Wednesday, May 16, 2007

* Unlawful Hangouts in Rogers Park

{Bumped - CAPS Meeting Tonight}

Hello neighbors, the CAPS Beat 2423 meeting is tonight, May 16th, at 7PM. The location is Trilogy Center 1400 W. Estes Avenue, on the 4th floor.

Among the topics of discussion, will be the corner of Greenleaf and Glenwood, near Goldberg Park.

Said one new neighbor about the Dublin building on that corner....> "I just moved to the area a little over a week ago and have to walk past that same building mentioned in the article to get to the train. All I can say that I'm not surprised. My first thought was that it was a street pharmacy and I had a feeling that I might run into trouble innocently walking past there at some point. You hate to make those assumptions, but this story confirmed my gut-instinct."

BLOGNOTES: What's the keywords here folks? Innocently walking. We law-abiding citizens are being goooned and shot by unlawful wild youths while we strool innocently to and from our homes.

And Joe Moore is doing absolutely nothing about it. When it comes to crime, Joe is a hands off type of alderman. Like in 2004, when the gooning first began. It's going to have to be us innocent citizens who's going to have to make a change.

Don't look for Joe to help. He and his followers are happy the way things are.

The only way to change the status quo, is do it ourselves. Come to the CAPS 2423 meeting on Wednesday and find out how. Don't be the next gooning victim or innocent by-stander who gets shot in the unlawfulness Joe has created with his absence to ward issues. Like crime and bad buildings, such as the building in the above photograph and crime in the story below.

10 comments:

INKJAR said...

CORRECT JOEMO AND HIS GANG ARE HAPPY THE WAY THINGS ARE-

JOMO PRPBABLY HAS HIS MIND ON FAST EDDIE THESE DAYS

ChitownRog said...

You ask the question:

"Where's the affordability?"

In your post about the Loyola TIF.
I think you just found it. Right there in the picture.

This is what you get when you ask people to keep their buildings "affordable". There's a reason why building such as this doesn't have granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. I'm sure the owner can't justify spending money to update the building if he's keeping it "affordable".

The unfortunate byproduct of all this affordability is you attract the types who might run an open-air drug market out of the laundry mat.

Anonymous said...

FYI in Tribune

Mayor's affordable-housing plan passes
Affordable-housing advocates and Mayor Richard Daley both claimed victory Monday as the Chicago City Council overwhelmingly approved Daley's plan to require developers to set aside more housing units at lower prices.

Daley's plan will require developers to set aside 10 percent of homes in projects of 10 units or more where city land is sold, where a zoning change increases density or alters the designation to residential, or where special city approval is otherwise needed.

The city estimates that the new requirement will affect about half of the new projects of that size each year, creating more than 1,000 homes annually.

The ordinance requires the homes to be affordable for families that don't earn more than the Chicago metropolitan area's median income, or about $75,000 for a family of four. The city says that comes out to about $183,000 for a two-bedroom home.

Developers can opt out of the requirement by paying $100,000 per unit into a city fund used to create more affordable housing, including rental units targeted at lower income levels.

The North Coast said...

There's a middle ground between the type of "affordability" that equals welfare recipients and gangs; and $3000 a month apts. that no one who makes less than $150K a year can afford,and for which there is almost no market north of Irving Park Road, if indeed even that far away from downtown.

I hate terms like "affordable" because it is so vague,sloppy, and undefined. Are we talking about "affordable" for moderate to middle income people who make from $30K to $80K a year, or are we talking "affordable" for people who only work sparodically or not at all? Or "affordable" for low wage workers who are neither welfare recipients and bums, nor middle income, and who are priced out of housing yet too "rich" to qualify for assisted housing most of them wouldn't want to live in anyway?

This is for sure- as long as our housing is as heavily socialized as it is, the supply of housing for people like me, and possibly you, will dwindle, and the only housing available will be the kind of apts being built on Loyola's old property that almost no one can afford, or the kind of property you have to be a welfare recipient or dope-addled loser to qualify for.

The rest of us- low, moderate, middle- will be cut out of decent housing altogether.

If we want a fair housing market that provides decent housing within a middle-income or low-wage earner's means, the best thing to do is unwind ALL socialized housing programs. Whether it is an HUD guaranteed loan for luxe apts charging overmarket rents, or low-income housing subsidies the enable landlords to collect 'market' rents for uninhabitable apts, or CPAN subsidies that help prop up overinflated condo prices, government involvement in the housing market does nothing but inflate prices and remove incentive to provide housing the local market can afford without some kind of tax-funded assistance.

Uncle Wally said...

Some people won't be happy unless they bring in the storm troopers.

Get real. There is lots of affordable housing in RP. There's also a lot of low end folks attracted by that affordable housing.

