Community organizing in south suburban islands of poverty

Two youngsters ham it up outside the storefront that serves as headquarters for the Chicago Heights Community Committee. The majority of children in this neighborhood are from single-parent families. Photo by Paul Beaty

This is the seventh in our series on community organizing in Illinois, made possible by a grant from the Woods
Charitable Fund, Inc. For details on the other articles in the series, please turn to page 3.

In front of a large poster board covered with photographs, fliers and newspaper clippings, Joseph L. Hawkins carefully details the progress made over the last year. Hawkins, his deep voice matching his large stature, knows that he has made a difference. He and his supporters believe that they have slowed the growth of the "criminal element" in their community.

Hawkins and the 25 members at the March 2 meeting of I-Watch live in Phoenix, a small suburb 10 miles south of Chicago. They encourage the police department to enforce the curfew, and the members patrol the streets and carry two-way radios that provide an instant line to the village police. In many ways, their monthly meetings are probably like those of countless neighborhood crime prevention organizations that dot the suburban landscape. Friendly greetings, cake and coffee are interspersed with plans for fundraising activities and membership drives.

But this is the suburban exception, not the rule. All-black and one of the poorest suburbs in metropolitan Chicago, Phoenix is dealing not with the occasional garage break-in, but rather with a growing number of abandoned houses and with it an accompanying rise in crime. Vacant housing in a community provides an ideal infrastructure for local crime, and I-Watch has worked with the police, water and health departments to shut down a number of suspected drug houses. In September a well-publicized march in front of a number of these houses brought the organization some local fame and admiration. Area papers praised the group's efforts, and the neighboring city of Harvey is organizing a similar group. In February, the group received a $2,500 grant from Thornton Township to purchase additional radio equipment.

Saul Alinsky, the "father" of community organizing, would most likely be at home in Phoenix and I-Watch. It is a village of single unit homes, strong churches and a deep sense of community. Those are the ingredients Alinsky relied upon to create his style of democratic, locally based organizing. Hawkins and many of the members of I-Watch have lived in Phoenix their entire lives and understand community problems and the context in which they must be addressed. They thus have a direct stake in the successes or failures of their organization. I-Watch

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is community organizing on the most basic of levels. This is not the "ivory tower" organizing, with seminars, wealthy foundations and journal articles. Hawkins, a manager at the Acme Steel plant in neighboring Riverdale, is a community leader Alinsky would be comfortable with. When asked what has been the most important accomplishment of I-Watch, Hawkins is quick to reply that members now believe they have at least partial control over the direction in which their community is moving.

What works in Phoenix though, will not work elsewhere. Alinsky's approach to organizing is becoming increasingly outdated in the underclass neighborhoods of not only the inner city, but the suburbs as well. In addition, the newly emerging need to cross political, economic and racial boundaries and create a sense of common purpose for the south suburban region as a whole is forcing organizers away from Alinsky and into uncharted territory. Organizations like I-Watch will always have a place in communities where the environment is conducive to such an approach.

Alinsky's approach to organizing is becoming increasingly outdated in the underclass neighborhoods . . .

But the south suburbs are demonstrating that new avenues in community organizing must be explored.

Called the most racially, economically and culturally diverse suburban area in the nation, the south suburbs have a combined population greater than 550,000. Yet in many ways it is a forgotten region of the Chicago metro area and historically has fought a "stepchild" tag. With the enormous growth of Lake and DuPage counties over the last decade, the communities south of Chicago remain to a large degree outside the economic boom spotlight. Over the past 15 years the area has struggled with a shrinking industrial job and tax base. Major employers, like the Ford Motor Co. stamping plant in Chicago Heights, have scaled back the payroll by 3,000. Others, like the Wisconsin Steel works on the southeast side of Chicago, have shut down completely. During the recession earlier this decade, more than 25,000 steel, chemical and auto jobs were lost. But the area is rebounding, with the unemployment rate today hovering near 5 percent. Aggressive economic development strategies by area leaders are winning back an estimated 2,000 manufacturing jobs a year.

Unfortunately, the recovery has bypassed south suburban communities like Blue Island, Robbins, Harvey, Ford Heights and sections of Chicago Heights. Today it is not unusual for some neighborhoods in these communities to have unemployment rates in excess of 50 percent. They mirror the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago. "The suburbs are still thought of as the green spot or the escape from Chicago. People have not come to grips with the idea that there can be a suburban area with serious problems," said Tom Brindisi of the Chicago Area Project, a non-profit organization that works with youth.

