing Project in Chicago. Bishop Roger P. Morin, Chairman of the USCCB Subcommittee on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, praised the choice.

"Stephanie is a clear example of a young leader who is inspired by her faith to empower low-income people to work together to address the root causes of poverty in their communities. Her example and witness inspires us all, and I congratulate Stephanie and her family for the achievements that have led to this important honor," Morin said.

Stephanie has worked with the Southwest Organizing Project since 2005 where she runs the Parents as Mentors Program, an initiative in four Chicago public elementary schools that facilitates parent involvement in their children’s schools with the goal of engaging parents in addressing community issues.

The daughter of an immigrant father and a Mexican-American mother, Stephanie has a special connection with the program participants, most of whom are immigrant mothers. Stephanie described her work at SWOP as "developing leaders to speak and act on their own behalf, so low income people can bring change to their communities."

Stephanie is also an active leader in the Catholic Campaign for Immigration Reform in the Archdiocese of Chicago. She regularly leads educational workshops for parishes on the need for comprehensive immigration reform based on Gospel and Catholic social teaching values. Stephanie has played a leadership role in diocesan campaign events such as a bi-lingual retreat, a Corpus Christi celebration, and a postcard exchange between immigrant and non-immigrant parishes.

Elena Segura, director of the Catholic Campaign for Immigration Reform in the Archdiocese of Chicago, said, "We're blessed to count on Stephanie as one of our volunteers who inspires others with her commitment to bring the kingdom of God to our society, to build relationships, and to accompany undocumented immigrants, in a very pastoral way, in their quest for immigration reform."

Stephanie said of her own work, "A lot of immigrant families feel really isolated. The process to find solutions starts with creating relationships. As Catholics, we need to support families and communities. We need to act on our faith as advocates for one another."

CCHD presented Stephanie with the award on Monday, November 10, in Baltimore, during the Fall General Assembly of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership award honors a Catholic between the ages of 18 and 30 who demonstrates leadership in fighting poverty and injustice in the United States through community-based solutions. It is named for the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, former archbishop of Chicago and a leading voice on behalf of poor and low-income people, who understood the need to build bridges across ethnic, economic, class and age barriers.

The award was established in 1998 by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a national program of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. CCHD is one of the nation’s largest supporters of self-help, community-based programs initiated and led by the poor. Funded by an annual collection in Catholic parishes across the country, CCHD has distributed more than $280 million to more than 8,000 self-help projects over its 38 years. This year, CCHD announced almost $9.4 million in grants to support 301 local projects, selected without regard to religious affiliation, in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

SWOP featured in Catalyst Chicago

9/26/2008, 4:19 PM

Parents at Marquette Elementary in Chicago Lawn are teaming up with teachers to conduct home visits for new students and provide information for families who need extra help. At Orozco Community Academy in Pilsen, parents will be offered English, nutrition and life skills classes.

And all five schools are scheduled to open on-campus health centers by the end of December.

None of the new programs seems directly related to academics, but the hope among educators is that these activities will help low-income students achieve better grades and improved test scores. In March, Atlantic Philanthropies, a foundation with offices in seven countries, awarded the schools and their community partners a four-year, $18 million grant to provide health and social services to students and their families.

Each school will receive as much as $850,000 a year to extend the school day into the late afternoon and Saturdays, add enrichment programs and bring in the services of doctors, nurses and mental health professionals. The initiative, called Integrated Services in Schools (ISS), seeks to help children in all areas of their lives. Middle school students are being targeted because they struggle mentally, socially and physically in the transition between childhood and adolescence.

“Middle-schoolers go through a lot, and many of our parents don’t have the money or resources to get the students into intervention,” says Principal Coralia Barraza of Orozco, where nearly all students are Latino immigrants. “They need to have a healthy mind and a healthy body to be ready to do the school work.”

