SOUL - Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation

"Occupy the Dream"

2011-12-20T00:23:00.009-06:00

Today, the “Occupy” movement has helped focus America on the fact that our economy and our government is working on behalf of the wealthiest 1%, and at the expense of all the rest of us.

We agree and boldly state that the answer is the Beloved Community preached and acted upon by Dr. King.

Please join us for a day of ACTION the most fitting way of honoring Dr. King and his vision for the world.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration and Action Assembly will be held Sunday, January 15, 2012. Registration and Music will start at 2:30 until 3:00 pm. Our celebration program and action will begin at 3:00 until 4:30 pm.

Join us at The People’s Church located at 941 W. Lawrence Avenue in Chicago, Illinois

Free Parking available at the Aragon Ballroom Lot 2 blocks away: 1106 W. Lawrence Avenue

Sponsored by: IIRON Education Fund, NFP (IIRON) Northside P.O.W.E.R. (People Organized to Work, Educate and Restore), Northwest Indiana Federation, and Southsiders Organized for Unity & Liberation (SOUL). Visit us at iironblog.org.

RSVP on Facebook or For more information call Will Tanzman 312.402.0572

Chicagoland Religious Leaders Support the Occupy Movement!

2011-11-28T14:19:00.005-06:00

SOUL in protest against proposed Super Committee cuts

2011-11-09T01:01:00.001-06:00

On Monday, November 7, SOUL joined the Jane Addams Senior Caucus and a number of other groups to protest proposed cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and HUD. The protest featured powerful testimony from people of diverse backgrounds, 43 seniors and allies being ticketed for an act of civil disobedience, and this powerful moment of accountability between SOUL's Rev. Patrick Daymond and Senator Dick Durbin (from an NBC Chicago article):

In front of more than 400 seniors rallying with Occupy Chicago, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin slammed the Tea Party, the Republican Party and said it's no time to mess with Medicare and Medicaid.

But for at least one Occupy Chicago organizer, that wasn't good enough.

Reverend Patrick Daymond, who helped organize the Monday march, asked Senator Durbin reaffirm a list of liberal values by signing a values document.

Durbin declined.

"I have to go to the airport," Durbin said, trying to avoid the confrontation. "I don't sign pledges."

Durbin returned moments later to voice an endorsement for the values statement, pledging his support to oppose cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

See more of the encounter in the following video:

See also additional coverage from the Tribune and Huffington Post.

A week of actions

2011-10-21T01:24:00.002-05:00

This is an exciting time for those of us who believe a better Chicago and a better world are possible! As Occupy actions spread throughout the U.S. and the world with much the same message as our bank and corporate accountability campaign, SOUL has upped the ante in several exciting actions:

Mass mobilization at the MBA Convention

On Monday, October 10, 150 SOUL members and leaders joined with thousands of other Chicagoans in holding the Mortgage Bankers Association of America accountable at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where the MBA was holding their national convention. The action was widely covered in the news media, including this NBC story quoting SOUL leader Marissa Brown-Johnson, and this Fox story quoting SOUL leader Toby Chow. Our allies in National People's Action have compiled this video featuring a number of speakers at our rally at the Hyatt, including SOUL's Rev. Patrick Daymond and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.

Civil disobedience at the MBA Convention

On Tuesday, October 11, as the MBA convention continued, SOUL organized an occupation within the Hyatt Regency, sending the message that if the banks are going to continue to take our homes, we are going to have to move in with them. 16 people were arrested as 100s of others protested in solidarity outside. This was SOUL's first civil disobedience action and a significant step forward in stopping business as usual for banks and forcing them to confront the crisis which they have created for the rest of the country as they continue to foreclose on millions of people and fail to pay their fair share in taxes.

We were featured in this opinion piece printed on the front page of the Business section of the Chicago Tribune, as well as an article in The Nation, a national progressive magazine. We also have a video of the action via National People's Action, and another including some footage from the inside.

Metra action

On Friday, October 14, SOUL leaders showed up at Metra's monthly board meeting as part of our ongoing campaign against Metra's proposed fare increases, which disproportionately target riders within the city. We were featured in a front-page story in the Chicago Tribune, and Metra significantly scaled back the fare increases on city riders.

South Side Metra Fare Hikes

2011-10-06T14:42:00.008-05:00

Metra will vote on proposed fare hikes in their monthly board meeting in November, but they have their October board meeting next Friday, October 14 at 9:00 AM at 547 W Jackson, on the thirteenth floor. We will meet there to show Metra that they can't raise their fares on our backs. We hope to see you there!

Background:

Recently, the board of Metra announced that it was considering fare increases for the upcoming year. In a September 2011 special edition Metra newsletter (PDF) Metra CEO Alex Clifford announced that the average fare increase would be 28 percent. What he didn't mention, but what our research has found, is that fares for City of Chicago residents, especially those on the South Side on the Metra Electric line, are being unfairly hit.

Metra Electric riders in Zone B, which comprises all the stations on the University Park branch between 47th and 79th, as well as the whole South Chicago branch, currently pay $63.45 for a 30-day pass. Riders on the Union Pacific North line's much farther Zone D stations currently pay $102.60. Yet fares are not being increased uniformly, or even proportionally: Zone B riders will be paying $42.30 more per month, a 66 percent increase, while the riders from Winnetka, Kenilworth, Winnetka, and Glencoe are only paying $31.40 more per month, a 31 percent increase. SOUL opposes this inequitable re-distribution of wealth, which further increases the burden on residents of the South Side and is sure to push more commuters onto the already crowded CTA.

In response, this morning from 7:00 to 8:30, students from Southside Solidarity Network, a member organization of SOUL, passed out fliers to commuters at Zone B stations alerting them to the inequitable nature of the fare hikes and telling them to call the Metra board. Many of our local officials, including State Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie and Alderman Will Burns are standing with us. Join us for our action on Metra's October board meeting next Friday to show Metra that they need to make a plan that works for all of us.

Tell the Super Congress to Make Wall Street Pay!

2011-09-11T10:44:00.016-05:00

Sign The Petition Today!

The Raw Deal that America got from the debt ceiling debate led to the creation of a twelve-member Super Congress who are charged with cutting 1.5 trillion dollars from the American economy.

We can’t cut our way out of this crisis – revenue has to be part of the solution. Cuts to Medicare, our social safety net or allowing our infrastructure to continue to crumble are not the answer. The real solution is to make Wall Street, wealthy CEOs and big corporations pay their fair share.

Will you stand with us, and demand the Super Congress abide by the following principles?

Sign the Petition Today!

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SOUL featured in Streetwise

2011-08-05T03:10:00.003-05:00

An article on our July 21 Make Wall Street Pay rally to save Social Security and other entitlements ("Activists rally to save Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security") appears in the current (August 3) issue of Streetwise. The article features SOUL leader Shani Smith:

Shani Smith of Southside [sic] Organizing for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) said big banks crashed the U.S. economy through predatory lending and were bailed out with $100 billion in taxpayers' money, yet they are directing their lobbyists to cut entitlements in order to lower the deficit.

Smith said there are five to seven foreclosed homes on any block of her neighborhood and none of them is secured or maintained by banks. Instead, neighbors cut the grass and shovel the snow.

The rally was organized by SOUL and our IIRON allies Northside POWER, as well as the Lakeview Action Coalition, the Jane Addams Senior Caucus, and others.

As the article notes, our message was well-received:

Downtown crowds can be indifferent to rallies, but drivers on Jackson honked appreciatively at signs like "Grandma pays, corporate tax cheats play" and "They got bailed out, we got sold out."

...

Separate contingents brought the fair-share message to the offices of Sen. Dick Durbin (D), Sen. Mark Kirk (R), and JP Morgan Chase Bank.

The article is not available online, but you can check it out and support the work of Streetwise by picking up a copy of the August 3 issue.

Victory on Vacant Property Ordinance Amendment

2011-08-01T21:43:00.004-05:00

As a result of a sustained campaign by SOUL and our allies in the Foreclosure Convening, on July 28 City Council voted unanimously to pass a key amendment to Chicago's Vacant Property Ordinance. This amendment will increase accountability for vacant properties on the part of banks which choose to initiate foreclosure instead of renegotiating mortgages—mortgages which are all too often the result of the predatory lending practices which ran rampant during the subprime mortgage bubble.

This amendment will hold lenders responsible for vacant properties which are still in the midst of the foreclosure process. Prior to this amendment, many lenders have been in the habit of initiating the foreclosure process on a property, and waiting until the occupants resign themselves to the loss of their home and move out—only to neglect to complete the foreclosure proceedings. When this happens, lenders do not take ownership of such properties, and so they have avoided legal accountability for their upkeep, despite being in fact responsible for their vacant status.

When the lender is not held accountable for these vacant properties, they become severe sources of blight. In some cases neighbors have found it necessary to take it upon themselves to mow the lawn and shovel the snow off sidewalks. These properties can become a fire hazard and a magnet for crime. In some cases they are transformed into drug houses, or worse.

This amendment will help remedy these situations, and encourage lenders to think twice about initiating the foreclosure process rather than negotiating in good faith with homeowners.

As those who attended this year's MLK Day Public Meeting may recall, SOUL was responsible for gaining support from a number of Southside Aldermen. SOUL was also instrumental in pushing for a decision on the amendment, which had been gathering support for months without coming to a vote.

Thanks to all the leaders and organizers in SOUL and the Foreclosure Convening who worked on this issue. Thanks also to the 800 community members who showed their support at our MLK Day Public Meeting: together we clearly demonstrated how important this issue is to the Southside.

It is worth noting that the amendment passed despite stiff opposition from the financial industry. That is to say, this is a victory of organized people against the organized money of Wall Street. We were able to push the amendment through because this campaign confronted our elected officials with a clear choice between the interests of the financial industry and interests of the people—people who were organized in large numbers. Let us keep this in mind as we march towards the many battles with Wall Street and other corporate interests which still lie ahead of us.

People's City Council

2011-07-18T16:20:00.007-05:00

On July 7, SOUL was part a coalition of 20 labor, advocacy, and community groups from across Chicago, which came together to convene a meeting of the "People's City Council". 1600 Chicago residents filled the UIC Forum and invited the members of Chicago's new City Council to commit to serve the interests of neighborhoods, schools, and disadvantaged segments of the population across Chicago, rather than the interests of corporations and the very rich.

Speakers at the event included SOUL leader Marissa Brown, who spoke on the issue of education. 15 out of 50 Aldermen were in attendance (including Will Burns, Michelle Harris, and Pat Dowell), and 20 have signed a pledge to uphold the principles of the People's City Council.

The event drew local media attention from Fox and CBS. Further coverage and commentary at The Gate and Progress Illinois.

Fare transferability bill: footage

2011-07-14T17:33:00.002-05:00

Some footage from the signing of the fare transferability bill: SOUL leader Lamarr Scruggs explains why fare transferability is so important, and Ald. Will Burns and Gov. Quinn thank SOUL for taking leadership on this issue.

(Thanks to SOUL leader Kelvin Ho for this video.)

Gold Line Win on Fare Transferability

2011-07-08T00:18:00.010-05:00

A key component of SOUL's Gold Line proposal is on the way, now that Governor Quinn has signed our transit bill mandating a universal fare card for Metra, CTA, and PACE. The signing took place at a press conference with SOUL Leaders, state officials, and transit agency heads (see coverage at the Tribune, NBC, and Fox).

As Governor Quinn noted at the press conference, "It's long been talked about, it's long been hoped for, but today we're going to begin to make it a reality." And it is finally becoming a reality as a result of SOUL's leadership on this issue, which was recognized by the Governor and other state officials.

Congratulations to all SOUL leaders and organizers who have been working on this campaign, and thanks to SOUL allies Will Burns and Kwame Raoul who were instrumental in moving this bill through Springfield!

UPDATE: A WBEZ story on the press conferencec quotes SOUL leader Lamar Scruggs and links to SOUL's website.