Since the migration of the middle class from the inner city and the older black suburbs, the community fabric of church, family and working-class values has slowly unraveled, replaced by single-parent families, welfare dependency and crime. Institutions of family, church, schools and a sense of community pride, tools available 50 years ago to Alinsky in the working-class slums of Chicago's south side, are no longer present. Although the Alinsky goal of fostering grass-roots power is still desirable, the means to reach the goal have disappeared.

According to University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson, the rise of the underclass, the poorest of the poor, is in part rooted in the victories of the civil rights movement. As strides were made in opening housing and job markets, middle-class blacks fled the old neighborhoods, taking their businesses and middle-class values with them. Coupled with their flight was the transformation of the U.S. economy from an industrial to a service sector base. With this change went the high-paying, low-skilled manufacturing jobs, forcing up the unemployment rate in the inner city and many suburbs. Today, some neighborhoods in the south suburbs confront the same problems as inner city neighborhoods in Chicago, New York and Detroit. This is the new challenge for organizers. If community organizing is to come from the community, where is the base of support to be found?

David Whitaker, the executive director of the Chicago Area Project (CAP), acknowledges that the Alinsky model is outdated when addressing the problems of the underclass. "An organizer's responsibilty is to look for existing entities, institutions and power structures that are already there as a part of the inherent fabric of the community. Places [CAP] is going today — Alinsky has essentially no model of operating within a community as devastated as Robbins or Ford Heights. The [Alinsky] model just doesn't relate today," he said. Whitaker stressed that the Alinsky approach remains useful in neighborhoods with existing structures. For example, United Neighborhoods Organization in Chicago has made excellent use of the Catholic church fabric within the Hispanic communities. But in communities like Ford Heights, the remaining churches are losing their grip on the people.

Whitaker's organization, with a network of sites throughout Chicago, is one of the most active community organizations in the south suburbs. CAP maintains three sites in Chicago Heights and one in Robbins. Although CAP was created to address juvenile delinquency, in practice the sites handle a wide variety of community problems. After-school enrichment activities, counseling and job training are but a few of the services the group provides. Programs of the Chicago Heights Community Committee also help single mothers. Andrea Byers, a single mother with two children, is a volunteer aide at the committee's storefront headquarters. For three years she has helped the children with homework, arts and crafts and games. She said working with the committee has kept her active in the community

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Youngsters learn quilting at this after-school program administered by the Chicago Heights Community Committee. Photo by Paul Beaty

One-third of the houses in the Chicago Heights neighborhood of Beacon Hill stand vacant. The once model suburban neighborhood is now a nightmarish scene - unrelated to the American dream in other suburbs. Photo by Paul Beaty

and has increased her self-esteem. In addition, CAP organizers are now in the final stages of setting up what they hope will be a model project for Ford Heights (see box on page 26). Because CAP is focused on youth, the organization has been at the forefront of addressing the emerging needs of the underclass, which is made up in large part of children and teenagers. Founded by University of Chicago sociologist Clifford R. Shaw, CAP was based on the then-revolutionary belief that juvenile delinquency was rooted not exclusively in the personality of the child but rather in the environment surrounding the child. Shaw's earliest work was based in the Polish Russell Square community on Chicago's south side. Using the local Boys' Club as a starting point, Shaw organized the first CAP community committee. Later he introduced an inexperienced but energetic organizer named Saul Alinsky to the Back of the Yards neighborhood in the late 1930s. Though disputes between the two led to a formal separation, Shaw's teachings played an important role in the development of Alinsky's approach to organizing.

CAP is currently undertaking the initial steps to create sites in the northern suburb of Waukegan and a site to aid the poor in DuPage County. But the heart of CAP outside the Chicago city limits lies in the south suburbs. As a University of Chicago graduate in the Alinsky-Shaw tradition of community organizing, Whitaker sees both the advantages and disadvantages of working in a suburban setting.

One distinct advantage that the Chicago Heights committee has over any CAP site in Chicago is the accessibilty to local government. "It is amazing the relationship you can foster with the schools and park district. In Chicago we're tired of fighting the Park District, while in the Heights there are open channels," he said. Whitaker said CAP requests for access in low-income, minority neighborhoods for Chicago Park District facilities fell on deaf ears until recently. Chicago Heights Community Committee Director Thornal Washington said that although he may not always agree with park policy in Chicago Heights, he is never ignored. Washington's group makes use of park district buildings and picnic areas.

Like CAP in Chicago Heights, I-Watch in Phoenix can rely on close contact with local officials. Indeed, in the case of Phoenix most village officials are active in the community organization, giving it a direct line to the village hall, including the offices of the mayor and chief of police. On this level, relationships resemble those in rural communities rather than Chicago. Even in Chicago Heights with a population of 37,000, community organizers can at least be assured an open dialogue with city decisionmakers, a luxury coveted by Chicago organizers.

