Rochelle loved Rogers Park and until a year ago lived here happily with her son and brother. That was before developers, finding windfalls to be made in the ward's condo conversion free-for-all, turned her rental unit into a condo she could not afford. Hers became one of the 900 rental housing units that disappeared last year as Joe Moore commiserated with satisfied developers.
Rochelle still loves Rogers Park and still works here, but now she must spend four hours a day traveling to and from her job where she is 'Employee of the Month'. Hers is but one of the many stories of hardship and heartbreak of people pushed out of Rogers Park as affordable housing disappears and a hapless Moore seems unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
Preserving affordable housing requires more than just lip service, Mr. Moore
Chris Adams will protect Rogers Park's long history as a welcoming community where families such as Rochelle's can afford to make a home. Chris pledges to address the housing needs of our community starting with a 12-month moratorium on condo conversions to give the ward a chance to develop an affordable housing inventory and a condo conversion policy.
For more about Chris Adams' affordable housing, go here.
On Feb 27, make a difference for affordable housing. Vote for Chris Adams for Alderman - #54 Democrat.
Blognotes: As we go down the stretch, these are the type of press releases that I am accepting.
5 comments:
Silly and stupid, Adams will raise taxes on homeowners to prop up business, It's the Chamber of Commerce way.
Maybe Rochelle can get a job near her new home. You people need to grow up a little. You want to live like they do in Lakeview, Lincoln Park, but it's only after many conversions and changes. Chris Adams the champion of the low income worker, give me a break.
In the 1980 the area around Cubs parks was a large latino community on the lower income side. Now look at it. It's great place to live and raise your kids though it is largely white.
Speaking of Latinos why do you think it is that all the people running are white men, when we have such a diversity here in Rogers Park. I know it's a little late to consider other candidate but it's odd that we have four white guys up for the job to rep all sorts of people here. I guess we aren't as liberal/Progressive as we thought.
The area around Wrigley is "a great place to live and raise your kids though its largely white."
What planet are you from? Do you know anyone that actually lives there? Talk about nuisances- if you think it's bad here try their parking situation 24/7 and let's talk about the bazillion bars, which make for a great wholesome environment to raise a child. Public urination, drunken fools screaming all night, fights galore on Clark Street, muggers, beer cans on your lawn every am, visitors trashing the public way and yelling homophobic comments at the people who actually LIVE there. I could go on. Someone very close to me lives there and it is no utopia I can tell you.
You neglected to mention that there are no women running either. You can't judge progressiveness by skin color- that's revserse racism. These are the people willing and able to run and they happened to be white.
I remember the area around the ballpark about 25 yrs ago was shady, hookers, drug dealing, there where no frat boy bars just "taverns" it wasn't until the gays started moveing in the area did the neighborhood start improveing.
Jocelyn your correct with the "improvement" of the area around the ballpark, there has become a whole new problem, the problem isn't the people who live in the neighborhood but the vistors who come down their of a night out, suburban people who live in towns like Schuamburg who have no respect for our city.
Excuse me. But will anybody please tell me how an apartment owner who wants to convert to condos can be stopped? Are there city laws on the books to stop this? State laws on the books to stop this? Federal laws?
No. Simply put if a building owner wants to go condo, he can go condo. And no alderman can stop it. You are very very silly to think that you can stop such a process as you have no legal basis to stop a conversion.
If you want laws on the books to stop conversion, you need to lobby the Mayor and the whole city council -and- make sure such laws will not be overturned in the courts.
Its absolutely perposterious to believe that one alderman in one ward can stop condo conversions. Don't be fooled by the other three runners if they are telling you that they will stop condo conversions.
One of the biggest reasons there is a high amount of condo conversions is that many of these buildings are in need of serious repairs and the property taxes on them are sky-rocketing.
The only thing you can do to protect people is to make sure the condo converter is following the laws for the current tenants - and - make sure the developer has filed all the property work permits and building permits. Cheap condo conversions by developers who skirt the law by not doing work within the permit law are the worst thing that can happen.
So go ahead and dream on. Craig, if you hate condo conversions so much, why don't you move out of your condo and rent it out as affordable housing to someone like Rochelle?
Lakeview also used to have alot more charming coffee shops and small businesses- now all are being eaten by corporate businesses. On Clark Street, the trick is to open a restaurant with an incidental liquor license and then turn it into a bar. People don't go over there to eat.
As for toto's comments- what about increasing set asides and creating incentives and tax breaks for apartment building owners. I disagree that nothing can be done to improve this situation. Toto must not have looked into this too deeply.
Post a Comment