Housing Justice Teach-In Draws More Than 150 Public Housing Residents and Allies

By Holly Krig
JCUA Community Organizer 

Eviction, displacement and homelessness.

Those are the sad keywords that have described the Chicago Housing Authority’s “Plan for Transformation” in the 13 years since the CHA first unveiled it. JCUA has been monitoring the awkward implementation of this plan all along. We are anxiously looking forward to presentation of the updated edition – “Plan for Transformation 2.0” – in June.

This anxious feeling is shared by displaced people and their allies across the city. More than 150 of them came together recently (April 24) for a housing justice teach-in, held in the Spertus Building on Michigan Avenue, where JCUA is located.

Advocates march to the Chicago Housing Authority office, demanding that vacant apartments be leased to residents on the CHA waiting list.

Families shared powerful personal stories of eviction, displacement and homelessness resulting from CHA policies. We heard from real people with strong voices that amplified the need to act now and brought the scary statistics to life:

• The number of homeless people in Chicago is rising. According to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless 93,780 Chicagoans were without homes in 2010-2011.
• As reported by the Chicago Tribune, 60,000 families are on the waiting list for subsidized housing.

Lathrop Homes Advocates Set Teach-In and Action for April 24

Residents at a Lathrop Homes protest last year.

By Holly Krig
JCUA Community Organizer

Supporting the residents of Lathrop Homes, JCUA will host a teach-in and action in collaboration with the Chicago Housing Initiative. Lathrop Homes is a Chicago Housing Authority site in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood.

We are working directly with residents at Lathrop Homes, where CHA hopes to enact a plan similar to the mixed-income development at Cabrini’s Parkside, which has forcibly displaced hundreds of families and cost the city $11.4 million in bail-out for mostly market rate housing.

Lathrop Homes Teach-In and Action
(A collaboration of Chicago Housing Initiative, Common Ground and JCUA)
Tuesday, April 24, 10 am-noon (registration begins at 9:30)
Spertus Building, 630 S Michigan Ave., 9th floor
Contact Holly Krig: holly@jcua.org or 312-663-0960, ext 111

The Teach-In, which will help us understand the policy issues from the perspective of those who live with their impact will be followed by a public action. Folks will gather outside Spertus at noon for that portion of the day; details will be announced at the Teach-In. Contact me at JCUA before Friday if you are interested in helping to organize the action.

JCUA first came together with Lathrop Homes residents when we joined the Coalition to Protect Public Housing as CHA announced its Plan for Transformation.

Recently JCUA has joined the table again with a new formation of resident leaders called Common Ground. Once again, the timing is critical. CHA plans to announce its “recalibration” of the Plan for Transformation in June.

Myths and Realities of Homelessness and Poverty: A Plan for Transforming Cities

By Jane Ramsey
President, JCUA

This lecture was delivery by Jane Ramsey on Feb. 29 at Iowa State University. Her appearance was cosponsored by the College of Design, the Department of Community and Regional Planning, the Graduate Community and Regional Planning Club and the Committee on Lectures.

We are here tonight to explore the myths and realities of homelessness and poverty, through the lens of Chicago’s supposed “transformation” of public housing. How fascinating that a path has been forged between Chicago and Iowa by some former residents of public housing and others who were forced out of the housing market as a result of the “transformation.”

Let me begin by sharing with you my somewhat unique vantage point as this story unfolded.

It began, coincidentally, for me as a University of Chicago graduate student in 1976 when I was placed as an intern with the city of Chicago’s economic development department, then called the Mayor’s Committee for Economic and Cultural Development. Following my internship I was hired on as a city planner…getting an invaluable, first-hand education about Mayor Richard J. Daley and the Chicago Machine.

Or Tzedek’s Winter Leadership Retreat

Last week, 15 amazing high school and college students came together as a community to visit community partner organizations, learn leadership and organizing skills, explore Chicago, and take action. These youth leaders, activists and organizers gathered for the first annual Winter Leadership Retreat, created by Or Tzedek, JCUA’s Jewish teen institute for social justice. 

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Workshops, actions and fun, oh my!

By Rebecca Katz
Winter Leadership Retreat Program Director  

What’s in a mission?

Or Tzedek leadership member Sophie Leff planned our first workshop of the retreat. To get to the bottom of what it means to be a part of JCUA’s Jewish teen institute for social justice, Sophie guided us in the deconstruction of the words that comprise the organization’s name. Using Post-it notes, we wrote our own definitions for “Jewish,” “Council,” “Urban,” and “Affairs.” Through this exercise, we spoke about JCUA’s mission: to combat poverty, racism and anti-Semitism in partnership with Chicago’s diverse communities.

Making Vacant Homes Pretty

Inspired by her experience as an intern at JCUA, Audrey Hutnick created and managed a campaign to call attention to abandoned homes in Peoria, where she is a student at Bradley University.

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Peoria, It’s our City, Let’s Make it Pretty

By Audrey Hutnick
JCUA Intern, summer of 2011

As I packed up the car and returned to Bradley University for my final year of college, last fall, I recalled the many experiences I had while interning at the Jewish Council on Urban affairs.