SOUL and the New Bottom Line meet with state AGs

2011-06-27T01:44:00.005-05:00

Last Tuesday, SOUL came together with community leaders and organizers from across the country under the New Bottom Line coalition. Together we went to the meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) in Chicago to speak to our state AGs concerning their ongoing investigation into the robo-signing scandal.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan joined us for a press conference led by SOUL's Rev. Booker Vance, with SOUL's Shani Smith giving her personal testimony. After the press conference we met with Madigan and a number of other AGs, including Iowa's Tom Miller, the senior-most state AG leading the investigation.

At the press conference and the meeting, AG Madigan called for mandatory principal write-downs on underwater mortgages (WBEZ), which we consider an essential component of any satisfactory settlement. In addition, she threatened litigation should negotiations around the settlement break down (Bloomberg). It should also be noted that AG Madigan was instrumental in setting up our meeting with the AGs.

In addition to mandatory principal reductions, we are also calling for a minimum of 12 months of forbearance for the unemployed and underemployed; no amnesty from criminal prosecution for banks and bankers; restitution for those wrongly foreclosed upon; no foreclosure proceedings for those in the modification process; and a strict system to enforce the penalties and requirements of the settlement.

Fight for a Fair Economy at CFO Summit

2011-06-18T03:42:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday, June 14, the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce held a Summit for the CFOs (Chief Financial Officers) and other executives of the top corporations in the country. SOUL and a number of allied community organizations, along with labor groups, to take Corporate America to task for their role in three of the major problems currently facing people in Chicago (and beyond): cuts to education budgets, unemployment, and foreclosures. Two dozen protesters engaged in civil disobedience and were arrested, including SOUL leader Shani Smith (no charges were laid).

Photos of Shani and other SOUL leaders can be seen in this Huffington Post photo gallery. Mainstream media coverage included TV spots on WGN, ABC, NBC, and Fox. Progress Illinois provides further footage and some commentary.

SOUL at JPMorgan Chase shareholders meeting!

2011-05-25T20:11:00.003-05:00

On May 16-17, SOUL leaders joined 1,000 other people in Columbus, Ohio to disrupt and protest JPMorgan Chase's annual shareholders meeting. Chase is the largest and most profitable bank in the country, but the company is foreclosing on hundreds of thousands of homes. Check out this video of some of the actions and check out these pictures (May 16 and May 17) from SOUL leader Shani Smith. To get involved in SOUL's bank and corporate accountability work, call Will Tanzman at (312) 402-0572 or e-mail wtanzman@soulinchicago.org.

Make Wall Street Pay!

2011-04-11T23:00:00.000-05:00

Join SOUL and a coalition of community groups in an action on Bank of America and Senator Mark Kirk. Hold them accountable for their roles in bankrupting vital social services so that banks and the rich can avoid paying taxes.

What: Action on Bank of America and Senator Mark Kirk
When: Tuesday, April 12, from 3:45 – 5:15 p.m.
Where: We will meet at Bank of America, 135 S. LaSalle, and then march to Senator Kirk’s office, 230 S. Dearborn

Why these targets?

Senator Mark Kirk voted for the Tea Party-inspired budget passed by the U.S. House of Representatives that cuts $61 billion from vital government services, including green jobs, road repair, public transit, and public housing. Meanwhile, Bank of America and other banks crashed the economy, received trillions in taxpayer bailout money, continue to foreclose on people’s homes. In addition, for the last two years, Bank of America has paid nothing in corporate income taxes, despite bringing in billions in revenue and paying out billions in bonuses. (They have done this by claiming to lose money through a variety of accounting tricks.) Senator Kirk has taken millions of dollars in contributions from banks and other corporations and is now acting as their puppet.

Please join us and bring as many other people as you can. Contact Will Tanzman at (312) 402-0572 to RSVP or for more information.

Better to be an American bank than an American?

2011-04-11T21:36:00.009-05:00

If you are a human being in America, when you do something wrong, you get punished. And if you make money, you pay taxes. But if you are one of America's big banks, you never have to worry about punishment for your wrongdoing, or taxes on your income.

Federal regulators are close to finalizing a deal with the banks in response to the robo-signing scandal and related accusations of systematic fraud. In the words of the New York Times editorial board, "prepare for a disappointment":

The draft does not call for tough new rules to end those abuses. Or for ramped-up loan modifications. Or for penalties for past violations. Instead, it requires banks to improve the management of their foreclosure processes....

But the gist of the terms is that from now on, banks - without admitting or denying wrongdoing - must abide by existing laws and current contracts. To clear up past violations, they are required to hire independent consultants to check a sample of recent foreclosures for evidence of improper evictions and impermissible fees.

The consultants will be chosen and paid by the banks, which will decide how the reviews are conducted. ...[I]f the consultants turn up problems, the banks are required to reimburse affected borrowers and investors as "appropriate." It is apparently up to the banks to decide what is appropriate.

It gets worse. Consumer advocates have warned that banks may try to assert that these legal agreements pre-empt actions by the states to correct and punish foreclosure abuses. Banks may also try to argue that any additional rules by the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to help borrowers would be excessive regulation.

Meanwhile, as you do your taxes, consider that you are almost certainly paying more in income tax than the majority of corporations.

A 2008 study by the Government Accountability Office showed that the majority of U.S. corporations did not pay federal income taxes in the period between 1998 and 2005.

I'm not aware of a more recent study, so I can't confirm that this is true for 2010. But there's no reason to think the trend has changed. If anything, corporations are getting ever more skilled at using offshore shelters and other tax dodges to avoid their obligations.

Among these tax-free corporations are big banks like Citigroup and Bank of America, which have not paid a cent in income tax between them for both 2009 and 2010, despite billions in profits.

After devastating the economy and kicking millions out of their homes, Wall Street continues to stand immune from discipline or even taxation. It's the best government Wall Street can buy. And it's time for that to change. Join SOUL and other community groups in a campaign to hold banks accountable, starting tomorrow afternoon in downtown Chicago with a march to Make Wall Street Pay!

"Obama Is Missing"

2011-04-11T00:39:00.004-05:00

According to Paul Krugman, "Obama Is Missing" from the budget debate:

More broadly, Mr. Obama is conspicuously failing to mount any kind of challenge to the philosophy now dominating Washington discussion — a philosophy that says the poor must accept big cuts in Medicaid and food stamps; the middle class must accept big cuts in Medicare (actually a dismantling of the whole program); and corporations and the rich must accept big cuts in the taxes they have to pay. Shared sacrifice!

I’m not exaggerating. The House budget proposal that was unveiled last week — and was praised as “bold” and “serious” by all of Washington’s Very Serious People — includes savage cuts in Medicaid and other programs that help the neediest, which would among other things deprive 34 million Americans of health insurance. It includes a plan to privatize and defund Medicare that would leave many if not most seniors unable to afford health care. And it includes a plan to sharply cut taxes on corporations and to bring the tax rate on high earners down to its lowest level since 1931.

Is Obama missing? If so, then let the American people stand up in his place. This Tuesday afternoon, come out to dowtown Chicago to Make Wall Street Pay!

America's progressive center

2011-04-08T22:59:00.004-05:00

From the severe austerity measures proposed by Republicans to the more moderate proposal from the White House, the current debate over the federal budget is mostly occurring far to the right of the real will of the American people. On issue after issue, polls show that the center of Main Street America is solidly progressive.

Jeffrey Sachs discusses the Progressive Congressional Caucus' "People's Budget" proposal, which attempts to capture some of the values of real Americans.

The Republicans often say that they want Congress to respect the voice of the people. The voice of the people is crystal clear. In one opinion survey after the next, the public says that the rich and the corporations should pay more taxes. The public says that we should tamp down runaway health care costs through a public option, one that would introduce competition to drive down bloated private health insurance costs. The public says that we should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and reduce Pentagon spending.

Read the whole thing. Then head downtown on Tuesday to join SOUL and a coalition of other community organizations to call to Make Wall Street Pay. Let's start pushing the political scene back towards the American progressive center.

Jubilee Campaign in the news

2011-04-07T23:20:00.000-05:00

The kick-off training session of SOUL and IIRON's Bank Accountability and Jubilee campaign is featured in the front page story of the current Chicago Weekly.

The oil industry: a case study in corporate power

2011-04-07T03:30:00.006-05:00

From an article in the Huffington Post, an important truth:

Clout in Washington isn't about winning legislative battles -- it's about making sure that they never happen at all.

We have seen this time and again in recent years, in the government response to the financial crisis and in the health care reform debate (where single payer insurance never got a hearing, and the public option was taken off the table in the backroom).

In this particular article, however, the topic is subsidies to the oil and gas industry. It is an informative case study.

Despite astronomical profits during what have been lean years for most everyone else, the oil and gas industry continues to benefit from massive, multi-billion dollar taxpayer subsidies. Opinion polling shows the American public overwhelmingly wants those subsidies eliminated. Meanwhile, both parties are hunting feverishly for ways to reduce the deficit.

So far, that sounds promising. But the contrast with the discourse in the halls of power is stark.

But when President Obama called on Congress to eliminate about $4 billion a year in tax breaks for Big Oil earlier this year, the response on the Hill was little more than a knowing chuckle. Even Obama's closest congressional allies don't think the president’s proposal has a shot.

"I would be surprised if it got a great deal of traction," Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Senate energy committee, told reporters at the National Press Club a few days after Obama first announced his plan.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), co-author of a House bill that closely resembles Obama's proposal, nevertheless acknowledges that it has slim chances of passing. "It will be a challenge to get anything through the House that includes any tax increase for anyone under any circumstance," he told The Huffington Post.

The list goes on: "It's not on my radar," said Frank Maisano, a spokesman for Bracewell Giuliani, a lobbying firm with several oil and gas industry clients. "It's old news and it's never going to happen in this Congress. It couldn't even happen in the last [Democratic-controlled] Congress."

Here, as in so many other cases, we can predict that the oil and gas industry will see to it that the American people's "overwhelming" support for ending this piece of corporate welfare never even gets a hearing with decision-makers. Until, that is, those people organize and transform their shared values into collective action against corporate power.

Race and the financial industry

2011-04-05T12:20:00.002-05:00

This USA Today story lays out the institutionalized racism which pervades America's financial system. Some key quotes:

“Communities of color have received the worst treatment at a very high cost,” says Michael Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). “We estimate 20% of African-American and Hispanic homeowners will lose their homes in this housing crisis,” more than twice as high as white households.

...

Those who live in minority neighborhoods — even middle-income families whose high credit scores could qualify them for a prime loan — are likely to be steered into a subprime loan, says Hilary Shelton, NAACP’s senior vice president for advocacy and policy.

...

Now, minorities face what is sometimes called reverse redlining, Taylor says. Instead of financial services companies avoiding minority neighborhoods, the industry targets them with more-expensive and more-abusive products.

Read the whole thing.

Bank Accountability Campaign

2011-04-02T00:17:00.001-05:00

Three years after the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, Wall Street, other corporations, and the very rich enjoy enormous riches through record profits and bonuses, while evading taxes and other regulations with impunity. Meanwhile, for the rest of us, unemployment remains high, people continue to lose their homes by the millions, and budget crises at all levels of government result in vicious cuts to programs and services which are needed now more than ever.

Together with our organizing partners in IIRON and Make Wall Street Pay Illinois, SOUL is leading a multi-faceted campaign to address these core economic issues. Following the advent of Occupy Wall Street, we seek to build upon this movement moment, and take up the frame of "the 99% and the 1%" in ways that speak directly to the issues impacting people in our communities. We aim to bring debt relief to the 99%, to fight foreclosures and budget cuts, to tax the 1%, and to generally hold banks and other corporations accountable for the damage they continue to do to the 99% and the economy as a whole. Ultimately, we are working towards a fairer economy, where (in the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) we as a society will no longer "take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few".

