JCUA in Letter to Rahm: Keep Lathrop Homes Public

JCUA speaks up in solidarity with Lathrop Homes residents in a letter to city officials, stating: Keep Lathrop Homes 100% public housing, and lease up the hundreds of units at Lathrop that are currently vacant.

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Lathrop Homes

Sefer Hasidim (a 12th-century legal text) teaches that “if a community lacks a place of worship and a shelter for the poor, it is first obligated to build a shelter for the poor.”

Since 2010, JCUA has been working directly with residents at the Lathrop Homes public housing development, to empower the voice of the residents in the debate over the future of Lathrop Homes. The future of Lathrop Homes is critical for the following reasons:

• There are tens of thousands of families in Chicago on the waiting list for public housing.
• There are tens of thousands more who could not get on the waiting list since it was full and closed.
• Even with all this tremendous need for housing in Chicago, under 150 of Lathrop’s 900 units are currently occupied. Over 750 units of housing stand vacant in this development alone.
  

Workers’ Rights Examined in Jewish-Muslim Text Study

Reflections on Our Text Study on Workers’ Rights

By JMCBI

Just before May Day, the traditional celebration of workers’ rights, we came together to explore what Jewish and Muslim traditions contribute to the current discussion on labor.

Sponsored by JCUA’s Jewish-Muslim Community Building Initiative, this text study featured Rabbi Victor Mirelman and Muslim chaplain Abbas Chinoy who facilitated the event on a rainy Sunday evening in the comfortable Dollop Café in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.

The need to contemplate labor issues has gained urgency around the Midwest. In Wisconsin, only a few months ago Gov. Scott Walker made it almost impossible for public employees to organize; and in Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is also changing the city’s relationship with its employees. It wasn’t even a month ago that Gov. Walker repealed the Equal Pay Enforcement Act that had offered legal avenues to fight wage discrimination based on race, age, disability, religion and sexual orientation.

Muslim chaplain Abbas Chinoy (at top, in photo at left); and Rabbi Victor Mirelman (in center of photo at right).

The evening began with this question: How have worker rights (or lack thereof) influenced peoples’ lives?

While one participant had very positive experiences with her union, another expressed her disappointment with the union of which she had been a member; she said she had been neither well informed or well cared for.

Las Vegas Conference a Reminder of the Need for Continued Vigilance

Below are reflections from Jane Ramsey, executive director of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA), on this year’s American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, which was held on Aug. 20 to 23 in Las Vegas.

By Jane Ramsey
Executive Director, JCUA

Slot machines at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas

When I stepped off the plane in Las Vegas, I was astonished by the immediate sight of hundreds of slot machines, literally steps from the gate where we deplaned. This soon became a familiar sight, as slots are everywhere — in the hotels, in the restaurants, in the grocery stores — truly everywhere. The flashing lights lure with the promise of winnings and fun. For me, the flashing lights and their presence at virtually every turn was a sad reminder of the exploitive and predatory nature of casinos.

Dr. Calvin Morris, executive director of the Community Renewal Society, and I, were in Las Vegas  to speak on a panel spotlighting Chicago organizing entitled “Faith Activists: Justice, Community Revitalization and Reconciliation,” at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

The meeting was moved to Las Vegas after the planned Chicago location became untenable due to the protracted hotel labor dispute at the time of ASA’s planning. Thus, understandably, the conference was moved and Las Vegas had enough hotel spots to provide for the more than 5000 members.

As JCUA has learned over the two decades plus we have been fighting the introduction of casinos into Chicago, the industry lures individuals, families, seniors, and low income communities to its doors. For the most vulnerable, lowest income targets, the casinos have offered money to get started and free transportation, and promises of so much more — all to profit from the targets’ larger losses and dashed hopes.

Housing Commissioner Andrew Mooney Speaks on the Importance of Addressing the Foreclosure Crisis

Andrew Mooney, Chicago Commissioner of the Department of Housing and Economic Development, spoke at JCUA‘s 2011 Rabbi J. Marx Social Justice Awards Dinner.  Below is a copy of his powerful speech about the importance of affordable housing and people like the dinner’s honorees, Ralph Brown, Roberta Nechin and David Midgley.   

Andrew Mooney speaking at JCUA's Annual Dinner

Thank you and good evening, thank you Rami.  I am honored to be here.  When Nikki Stein asked me if I’d make these presentations tonight, I responded immediately.  Not only are tonight’s awardees long time champions of social justice, they are dear friends and colleagues, who have had an enormous impact on the things I care about most in this great city.

Ralph, David and Roberta all share the values that are the hallmark of JCUA.  They have dedicated their lives and careers to actualizing justice in the form of affordable housing in livable neighborhoods.  They have made clear what most of us know instinctively, that to live the good life we have to have certain fundamentals, and that in our society we have both the democratic imperative and the financial resources to do so if we so choose.  Ralph, David and Roberta chose to do so and their recognition tonight is richly deserved.

Yet there is a bitter irony that we are honoring these three in the midst of these remarkable financial times.  Like many of us they began their work several decades ago when both private and public institutions red-lined urban neighborhoods, which consequently destroyed the value of those neighborhoods, leaving them with few resources other than the people themselves.  I fear that the same has happened again.

Principles of Good City Government

These principles were created by the Developing Government Accountability to the People (DGAP) project. Learn more about DGAP at chicagodgap.org.

Good city government includes the following:

• Policies that serve the interests of all people, regardless of race, income, religion or neighborhood
• Adequate, accessible public resources targeted to the most vulnerable members of society, including schools, parks, community centers, infrastructure such as streets and sidewalks, and all programs and services
• Participatory democracy that expands opportunities for residents to engage in decision-making, through such avenues as local school councils, advisory boards and task forces, as well as regularly scheduled, conveniently located hearing and town hall meetings
• Transparent decision-making, open communications and easy access to information
• Fair and equitable hiring and bidding practices that take into account historic and current injustices
• Politicians that advocate on a federal, state and regional level for programs and funds that enrich all residents regardless of their race, class, gender or neighborhood
• Politicians who hold to high ethical standards in campaigning and fundraising

[Read what JCUA's Brian Gladstein has to say about the upcoming Chicago municipal elections]