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By Richard Muhammad
Editor
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| Tour participants walk through Belmont Cragin community. Photo: James Warden |
CHICAGO – The National Training and Information Center hosted three neighborhood bus tours Aug. 17 during its three-day national housing and banking summit, “People+Money: Making It Work In the Neighborhood.”
Community leaders, advocates, residents and NTIC staffers took executives, employees of major financial services and housing industry players, community leaders and reporters on visits to the Englewood, Lawndale and Belmont Cragin neighborhoods during the tour. The conference “tourists” had a firsthand look at the negative results of capital flight, predatory lending and anemic investment versus reputable lending, community development, effective partnerships and community reinvestment that promote vibrant neighborhoods.
“The tour was very worthwhile. It gave people an idea about the situation of housing and the lack of housing,” said NTIC board chair Marilyn Evans, who took part in the Lawndale neighborhood tour. “We saw two different sides of housing – with non-profits building affordable housing on one side and on the other side we saw affordable housing that was not maintained. We saw children there playing on construction equipment. When they see this, people can relate to it. But if someone is just talking to you, you really can’t understand the situation in our communities,” said Evans, who is president of Communities United For Action in Cincinnati. In Lawndale, participants stopped at Section 8 housing that was part of the crumbling Cecil Butler Properties, where residents have been fighting for vouchers and a resolution of serious problems, like falling plaster, sewage back-ups, damaged buildings and rodent infestation.
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| Johnnie Muhammad of Team Englewood talks about progress and challenges the neighborhood faces during NTIC bus tour. Deborah Moore of Englewood NHS, far right, also took part in the tour. Photo: Haroon Raejee/NTIC |
The Lawndale Christian Development Corp., Neighborhood Housing Services – Lawndale, and the North Lawndale Community News made presentations and showcased their work to build and preserve housing and improve the community.
In several instances, the problem of predatory lending, the lack of banking and financial services and the negative impact on neighborhoods was pointed out.
Even in Belmont Cragin, where the homes were generally well-kept, predatory lending was a problem, said Rev. Christine Schrey, of the Northwest Side Housing Center. Her center opened two-years-ago after a rash of foreclosures.
In Englewood, community concerns about gentrification, foreclosures and the work of organizations like Team Englewood and Englewood’s Neighborhood Housing Services, which are focused on rebuilding the community, were highlighted. Englewood is a hot property for more affluent newcomers or investors, but longtime residents face stubborn challenges of high unemployment, reintegrating a high number of ex-offenders back into the community and failing schools.
Part of Englewood’s problem is not having enough federal money come into the community, said Gail Parson, lead housing staff at NTIC. The problems in Englewood are also similar to problems neighborhoods are facing all over the country, she said.
Englewood and Lawndale are predominantly African American communities, while Belmont Cragin is on the predominantly white northwest side of Chicago.
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| NTIC organizer LaVida Davis and community leader Sateria Martin, far right, discuss desire to protect project-based Section 8 housing, improve conditions and help tenants who live in this poorly maintained property in Lawndale. Photo Eric Werner/NTIC |
Fair lending, a hallmark of Community Reinvestment Act legislation authored by NTIC in the 1970s, and access to capital can be the difference between whether a neighborhood thrives or withers and dies from a lack of resources, said Joseph W. Mariano, NTIC’s executive director. “Thirty years ago, we started the fight for preserving neighborhoods and getting business leaders to understand that neighborhoods were valuable resources, not just places with problems, as well as places for good business opportunities,” Mariano noted.
“These tours drive home the reality of what happens when communities are denied financial services and resources. Good lending and housing policy that is connected with community organizing promotes vibrant communities,” he said. NTIC has fought to preserve neighborhoods by offering technical assistance to grassroots organizations and helping to broker agreements that benefit low and moderate income communities.
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