Components of the campaign include:

Publicly fighting for principal writedowns on underwater mortgages
Lobbying for ordinances and legislation at the municipal and state levels that would slow the wave of foreclosures
Pushing for the renegotiation of disadvantageous deals between governments and the banks
Fighting corporate tax breaks and other forms of corporate welfare
Publicly protesting irresponsible banks and the elected officials who are acting in their service

For more information on how you can help call SOUL at 773.363.0199.

Fair Economy Training and Leadership Summit

2011-03-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

Hold Banks Accountable!

Saturday, April 2

Sixth Grace Presbyterian Church,
600 E. 35th St. (35th and Cottage Grove)

9:00am-1:00pm

Light breakfast and sign-in from 9:00 – 9:30, program starts at 9:30

Almost half of Chicago-area homeowners owe more on their homes than their homes are worth, and vacant houses in disrepair are hurting communities across the South Side and South suburbs.

Banks took trillions in taxpayer bailout money, but they continue to foreclose on people’s homes and refuse to provide real loan modifications. Banks and other corporations crashed the economy but refuse to invest in job creation despite record profits.

Come to the Illinois Indiana Regional Organizing Network (IIRON) Fair Economy Training and Leadership Summit to learn how to stay in your home, help others in your community stay in their homes, and hold banks and corporations accountable.

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? [Then] you shall be called The Repairer Of The Breach, The Restorer Of Streets To Live In. (Is.58:6,12)

For more information or to RSVP, contact Will Tanzman at (312) 402-0572 or wtanzman@soulinchicago.org.

Facebook event page.

2010: a record year for corporations and communities

2011-03-25T19:58:00.007-05:00

2010 was a "record" year for both corporations and our communities. But those records go in opposite directions.

First, here's how 2010 treated corporations:

Despite high unemployment and a largely languishing real estate market, U.S. businesses are more profitable than ever, according to federal figures released on Friday.

U.S. corporate profits hit an all-time high at the end of 2010, with financial firms showing some of the biggest gains, data from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis show. Corporations reported an annualized $1.68 trillion in profit in the fourth quarter. The previous record, without being adjusted for inflation, was $1.65 trillion in the third quarter of 2006.

...

Corporate profits steadily increased last year as companies continued holding onto record amounts of cash and other liquid assets while cutting costs, laying off workers and wringing more productivity -- defined as the amount of output that comes from an hour of work -- from remaining staff, even as the recession eased.

2010 also saw another record: 2.9 million foreclosures in the US, with 151,304 filings in the state of Illinois.

Meanwhile:

To date, the policy response has not been commensurate with the foreclosure problem. The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), the Obama administration's effort to prod lenders into voluntarily modifying distressed borrowers' home loans, has been a bust.

What to do about it?

Some helpful developments may be coming out of the Illinois state legislature. You can help SOUL move on these and other legislative initiatives. You can join in the March 29 Call-In Day, targeting all 50 Attorneys General, including our own Lisa Madigan, urging them to take a hard line in their joint lawsuit against the fraudulent foreclosure practices of the big banks.

And, above all, come to SOUL's Fair Economy Training and Leadership Summit on April 2, and join a campaign for bank accountability which will include the above actions, and much more.

Fighting foreclosures in Boston

2011-03-18T15:39:00.006-05:00

In These Times, recently interviewed Steve Meacham, an organizer at the Boston housing group City Life/Vida Urbana, concerning their response to the foreclosure crisis. In short:

Through public pressure, legal defense and eviction blockades, the organization helps keep hundreds of families in their homes.

...

City Life has a unique organizing model called “the sword and the shield.” Can you describe this strategy?

The shield is legal defense, and the sword is public protest and pressure. We use the two to stop banks from evicting people, and to get people’s homes back at the current real value.

And here is something Meacham mentions only in passing, but is perhaps worth dwelling on for a moment or two:

President Obama suggested two years ago that bankruptcy judges be able to reduce the principal on a first home. Currently, if you declare bankruptcy, the judge can reduce the principal you owe on your yacht or second home, but they can’t reduce it on your first. Simply extending it to the type of property most people have would seem obvious, but banks fought it fiercely, using terms like “moral hazard” to explain their opposition. After the initiative failed, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) observed, “The banks own the Senate.”

Big business on the march

2011-03-17T03:59:00.006-05:00

This post by Rick Ungar at Forbes lays out a plan to solidify the domination of the political system by corporate power, in two parts.

Part one:

Starve the unions of the dues that support their political clout and thereby give the decided advantage to those who back the party sympathetic to the agenda of business and the wealthy.

Ungar notes that this is almost certainly connected to the infamous Citizens United ruling, which freed up both corporations and unions to spend freely to influence electoral campaigns. Corporations already have unions outgunned when it comes to this fight—but why even bother with the fight at all if you can dissolve the opposition before it starts?

The second part is:

using the funds of the middle-class and the poor to give effect to the policy changes that will benefit business and the wealthy.

For more on this, see this article from ThinkProgress. It details how Republican Governors in 12 states are slashing taxes on corporations and the wealthy, while simultaneously gutting vital services for poor and middle class. In some cases, they are throwing tax hikes on the poor and middle class directly into the mix.

In other words: in exchange for paying higher taxes and sacrificing education and other social services, you get to finance tax breaks—and thus even greater control over the political system—for corporations and the wealthy.

The value of investing in green jobs

2011-03-14T02:05:00.004-05:00

Laid out in this article at Working In These Times.

...anybody worried about deficits—both the deficit of jobs and the red ink on government balance sheets—should be calling for new public investment in “green jobs,” not cutting public spending willy-nilly.

[...]

The $93 billion in green investments that were part of ARRA [the 2009 stimulus package]—such as money directed to energy efficiency and alternative energy, like wind power—were among the most effective programs in the package, delivering far more bang for the buck than tax breaks for corporations and rich people. And they generate three to four times more jobs per dollar than similar investments in the fossil fuel industries (and certainly more than the abundant tax breaks for the oil industry, which Obama proposes reducing).

Which means that even in this time of recession—or rather especially in this time of recession—we need full funding for SOUL's signature Green Jobs program, the Urban Weatherization Initiative. And then more programs like it.

60 Minutes: "Hard times generation: homeless kids"

2011-03-08T01:45:00.001-06:00

On Wisconsin!

2011-02-21T22:15:00.002-06:00

Matt Wisniewski, a worker at UW, has put together a pair of inspiration videos about the on-going battle for labor rights in Madison, Wisconsin.

Progress Illinois sums up the situation:

For nearly a week, teachers, fire fighters, janitors, health care workers, and students have marched around the square in front of the capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, spent nights in the capitol rotunda, and mounted a series of massive rallies. Their unity was spawned by the state's Republican legislators and GOP Gov. Scott Walker. A darling of the conservative Koch brothers, Walker's first budget seeks to eliminate state employees' ability
to come together in unions and collectively bargain over their economic and working conditions, which would make Wisconsin the sixth state in the country to invoke such a ban.

Tuesday, when the Wisconsin Senate put Walker's budget bill in motion, the protesters have gathered at the capitol to battle the legislation, transforming Madison into a showdown over the future of union rights for public employees during a time of budget austerity -- and union rights more generally.

"The Mother of All HAMP Nightmares"

2011-02-10T00:04:00.005-06:00

Via FDL comes this stunningly awful story of one man's struggle with the loan modification process. The twists and turns make it impossible to summarize, so you'll have to read the tale yourself.

As the article notes:

There are a million stories like this (perhaps two million in the next year, according to Joseph Stiglitz), but like snowflakes, all are different.

Chicago has more than its share of these stories, and the problem is especially acute in some of the neighbourhoods represented by SOUL. This is why SOUL has created a new Bank Accountability Task Force. This Task Force's first issue (toughening up Chicago's Vacant Property Ordinance) was featured at our recent MLK Day Celebration and Public Meeting, and you'll be hearing more from it soon.

Scenes from MLK Day

2011-01-26T01:39:00.007-06:00

SOUL's 2011 MLK Day Celebration and Public Meeting made the TV news at WGN. It was a very positive (if incomplete) segment:

Some of the crucial moments missing from the WGN segment (such as the commitments acquired from officials addressing foreclosures and other issues) are included in this ten minute compilation of highlights:

Further footage: Opening remarks by Rev. Reggie Weaver of Woodlawn's First Presbyterian Church, the location of the Celebration and Public Meeting, and a truly SOULful rendition of "Keep Your Eyes On The Prize" courtesy of the excellent mixed choir.

MLK Day Celebration and Public Meeting

2010-12-22T20:26:00.002-06:00

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Day
Commemorative Celebration
& Public Meeting

Sunday, January 16, 2011
2:30 – 4:30 p.m.

First Presbyterian Church
6400 S. Kimbark Ave.

This is an opportunity to both celebrate Dr. King's legacy and continue his work by holding politicians accountable to the needs and interests of people living in the Southside and South Suburbs of Chicago. Elected officials from across the Chicago area will be there, and, before a gathering of 800 of their constituents, we will be asking them to make concrete commitments on issues including education, jobs, transit, sustainability, and the foreclosure crisis in Chicago.

Current confirmed officials include State Representatives Will Burns, Marlow Colvin, Barbara Flynn Currie, and Will Davis; State Senator Kwame Raoul; Aldermen Willie Cochran, Pat Dowell, and Michelle Harris; Chicago Public Schools Chief Administrative Officer Bob Runcie; Illinois EPA Associate Director Elmo Dowd; Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle; and Mayoral candidates Gery Chico, Miguel del Valle, and Patricia Watkins.

We need you to show up, stand up and be counted!
Our elected officials must know they are to be held accountable!

For questions about the event or to RSVP, please contact Will Tanzman at (312) 402-0572 or wtanzman@soulinchicago.org.

New Chicago 2011 Forum

2010-12-20T02:43:00.012-06:00

The first candidates forum of this Chicago mayoral election season occurred on Dec. 14 at the UIC campus. The forum had an audience of nearly 3,000, and was organized by SOUL and nearly 30 other groups from across Chicago.

Via Progress Illinois:

The forum was structured such that representatives from different groups in the building gave testimony about a specific issue -- housing, violence and youth, and jobs -- before the candidates gave their best one-minute responses. "It forced the candidates to deal with real people," Yeheil Curry, with the group Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation, told Progress Illinois after the event ended.

Here is the SOUL contingent (all photos courtesy of Sarah Jane Rhee):

Other parts of the crowd:

The candidates and community spokespersons on stage:

Progress Illinois has more coverage and commentary, including a series of video clips from the forum. See the whole post here. See also Gapers Block, and NBC Chicago's Ward Room.

Bernie Sanders' 8.5 hour attack on the tax cut deal

2010-12-12T04:26:00.002-06:00

Sen. Bernie Sanders' quasi-filibuster of the Obama-Republican tax cut deal crashed the server for the Senate video feed, and became the most popular topic on Twitter.

Some clips from Crooks And Liars.

More clips, and some comments from Olbermann:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A quote which summarizes the core message:

“How can I get by on one house?” Sanders said. “I need five houses, ten houses! I need three jet planes to take me all over the world! Sorry, American people. We've got the money, we've got the power, we've got the lobbyists here and on Wall Street. Tough luck. That's the world, get used to it. Rich get richer. Middle class shrinks.”

Obama's deal with the Republicans

2010-12-09T21:28:00.003-06:00

Via ProgressIL, Rep. Jan Schakowsky criticizes the deal based on "an un-talked-about threat to our economy": inequality.

And Robert Reich comments:

Obama’s new tax compromise is not only bad economics; it’s also disastrous from the standpoint of educating the public about what has happened and what needs to happen in the future. It reenforces the Republican story and makes mincemeat out of the truthful one Democrats should be telling.

IL PIRG pushes privatization transparency pledge

2010-11-18T00:05:00.002-06:00

Via Progress Illinois: 19 Aldermen have signed the pledge, committing "not vote for any future ordinances that lease public assets or services unless at a minimum there is proper public discourse and protections to ensure taxpayers receive fair value."

