A Decent Place to Live
The street caught my eye a dozen years ago. An Uptown street waiting to be shipped out. A street full of poor people whose airless apartments would be turned into gleaming new condos.
One by one this is what happened, leaving only one building but now there’s a sign on the gate saying that it’s days are numbered too.
Where do these people go?
That’s what takes me to the Chicago Housing Authority’s announcement that it is opening its waiting list for the first time in over a decade. Forty-thousand families can see their lives changed.
Who are these people who will be rushing to sign up between now and July 9. Where do they live? And what happens if they can’t find housing? And how has the economic collapse changed the housing realities for Chicago’s poor? For the worse, I imagine.
This is a theme of stories that I can see played out over weeks or one solid page. It is a story about neighborhoods, many of them Latino or Black, many of them filled with newly arrived refugees and immigrants. It is a story that the ethnic news media can tell with all of its heart.
Steve
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