Access to schools for community organizations highlights another advantage the suburbs have over Chicago. CAP's Washington works closely with schools in two of the poorest sections of Chicago Heights. He has earned the respect and admiration of the school principals and district administrations, and his community committee is able to use the schools' facilities. According to Whitaker, "Even in the larger suburbs you have a self-contained community that enables you to pull together resources that Chicago is unable to give up." One long-standing frustration of community leaders in Chicago is the extensive system of public schools that are under most guidelines closed to the communities after school hours and during the summer. In most suburbs, community organizers who are willing to develop the confidence and respect of school administrators will find the facilities open to them, according to Whitaker.

The relationship that Washington's Chicago Heights Community Committee has fostered with the local schools is seen at the Charles E. Gavin elementary school on the depressed east side of Chicago Heights. The school sits in the shadow of the Cook County Housing Authority projects and the rusting hulks of a dying manufacturing base. Almost 98 percent of the children come from families on some type of welfare and most are

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from single-parent families. The school is unable to meet all the needs of the 400 children and many rely on community help. Principal Yvonne Robinson said, "One of the strengths of our school is to bring in community organizing." The services Washington's organization provides run the gamut from tutoring students after school to providing organized activities in the summer.

On the other side of Chicago Heights lies Beacon Hill elementary school. Though located in Chicago Heights, it is part of a different school district from Gavin school (highlighting the patchwork nature of suburban government). While Beacon Hill is a community with all the suburban trappings — wide, meandering streets, lawns and ranch-style homes — it is obvious that this surburban dream has gone awry. An estimated 35 percent of the substandard houses stand vacant, stripped of even the aluminum siding. There is no community center and no park in the neighborhood,. "We simply can't close our doors to the community," said Principal Ellen Currins. In the summer, the

Ford Heights: on the frontier This abandoned Cook County Housing Authority building in Ford Heights will be the site of a youth community center run by the Chicago Heights Community Committee. Photo by Paul Beaty "Ford Heights is one of the most incredible challenges we are facing today," according to Chicago Area Project Executive Director David Whitaker. "You don't have one particular issue; instead there is a whole full range of issues to organize around. So where do you start? How do you begin to attract people when their most pressing problems are on a day-to-day surviving level?" Community organizers like Whitaker admit they have few answers. He is not leading the charge into Ford Heights armed with a battery, of predesigned programs and rock-solid answers. A Chicago Area Project (CAP) affiliate is quietly setting up a community center with no pat answers, no precedents and no promises. Ford Heights gained notoriety in 1987 when a Roosevelt University study named the community of 5,300 the poorest suburb in the nation. Per capita income stands at $4,500, a full $2,000 below fellow south-suburban community Robbins, which was named 10th poorest in the nation. Illinois' per capita income is $16,000. Unemployment in Ford Heights is estimated at around 60 percent. The Chicago Heights Community Committee, an active CAP branch that neighbors Ford Heights, is three months away from opening up what it hopes will be a model center in the devastated community. The Chicago Heights group was able to secure a vacant Cook County Housing Authority building on the south end of Ford Heights. Thornal Washington, director of the community committee, said his organization's goal is to serve only the small cluster of housing authority buildings near the new center. Washington will focus on the needs of elementary children and their single-parent mothers, who almost exclusively comprise the housing project's population. Donald Passmore, one of Washington's assistants, will lead the project in its initial stages. Passmore was instrumental in starting up the community committee's site in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Chicago Heights (see main story). A burly, pragmatic and tough organizer, he refuses to be fazed by even the Third World appearance of Ford Heights. He matter-of-factly discussed the first step: to clean up the rubble-strewn lot that comprises the project's grounds and paint over the gang graffiti. An organization must create an environment where people have respect for their surroundings before anything else can occur, Passmore believes. Whitaker describes this project as the cutting edge of community organizing. There are no past experiences to draw upon, no precedents, he asserts. "We're on the frontier."          Bill Kemp

CAP community committee has use of the cafeteria, gymnasium and playground. The organization also runs a hot breakfast and lunch program for the community during the summer months for children and their parents.

One disadvantage Whitaker sees to organizing in the suburbs is the isolated nature of many lower-income areas. "In Chicago there are resources we have learned to rely on, foundations and corporations for example. In an area like Ford Heights, for example, it's difficult because nobody knows about it." The severe pockets of poverty outside the city limits of Chicago may call for a different approach merely because of their isolation.

