Last week I mentioned a demonstration was taking place regarding the housing crisis in Rogers Park. Well, sorry folks, I was a week too soon. Still, at least I was ahead of the curve in getting you the information. Unlike these fools. Here's what one reporter had to say.
* The event flyer included such catch phrases as "Curb Condo Conversions," "Support Balanced Housing," More Affordable Housing" and "Stop Renter Displacement." Right out of the Far Left Handbood of Cliches for Useful Idiots.Full story here.
One observer commented that they "are about eight years too late" to try to stop the condo conversions, and since the housing bubble burst it "seems like a pointless exercise anyway."
Blognotes: I noticed Brian White has joined forces with Joe Moore. Here's a guy who loathed the man a couple of years ago. Now he's sleeping with the enemy.
* Could it be Brian White got tired of being turned down for his permit to build his driveway? A permit Joe Moore had denied him of in the past. Why? All because Brian White opposed Joe Moore's policies.
* Could it be now that he's a executive director of a not-for-profit, White needs Joe Moore to keep his executive salary intact? In 2006, Brian White earned a whooping $72,000 dollars. With a total revenue of $101,841 dollars, White took most of this money for himself. What a fucking pig! When a not-for-profit is paying out 70% in administration fees - well, I consider that a crime in itself. It's no wonder they went in the hole.
Either way, it looks like Brian White has sold out his principles to feed his own wants and needs. Brian White has joined the short list of community traitors (Anne Sullivan & Jim Ginderske) who are part of the, "If You Can't Beat em - Join em" Club.
35 comments:
Mannis said...> "Brian White's Lakeside CDC seems to be violating IRS rules for non-profit organizations"
How shocking. Once someone joins forces with Joe Moore, they start breaking IRS rules.
Just the thought of standing side-by-side with Joey makes my skin crawl.
If only everyone had you integrity craig
JUST PROVES SOME PEOPLE LOVE THE TASTE AND SMELL OF ROTTEN GOOSE LIVER-
For a first year nfp_ Brian did pretty well for HIMSELF. Too bad we cant say the same for those needing affordable housing.
Other than pocketing 72K in 2006, where was Brian White when I reported this building going Stealth Condo in 2006?
POINT #1: Although it may not be apparent, the idea of an outdoor "sleep out" was probably aimed at symbolizing homelessness. That's one of the worst results of affordable housing loss in Rogers Park, and other communities which have failed to adequately plan for balanced housing development to serve both rich and poor residents.
I'm thankful that I have a warm and cozy home in which to live and raise my family. I'm thankful that I could pay last month's shocking $798.56 heating bill from Peoples Gas company!!! So, I applaud the staff and board members of North Side Power, the Lakeside Development Corporation, and anyone else who showed up to advocate on behalf of our neighbors (yes, our neighbors!) who currently live on the streets. I’m glad someone is working for individuals and families whose housing costs put them at risk of ending up living outdoors or in a homeless shelter.
My only question is this: besides doing public awareness and educational consciousness raising events, what else can we do to tackle this issue? My answer would be to push, urge, encourage, challenge, and help elected officials and other decisionmakers to create real solutions.
POINT #2: There appears to be some confusion about the governing regulations and definitions of certain words regarding non-profit activity. Yes, this sleep out demonstration was clearly advocacy. However, it was advocacy about an important "public policy" issue. That is totally allowed. It was not "political campaign activity" or someone making a "partisan comment" in support of a political candidate's campaign.
The regulatory citation begins with this - "The political campaign activity prohibition is not intended to restrict free expression on political matters by leaders of organizations speaking for themselves, as individuals." It continues with an important clarification that says, “Nor are leaders prohibited from speaking about important issues of public policy. However, for their organizations to remain tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3), leaders cannot make partisan comments in official organization publications or at official functions."
Does anyone read this differently?
POINT #3: We’ve always had some topsy-turvy priorities in this country when it comes to what and who we value. In the business/private sector we passively accept that many at the top will “earn” multi-million dollar incomes. Similarly, in the government sector we pay elected officials quite handsomely. However, in social work professions like teaching, nursing, or advocating for the poor we’ve placed a low value on both the work and the workers. Many of us would protest otherwise, but this imbalance stems from the low value our culture places on those who are helped – children, poor folks, the sick, and the elderly.
I don’t expect Brian White or any other social worker to just scratch by with a meager income. For full disclosure, I know the guy quite well and I know that many others also consider him to be an articulate, highly-skilled, and well-respected professional in his field. Considering the strong qualities Brian brings to the job, I’d say we’re lucky to have him doing it. If Brian were recruited to work in a business or government he’d be paid competitively. As consumers or taxpayers we’d be paying him much more than he’s earning now, and we’d accept whatever his income was without question.