The grants are being administered by Local Initiative Support Corporation’s Chicago office, which has long been involved in community development in struggling neighborhoods. LISC and Atlantic Philanthropies, started by businessman Charles Feeny (a co-founder of Duty Free Shops), began to develop the integrated schools initiative about two years ago. LISC worked with nine community agencies and their school partners to develop budgets and proposals. Of those, Atlantic Philanthropies awarded the grant to five.

Chris Brown, director of education programs for LISC, says the schools will serve as testing grounds and, if successful, models for innovation. Participating schools are representative of the entire district, with small and large student populations, African Americans and Latinos, long-term principals and newer leadership, and charter and traditional structures.

“The school district has about 600 schools, so we’re not going to change the system,” Brown says. “But we’re interested in using these five as a model to say, this does work, this does make a difference. We want to use this as a way to get more money for these types of programs.”

Chicago is one of four sites nationwide that Atlantic Philanthropies has selected for the initiative. The program has started in New Mexico and Oakland, Calif., and is under consideration in Baltimore.

Increasingly, educators and researchers are reaching the conclusion

that schools need to take a more holistic approach if they are to successfully educate children in troubled communities. Many studies have linked socio-economic disadvantages to low student achievement. Distrust and discomfort among parents, teachers and administrators also are barriers to students being engaged in school.

This spring, education leaders issued a statement challenging policymakers to increase investments in early childhood education and health services and to pay more attention to the time students spend outside of school. The “Broader, Bolder Approach to Education” campaign asserts that the No Child Left Behind law has helped focus attention on the achievement gap, but that the potential effects of the law have been undermined by assumptions that bad schools alone are behind this gap, and that academic standards, testing, teacher training and accountability can fix it.

The statement was signed by academics and superintendents nationwide, including CPS’ Arne Duncan.

Syda Segovia Taylor, ISS program director at Reavis Elementary, says that when she began work at the school in April, she immediately noticed that many students often expressed doubts that what they did mattered to anybody.

But during a summer program for about 50 middle-schoolers, she saw many of the students transform their attitude. The six-week camp, funded by the grant, included Brazilian martial arts, theater, and science classes where students made models of an amusement park to learn about physics. “You saw them struggle from, ‘I don’t want to do this,’ to ‘Oh, I like this,’” Taylor says.

At a performance showcasing what the students learned, so many parents showed up that it was standing-room only. After school this fall, Reavis will continue to offer Brazilian martial arts and other activities. The school day will be extended to 6 p.m.

With the students occupied, there’s less of a chance for them to get into trouble, Taylor says.
Chapin Hall Center for Children, a research center at the University of Chicago, will study how ISS impacts students, parents and the community. Public/Private Ventures, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that evaluates social policies, will collect data on participation rates.

Perhaps the most ambitious and complex part

of the initiative are the in-school health clinics. School and community leaders say health services are one of the most urgent needs, but the lack of resources has stymied their ability to do much.

According to the grant plans, each school will have a health clinic with exam rooms and a reception area. A nurse practitioner, mental health counselor and other staff will be provided by partner health organizations.

Once health clinics are open in schools, “hopefully it’ll reduce the time that [students] miss school because of illness,” says Jim Murphy, who oversees health partnerships at Access Community Health Network, which will work at Perspectives at Calumet and at Marquette. Statistics show that students in low-income communities suffer from asthma, obesity and diabetes at much higher rates than other children.

Brown of LISC says after the grant ends, the clinics ought to be able to support themselves through fees and insurance reimbursements. Many families will be paying through Medicaid or Family Care, the state-subsidized insurance program.

Perspectives at Calumet is expected to open the first clinic at the end of October and other schools will roll out clinics shortly afterwards, Brown says. In the beginning, the clinics will only serve middle-school students. Later, service will extend to parents, school staff and others in the greater community. (For safety reasons, the clinics will have separate entrances for the school and the general public.)

Besides diagnosing problems, clinic health workers will hold workshops on nutrition, sex education and conflict resolution skills. Mental health counselors will talk with students about stress and depression that stems from exposure to violence, the difficulties of immigration and acculturation, and the struggles of being poor.