Everyone remembers the infamous parking meter deal. Even after the fall-out from that episode, now outgoing Mayor Daley continued to consider further privatization schemes, including health services. Mayoral contender Rahm Emanuel seems inclined to continue the trend, suggesting the privatization of trash collection.

Emanuel: privatize trash collection

2010-11-11T15:34:00.002-06:00

From the Sun-Times:

Mayoral challenger Rahm Emanuel isn't exactly planning to trash Chicago's garbage collection system. But he's promising big changes to wring as much as $65 million out of the annual cost.

Given Chicago's history with privatization schemes, it might be prudent to be skeptical about these promised benefits, and the overall wisdom of the proposal.

New Chicago 2011

2010-10-25T23:09:00.003-05:00

New Chicago 2011 is a city-wide coalition of community groups, formed to hold accountable the candidates in Chicago's upcoming mayoral election. Rev. Booker Vance of SOUL introduces the agenda of the coalition:

More at Progress Illinois.

SOUL Banquet 2010

2010-09-17T23:08:00.001-05:00

SOUL cordially invites you to

Building Equitable and Sustainable Communities
An evening to celebrate and honor our leaders and allies

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010
6:00 PM
The Grand Ballroom (6351 S. Cottage Grove)


Full schedule
6:00 PM	Networking, buffet dinner & open bar
7:30 PM	Program & awards
8:00 PM	Music, dancing, & open bar

This fundraising banquet is an opportunity to show our political leaders the power of organized people while celebrating and supporting SOUL's work as an effective and independent agent of change on behalf of the Southside and South Suburbs of Chicago.

Tickets are $75 each, or $750 for a full table (10 seats), and are tax deductible. Dinner and open bar included. To purchase please contact us at 423-313-1164. To pay by check, make payable to Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) and mail to SOUL at 5001 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago IL 60615, or pay by credit card via this link.

Elected officials confirmed to be in attendance include State Representatives Will Burns, Marlow Colvin, and Will Davis, State Senator Kwame Raoul, Aldermen Michelle Harris, Freddrenna Lyle, and Toni Preckwinkle, and Gov. Pat Quinn's new Chief of Staff Michelle Saddler.

[Updated September 17, 2010]

"It's a Wall Street government"

2010-09-05T01:09:00.003-05:00

That's one of the most striking lines in the trailer for the upcoming documentary "Inside Job". Declared the best film at the 2010 Cannes film festival (though it was not in competition), "Inside Job" picks apart the financial crisis.

Roger Ebert has a long article about the movie. This is his summary:

Here is the argument of the film, in four sentences. From Roosevelt until Reagan, the American economy enjoyed 40 years of stability, prosperity and growth. Beginning with Reagan's moves against financial regulation, that sound base has been progressively eroded. The crucial federal error (in administrations of both parties) was to allow financial institutions to trade on their own behalf. Today many large trading banks are betting against their own customers.

Here is how it works in the real estate market. Banks aggressively promote mortgages to people who cannot afford to pay them--who are bad credit risks. These mortgages are assembled with many similar packages. The packages are fragmented. They are carried on the books as tangible assets, when they are worthless. The institutions assembling them can hedge their bets by betting against them. Thus, when the mortgages fail, as they must, the profits are made despite and because of their failure.

Additional clips:

RIP ShoreBank

2010-08-23T00:16:00.002-05:00

ShoreBank, founded on the Southside of Chicago, was America's first community development bank, a point of light in the deepening darkness of the nation's financial industry—now extinguished in the wake of a financial crisis utterly alien to it.

Robert Kuttner has a fitting obituary on Huffington Post.

Over the years, since its founding in 1973, ShoreBank had enabled thousands of moderate income residents to become homeowners, and thousands of small businesses to get credit, without ever playing the subprime game or making a single predatory loan. It was a model bank that earned a modest profit by delivering on a social mission.

In the end, ShoreBank succumbed to the aftermath of a financial crisis made on Wall Street. Yet while the Treasury Department found hundreds of billions of dollars to rescue giant Wall Street institutions, it refused to come up with the $75 million for which ShoreBank qualified under the TARP program.

A number of stories that I've reported about the wrongheaded priorities of the Obama administration leave me bewildered and exasperated. This one leaves me really angry.

Read the whole thing. (Warning: his explanation for why ShoreBank was allowed to collapse includes a link to Glenn Beck, which may cause your blood to boil.)

Organizing vs. "clicktivism"

2010-08-17T23:41:00.002-05:00

This article in the Guardian critiques online activism (such as MoveOn.org) and its effects on the fight for social change. The opening shot:

A battle is raging for the soul of activism. It is a struggle between digital activists, who have adopted the logic of the marketplace, and those organisers who vehemently oppose the marketisation of social change. At stake is the possibility of an emancipatory revolution in our lifetimes.

Agree or disagree, it's an important issue and well worth the attention.

The Mayor speaks out on TIFs

2010-08-08T23:29:00.002-05:00

In his recent "State of the City" address, Mayor Daley extolled the virtues of his TIF system. As one might expect, there's more than a little room for criticism.

"Deficits of Mass Destruction"

2010-07-17T04:02:00.002-05:00

In The Nation, Christopher Hayes compares the current rhetoric around deficits to the WMD hysteria in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.

This all seems eerily familiar. The conversation—if it can be called that—about deficits recalls the national conversation about war in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. From one day to the next, what was once accepted by the establishment as tolerable—Saddam Hussein—became intolerable, a crisis of such pressing urgency that "serious people" were required to present their ideas about how to deal with it. Once the burden of proof shifted from those who favored war to those who opposed it, the argument was lost.

...

Perhaps the most egregious aspect of the selling of the Iraq War was its false pretext. It never really was about weapons of mass destruction, as Paul Wolfowitz admitted. WMDs were just "what everyone could agree on." So it is with deficits. Conservatives and their neoliberal allies don't really care about deficits; they care about austerity—about gutting the welfare state and redistributing wealth upward. That's the objective. Deficits are just what they can all agree on, the WMDs of this manufactured crisis. Senator John Kyl of Arizona, speaking on Fox, has come out and admitted as much. All new spending increases must be offset, he said, but "you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans." So there you have it.

"What Else You Should Know About Walmart"

2010-07-09T01:30:00.002-05:00

A Chicago Reader interview with Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian and expert on Walmart.

It's not just the low wages or the near-scientific union busting. It's the preference for poverty, the business model built on turnover, the manipulative PR. Is this really the best way to bring jobs and food to the south and west sides?

Capital bill money for public transit in limbo

2010-07-09T01:24:00.003-05:00

Greg Hinz reports. Progress Illinois comments.

State budget crisis in the NY Times

2010-07-03T16:50:00.003-05:00

The New York Times has an article on the Illinois state budget crisis. The article includes some essential information for those of the political class who pretend that "eliminating waste" is the way out:

The state’s income tax burden is not terribly high — Illinois ranks in the bottom half of states — and its government is not terribly large. (The budgets in New York and California, per capita, are much larger). Even if the state cut out all family and human services spending, more than half of the budget deficit would remain.

As comptroller, [Daniel] Hynes has trained his attention on the public and nonprofit agencies that rely on state money; he tends to roll his eyes at the notion that slashing alone is a solution.

“Only the most delusional people think you can solve this without raising taxes,” he said.

The article also goes through a broad spectrum of ways in which the budget crisis is affecting people across the state:

From suburban Elgin to Chicago to Rockford to Peoria, school districts have fired thousands of teachers, curtailed kindergarten and electives, drained pools and cut after-school clubs. Drug, family and mental health counseling centers have slashed their work forces and borrowed money to stave off insolvency.

In Beardstown, a small city deep in the western marshes, Ann Johnson plans to shut her century-old pharmacy. Because of late state payments, she could not afford to keep a 10-day supply of drugs. In Chicago, a funeral home owner wonders whether he can afford to bury the impoverished, as the state has fallen six months behind on its charity payments, $1,103 a funeral.

In Peoria — where the city faced a $14.5 million gap this year and could face an additional $10 million budget hole next year — Virginia Holwell, a trainer of child welfare caseworkers, lost her job when the state cut payments to her agency. She sits in her living room high above the Illinois River and calculates the months of savings left before the bank forecloses on her house.

“I’ve got enough to last until the end of August,” she says, matter-of-factly. “I’m 58 and I’m pretty good at what I do, and I got to tell you, I’m pretty devastated.”

And here's a curious moment towards the end:

So where is the exit door from this crisis? In Illinois, it depends on whom you ask. The state representative Barbara Flynn Currie, one of the Democratic leaders in the statehouse [actually the House Majority Leader—ed.], sees salvation in the economic cycle. “In the long run, we’ll muddle our way through,” she said.

Walmart: the real facts from on the ground

2010-06-27T01:31:00.008-05:00

Walmart has cut a deal concerning its plans to build on the Southside of Chicago. Here is a message concerning this development from David Hatch, Executive Director of SOUL:

Sisters and Brothers:

You’ve probably seen news accounts of the Walmart deal the past couple of days. Don’t believe them! Here is an account from SOUL’s perspective on the ground, without the Mayor’s or Walmart’s spin:

The Good News

For the first time ever, Walmart, the world’s largest corporation has negotiated on the issue of wages. This now sets a precedent for other communities and for further organizing here in Chicago. Through this campaign a burgeoning coalition of faith, labor, and community is forming to fight upcoming battles for working people and their communities!

First, be clear. This is a significant victory! Without the work of SOUL and the rest of our Good Jobs Chicago coalition, Walmart would have eventually entered Chicago with NO conditions! The political will to withstand Walmart's efforts, their money and the mayor’s fervent support and arm-twisting would never have been strong enough without our organizing on the other side! Our hard work paid off.

The agreement Walmart put in writing, as a result of our organizing, is this:

They will pay their workers 50 cents above the minimum wage initially, and after a year will pay at least an additional 40 cents per hour more. This is different from the Mayor’s quoted assertion that they will earn the 40 to 60 cents at Walmart’s discretion, which would be meaningless. Whether it’s 40, 50 or 60 cents is discretionary but the 40 cents is a minimum committed in writing. This means an additional $1040 over current wages for an employee in the first year and an additional $1872 per year in the second year.

Now that is not a lot of money. In fact at best Walmart would be paying $19,032 per year.

But our victory is worth an additional $156 per month for an employee. That might amount to a bus card and a week of groceries, or a month of all utilities and some clothes, or perhaps being able to wash your clothes and afford a phone to stay in touch with a child. That makes the victory VERY significant to the low-wage Walmart worker.

The Bad News

Walmart is the largest corporation in the world. They are one of the most profitable. Along with other big box retailers and corporations in general, they need to do much, much better by their workers. No one should have to work for a living and be poor! No one should have to figure out how to live, much less raise a family on less than $1500 per month (minimum wage). Clearly our struggle for good jobs, living wages and corporate responsibility is very much an uphill one, with so much of our government, Congress, courts, lobbyists, media, and all that big money currently arrayed for corporate profits, and against workers, consumers, and communities.

We need more organizing, more people, more money and more power on the side of the people! So SOUL urges you to be a big part of that struggle.

Our Hope

In organizing we must weigh what is optimal and ideal with what is realistic, possible and feasible. Otherwise, for the sake of our own self righteousness, we gain no victories along the way. This victory is significant if you are a Walmart worker able to buy a bus card, some groceries and keep your lights on; it is significant for other communities as a blueprint and a precedent to fight; and it is significant for a variety of political and strategic reasons. It should be fully celebrated. It was hard work and many of you turned out—some of you on multiple occasions—for actions, press conferences and committee hearings. This work was important. We made the richest and most powerful corporation on earth negotiate with community and labor for the first time ever, and make concessions on wages for the first time ever! Let us claim that victory.