But the south suburbs are by no means exclusively comprised of ravaged communities. Intermixed with the poorest suburbs in the nation are many more upper-and middle-class neighborhoods of both whites and blacks. For these communities where local needs are already being met, suburban organizing with a regional focus may be the shape

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of things to come. The impetus for community organizing in the south suburbs is exactly opposite of that in larger cities, according to the Rev. Larry A. McClellan. McClellan, currently senior pastor at St. Paul Community Church in Homewood and former village president of Park Forest, said the central task for organizers in Chicago is to empower local neighborhoods and community leaders. In contrast, he argues that this is unnecessary in the suburban setting. McClellan believes the various local suburban governments serve as the power base for neighborhoods. What community organizers need to do instead is "systematically develop a regional capacity to deal with public issues" — in other words, cross municipal boundaries to address a common goal not for one community, but rather for the benefit of the south suburban region as a whole.

The economic downturn that occurred as heavy industry left the region spurred a flurry of regional organizations. The South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association, the South Suburban Housing Center, the South Suburban Heritage Association and the South Suburban Action Conference grew out of this trend, McClellan said. All attempt to address problems common throughout the region through intergovernmental cooperation. Therefore, the south suburbs are today addressing problems both through community organizing strictly on the local level and also through regional approaches.

The case of I-Watch and the village of Phoenix, though, demonstrates the difficulty in organizing beyond real and unofficial barriers between communities. Phoenix does not exist in a vacuum. Bordering the all-black village of 3,000 are two larger communities. To the east is South Holland, a mostly white village of 25,000, and to the south and west is Harvey, a mostly black and industry-based city of 36,000. The problems of Harvey, especially crime, are also the problems of Phoenix, and the two communities share many common bonds. But the only contact most Phoenix residents have with South Holland is the fact that their children are sent to a South Holland school district. Racially, economically and socially, the differences between South Holland and Phoenix are striking. Other than the school, the communities of Phoenix and South Holland might as well be divided by a chasm a hundred miles wide. It is ironic that a number of neighborhoods in South Holland are for the first time organizing crime watch groups with programs and goals similar to I-Watch. Yet there is no communication between the two. In the south suburbs, political boundaries can serve as cultural and economic boundaries as well. Community organizers reaching beyond such boundaries must grapple with this issue first.

This problem is, of course, not unique in the suburban setting. Community organizers in Chicago must also deal with neighborhoods split along racial and economic lines. But the problem can be exacerbated in the suburbs by the sheer number of town and city governments and the wide ranging types of neighborhoods that make up the communities. Within the diversity of the suburban setting, people organize to make life better in their villages and neighborhoods. But they can be of little help to each other unless they have the networks to share ideas and resources.

While CAP and I-Watch are concerned with providing services on a local level, a number of organizations have taken McClellan's regional approach. The South Suburban Action Conference (SSAC), a coalition of 27 churches, has made the rehabilitation and resale of vacant homes to first-time, low-income buyers one of the organizations's top priorities. A conservative estimate places the number of abandoned homes in the south suburbs at 3,000. Not only do these houses add up to an eyesore, they lower property values and neighborhood morale and provide a perfect infrastructure for illegal activity.

Working with area banks, local governments and the state, SSAC is the only community organization addressing housing in the south suburbs on such a wide scale. In cooperation with the Romeoville Housing Redevelopment Commission, SSAC recently gained a $200,000 Illinois Housing Develpment Authority loan. The loan is enabling SSAC to rehabilitate houses in Sauk Village, Markham and Harvey and to search out low-income buyers. Five area banks have committed low-cost mortgage funds ranging from $80,000 to $500,000.

The careful sidestepping to accommodate the numerous local governments in the south suburbs makes an operation on the scale of SSAC difficult. Some local neighborhood improvement groups quietly combat the movement of low-income and minority home buyers. In the south suburbs as in Chicago, race defines many delicate maneuverings. SSAC is committed to fair and open housing in the region, but combating prejudice based on property values has never been a great success of community organizing. Also, vacant homes are appearing faster than they can be labeled and targeted for rehabilitation. Entire communities, including the more blighted areas, remain untouched by SSAC's efforts.

The challenges are immense. As a community, Phoenix has the institutions to allow Hawkins and his I-Watch group to take on crime in their neighborhood, but in nearby Chicago Heights an east side neighborhood provides a different type of "support." There some of the 6-year-olds come to Gavin Elementary School with monopoly money and pencil shavings in plastic bags to play drug dealer during recess. With drug dealers for role models, the future for many first graders is bleak. Can a handful of CAP organizers working with the school make a dent in the social and economic problems plaguing these communities? Can the south suburbs as a region back them up?

Bill Kemp is a graduate student at Sangamon State University and a reporter for the Statehouse bureau of Illinois Issues. He is a native of Thornton, located in the heart of the south suburbs.

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