homas Hargrove, a retired investigative journalist, felt something was suspicious as he analyzed Chicago homicide data in late 2014. He identified several eerie patterns among a cluster of fifty-one unsolved female homicides: most of the victims had been sex workers or drug users, ninety-three percent of the murders occurred outdoors or in abandoned buildings, the […]
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Posted incoronavirus/COVID-19
As Remote Learning Continues, Reopening Plans Remain a Concern
t around 7:30am each weekday morning, John Siangho helps his sonâa second-grade CPS student at the Regional Gifted Center through Carnegie Elementary in Woodlawnâget ready for another day of remote learning. The two of them wash up, chat during breakfast, and at 8:30am, fifteen minutes before class officially begins, Sianghoâs son goes to his desk, […]
Posted inFood
Plant Chicago Connects Link Card Holders to Local Farms
âI’m more conscious when I go to the store,â said Sheila Jones, in describing how Plant Chicagoâs Link Box program has supported her and shifted her perspective during COVID-19. âI’m more conscious about what I’m picking upâwhere it’s coming from. ⊠Iâm just more aware of helping out the community,â The Link Produce Box program […]
Posted inCover
The New Southwest Side: Young, Latinx, and Ready to Take the Reins
n the spring of 2018, lifelong Gage Park resident Samantha MartĂnez was finishing up undergrad at Roosevelt University when she started to think about her next steps. âThere was the expectation of having to leave Gage Park in order to âmake itâ in Chicago, and we didnât want that,â MartĂnez says. Her twin sister Katia […]
Posted inHousing
Lights Out
Arlanta Shelley was grocery shopping on a Friday morning in October when she got a call from her oldest son, who is nineteen and lives with schizophrenia. He had been at home playing video games until the screen went dark. âI thought maybe it was due to a mistake or something else could have went […]
Posted inLatest
Black Artists on the South and West Sides Show Resilience in Battle with Challenges Created by the PandemicÂ
ast summer, restorative justice clothing brand store TRAP House Chicago, in East Chatham, was full of musicians, poets and rappers. If there were any strangers at the monthly spoken word event no one wouldâve known. Known simply as âPeople Say,â the event felt like a family gathering for the creative community on the South Side: […]
Posted inUrban planning
Thereâs an Uptick in Street Overdoses During the Pandemic
atonia Easter, forty-six, waits in line to receive food and harm reduction supplies provided by a Chicago Recovery Alliance (CRA) truck parked at the corner of 68th and South Halsted. Easter has been homeless for more than ten years and struggles with chronic opioid use. The coronavirus pandemic has only reinforced her reluctance to seek […]
Posted inViolence
An End to Cash Bond in Illinois is Only the Beginning of Restorative Justice
ast month, state Senator Robert Peters and Representative Justin Slaughter announced a bill known as the Pretrial Fairness Act that, if passed, would make Illinois the second state to end the use of money bonds after New Jersey. In Cook County, where about a quarter of the countyâs detainees are kept incarcerated because they cannot […]
Posted inBest of the South Side 2020
Best of Bridgeport 2020
Best Comeback Best Use of Empty Lots Best Community Response Best Comfort Food in Uncomfortable Times In Memoriam: Johnny O’s hen I solidified my love affair with Chicago and became an official resident in 2016, I was struck by the sense of kinship that permeated the near South Side neighborhood of Bridgeport despite the diversity […]
Posted inArcher Heights
Best of the South Side In Memoriam 2020
Archer Heights & West Elsdon: Jan Kopec Archer Heights & West Elsdon: Mind + Hand Avalon Park & Calumet Heights: Taurus Flavors Bridgeport: Johnny O’s Chatham: Mather’sâMore Than a CafĂ© Chinatown: Chinese-language newspapers Clearing & Garfield Ridge: St. Camillus La Villita: Raspa Man Don Lupillo Roseland: Argus Brewery South Chicago: Carlos Rosas of Calumet Fisheries […]