But let us also redouble our efforts to grow our resolve and our power, recruit new members and allies, donate funds, come out and become more active so that the victories become bigger, greater and more frequent.

Those who aren’t part of the solution are complicit in the problem. All power resides in organized people. Thanks for your support and hard work in being the solution, both in what you have done, and in the great things you are about to do

In that vein, here are some Action Steps:
Come out to the SOUL Action Council this Monday, June 28 from 7 to 8:30 PM at St Stephens Lutheran Church, 8500 S. Maryland Ave.

Donate money for our organizing through click and pledge on our website [see "DONATE" link on sidebar]
Call me to sit down and discuss how you can become more involved in ways that captures your interests, concerns and skills—773 330-5684.
Peace!

TIF resistance stirring in City Council

2010-06-22T00:19:00.002-05:00

From stalwart TIF watcher Ben Joravksy, another installment.

There are many reasons for the City Council to turn against Mayor Daley's tax increment financing program.

The program is supposed to benefit poor, blighted communities but ends up funneling hundreds of millions of dollars a year into wealthier ones. It's a tax largely concealed from the taxpayers who pay it. And it's run with no meaningful oversight, leaving Mayor Daley free to distribute it as he wishes, often to well-connected developers and corporations.

But on May 12 the council launched a small insurrection over one of the relatively less egregious problems with the program: the use of TIF money to build or rehab schools.

Still, for those of us looking for any sign of reform, it's a start.

The "insurrection" was led by the 3rd Ward's Ald. Pat Dowell, who was joined by 9 others in a protest vote. This failed to actually block anything, but, Joravsky notes, "by City Council standards that's a real statement".

Read the whole thing.

VFIC sounds off on the state budget crisis

2010-06-22T00:04:00.003-05:00

Voices for Illinois Children has released a new report (pdf) on the Illinois state budget. The title, "Passing the Buck: FY 2011 State Budget Threatens Key Programs for Children and Families", summarizes the take-home message.

See here for highlights from Progress Illinois.

TIF pressure from Chicago schools

2010-06-21T23:54:00.003-05:00

Progress Illinois reports on how students, teachers (under the new CORE leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union) and parents (under the new Raise Your Hand coalition) are increasingly targeting the impact of Chicago's TIF network on school funding.

Included is a link to an article on the Raise Your Hand coalition by the Reader's Ben Joravksy, entitled, "The Armies are Gathering". Says Joravsky: "If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't believe it."

And finally, footage from a Raise Your Hand rally:

Two decades of Mayor Daley

2010-06-17T05:36:00.002-05:00

Crain's looks at Daley's 20 year economic record. Progress Illinois summarizes:

Reviewing heaps of fiscal data, the pair of reporters came to a conclusion that shouldn't surprise any city residents: While Daley has made considerable investments in the neighborhoods in and around the Loop, few resources have funneled to the city's outlying areas. What's worse, to make those flashy investments, the city has mired itself in immense debt.

With the municipal elections less than a year away, Hinz and Strahler ask an important question: Is he "the right person to lead the city out of a fiscal morass created in large part by his drive to make Chicago a mecca for wealthy professionals and international corporations"?

Pullman Wal-Mart stalled

2010-06-10T01:22:00.006-05:00

Plans to build Chicago's second Wal-Mart in Pullman Park have stalled in the Zoning Committee. Although SOUL, as part of the Good Jobs Chicago Coalition, is not demanding that Wal-Mart be kept out of the Southside, this seems to show that Wal-Mart is on the defensive, which is good news.

A Committee vote on the proposal had already been postponed in May, in order to allow Wal-Mart time to enter into discussions with unions. This is not standard operating procedure for Wal-Mart, and it is unlikely that these talks would have been planned were it not for pressure from the Good Jobs campaign. And in fact they were ultimately canceled, due to the "travel schedules" of Wal-Mart officials. Now the Committee vote has been postponed again—this time "indefinitely".

Following this development, Alderman Anthony Beale of the 9th Ward, where the new Wal-Mart would be built, has declined to attempt to use a parliamentary maneuver to bypass the Zoning Committee. And there it lies.

A statement from Jorge Ramirez, Secretary-Treasurer of the CFL (Chicago Federation of Labor):

We are puzzled by the decision to postpone the Zoning Committee vote on the proposed Wal-Mart development in Pullman. Postponing the vote does nothing to bring Wal-Mart back to discuss residents’ concerns about wages and community relations.

One month after our meeting with representatives from Wal-Mart about the concerns of labor and community residents, the ball is still in their court. Rather than try to reach a solution, the company has waged a massive corporate public relations campaign leading up to the Zoning Committee meeting. It’s disappointing to us that Wal-Mart would rather spend millions of dollars on paid advertising rather than agree to pay its workers in Chicago a decent starting wage.

By agreeing to reasonable standards about wages and benefits for the community, we could bring new development and create jobs that will raise the standards in our communities up, not push them down. That is what organized labor has always stood for and we will continue to fight toward that end.

For more on Wal-Mart's ad campaign, see here. Of course, for those in Chicago, unless you've stayed inside under a media blackout, it's been hard to miss.

Report cards for Chicago politics

2010-05-31T05:06:00.001-05:00

Grading the city of Chicago on multiple issues, analyzing the voting records of aldermen, campaign contributions, and more.

Dissecting TIFs, ward by ward

2010-05-22T20:03:00.002-05:00

The Chicago Reader's Mick Dumke and Ben Joravsky have acquired information on Chicago's entire TIF network from 2004-2008, and have written an article analyzing TIF spending ward-by-ward.

As they note, "by law the program is supposed to help blighted areas". But how is this enormous pot of money actually used?

Here is a representative contrast: during the period studied, there was $1.5 billion in TIF spending. The 2nd Ward (including the Loop and the near south and west sides) received a whopping $358 million of that money. Meanwhile, the economically blasted 15th Ward received $33,000, or 0.002%.

The whole article is worth a read. See also here for a series of photographs demonstrating the inequities in TIF spending.

Chicago teacher vs. secrecy in CPS and the TIF network

2010-05-20T13:43:00.003-05:00

To the point of filing a suit against the city for violating the Freedom of Information Act. Progress Illinois has the tale here.

Aldermen question TIF network in Council

2010-05-18T22:14:00.002-05:00

Alderwoman Pat Dowell in City Council: "At some point we really need to look at this whole TIF issue."

Video and background at Progress Illinois.

Springfield responds to the budget crisis

2010-05-06T00:05:00.001-05:00

So to speak.

Lawmakers' laissez faire attitude toward the budget crisis was demonstrated by their decision to leave the Capitol early Friday afternoon with plans to return Monday. Unlike previous years, there is no sense of urgency among legislators despite the despair of social service agencies threatened with going out of business.

"Gendered Cuts"

2010-05-03T03:31:00.004-05:00

The Grassroots Collaborative has released a report, "Gendered Cuts" (download from here), which looks at how the state budget crisis is impacting the women and children of Illinois. The principle researcher for the report is Tanya Lane, a leader with SOUL (who also heads the food justice campaign). Shani Smith, another SOUL leader, also provides personal testimony concerning cuts in education funding. (Inadequate and inequitable state funding for education has been a perennial problem in Illinois, which the current crisis has greatly exacerbated.)

The Collaborative took this report to Springfield (in person) on April 29. Adam Doster comments at Progress Illinois.

The potential of local and urban agriculture

2010-05-02T20:46:00.005-05:00

One of the goals of SOUL's new food justice campaign is to promote local food networks based on local and urban agriculture. Besides the health benefits that will result from improved access to fresh fruits and vegetables, there are also economic and environmental benefits to be had.

Midwest agriculture and job creation

A study at Iowa State University looked into the likely economic impacts of shifting agriculture in the Midwest from its almost exclusive focus on corn and soybeans, towards growing more fruits and vegetables (currently mostly imported from elsewhere). A summary of some of the findings:

Increased fruit and vegetable production in the six states could mean $882 million in sales at the farm level, and more than 9,300 jobs. Corn and soybean production on that same acreage would support only 2,578 jobs.

If half of the increased production was sold in farmer-owned stores, it would require 1,405 such stores staffed by 9,652 people.

Only 270,025 acres—roughly equivalent to the average cropland in one of Iowa's counties—would be needed to grow enough fruits and vegetables for the six-state region.

Urban agriculture

Urban agriculture can play a critical role in reversing many negative aspects of industrial agriculture. Urban farming enhances the health of metropolitan residents, creates "green" jobs, produces affordable locally grown organic fruits and vegetables; teaches people to grow their own foods; reconnects people to their food and the land; and strengthens the environment through reduced fossil fuel dependence and carbon sequestration.

Local Economies

When you shop local, you build wealth within your community, rather than sending it into the profits of corporations. Here's some of the math.

Recent years have seen a move toward local economies, and local food has been a part of this. For example:

  Locally grown food has soared in popularity. There are now 5,274 active farmers markets in the United States. Remarkably, almost one of every two of these markets was started within the last decade. Food co-ops and neighborhood greengrocers are likewise on the rise.

However:

While signs abound that people are rediscovering the benefits of an economy rooted in community and small-scale enterprise, all of this activity, though widespread, is still quite modest. It exists largely on the margins and is unlikely to coalesce into a wholesale reorganization of our economy unless we change the rules.

Changing these rules will require organizing, through efforts such as SOUL's food justice task force.

It is also worth noting that a true movement toward local economies (and away from industrial agriculture and corporate chains) will require changes in national policy, and it's to this end that SOUL and our allies demanded support for sustainable development policies from our federal officials / candidates earlier this year at our MLK Day celebration and rally.

This week in Wal-Mart

2010-04-28T00:47:00.002-05:00

Wal-Mart is loading up on lobbyists to fight the Good Jobs Chicago campaign. Mayor Daley pushes for a vote on a new Southside Wal-Mart, and continues to pretend that he wants a Wal-Mart because he cares about employment.

Al Norman at Huffingtonpost puts the Chicago fight into context. Wal-Mart's "net sales grew by only [sic] $3.9 billion in 2010". If Wal-Mart is going to stay healthy (by its corporate standards), it needs to continue to grow, and grow more quickly than it did this past year. This means breaking into urban markets, and breaking workers' rights in the process. There are presently two fronts in this war: the Southside of Chicago, and New York City. And the resolution of these two battles could have a ripple effect throughout the country, for better or for worse.

And some good news from other quarters: the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals has just given the go-ahead to a class action lawsuit against Wal-Mart over alleged gender discrimination—this could cover over a million employees, and cost the corporation billions.

LINK cards to be accepted at more farmers markets

2010-04-22T01:53:00.002-05:00

Last fall, SOUL formed a food justice task force (the "SOUL Food" task force, if you will) to deal with problems around insufficient access to healthy food in Chicago. The lack of LINK card (aka food stamps) access at city-run farmers markets emerged as the first issue, which led to a series of communications and meetings with Aldermen and officials within the Mayor's Office of Special Events.

A few weeks ago, the task force was unofficially informed of plans for a pilot program, which has now been officially announced. From the Tribune:

If you want to buy a meal of doughnuts, chips and soda with food stamp benefits, you'll have no problem in Chicago. But if you want to use them for fresh fruits and vegetables at a farmers market, it's been impossible.

That's about to change. In a pilot program announced Monday by the Mayor's Office of Special Events, five city-run farmers markets — Lincoln Square, South Shore Bank, Daley Plaza, Division Street and Beverly — will accept LINK cards, Illinois' debit cards for food stamp purchases.

Call it a win.

"Save Our State" rally in Springfield

2010-04-22T01:41:00.004-05:00

This Wednesday (April 21) members of SOUL joined a broad coalition of unions, service provides, advocacy groups, and faith groups in the state capital of Springfield, to demand a sustainable solution to the state budget crisis.

From the Tribune:

A spokesman for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White estimated the rally crowd at 15,000, with more than 12,000 marching around the building. That would appear to make it the largest Capitol protest since the Equal Rights Amendment crowds a quarter-century ago.