Let’s be clear about our society’s double standard in who we value, for what, and why. We are not served well by the Jane Addams/Mother Theresa notion that social workers must give their all merely for the satisfaction of helping others or in the hope that they’ll get a good seat in heaven someday.
Where was Brian White in 2006 when Coe pulled his CPAN units off the table?
Where was Brian White when Margot Hackett and Daisy Duke got Steath Condo'ed?
Who or what should be the real targets here? I won't blame the few progressive housing policy advocates we have for not being everywhere to put out each and every fire in a community that was ablaze with condo conversions. Instead, shouldn't WE have taken the time to figure out why these fires all around us were starting in the first place?
The more relevant and harder questions to ask and answer are these:
A) Where were WE Rogers Parkers, as community residents, when scores of large apartment buildings and hundreds of apartments began turning condo, all falling like dominoes?
B) Where was our community resolve and political will to address the trend in affordable housing loss? Why didn't we demand action then, and why don't we demand action now while we still can?
C) Why didn't we - with effective planning and leadership - devise balanced housing solutions that met all our needs?
D) Maybe we were worried by the trend, but also just ignored it, feeling damn thankful that it wasn't us who was forced out on the street with barely a month's notice?
Some of us have been working on solutions, but too many of us haven't cared about the problem at all.
"Curb Condo Conversions"
"Support Balanced Housing"
"More Affordable Housing"
"Stop Renter Displacement"
My only question is this:
Who in their right minds would invite Joe Moore to speak at a rally at which the above are the slogans?
the gross hypocrisy of it
Moore rental apartments have been lost forever, Moore condos have been converted, on Joe Moore's 17 year watch than under all previous aldermen combined.
Lakeside carefully avoided cross-referencing 49th ward developers to campaign contributors in their study and carefully avoided mention of the alderman's central role in development policy.
And where was DevCorp North? DevCorp North is a front orgnaization for Rogers Park developers, for whom Moore arranges taxpayer funding every year. The protest was out front of a Moore campaign contributor's building, in which Moore arranged a new world HQ for DevCorp North, in return for a lucrative zoning change. The move facilitates DevCorp North laundering their ill-gotten gains from the Gateway Mall deal.
"However, it was advocacy about an important "public policy" issue. That is totally allowed. It was not "political campaign activity" or someone making a "partisan comment" in support of a political candidate's campaign."
The problem with trying to keep local housing & development policy separate from politics is that they CANNOT be separated. Tear downs and condo conversions are the fuel for incumbency in Chicago.
How cash, clout transform Chicago neighborhoods
its closer to 75%
you missed $3847 in nfp-paid employee bennies
Hugh, of course you are correct. Housing decisions and politics are intertwined. And as everyone knows, a politician's campaign for re-election begins the very next day after he wins his current post.
But ya know what? Joe Moore is the alderman and we all want him to address this, and we'll advocate that he do the right thing. I'd would expect any community's affordable housing advocates to invite their local alderman to participate in an activity like this. As I said earlier, the work requires that we "push, urge, encourage, challenge, and help elected officials and other decisionmakers to create real solutions." (Our job as voters is to evaluate and make a judgment about the alderman's response and follow-up actions.)
In conducting these strategies, nothing here equals a "partisan comment" of endorsement and support for a particular candidate's election. From the report given about last night's event, the non-profit leaders appear to have followed the regulations.
leave it to michael harrington to tell you how wrong you are in a way that leaves you feeling dirty.
michael harrington is a fucking idiot, as are all of the other "affordable housing" activists. The anti-gentrification morons are so misled and dilusional about development issues that they think the problem in Rogers Park is high home values! Give me a break! The alternative is much worse, and the level of "affordable housing" in Rogers Park has been kept artificially high for years through lax crime enforcement and slumlord subsidies.
Craig, Didn't Harrington rip off a gay not for profit called the Rodde Center?
"I'd would expect any community's affordable housing advocates to invite their local alderman to participate in an activity like this."
North Side Power & Pagan & Lakeside are facilitating Moore's 2 decade hypocrisy tango: the developer's pal in City Hall and the homeless person's guy in the 'hood.
I hear Ald. Banks is speaking at a zoning reform rally
You're a fucking idiot because you think there's something wrong with affordable housing. First of all this community is diverse which means there is and always has been middle and upper income people living here. Second of all, regardless of the income bracket everybody benefits from the affordability, we're not just losing affordable units, but comfortable spacious apartments that can be a real HOME. Those are being replaced by condos that are transitional housing, stuffing an unrealistic amount of living space into units just for the purpose of people living in them three to five years and flipping them to the next speculator.