At Orozco, health educators aren’t waiting for the clinic to open. In August, the school launched a three-week fitness and life skills camp for about 40 students who had discipline and academic problems in 7th grade.

“They’re not going to change right away,” says Marco Garduno, a coordinator at Alivio Medical Center, Orozco’s clinic partner. “My main goal is for them to understand that they have choices—good and bad—and out of those, they need to make good choices.”

One morning at Orozco began with a 50-yard dash. After lunch, the students broke into groups to talk with counselors about self-esteem and values. Most of the kids were reluctant to talk, but health teachers encouraged them, and some opened up. One girl says there wasn’t anything she liked about herself. A boy didn’t like how strangers assumed he was a gang member.

During a writing exercise, one student wrote about how he wanted others to view him. “I don’t want them to point at me and say, here comes the kid that almost got arrested. … I haven’t been an angel, but I could still work hard.”

For more information

Luis Bermudez, Orozco Community Academy and Resurrection Project, (312) 666-1323, ext. 250, lbermudez@resurrectionproject.org
Sandra Del Toro, Marquette Elementary and Southwest Organizing Project, (773) 436-1000, ext. 106 or (773) 471-8208, ext. 13, sandra.deltoro@gmail.com
Michelle Mason, Perspectives Middle at Calumet and Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation, (773) 483-3696, mmason@perspectivescs.org
Adriana Portillo-Bartow, Ames Middle and Logan Square Neighborhood Association, (773) 534-4170. ext. 107, apbartow@lsna.net
Syda Segovia Taylor, Reavis Elementary and Quad Communities Development Corporation, (312) 371-7036, taygovia@msn.com
Chris Brown, Local Initiatives Support Corporation-Chicago, director of education programs, (312) 385-4818, cbrown@lisc.org

Marquette Parents Kick off Organizing Drive

9/26/2008, 4:10 PM

Maureen Kelleher

Parent organizing efforts at Marquette Elementary are starting to pay off. On September 17, more than 100 parents showed up for open house. Though a hundred-some parents in a school with nearly 1700 students may seem like a drop in the bucket, in previous years "we only got a quarter this many," said Principal Paul O' Toole.

At least 20 of them expressed interest in joining the school's Parents as Mentors program, in which parents work in classrooms for two hours, four days a week, while furthering their own knowledge and skills. Unlike previous years, this year's open house orientation was planned and run by parents themselves. Preparations began back in the summer, when the Southwest Organizing Project sponsored three barbecues in the homes of Marquette families during July and August to help parents connect with each other. In late August, about 20 parents met in Marquette's courtyard and heard from peers about the importance of joining groups like the Local School Council, Parent Advisory Council and the Bilingual Advisory Council.

They also heard testimonies about the power of the Parents as Mentors program to change lives. "When I started here I didn't have no set goals for myself. I didn't even know how to set goals."said Ida Pullum.

Photo: Maureen Kelleher

Through Parents as Mentors, "I did go back and get a high school diploma. That taught me how to help my children and grandchildren set goals, too." Pullum plans to return to Parents as Mentors this year, as the program expands to work with young people in grades six through eight. She knows what it takes to reach middle-schoolers from working in Marquette's after-school program. "You have to listen more," she said. "You cannot talk to them like they are five years old. They are the ones with the most problems. Peer pressure is real bad."

At September's open house, parents showed they need someone to listen, too. Parents in the audience asked questions ranging from how to manage students safely as they arrive at one of the largest elementary schools in the city to why Spanish-speaking students learn English in the earliest grades while English-speaking students have to wait until 6th grade to learn Spanish. At times, the questions grew heated.

Local School Council vice chair Maria Mena responded to parents' concerns by sharing her own story. When she first came to Marquette, she too complained about safety. Over time, she got involved in solving the problem by joining a group of parents who succeeded in bringing 32 security cameras into the school.