News segment from ABC 7 News:

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Pictures, videos, and more at Progress Illinois.

MLK Day 2010 Footage

2010-04-20T00:34:00.001-05:00

May 1 Leadership Summit and Training

2010-04-15T14:35:00.001-05:00

On May 1 SOUL will be holding a Leadership Summit / Training, where we will learn more about living wage issues, tax increment financing (TIF, a $1 billion pot of money that Mayor Daley controls completely and uses to subsidize large corporations!), and talking about how to make sure the economy works for people and not the other way around. Please come to this and bring as many people as you can!

Date: May 1
Time: 9:30a.m. - 12:30p.m.
Place: Sixth Grace Presbyterian Church, 600 E. 35th St. (35th and Cottage)

RSVP to Will Tanzman, wtanzman@soulinchicago.org

On the occasion of tax day

2010-04-15T14:30:00.003-05:00

A useful reminder from Sally Kohn:

The rich want you to think that government is a bad idea for YOU because it’s really a bad idea for THEM.

Of course there are problems with taxes—problems in accountability for how tax dollars are spent, problems in the tax burden which has (over the course of decades) been shifted unfairly from the rich to the poor. In order to address these and similar problems, we need to organize.

And, as it happens, these are among the topics we will be discussing at our May 1 Summit.

"The West Virginia Mining Disaster and the Financial Crisis Have the Same Root Cause"

2010-04-13T23:13:00.001-05:00

This is the conclusion drawn by Arianna Huffington at the Huffington Post. Many quotable passages in this article—read the whole thing. Here I'll just quote the ending:

Disasters -- both mining and financial -- are going to keep happening until we reevaluate our priorities, and force our elected officials -- and the regulators they pick -- to put the public interest above the special interests and their lobbyists in Washington.

The lives of hardworking Americans have to take precedence over the bottom line at Massey Energy and on Wall Street.

This isn't a matter of right vs. left. It's a matter of right vs. wrong.

A public option in banking?

2010-04-12T18:58:00.005-05:00

This is an idea discussed in this article from Yes! Magazine. The opening quote from Virg Bernero, Mayor of the state capital of Lansing, Michigan, just about says it all:

Hundreds of job-creating projects are still on hold because Michigan businesses and entrepreneurs cannot get bank financing. We can break the credit crunch and beat Wall Street at their own game by keeping our money right here in Michigan and investing it to retool our economy and create jobs.

This problem is nation-wide: credit is part of the basic financial infrastructure of the economy, but it mostly lies in the hands of the big banks. It is in the public interest that money get lent to "businesses and entrepreneurs", but just right now this is apparently not in the interests of the big banks, which are private corporations not beholden to the public interest. And so the general populace suffers.

On the federal level, the response to this antisocial bank behavior has involved a lot of scolding and wheedling, often offered through the President. Besides being somewhat demeaning to the dignity of the Presidency, this strategy has proven quite ineffective. The President represents the will of the people, and, again, the banks are not accountable to the people, even when there is scolding or wheedling involved.

A state-owned bank could help fix that. One already exists, in North Dakota, established in 1919 under similar circumstances. According to the article, North Dakota is also one of only two states currently able to meet its budget, and by mid-2011 is likely to be the one and only state able to do so. Coincidence?

There are currently bills in three different states to follow North Dakota's lead: in Washington, Michigan, and here in Illinois.

Cuts at schools (and elsewhere)

2010-04-07T20:15:00.002-05:00

At Progress Illinois, a run down of the pain being felt at school districts across Illinois due to the state budget crisis, and a sampling of the effects in other sectors.

While the General Assembly enjoys their two-week spring break, school districts across Illinois are circulating pink slips and slashing their budgets for the next school year. Below is a round-up of related news articles from the past couple weeks. It's bad out there, folks. And so far, the Democratic leadership is giving no indication that they plan to do anything about it this session

The federal jobs bill

2010-03-29T03:43:00.003-05:00

On March 19th, Obama signed into law an $18 billion jobs bill. It is a step in the right direction. But as detailed here (from before the signing), we are going to need to do much more in order to even begin to turn the tide of the recession. The AFL-CIO is proposing a much more ambitious alternative that would tax Wall Street—which, after all, caused this crisis—and use the money to fund hundreds of billions of dollars in additional job creation as well as bailouts of struggling state governments like Illinois.

Health care and other reforms

2010-03-27T15:49:00.002-05:00

A brief round-up....

Ten immediate benefits of the legislation

Critique from Physicians for a National Health Program

Bill Moyers sums up HCR and the prospects for other reform initiatives in Washington

In the end it looks like a mixed bag. But tacked on to HCR was a more unqualified bit of progress: We Won a Robust Public Option... on College Loans. It is a smaller system, and received a lot less attention, but student loan reform will put an end to government subsidies which have absorbed up to 97% of the risk of private lenders making student loans, and created a highly profitable market which has taken billions from the government while spending only a fraction of that on the students themselves.

One step in the right direction: ending the debit overdraft scam

2010-03-10T21:49:00.004-06:00

From the New York Times:

In a move that could bring an end to the $40 cup of coffee, Bank of America said on Tuesday that it was doing away with overdraft fees on purchases made with debit cards, a decision that could cost the bank tens of millions a year in revenue and put pressure on other banks to do the same.

[...]

Banks are bracing for a new federal rule that will require them to get permission from account holders before providing overdraft services for debit purchases and A.T.M. withdrawals. That change was already expected to wipe out billions of dollars in overdraft revenue for the banks.

Overdraft charges were a large part of the reason why the big banks were making huge profits while the economy was in freefall and ordinary people were suffering. They constitute a massive transfer of wealth from people whose personal finances are teetering on the edge--as you approach that edge, the bank grabs what little you have left through overdraft fees, and pushes you right off into the financial abyss. And maybe you claw your way back, or maybe you don't--it is not their concern. Although once upon a time it was the role of a bank to help build up the local economy, nowadays the big banks are happy to hasten the downward spiral of troubled communities.

"Illinois stuck in a ‘historic, epic’ budget crisis"

2010-02-25T23:00:00.002-06:00

From the Tribune (emphasis added):

Illinois government is staring down the barrel of an explosive financial mess, and perhaps nothing frames the danger better than two big numbers.

The first is $26 billion, the grand total that lawmakers have allotted this year for the meat of what the state does: funding education, health care, child welfare, public safety and the machinery of government itself.

The second number is $13 billion, the total of red ink in the state's main checking account that, by law, has to be erased — at least on paper — before a penny can be set aside for day-to-day operations in the fiscal year, which begins July 1.

In short, the deficit is half as big as the core of the state budget.

A trio of state budget updates

2010-02-19T22:12:00.002-06:00

All courtesy of Progress Illinois.

First, coverage of 3000-4000 people (including members of SOUL—more on our experiences later) rallying in the state capitol building in Springfield, in support of HB 174.

(More background here.)

Second, Alexander Sharp of Protestants for a Common Good puts the budget crisis in the clearest possible terms: "We are committing slow-motion violence on children, on the elderly, on the mentally ill, and on the disabled".

Third: Are we at the breaking point? An up-to-date summary of the some of the main lowlights of the fallout of the budget crisis. The moral of the story: "Illinois is truly on the verge of collapse. The time for action has long passed."

What is Going on with the Congressional Black Caucus?

2010-02-15T17:59:00.004-06:00

(guest post by Randal Maurice Jelks, originally posted at theblackbottom)

Yesterday the New York Times (NYT) reported on the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and its foundation. It was a fairly incriminating piece about how some of the largest American corporations, many of whom have interests that are in conflict with the political wellbeing of struggling black folk, are given access to CBC members via large donations to its foundation.

Now I am quite aware that black organizations are often held in greater scrutiny by the white dominated media outlets than others. But to its credit the NYT also reported on its front page that Goldman Sachs, the international brokerage and banking firm, helped the Greek government hide loans and mask deficits, which is now throwing the European Union and Wall Street into a tizzy. So the report on the CBC’s actions must be kept in perspective, the CBC’s alleged infractions are miniscule compared to Goldman Sachs’s international usury. However, what the CBC is alleged to have done in this article is troublesome for black voters. And frankly, if any of you live in one of the districts of a CBC member you should express your concern to them in writing.

Let me tell you my concerns from reading this article:

Many residence of Chicago, and elsewhere, having been in a protracted fight with Wal-Mart over living wage ordinances. It appears Wal-Mart ranks 4th, out of 50 donors, in the size of its gifts to the CBC foundation. It begs the question, who are the members of the CBC representing? Are they advocating for working folk who cannot get health benefits out of Wal-Mart or a living wage? Wal-Mart’s donation seems at odds with the struggle for living wage ordinances taking place around the country.

High-ranking donors also included some of the chief culprits in banking and mortgage lending that served up sub-primed mortgages—Citigroup and Countrywide to name just two. What did CBC members collectively say to these financial organizations about the interests of black consumers? Or, for that matter, what did CBC members jointly state on behalf of black credit card holders when Citigroup raised its credit card rates to nearly 30% this past fall?

This list also includes some of the top drugmakers as well. None of these pharmaceutical companies are known for progressive actions as far as I know. Have any of these companies joined with the CBC in a concerted effort to make the social indices of black health statistics better? They haven't lowered the costs of their drugs for those living in poor communities, have they? And the most serious question: what did CBC members concede to these companies in the House debate about Health Care legislation to gain these donations?

Even more telling was the rank of the State Farm insurance Company, which is still a primary litigant being sued by many black people in the city of New Orleans over its breach of contract.. Folks are still haggling with State Farm five years after Katrina to get money to renovate or rebuild their homes. (Let me acknowledge for the sake of full disclosure I use State Farm Insurance).

The other thing that is disturbing is that the CBC indicated that their foundation uses corporate donations to raise money for scholarships. However, if the graphic in the NYT is correct, more money was spent on lavish parties than scholarships for undergraduate, graduate, or academic fellowships. If this report is true, it is wasteful stewardship.

We need organize bodies such as the CBC to represent the various national interests of black people. The CBC was in its earliest years one of the most thoughtful groups in congress proposing policies that were beneficial to all Americans. Its legislative agenda on jobs, labor, welfare, and anti-apartheid were noble, even in the so-called hallowed Reagan years. However, the corporate bend over that the NYT reports undermines that legacy and challenges the legitimacy of the CBC at time when black people actually need strong organizations representing its many different interests.

I must confess I once attended a CBC function. It was twenty-six years ago. The one thing that stood out in my mind was how lavish the party was at the Washington D.C. Hilton. Now I do not believe black people ought to have inexpensive events, I love classy events too and I loved being in the company of black achievers and notables. However, in 1984, the economic downturn was anguishing and severe affecting nearly all of black America and the black poverty rate in DC was staggering. So the party’s grandness caused me to wonder how the goals of the CBC’s black-tie soiree matched up with the conditions that black people faced. Did this dress up function promote the kind of laws that would enhance and sustain black life? To the CBC’s credit there were lots of workshops informing young participants like myself about key policy issues, some of which I found quite helpful. However, I'll never forget that at one of the CBC's after parties Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), a heroic civil rights activist and a radical, offered a few words. Ture was dressed in a splendid West African Boubou, having arrived from Guinea, West Africa, where he was then living. He stated with wry sarcasm, if I can remember correctly, about how black people loved a party but not the hard work of social change. Everyone laughed including the CBC members who laughed uncomfortably at his barb. However, if the NYT story about the CBC is correct, Ture’s words are more truthful today than they were back then.

From Plot to Plate: Local Initiative Grows More than Food

2010-02-11T06:16:00.003-06:00

(by guest blogger Gloria Green)

It clearly was a when-when situation.

When green visionary Les Brown saw a need to fuse training and responsibility through agriculture in the early 1990’s, is when the concept for Growing Home was born.

