Chicago Tenant Union Fighting Gentrification and Displacement
South Shore residents speak about the impact of the Obama Center before a September meeting of the Chicago City Council. Photo from Not Me We.
This post originally appeared on Fran Quigley’s blog, Housing Is A Human Right
I am grateful to In These Times for publishing my article on the southside Chicago tenant union Not Me We, which is fighting displacement in their South Shore neighborhood. Rents are rising as much as 60% and corporate investors are snatching up houses and buildings. There is a lot of disturbing precedent that points to the South Shore residents being kicked out in favor of wealthier people.
“The city has a deep, long record of building itself up on the backs of poor Black and Latino folks, destroying their communities — either through ineptitude, lack of investment or intentional displacement,” says Dixon Romeo, executive director of Not Me We. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
You can read the full article on the In These Times website here.
Not Me We is a charter member of the new Tenant Union Federation, which we featured in our newsletter in August. Two things make this campaign particularly interesting.
First, the trigger of the gentrification and displacement risk is the $830 million Obama Presidential Center going up in the nearby Jackson Park neighborhood. Obama himself brushed off residents’ concerns about displacement, and his Obama Foundation refused to enter into an agreement to protect the existing neighbors from displacement.
“I know the neighborhood,” Obama said at a community meeting in 2018. “I know that the minute you start saying, ‘Well, we’re thinking about signing something that will determine who’s getting jobs and contracts and this and that’ … next thing I know, I’ve got 20 organizations coming out of the woodwork.”
Obama’s response struck many residents as arrogant and out of touch. So they turned their efforts to pushing local ordinances to protect tenants from evictions and support existing homeowners with repairs and property tax bills.
That latter goal is the second interesting component of the Not Me We campaign. Renting tenants are joined with “bank tenants,” people who own their home but still struggle too. The article features Vanessa Clay, who’s lived in her South Shore condominium for 24 years, but had to come out of retirement at 69 to go back to work as a home caregiver in order to pay her assessed maintenance and repair fees.
The proposed South Shore Housing Preservation Ordinance aims to help both homeowners and tenants stay in the neighborhood , while helping tenants citywide as well. The ordinance calls for a rental assistance fund, the creation of an Office of the Tenant Advocate, a cap on application fees and security deposits, and funding for home repairs and property tax help for longtime residents like Vanessa Clay.
Clay and 66 year-old Anthony Edwards are leaders in the campaign, working alongside organizers who are decades younger. “It has rekindled something in us to see young people joining with people from all ages in our community to stand up for ourselves,” says Edwards. “Nothing is going to be changed by just wishing it away.”
Hope you check out the full article here.