"I can see the difference they have made in security. I hope parents here today will not only complain, but will come to parent meetings and get involved in helping the school," she said to applause.

Later, Local School Council chair Jamanika Chillis told the story of how a drop in her son's grades brought her into Marquette, where she learned more about how to help him succeed in school. "I learned the importance of homework, quality time, keeping track of who is my child's teacher. What classroom is he in? What is he going to be learning this year? We have to be faithful like that for our children."

After the meeting, while most parents went to observe their children's classrooms and meet their teachers, about a dozen of the most vocal parents stayed to speak with O'Toole and Chillis. "I heard people saying, 'They should do this every month,'" she said afterwards. She told them, "We do do it every month! Come to the PAC meeting."

Marquette staff were delighted to have parents take on the job of orienting their peers. "This is the first year the parents organized the auditorium portion [of open house]," said O'Toole. "Parents really took charge and they did a great job."

SWOP Grow Your Own Teachers Initiative Highlighted in Local Media

6/16/2008, 10:50 AM

For a full text of the article visit: http://www.impre.com/laraza/noticias/2008/6/15/mas-maestros-calificados-60785-1.html

Más maestros calificados

Innovadora asociación entre organizaciones comunitarias, de estudio superior y escuelas ofrece apoyo a interesados en ser maestros

La fórmula opera en nuestro estado ante las evidentes dificultades de algunas áreas de escasos recursos para retener maestros calificados en las aulas de enseñanza.

En un perfecto ejemplo del poder democrático, varias organizaciones comunitarias y otros estamentos sociales se unieron para presionar ante los legisladores su creación, la cual tuvo efecto en la 2004 Grown Your Own Teacher (GYO) Education Act.

Como explica la guatemalteca Imelda Salazar, coordinadora de este programa en el Proyecto Organizador del Sur Oeste (SWOP), la creación de estos grupos de trabajo da la oportunidad de tener muchos más maestros. "Para el 2016 es ley que tengamos mil maestros de color (latinos y afroamericanos ), dentro de esos, no sabemos cuántos se gradúen bilingües pero creemos que son la mayoría".

El sistema promueve la asociación de una organización comunitaria, una universidad, y una escuela de distrito. En medio de un panorama de recortes presupuestales y escasez de recursos, GYO arroja resultados esperanzadores para las comunidades: 545 candidatos a maestros estudian actualmente, 44 de los cuales reclutados por SWOP.

Foreclosure Crisis: Local Impact, Local Response

6/13/2008, 4:33 PM

With national attention focused on the impending foreclosure crisis, local community organizations have decided to take action. The most recent statistics tell us that in the first four months of 2008 nearly 600 foreclosures have been initiated in the 60629 zip code alone.

Foreclosures initiated January through April, 2008 in zip code 60629.

On Sunday, June 15, Fr. Stan Rataj, Pastor of St. Nicholas of Tolentine Parish dedicated his homily to the crisis hitting families in the neighborhood, as part of a larger SWOP effort to tackle this issue.

“If several hundred families lost their homes to a fire or a tornado, we would rush to help them,” said Fr. Stan. “This tragedy is just as serious, yet people feel that they have to face it by themselves. Hundreds of people losing their homes because they were lied to is simply not acceptable. We will face this crisis together, as we have so many others through the years.”

After each of the masses, the Southwest Organizing Project conducted a survey of parishioners to gauge the impact of the foreclosure crisis on families in the neighborhood. This research action is one of several planned for the neighborhood with other churches slated to participate.

This effort, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, is part of a larger housing campaign in collaboration with Neighborhood Housing Services, the Greater Southwest Development Corporation and the Southwest REACH Center to provide outreach, counseling, intervention and organize remedies for families facing foreclosure.

To learn more about these efforts or how you can get involved in the solution, please contact SWOP at (773) 471-8208.