Gentrification only benefits the people that want to see rising property values at the expense of everyone else. Only those people that can afford to stay and those people that displace the current demographic will see the ILLUSIONARY promise of reduced crime and economic development. Crime affects all of us in every income bracket, but it is a sliver of the people living here that are actually involved in crime, the majority, even in the lowest income brackets are not. In fact even neighborhoods like Lincoln Park have rates of predatory crime similar and higher than our own.
Right here right now is the balanced diversity that makes this one of the most special places in the world to live. There are many solidly upper income neighborhoods, but there is only one Rogers Park. It's worth fighting for, its worth preserving. People love it, people love living here. Alot of people have been tricked into believing that we have concentrated poverty when what we have is a perfect mix. People have been tricked into believing if we get rid of the affordable housing we are getting rid of all the crime. People even believe that if we get more condos and high end stores we'll get along better with our neighbors and buy nicer clothes and things. If you want to go shopping, GO shopping. You can take the train, have lunch and see the city. This is a neighborhood, these are our neighbors, this is Rogers Park, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the world. This neighborhood is what makes Chicago a world class city. Do you love this neighborhood?
I think for the majority of us here, the issue is not affordable housing, the issue is what its going to take to preserve it. Craig here hates Joe. Craig has varying degrees of animosity for community organizations, perhaps for not doing enough to preserve affordable housing. Michael hit the nail on the head, Michael is correct on all points. More people need to step up and support any and all efforts to preserve our affordable housing wherever they come up. Humiliating people refusing to work with Joe, its not going to help. Come with the solutions, support the efforts.
Brian, Michael, Craig, anybody, just let us know.
I still have to think long and hard about it. I'll say something else later. I never had any clue what to do about gentrification except to look menacingly at the yuppies. Wait, I DO have some ideas. I need to fill in the gaps between what's possible, what other's ideas are and then think some more.
Michael, what solutions are you working on? Ooooh! And will we get to hear what these folks from yesterday are up to?
Lately when I see the usual suspects about (Scottie, Frank, and many others I do not know their names), I cringe thinking about how awful this winter must have been for them with the relentless cold and snow. Today, I bumped into Frank, who commented on my dogs ad said that, "he likes animals better than most people."
Yes, these are our neighbors, and it pains me that people around me are suffering. I don't work in social services and I don't know what needs to be done to help them, but I do care.
I grew up in Rogers Park, and I can remember as a small child asking my parents about homeless people or panhandlers. Even then, it bothered me.
I think picking on Brian White is missing the point. He can't be everywhere and cover it all-he's just one person.
Good report, Craig, thanks. I will post video of the speeches by Joe Moore, Pagan Banks and Brian White will be posted early Sunday evening at The Bench (http://rogersparkbench.blogspot.com)
Mr. Harrington wrote: "POINT #1: Although it may not be apparent, the idea of an outdoor "sleep out" was probably aimed at symbolizing homelessness." HUH? NOBODY "slept out"!!! They all slept inside of the condo building behind the protest. These people talk the talk, but they did not walk the walk. At no time was anybody in danger of collapsing from hunger, succumbing to the cold or forced to defecate in an alley. The only things that were apparent, Mr. Harrington, was that it was a hypocritical event, there were no actual homeless people that I could see, you were not there, Joe Moore and Brian White left immediately after the speeches. You also ask, "My only question is this: besides doing public awareness and educational consciousness raising events, what else can we do to tackle this issue?" How about this? Your "progressive" friends can stop harassing and taxing the hell out of business owners, some of whom would be able to employ a few more people; you can stop taxing the hell out of home owners, some of whom become homeless after the City seizes their houses for back taxes. That's just a start, there is much more. But instead of asking how the government and more regulation and more taxes can help, how about asking how the government can get out of the way and let development happen so that more people would be employed, have more of their paycheck left over, be able to open a small store in Rogers Park without a lot of red tape and political obstruction, and so on and on and on......
hello, condos ARE AFFORDABLE HOUSING. and have been a great stabilizing force in this neighborhood, turning transients into owners. while the big ticket, gut rehab units get most of the attention, there are a lot of units where people have an investment for the price of rent down the drain.
and the big problem here is that private property is just that. i don't want craig telling me what to do with my property, and neither does brian white, who opted out of downzoning when the rest of the neighborhood did it.
i have no real problem with that. i respect his passion. i hope he can help move this issue. but some sort of public financing, ie the evil tiff, is about all you can do. you cannot repeal the laws of economics, or, gasp, socialize people's property.
and afaik, the irs guidelines basically say- a nfp cannot say- elect joe moore. they are free to say- joe moore has been a great ally on this issue, we are happy to have joe moore's support, or we want joe moore to give us a subsidy or government contract. been involved with a lot of them, and that was always the way it worked.