Growing Home is a Chicago Southside non-profit offering transitional job training to homeless and low-income individuals through urban agriculture. Those with “barriers to employment,” like the formerly incarcerated, and others at a disadvantage, are provided an opportunity through a 6-month intern-like program, to move into higher-skilled occupations.

Truly at the heart of the urban farming movement, Growing Home’s goals are simple: good, nutritious food, a good job, and a good life. These goals also embrace the new green jobs market. Along with improving the environment through its local farms, participants learn job-training skills that can result in family-supported wages and financial independence.

Having grown up on a farm, Brown knew that the natural world was a powerful model to create lasting connections in life. He wrote:

“Homeless people often are without roots….When you get involved in taking responsibility for caring for something, creating an environment that produces growth, then it helps you to build self-esteem, and feel more connected.”

As a policy maker familiar with the particulars of the homeless area, he acquired free land just outside of Marseilles, Illinois, which became the first organic farm for Growing Home. In 2001, he hired Harry Rhodes as Executive Director to turn his vision into reality. While there was land and plans, no active program was in place. By 2002 the program got off the ground, working with only nine people. Brown and Rhodes worked closely together until Brown died in 2005. Since then, Rhodes and his staff continue to work as a vibrant social enterprise.

A key component of Growing Home is partnerships. For the past seven years, they’ve collaborated with other not-for-profit groups that supply transitional job training, organizations in the organic/urban farm movement, and those that advocate social change. Governmental agencies, especially those affiliated with the City of Chicago, have also been partners.

The focal point of the organization is the organic farm sites. Besides the Les Brown Memorial Farm outside of Chicago, are other sites in the city, with the newest being the Wood Street Urban Farm, located in Englewood, at 5814 South Wood.

The impact of these farms not only empowers the individuals, but the community as well. Unfortunately, too many Southside neighborhoods are food deserts, devoid of access to fresh foods and/or major grocery outlets. The produce generated not only supplies a wholesome alternative, but stimulates economic and community development in otherwise overlooked areas.

In fact, the Wood Street Farm is the city’s first permanent, certified organic urban farm. Now in its second year of operation, the 2/3 acre site employs 30 part-time workers, with three hoop houses, structures that allow year-round growth of crops. There are estimates of 10,000 pounds of produce to be harvested by the end of 2009. Chicagoans can purchase this produce from venues such as Green City Market, the Englewood Farmers Market, or get involved in their CSA membership program.

Over 100 people have successfully gone through the program over the years, and the 2009 graduation ceremony just took pace on this past October 9 at the Garfield Park conservatory.

Growing Home is more than just about growing food, it’s about growing people, and developing communities to flourish as sustainable, energetic places to live.

Wal-Mart and TIF reform

2010-02-02T21:58:00.004-06:00

Progress Illinois reports and comments on some recent developments in the Good Jobs fight: the pro-Wal-Mart crowd is struggling, and Finance Committee Chairman Burke proposes an ordinance on living wages: "The bill would obligate expanding companies that accept public subsidies and have more than 50 employees to pay their workers no less than $11.03 per hour." Chicago's expansive TIF network would also be included as a source of "public subsidies", which means that this could impact wages across the city.

Here's what SOUL's Rev. Booker Vance had to say about it:

Rev. Booker Vance of the Good Jobs Chicago Coalition points out that, with TIF reform already getting so much attention in Chicago, it's going to be awfully hard for aldermen to defend giving any mega-retailer public funds in exchange for poverty wages. "Wal-Mart is a multi-billion corporation," he says. "All we want is to make enough to get by."

Read the whole PI post here.

Mayor Daley vs. a responsible state budget

2010-01-29T20:55:00.005-06:00

The state of Oregon recently approved two ballot initiatives that call for income tax increases on wealthy individuals and businesses. This is something which responsible budget advocates in Illinois (with its constitutional ban on progressive income tax) can presently only dream about. Still, it should be welcome news that responsible budget campaigns are meeting with such success in other states.

Now, the enormous hole in the Illinois state budget is hurting Chicago along with the rest of the state. But what is Mayor Daley's response? A pledge to "entice" businesses to move from Oregon to Chicago, accompanied by this amazing rhetoric which takes this good news from Oregon, and turns it on its head:

“What happened in Oregon is not good news for Oregon. They believe that anybody who makes $125,000 or more [annually] or businesses or anyone who makes $250,000 — they’re gonna start taxing them. They call them ‘rich people,’ ” the mayor said.

“I’ve always thought America stands for [rewarding success]. You finish high school. You work hard, go to college and you hope to succeed in life. I never knew it’s a class war—that those who succeed in life are the ones that have to bear all the burden. I never realized that. It will be a whole change in America that those who succeed and work hard [that] we’re gonna tax ‘em more than anyone else.”

It's hard to know where to be begin to respond to a statement like that—there are so many things wrong with just about every sentence. But Adam Dorster provides a good blow-by-blow response at Progress Illinois.

Now I think these might be the key questions: How exactly is Mayor Daley defining what's good and what's bad for Oregon? In terms of the interests of the ordinary people living in that state (the vast majority of them making under $250K/household) who suffer in the absence of healthy public schools and functioning social services? Or in terms of the big businesses which might be "enticed" to move to cities like Chicago? And what does this tell us about how he defines what's good and what's bad for Chicago: in terms of the interests of the corporate offices downtown, or in terms of the interests of its millions of ordinary citizens?

(by Toby Chow)

Wal-Mart astroturf

2010-01-29T20:48:00.002-06:00

You knew it had to happen, but Kevin Robinson at the Chicagoist has now provided positive proof that Wal-Mart is concocting fake community groups as a front for its propaganda. He comments:

While Wal-Mart certainly has the right make its case to Chicago, the way they’ve gone about this - creating a fake community group that purports to represent a community's residents and interests - is sneaky and underhanded. If what they have to offer Chicago is such a great deal, why did they need to go through the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce to set up a bogus grassroots group?

Read the whole sordid story here.

From the "Showdown in Chicago" to the "Showdown in America"

2010-01-28T01:38:00.002-06:00

An article by Angela Caputo in Progress Illinois talks about some recent developments in Des Moines (by NPA and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, who also sent a contingent to the Showdown in Chicago), and in Oregon, where personal income tax increases for high income earners and increased taxes for corporations were passed through ballot initiatives, despite (or perhaps even because of) heavy campaigning from the banking industry.

Caputo comments:

Could the Oregon results serve as a harbinger for Illinois' upcoming tax reform fight? To be sure, the two states' have radically different tax structures. Oregon, whose income tax is progressive, now boasts the highest personal income tax rate, capital gains tax rate, and corporate minimum tax rate for businesses in the nation. In exchange, Oregonians pay no sales tax and only limited property taxes.

We'll have to wait and see. But the results yesterday underscore the general mood of voters everywhere: state employees, teachers, medical providers, and the people on whose services they depend should not suffer because the reckless banking sector ruined our economy.

NYT's Chicago News Coop on SOUL's MLK Day and Good Jobs Chicago

2010-01-24T02:07:00.003-06:00

Including a quote from SOUL's Rev. Booker Vance:

More than a dozen black churches and labor unions countered Wal-Mart’s newest lobbying effort by creating a group called Good Jobs Chicago. The organization has placed advertisements on billboards in the 9th and 21st Wards demanding that large retailers provide “living wages” and “affordable health care.”

The racially charged nature of the issue was evident at an event on Monday [sic] to celebrate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. Speakers at the rally in Hyde Park noted that Dr. King was killed while fighting for workers’ rights and derided Wal-Mart’s unwillingness to negotiate with its critics, according to a news release from Good Jobs Chicago.

“You should have seen them wheeling and dealing to build five plantations in Chicago,” the Rev. Booker Vance said in the release.

Full story here.

The story falls short on at least one important point. It notes that critics of Wal-Mart's practices "say the retailer’s arrival swamps competitors, destroying as many jobs as it creates". But this isn't just something that gets said, it's also backed up by ample evidence, including a recent study on a Wal-Mart in this very city. To repeat a quote that's been posted here before:

"What we're seeing here is that placing a Walmart in an urban setting is basically a wash in terms of sales revenue for the city and jobs for local residents... This means that communities around the city shouldn't see Walmart or other big-box retailers as a panacea for local economic problems."

Citizens United and Illinois

2010-01-23T01:14:00.003-06:00

Progress Illinois has an article on Thursday's atrocious SCOTUS ruling, and how it might effect Illinois.

The ruling in brief: corporations are persons, persons have the right to free speech, money is speech, so there can be no restrictions on how much money corporations can spend in support of a political candidate. So the financial giants on Wall Street hoping to prevent financial industry reform can spend its billions to ensure against any candidate that might be inclined to rein them in. Similarly for oil companies looking at climate change legislation. Or health insurance companies worried about changes to the health care system. And since this was a First Amendment decision, it also threatens campaign finance laws at the state and local level.

Our MLK Day event in In These Times

2010-01-23T01:09:00.004-06:00

In These Times has an article about the MLK Day Celebration and Public Meeting here, focusing on the Good Jobs Chicago campaign to pass a legally binding Community Benefits Agreement on Wal-Mart. Good discussion of the event, the state of the campaign, and the reasons behind it.

The 2010 MLK Day Celebration and Public Meeting

2010-01-19T23:53:00.011-06:00

This year's MLK Day Celebration and Public Meeting (organized by SOUL in partnership with Northside POWER and the Northwest Indiana Federation of Interfaith Organizations) took place in St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Hyde Park this Sunday. It brought together a diverse crowd of an estimated 1200 people from across the Chicagoland area, as we gathered to celebrate the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The celebration included song and dance, and speeches invoking the work of Dr. King, but it involved more than that. Dr. King's legacy is a dream for racial and economic justice which remains unfulfilled, and this means that a right celebration of his legacy must involve a continuation of his struggle for justice. And so SOUL and our partner organizations invited some of the most important elected officials in the land to join us at the event, in order to make concrete and public policy commitments.

Among those who accepted the invitation were Governor Pat Quinn, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, Alexi Giannoulias and David Hoffman (frontrunners for the Democratic nomination to Obama's former Senate seat), as well as a number of state legislators and Chicago Alderman.

Alderman Joe Moore agreed to support a plan for affordable housing in Rogers Park. He was then joined by a number of his colleagues in City Council, and together they agreed to support SOUL and the rest of the Good Jobs Chicago Coalition in our push for a Community Benefits Agreement binding upon Wal-Mart (and other big-box retailers).

At the state level, Governor Quinn pledged to do his part to ensure that one of SOUL's great victories in 2009, the $425 million Urban Weatherization Initiative, would be implemented in a way that would bring long-term, living wage jobs to those who need it most.

Governor Quinn also reiterated his support for a measure which all serious commentators recognize to be essential to solving Illinois' dire budget crisis: an increase in the state income tax, coupled with relief for lower income brackets, of the sort which would be implemented by HB 174. State legislators from both the House and the Senate were asked to make their own commitments to vote and fight for HB 174 (or similar legislation). All those present agreed, including Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, Majority Leader in the House, where HB 174 stalled last year.

And, at the federal level, Congresswoman Schakowsky, and candidates Giannoulias and Hoffman agreed to two commitments designed to fight urban decay and promote healthy urban development. First, to support the Livable Communities Act, which promotes sustainable development through the coordination of agencies responsible for housing, energy, transportation, and economic development; second, to support measures in the next federal transportation bill which would see more money going towards infrastructure and public transit within cities, and less for highways heading out to further and further flung suburbs.

The commitments these officials were asked to make address some of the most serious issues in the Chicagoland area and the state of Illinois today. And although a lot of this post has focused on these few politicians, the people in the rest of the pews were also essential to making everything happen. The officials who were in attendance are very important people (to say the least) and many would not have shown up if they hadn't known they would be greeted by over 1000 organized people. The power exhibited by this massive turnout is also the key to holding them accountable to their commitments, and furthering the work MLK did so much to advance. Thanks to all who attended!