SWOP Leader Speaks Out on Youth Violence

6/10/2008, 5:12 PM

Click on the link below to listen to the story on CPS' students and the coping that students have to undergo when violence hits their schools. SWOP leader Gerardo is interviewed.

Link: http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=25674

Dealing with violence or the death of a friend isn't easy, especially for
teenagers. In an ideal world, everyone would get the proper counseling and
time to grieve in the way best fit for them. Chicago Public School students
who have been touched by violence this year are supposed to get help from
the Districts' crisis intervention unit.

Dorothy Espelage is a professor in educational psychology at the University
of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. For years, she's been researching how young
people process violent events in their lives.

ESPELAGE: Some of the kids after the violence do need very fast
intervention, brief intervention. Others it may be years that if they were
directly involved or bystanders it may be that years that they deal with
this.

Thirty CPS students have died a violent death during the school year. The
District's Crisis Intervention Unit or CIU, responds to everything from
severe weather to a violent event. This school year, it's handled over 550
cases.

MALATT: We focus on prevention, we focus on being prepared, we focus on as I
stated previously response and then on follow-up.

CIU manager Catherine Malatt says her team of 8 work in field offices
located through out the city. Sometimes facilitators work on multiple cases
per day.

MALATT: We continuously assess particular situations to see what works, what
doesn't work to, what we need to adjust for our own school system.

Malatt says the 8 facilitators are either licensed or certified
psychologists, social workers or counselors. And extra counselors may be
called in from agencies like Hargrove Hospital. But crises intervention
sometimes hits obstacles.

Over spring break a student at Gage Park High School was fatally shot. Some
teachers and students at the school say not enough was done to help everyone
process this student's death.

RODRIGUEZ: It was pretty crazy because I saw him 2 days before he got shot.
It was kind of creepy.

Freshman Gerardo Rodriguez says he used to talk to the boy at school.

RODRIGUEZ: He wasn't that bad of a guy. He just hung around with the wrong
crowd and that's what got him killed. I know a lot of people who are on the
same road. Sometimes it might affect me.

CIU sent a facilitator to the school after the break, but Rodriguez says he
and other students didn't know anyone was there to help. And that's what got
teachers like Roberto Paredes upset.

PAREDES: That kind of bothered me. And I don't quite understand that because
none of the students told me that they received any such support that first
day.

CIU came to the school again, but Paredes says he doubts his Latino and
African-American students are going to feel comfortable talking to a
stranger they can't identify with.

PAREDES: The kids really needed somebody that would really understand their
culture and understand the way they think and really understand what is
going on. And I mean the people that they send, they might have good
intentions, but actually it really doesn't work for them.

The crisis team worked with the administration to pin point the students
affected by their classmate's death according to CIU's Malatt. And she says
teachers are responsible for letting principals know if individual students
are having problems.

MALATT: The school sets the tone for what is to occur. So based on what the
administration is telling us what they need then we approach it that way.

But at least two other teachers besides Paredes say they didn't know this
and that there was very little communication within the school on how to
handle the students. Teachers are also handling their own grief Some schools
are getting help with this. This year CPS began school by school non-violent
crisis intervention trainings. Gage Park is scheduled for on of these
sessions. But Espelage says ideally an extensive training should happen in
the teaching universities.

ESPELAGE: Ultimately we need to go back and think about how can we do
primary prevention and that should involve the teachers, but until we free
up the time for teachers to pay attention to psycho social development and
social competence and emotional competence in children there's no way
they're going to be able to do this.

Espelage says what would help more is community involvement. She says CPS
should bring in more parents, clergymen or neighborhood volunteers.
Intervention could simply mean hanging out and playing basketball.

ESPELAGE: It doesn't have to be this one on one individual psycho therapy
that many times kids will tell you things as they're walking to the water
fountain to always be open to listening to kids that sometimes they will
tell you in passing some very important information.