As with all things in life you can't have everything. You just have to have the right to make choices. If you want that affordable housing and ethnically diverse neighborhood, you also have to expect some trouble from the underclass. That is unless you want to live in a place that is undersiege by the cops.

The North Coast said...

Uncle Wally, if we weren't in the business of subsidizing low end housing, our cheap buildings wouldn't be stuffed with undesirables.

Subsidized buildings get the undesirables, the exiles from the housing projects that no one wants but that subsidized buildings must take.

It is an insult to most low-wage people that they are lumped in with the population of welfare recipients and dope addicts and prostitutes, while they are priced out of housing altogether. Have you seen the "market" rates quoted for these dumps? Would you pay that kind of rent for these holes?

This neighborhood needs NO more subsidized housing of any sort. We don't need high-end rentals that there is not a market for and that will surely become a Loyola dormitory down the road, at taxpayer expense; and we sure as hell don't need more "low-income" subsidized buildings.

Abe said...

North Coast - Herein lies the problem. Everyone in RP screams affordable housing, affordable housing. You are the first to say (at least for me to hear) that you don't want subsidized housing. Well, NC, let me point out that discriminating against someone based upon their source of income (i.e. subsidized, Section 8) is a CRIME. Asking a landlord to not rent to such people is asking a landlord to commit a crime.

I think many people in RP share your view. The fact is, however, that what you suggest is illegal.

ChitownRog said...

The problem with terms like "affordable", and "green", and "living wage" is that they're all relative terms. Yet, people throw them around like some kind of new-aged religion. "We need more 'affordable' housing"... "We're not being 'green' enough"... "People DESERVE to earn a 'living wage'"...

What's "affordable" to me might be completely un-affordable to somebody else. Does this mean my house should be considered "affordable housing". I think so. I can afford it.

I understand this is arguing semantics and the idea is that people should be able to live comfortably on the wage they make. But even 'comfortably' is a relative term. Who decides? Who gets to dictate what is "affordable" or how much is a "living wage". Why are we so set on setting the standard on the demand side of the graph?

I say, let the market decide what a house or apartment costs. Let the market decide what a particular job pays. Then people can make their own decisions about what their standard of living is.

If all you can afford is a crappy one bedroom apartment in a run-down building, and you're not happy about it, then you need to make some changes in your life. If instead, we say "You DESERVE better. We're going to subsidize your income (if there is an income) so you can afford a nicer place." If we say that. Where's the incentive for this person to make any changes in their life?

You can call me insensitive, and tell me I'm eliteist, and say "Oh but some people can't make changes, and are only capable of flipping burgers"... I call BULLSHIT and say you're part of the problem for enabling their behavior...

People need to start taking responsibility for themselves. I'm a little tired of paying for people to live in buildings like this, only to have them sell drugs and make our neighborhood unsafe.

We all should be tired of it.

The North Coast said...

Abe, it goes without saying that the whole rotten structure of subsidized housing needs to be dismantled, including the laws mandating it. That means dismantling HUD and possibly FHA, and with them all the layers of subsidies, direct and indirect, for housing in all income brackets.

It means, of course, repealing the laws that created these agencies and empowered them to make so many laws and rules, build such large,money-gobbling bureacracies, and make so many laws and rules that skew housing markets in favor of one group or the other, and help destroy buildings and neighborhoods.

The bad thing is that we have had this sort of government involvement in the housing market for 80 years now and no one remembers a time before it.

The only government involvement there should be is enforcement of health and safety codes, and rules pertaining to maintenance and cleanliness. In other words, any government involvement should be in line with the proper function of the authorities, which is to keep a structure from becoming a threat to the safety and health of others, including neighbors.

You'll notice our local authorities don't do a very good job at THAT.

cityofchinigga said...

Whether you like it or not there will always be Folks and People in Chi-town. And whether you like it or not gangs are a rich part of Chicago history. And you people are scared of Rogers Park? I lived in Humboldt Park
in the 90s when Chicago was really violent. If they're selling drugs, do
you really think they are going to harass you? They are making $, they ain't gonna go out of their way to mess with some arrogant yuppie or old person. You start callin CPD on them then you're gonna piss them off. Trust me, Rogers Park ain't dangerous like that. Maybe "The Low End" (Howard and Ashland) or "The Jungle" (Morse and Ashland) are seedy and gang-infested but trust me, it's no Englewood or Austin neighborhood. Shit, I'd probably rather live in Rogers Park than Cicero, Maywood, Ford Heights, Harvey, Waukegan, North Chicago, etc. Trust me, there are more dangerous suburbs than Rogers Park.
Shot out to all my niggas on Talman and Wabansia keep it rizzeal.

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