A new ordinance would require owners of foreclosed and vacant properties located within a 1,000-yard-radius of a school to hire watchmen to ensure students’ safe passage to and from school, if the ordinance’s sponsors Ald. Deborah Graham (29th) and Bob Fioretti (2nd) have their way. If passed, the Vacant Property Safe Passages Ordinance —...
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Despite a $7.5 million tax subsidy from the city of Chicago, Loretto Hospital hasn’t created any of the permanent jobs it promised when it was awarded the money in November 2009. The hospital also hasn’t provided any evidence that the taxpayer-funded renovation and expansion has spurred economic growth – one of the goals of the tax-increment...
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The West Side’s Austin Town Hall Park needs the help of the Chicago community to win a much-needed renovation up to $50,000 from Maxwell House. Next Friday (6/17) is the last day to visit MaxwellHouse.com to vote. The center is competing with community houses from across the country. Only the top five will receive...
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When Tyrone Wilson visited his cousins as a child in the South Side neighborhood of Bronzeville, he was not allowed to go outside by himself because the area was considered too dangerous. Wilson, 44, said he moved back to Bronzeville five months ago — a place he once saw as “gang-infested” — to get...
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Danette King is a trooper. Still sore from back pain that landed her in the hospital, King sat on the steps of a modest two-story home on the 4700 block of West Race Avenue, smiling, eating ketchup-covered fries and quizzing some kids. “The doctors found some nodules in my back. They’re not cancerous or...
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By Kelsey Duckett, AustinTalks.org Two years ago it was a foreclosed home with weekly drug deals and constant gang violence. It was boarded up, overgrown with tall grass and weeds, its siding falling off around broken windows. The house was a danger and an eyesore for Austin residents. Now, the former site of drug...
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As gang violence and gun-related deaths continue to occur at an alarming rate in a community on the West Side of Chicago, residents are finding constructive ways to end the bloodshed that has plagued their neighborhood for years. Austin, the largest of Chicago’s 77 communities with a population of roughly 117,527, is part of...
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A news report from Sarah Ostman, AustinTalks.org Rosemary Marsh was sure her home would withstand the heavy rains of July 23. The brick Keystone Avenue home she shares with her sister had never leaked before – and it had weathered many a storm over the past two decades. But when the 73-year-old peered down...
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A news report from Sarah Ostman, AustinTalks.org For Austin residents whose homes flooded in the July 23 storm, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is, President Barack Obama has declared Cook County a federal disaster area, opening the floodgates, so to speak, for clean-up dollars from Washington, D.C. The bad news is,...
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A news report from Sarah Ostman, AustinTalks.org Elias Valencia didn’t know it when the rain started, but the storm that hit Chicago July 23 would cost him dearly. It would be so expensive in fact, that he, like thousands of other residents, are looking to the federal government for help. At some point during...
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