I remembered celebrating the signing of the Illinois DREAM Act, preparing for the Rabbi Robert J. Marx Social Justice Awards Dinner, and helping out at the film screening focused on the 2008 immigration raid of Agriprocessors, Inc. I knew that I would eventually be able to use these experiences and skills, but I had no idea I would put them to use as soon as I took a seat in my first class of the semester.

Working together for a singular issue

Lowell Sachnoff of Reed Smith to Receive Social Justice Award from Jewish Council on Urban Affairs

CHICAGO — Lowell E. Sachnoff, of Counsel to Reed Smith, is the 2011 recipient of the Arthur Goldberg Social Justice Award, presented by the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs.

Well-known for his leadership as a lawyer committed to civil rights, Sachnoff will receive the award at JCUA’s annual Jurisprudence Dinner, scheduled for 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 16 at the The Fairmont Chicago, 200 N. Columbus Drive, Chicago. More information is available at www.jcua.org or 312.663.0960.

 

Sachnoff served as General Counsel for the Illinois Department of Mental Health where he spearheaded revisions to the Mental Health Code to enhance protections for the rights of the mentally ill. After returning to private practice and founding Sachnoff & Weaver — which combined with Reed Smith in 2007 — he led a team of lawyers to a landmark jury verdict against the City of Chicago for its shameful strip-search policies. As lead counsel for a national class of women’s health clinics he obtained a nationwide injunction against forcible blockades of clinic entrances.

 

Urban Partnership Bank and JCUA: Why Community Development Banks Matter

The important role of community development banks in the community recently was highlighted in a speech by Donna Gambrell, director of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, an arm of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Speaking on Nov. 3 (read the whole speech here) to the Annual Development Banking Conference, Gambrell used JCUA as an example of how community organizations and banks can and should work together.

Here’s an excerpt of Gambrell’s speech.

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Remembering why you do this

Throughout this conference, you have been exploring a variety of new ideas to strengthen your industry and your institutions. But this whole practice of raising the bar is not some kind of abstract exercise. It has tangible effects in the communities you serve, communities that need you more than ever.

I would like to share a story with you about a nonprofit organization here in Chicago called the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA).

JCUA has worked to promote economic opportunities for disadvantaged communities throughout Chicago for more than forty years. Its current projects range from affordable housing initiatives to immigration reform to a social justice institute for teens, but the one that really caught my eye is its Jewish-Muslim Community-Building Initiative.

Lathrop Homes Tashlich Action: A Teen’s Reflections

Lauren, Ariel, Or Tzedek Summer '10 and '11 participant, and Miguel Suarez, Lathrop Homes resident and community leader, at Lathrop Homes

By Lauren Bergelson
Or Tzedek Participant, Summer 2010

Over a year had passed since I was last at Lathrop Homes when I went back there for Tashlich this fall. The day was beautiful (it was Sunday) and Rebecca, another student activist and I were meeting with a Lathrop Homes resident, Sandra, before taking part in the traditional Tashlich ceremony and planning our future actions. Sandra shared poetry with us and voiced her opinion regarding the precarious status of Lathrop Homes, the affordable housing community where she lives and raised her family.

Currently the future of Lathrop Homes is up in the air as steps are being taken to transform much of the property into market-priced homes. This poses a huge problem for the many families and individuals who live and have lived in the community for decades. It was shocking to realize how unpredictable the residents’ futures are. However, it was also inspiring to see Sandra’s passion and love for her community.

I met Sandra in the summer of 2010 when I attended Or Tzedek and it was wonderful to see her again. During the brief time we met with her, I was reminded of her enthusiasm and the vivacity of the Lathrop Homes community. Oftentimes the only image of affordable housing people have is of a dangerous, dilapidated place, but Lathrop Homes looked nothing like what people expect. Later during the Tashlich ceremony we discussed the changes we would like to make this year and committed ourselves to continuing social action, specifically with Lathrop Homes in mind.

 

JCUA Sukkot Action Demands Housing Justice from Mortgage Bankers

Chicago Jews and community groups held an action on Oct. 11, 2011, outside a meeting of the Mortgage Bankers Association in Chicago, demanding a Sukkat Shalom (“shelter of peace”) for Chicago families. The action was sponsored by the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and A Just Harvest.

Outside the conference, the group constructed a sukkah, inside which Sukkot-related rituals, an interfaith clergy press conference, and community testimonies took place.

Sukkat Shalom: Between Slavery and Liberation

By Miriam Grossman and Jill Zenoff

Take part in JCUA’s Sukkot Action for Justice, during Sukkot, on Oct. 11. At the Mortgage Bankers Association meeting, we’ll be calling attention to how the foreclosure crisis is affecting Chicago families. Learn more and register for the event.

At the beginning of their journey from slavery to liberation, the Israelites found themselves displaced from their homes with little to no forewarning. Scrounging what supplies that could be found and only enough food and water to last a few days, they constructed sukkot, temporary shelters made from sticks and twigs, in which they would dwell.

Unable to see beyond their past circumstance towards the promised land, when their food and water supplies ran out, many were ready to return to Egypt. The inhumanity and brutality of slavery seemed a fair exchange for what passed as food and housing security.

It wasn’t until the Israelites became a food-secure people with the miraculous appearance of mana at morning’s dew and water from Miriam’s well, were they ready to continue on their 40-year journey towards freedom.