PHOTO/ANNE SHAW
CHICAGO, IL — What does a community that is being displaced look like? Along Milwaukee Avenue in the heart of Chicago, where 10+ story towers are going up to dwarf Victorians and 100 year-old two-flat brick buildings on the next block, it is clear that the old-style is being pushed out. But so are current residents, through means that are not as evident—extravagant rents for the new apartments, over two times what a similar space went for a year ago, multi-tenant buildings converted into single family homes, and vacant lots and tear-downs held till the right price comes along. Then, the landlords raising rents 30 percent, up-zoning applications, commuter and transient-oriented housing replacing that for families, and neighborhood public schools shuttered. This is a neighborhood being gentrified, getting rid of its lower- and middle-income, usually minority residents, using euphemisms like transit-oriented development, or urban renewal, in order to provide speculators with the inputs needed for their business.
For the last year, We Are/Somos Logan Square has organized hundreds of community members to advocate for the inclusion of more truly affordable housing in the Milwaukee Avenue area. This spring, they protested 1st Ward Alderman Moreno, who is ignoring the welfare of the community in order to provide real estate capital the returns it seeks. On March 26, they marched on a rental property company, M. Fishman, who routinely acquires buildings and then raises rents 20-30% with minimal improvements. On April 9, they shut down Milwaukee Avenue in front of a 200+ unit luxury tower development under construction, until police cut the demonstrators from the blockade one by one using electric saws, bolt cutters, and sledgehammers, while those on the sidewalk sang “we shall not be moved” and chanted “how high’s the rent, too damned high!” Six activists were arrested. Following that, on May 21, they marched from the office of the alderman who routinely ignores community opinion in favor of luxury building developers, to the site of the towers, in order to raise awareness and seek redress.
The organization and its members are seeking community benefits agreements from developers and actions from elected officials to retain and increase the supply of affordable housing, to stop the on-going displacement of low-income and minority area residents caused by this gentrification. They have been joined in this struggle by organizations such as Lifted Voices, the Logan Square Ecumenical Alliance, and other community-based and independent political organizations. We Are/Somos Logan Square is an organization of current and former residents of Chicago’s Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Avondale, and surrounding neighborhoods. They organize for affordable housing, and against evictions, rising rents and developments that are imposed without taking the community’s voice into account.