And that's what happened with Gage Park student Rodriguez. He's a youth
leader for the Southwest Organizing Project, a community organization in the
Chicago Lawn neighborhood. And it was with people there that he found
support after the death of his fellow student, not at school.

RODRIGUEZ: It's a place where I can express my feelings or talk to the
organizers or workers here or anything. I'm kind of thankful that I came
here because it let me release a lot about my life that I never told anyone
else.

Crisis team head Malatt says the intervention unit has several community
partners and can't do its job without this collaboration. But for this
involvement to happen, Malatt says organizations need to reach out to CPS.

Developing Justice Coalition Receives Community Organizing Award for Organizing Collaboration

6/1/2008, 2:39 PM

On May 28, 2008, the Chicago Community Trust awarded the Chicago Community Organizing Award for Organizing Collaboration to the Developing Justice Coalition (DJC), of which SWOP is a proud member. The DJC, an alliance of 26 community groups, is working to promote sensible criminal justice reforms in Illinois. In addition, they work on public safety issues and prison reentry.

The recognition is an honor by itself, but the Chicago Community Trust shows its real support for organizing in our city by awarding a $50,000 check for the DJC’s continued work in the coming year. The awards are sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Wieboldt Foundation, Woods Fund of Chicago and the Chicago Community Trust. The Collaboration Award is made possible by a generous grant from The Chicago Community Trust. In giving these awards, The Chicago Community Trust aims to recognize excellent and effective community organizing and collaborative efforts in the Chicago metropolitan area. They also hope to stimulate more support for community organizing and to increase public understanding of the vital contribution made by community organizing groups in neighborhoods and the broader community.

Congratulations to SWOP’s leaders and our partner organizations who make up the Developing Justice Coalition and to the Jane Adams Senior Caucus, which won the award for Outstanding Community Organization.

SWOP Hosts Legislative Action Day

5/30/2008, 1:15 PM

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Eighty-seven leaders from 18 SWOP member institutions traveled to Springfield May 15 to speak to lawmakers on Safety, Immigration, and Education related concerns in SWOP's first annual Legislative Action Day.

The event kicked off with a rally in the Rotunda co-chaired by Betty Gutierrez of St Mary Star of the Sea and Rami Nashashibi of IMAN where SWOP leaders shared testimonies.

Leaders of the Immigration Team were supporting an increase in the New Americans Initiative and funding for the We Want to Learn English campaign which would prioritize English classes in areas that serve new immigrant communities in community based settings like work places, places of worship and local public schools.

"We are fighting for these programs because they allow people like me to become full participants in the public life of our commmunity," said SWOP leader Esperanza Marrufo. "On March 26, I became a citizen of the United States. For the last four years, I have been a volunteer with the New Americans Initiative, the program that eventually helped me in my own citizenship process." Immigration leaders also celebrated the passage of HB2747, which would allow religious leaders access to detainees at immigration detention facilities. The bill, sponsored by Representative Dan Burke, passed the house unanimously May 14.

Education leaders were advocating for the funding of a parent mentor collaborative, a joint initiative with the Logan Square Neighborhood Association and the Organization of the Northeast which would create a pilot program, placing 260 parents inside classrooms to directly assist 6500 students in high need schools. Further, leaders were asking for $4.5 million to fully fund the Grow Your Own Teachers Program.

"I feel useful in the school and I have reached my goals as a leader being elected with five of my colleagues to the Local School Council in our school," said Maria Mena a parent mentor at Marquette School and recently-elected LSC member. "I hope that my participation as a leader will be a motivation for other parents and also an example for our children that are with us today to follow our example."

Members of the SWOP Safety team testified for the need for increased funding for street level violence prevention as well as funding for the SMART Act which would fund the expansion of drug school programs throughout the state of Illinois modeled after the current Cook County drug school program.

SWOP leaders were joined throughout the rally by House Speaker Michael Madigan, Representative Dan Burke, Representative Mary Flowers and Representative Esther Golar.

To download a copy of our legislative agenda please click here.