June/ July 2002

In the March/April issue, I wrote about extremely high electric bills that many of the residents in Robert Taylor Homes are faced with.

The Coalition to Protect Public Housing has been around for years. When it was first started in 1996, residents at Lathrop Homes, where I live, and other developments didn't hear about it that much, except for maybe when there was a particularly interesting monthly meeting at First Congregational Church on Ashland Avenue and Washington Boulevard.

I am working with RJ Assistant Editor Beauty Turner on a study of the relocation of the people in public housing high rises.

The December 1999 RJ first revealed that the residents of 2233 S. Federal St. would feel some of the pain of progress. The end finally came in recent months, when 65 families received word they would have only five weeks to vacate the premises that had been placed on a prioritized schedule to be demolished. Zip! Zap! No questions allowed. Just be ready for the movers because they will come. And come they did.

Many U.S. government policy makers seem to be getting their information on the lives of welfare recipients from science fiction television rather than real life. Their welfare reform proposals appear to be something straight out of the 'twilight zone.' And there appears to be a 'lost in space' mentality when it comes to financial and food assistance, training and education, housing, childcare and health care.

The Chicago Housing Authority announced in June that they would meet with former residents who didn't receive the contract, which gives them the right to return to their old neighborhoods. A number of residents who moved between October 1999 and March 2001 did not receive the Relocation Rights Contract, which gives them the option of returning to a mixed-income community after they are built on the site of old developments.

As regular readers know, I have been writing lately about the high cost of medicine and how it is affecting not just our seniors and Medicaid recipients but also the working poor who are struggling to stay off the welfare rolls.

The violent death of 10-year-old Rita Haskins on May 3 was heart breaking, unconscionable and unnecessary. Rita was a sweet, loving, inquisitive, caring child, a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a student, a friend, a neighbor and a child of God.

Not all the victims of terror are people who were hurt on Sept, 11.

"Gun Smoke" doesn't have anything on Cabrini-Green this summer. On June 13, gunslingers dueled in the streets and sheriffs tried to restore order in the North Side development.