That's the stupidest thing I've heard so far. Nobody wants to pay any taxes, but you have to, why? well let's see what taxes go towards. Hmmm we got astronomical tax cuts twenty years ago and now infrastructure is crumbling all around us. We got some more and now the economy is caving in. Let's pay even less and see what happens. There's going to be more taxes simply because we need them to solve for infrastructure woes and social needs we've been neglecting. If we spend them wisely its an investment that can benefit all, a little taxes invested wisely can save people money, stimulate the economy, all kind of things. Just pick something that was neglected by lack of public investment and see the mess and the cost when it collapses. Think of tangible things like levees and roads and education and social services, what happens when you neglect them? People don't like when tax dollars are wasted. That is all.
If its so easy to put more money in people's pockets, how come raising wages won't do the same thing? What if you raise the wage two dollars an hour and tax and additional 10% of that plus 3% more when it gets spent? That's still 87% of more spending money in the economy. I see abosolutely no point to this we should just lower taxes crap.
Well, what's complicated is what eludes most of us. you bellow nonsense, but we asked what can be done to preserve affordable housing in the ward, so you don't like the SSA or you don't like that mural or you don't like the businesses opening up or the rules imposed on store owners, pick one. The store grates? I say keep them and make the streets look as menacing as possible. It dissuades condo buyers. I agree with you! It does no good to agree with you though, because I have a practical reason that adheres to a defined goal while you have a formula that aspires to nothing.
Been There, condos cost two to three times what rents were. And condo buyers are transient, its the facts and the trend. You can read about it, but look at what is obvious, do you see families moving into condos and staying to raise them? Or do you see young professionals buying them, starting a family and then moving when the family grows. Which is it? If its not obvious, then I have to post some damn links or these experts have to come back and weigh in.
I hear Todd Stroger is speaking at a rally of Chicago Cuban-Americans, they are protesting Fidel turning his govt over to his bro Raul w/o free & fair elections
Hey, I don't see a way to contact you, but I just moved into the Artist In Residence on 6165 Winthrop and we had a bunch of cockroaches.
I want to know as I am from the northwest with no cockroaches, is this common in Rogers Park? Chicago in General?
ggwillisgg@yahoo.com
JoMo is a cockroach.
Once again, I will write:
"When are we going to attend a community meeting to introduce a new building specifically for low income dwellers?"
Is HE out there asking for developer favors for his poor or is he asking for other 'favors'?
Paradise - Tenants are frequently transient too. Look up some links on that. When property taxes rise, rents rise and people move. Let's not forget the utility hikes, AT&T hikes, the list goes on.
It can be a very expensive headache to a property owner if he has transient and/or bad tenants. The same expensive headaches can happen to condo associations with a 'bad' owner or two.
The tirade against owners vs renters is exactly what one is supposed to buy into. If you're really searching for the truth, keep digging and put the shopping on hold.
Are you saying people don't have a right to move so their kids can attend a good school? Owner or Renter?
Stop Pay-to-Play NOW!
A rally for campaign finance reform in Chicago
special guest speaker: Arenda Troutman
"hello, condos ARE AFFORDABLE HOUSING"
don't wear it out
"affordable housing" actually means something to some of us
if you believe this you probably also believe black is white, day is night, the sun rises in the west, and Joe Moore is a reformer
pass the kool-aid
Before the condo frenzy started in RP several years, condos WERE somewhat affordable housing.
The luxury condo conversions on the 1500 block of Birchwood were the beginning of the end. Developers all went for the cookie cutter luxury approach (granite counters, stainless steel kitchen appliances, etc.), when all most of us wanted were decent quality places at moderate prices. But greed carried the day and now we have a glut of vacant luxury condos.
If more of these were built/renovated for a middle income price range that people actually could afford (without subprime mortgage hocus pocus), I'm sure there would be a lot fewer vacant units now.
7 years too late??? 27 is more like it!
obstructionist activism (with a socialist bent) has dogged this neighborhood (that i've lived in for 40 years) into its current barely-above-slum grade in the chicago real estate mileiu.
this neighborhood has a serious leftist cancer and people like joe, ann, fran tobin, etc. are simply lesions of that pathological disease.
unfortunately, regular working people (both blue and white collar) with common sense were replaced in the 70's and 80's with people like paradise, charlie didrickson, and hugh. overeducated, self-aggrandizing, arrogant academic types (thank you, northwestern and loyola) with paternalistic attitudes towards us poor unenlightened slobs who just can't muster the mental acuity to handle the subtleties of arguments. and one dare not question the premises of those arguments, less you be labeled politically incorrect, racist, etc.
and while some of them may have originally disagreed with jm, david orr, etc, it was all too easy for them to be co-opted by the other side simply by leaning on their lefty tendencies. thus it's no surprise about brian white.
and all i can say about the rp blogosphere (craig, mannis, westgard, etc) is that it gives a lot of credence to the wide perception of rp being the land of wackos.
now, please carry on...
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