(by Toby Chow)

SOUL invites you to the 2010 MLK Day Celebration and Public Meeting

2010-01-17T04:17:00.001-06:00

Paul Krugman on Wall St. cluelessness

2010-01-15T20:18:00.004-06:00

The moral of this story: the financial industry needs to be reformed at a fundamental level, and officials need to stop listening to the big shots Wall Street.

But there was nothing accidental about the crisis. From the late 1970s on, the American financial system, freed by deregulation and a political climate in which greed was presumed to be good, spun ever further out of control. There were ever-greater rewards - bonuses beyond the dreams of avarice - for bankers who could generate big short-term profits. And the way to raise those profits was to pile up ever more debt, both by pushing loans on the public and by taking on ever-higher leverage within the financial industry.

Sooner or later, this runaway system was bound to crash. And if we don't make fundamental changes, it will happen all over again.

Do the bankers really not understand what happened, or are they just talking their self-interest? No matter. As I said, the important thing looking forward is to stop listening to financiers about financial reform.

Wall Street executives will tell you that the financial-reform bill the House passed last month would cripple the economy with overregulation (it's actually quite mild). They'll insist that the tax on bank debt just proposed by the Obama administration is a crude concession to foolish populism. They'll warn that action to tax or otherwise rein in financial-industry compensation is destructive and unjustified.

But what do they know? The answer, as far as I can tell, is: not much.

More on the Wal-Mart study

2010-01-12T02:11:00.003-06:00

From the UIC press release:

The findings support the contention that urban Walmart stores absorb sales from other city stores without significantly expanding the market, said study co-author David Merriman, head of the UIC department of economics and professor of public administration.

"What we're seeing here is that placing a Walmart in an urban setting is basically a wash in terms of sales revenue for the city and jobs for local residents," Merriman said. "This means that communities around the city shouldn't see Walmart or other big-box retailers as a panacea for local economic problems."

Wal-Mart stagnation on the Westside

2010-01-08T20:53:00.004-06:00

In 2006, Wal-Mart tried to build in the Westside and Southside of Chicago. They got into the Westside, in the 38th Ward, but were kept out of the Southside. Now they've renewed their push to build on the Southside, and prompted a response from SOUL and other groups in the form of the Good Jobs Chicago Coalition, which seeks a legally binding Community Benefits Agreement on Wal-Mart and other big box retailers.

This makes this study of the Westside Wal-Mart by researchers at Loyola University very timely. Key findings of the study: between the opening of the Wal-Mart in 2006 and early 2008, the store shut down 25% of the local shops in the area, and killed nearly the same number of full-time jobs as it created. Meanwhile, sales tax revenue flatlined, showing zero growth during that time period.

The opponents of the Good Jobs campaign claim that Wal-Mart should be welcomed into the Southside to do business however it likes, on the grounds that it would boost retail in the area in any case, and that any job (including a Wal-Mart job) is better than no jobs. The experience of the Westside shows that these arguments don't hold water.

Sen. Durbin on the lobbies and financial reform

2010-01-08T04:40:00.005-06:00

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin warns that we shouldn't expect a very good financial regulation reform bill out of the Senate. The American Bankers Association and other lobbies like it are just too influential in Washington. As Durbin put it last year, they "own the place".

This is why actions like last year's Showdown in Chicago, organized by SOUL and a broad coalition of other groups, are so crucial. We can't expect more than a few Senators to stand up to these filthy rich lobbies--not on the basis of principle alone, not without a display of a whole lot of organized people to counter all of that organized money.

SOUL's Green Jobs Campaign: the Urban Weatherization Initiative

2010-01-06T23:21:00.003-06:00

Unemployment and underemployment are some of the biggest problems on the South Side. At the same time, Chicago is trying to be the greenest city in the country, but huge numbers of the houses and apartment buildings (especially in low-income areas) have old boilers, inadequate insulation, and air leakage, which leads to high energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions. Green jobs in home weatherization are a solution to both problems – the government can pay people to install energy-saving improvements such as new heating systems, better insulation, and sealing air leaks. People get jobs, energy bills go down, and we create a more sustainable city.

This year, SOUL began a campaign to get the State of Illinois to create a “green jobs” program that would hire people to do home weatherization in low-income urban areas across the state. Working with South Side and South Suburban state legislators, SOUL created a program called the “Urban Weatherization Initiative” which was passed in July 2009 as part of the state capital bill. The program has three main elements:

Provides $425 million for people in urban areas with 20% of the population living in poverty to have their homes weatherized at no cost to the homeowner or landlord
Requires that organizations and contractors doing this weatherization hire people from the communities in which the weatherization is taking place
Provides funding for weatherization training so that people without experience in weatherization can learn the trade and get hired

SOUL estimates that the Urban Weatherization initiative will create 20,000 – 40,000 jobs over the next six years and significantly decrease the state's contribution to climate change.

Next Steps:

This program has been passed into law, and now the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) is deciding how exactly the program is going to work. SOUL is working to create partnerships with contractors, nonprofit organizations, unions, training providers, and people who want to get jobs in weatherization, so that together we can make sure that the Urban Weatherization Initiative is successful in getting living-wage jobs for people for the South Side.

For more information or to get involved, contact:

Christian Mitchell, (708) 280-5487 or cmitchell@soulinchicago.org
Will Tanzman, (312) 402-0572 or wtanzman@soulinchicago.org.

People with some construction skills are particularly encouraged to call!

Is the national Legislative process a broken system?

2009-12-21T08:59:00.005-06:00

An interesting op-ed by Paul Krugman of the New York Times posits that the Senate use of the filibuster has increased by more than 3 times over the past few decades.

From the article:

"Some people will say that it has always been this way, and that we’ve managed so far. But it wasn’t always like this. Yes, there were filibusters in the past — most notably by segregationists trying to block civil rights legislation. But the modern system, in which the minority party uses the threat of a filibuster to block every bill it doesn’t like, is a recent creation.

The political scientist Barbara Sinclair has done the math. In the 1960s, she finds, “extended- debate-related problems” — threatened or actual filibusters — affected only 8 percent of major legislation. By the 1980s, that had risen to 27 percent. But after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Republicans found themselves in the minority, it soared to 70 percent."

Does the overuse of the filibuster lend too much power to the minority party and the fringes of the majority party?

Wal-Mart responds to Good Jobs fight

2009-12-20T03:21:00.006-06:00

Wal-Mart has recently renewed its controversial efforts to build on the Southside of Chicago. As part of the Good Jobs Chicago coalition, SOUL has been campaigning for a legally-binding Community Benefits Agreement which is designed to ensure that Wal-Mart and other big box retailers will do business in a way that is fair and just to workers and local communities. SOUL leader Dhyia Thompson provides a report of a conversation with a worker at a Wal-Mart in Chicago's Austin neighbourhood, which highlights some of the problems which make a Community Benefits Agreement such a vital necessity.

Although Wal-Mart is not known for its fondness for negotiating over the concerns of workers and communities, the Good Jobs campaign has elicited the following response from the giant corporation, concerning one of the campaign's central principles, the demand for a living wage:

"If there is a minimum wage ordinance that applies to everybody, and every business in Chicago is held to that ordinance, then the answer would be yes," Rodriguez [vice president and regional general manager for Wal-Mart] said Thursday. "There's no need for Wal-Mart to be singled out. Why is it all other retailers are allowed to build in Chicago and we are not?"

There are a number of reasons why one might think it's right to treat Wal-Mart differently from the average retailer. But as Ald. Joe Moore notes, "At least they're talking about it."

The Showdown on Bill Moyers

2009-12-15T19:34:00.008-06:00

The Bill Moyers Journal on PBS has run an excellent segment on the "Showdown in Chicago". The segment includes footage from SOUL's prayer vigil, featuring an on-site interview with Rev. Booker Vance (with Revs. Daymond and Russell in the background), beginning at 2:40 in the clip. Watch it below, or on the PBS site here.

In addition to showing extensive footage from the Showdown, Moyers conducts an in-studio interview with George Goehl (National People's Action) and Heather Booth (Americans for Financial Reform and the Midwest Academy), who put the Showdown in Chicago into the context of a continuing nation-wide fight to rein in the financial industry and its corrupting effect on democracy, and to bring about the conditions for a fairer economy throughout the country. This is a fight to correct some of the fundamental factors underlying so many of the problems facing communities across the country, including the Southside of Chicago.

Complete Coverage of the Showdown in Chicago!

2009-11-04T21:32:00.003-06:00

SOUL's Prayer Vigil was a wild success. Below, Pastor Raymond Legania of the Bethel-Imani Lutheran Church prays for deliverance from the greed and corruption of Wall Street.

For more, visit ProgressIllinois' complete coverage here.

In The News: Oct. 12-13, 2009

2009-10-13T09:57:00.006-05:00

Great article on the Economic State of Illinois (via Progress Illinois.com)

http://johnfritchey.blogspot.com/2009/10/illinois-economic-briefing.html

Information on the CTA Budget Crisis (http://www.progressillinois.com/2009/10/12/ctas-newest-budget-woes)

Apparently the CTA is following the Illinois way - attempt to address short term budget shortfalls while ignoring a structural deficit.

The Senate Finance Committee is set to vote today on health care (via the New York Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/health/policy/14health.html?hp

To Wal-Mart: Respect our Communities

2009-09-21T10:30:00.002-05:00

By: Will Tanzman

As you may know, Walmart is trying to use the recession as an opportunity to gets its claws into the South Side. What Walmart isn't saying is that while it will hire some people, it could easily end up
reducing the number of South Side jobs by putting smaller locally-owned businesses out of business. On top of that, Walmart pays low wages, fails to offer health care that most employees can afford, takes profits out of the community, abuses workers in a variety of other ways, and buys products at such low prices that the company's suppliers are forced to produce in sweatshop conditions. Many of Walmart’s products are imported from China, and there have been numerous cases of toxic and hazardous products such as toys, clothing and dog food.

SOUL is working to make sure that Walmart is only allowed to build a store on the South Side if the company agrees to respect the South Side by agreeing to some basic community benefits. SOUL and some allies (including Rev. Otis Moss at Trinity UCC and Father Michael Pfleger at St. Sabina Catholic Church) convened the Good Jobs Chicago coalition to require Walmart to agree to the following demands before being allowed to build on the South Side:

- Pay workers a living wage and provide health care benefits

- Respect workers' right to organize a union if they so choose

- Hire workers from the South Side and provide opportunities for training and advancement

- Pay a fair share of taxes

- Buy products from the Chicago area, including produce from Black farmers

- Commit to environmentally friendly storage and disposal practices

The coalition launched the community benefits campaign at a press conference with 75 people on September 9 at City Hall. Check out the Progress Illinois [http://www.progressillinois.com/2009/9/9/stopping-walmart%27s-race-to-the-bottom] story for more info, a video clip, and a quote from SOUL President Rev. Booker Vance.

This campaign is part of a larger effort to ensure that large corporations do not exploit our communities and act with fairness and justice with regard to workers, consumers, communities and the environment.

SOUL On the Radio for the Urban Weatherization Initiative!

2009-09-02T23:43:00.008-05:00

Christian Mitchell, Community Organizer with SOUL, will be on vocalo.org, 89.5, this Thursday @ 10:00 am to discuss the Green Jobs movement with host Brian Babylon.

Please join our eUpdate list to learn how you can get involved with the Green Jobs campaign or contact Christian Mitchell (708-280-5487, cmitchell[at]soulinchicago.org) if you are trained in a skilled trade and are interested in a green weatherization job.

Link to the Interview (starts about 5 minutes in): Download

SOUL In the News!

2009-07-08T11:00:00.008-05:00

SOUL has been featured in Chicagoland press over the last few days for our Gold Line Transit Campaign. Below are links to the articles. Congratulations to SOUL's Transit Task Force for their hard work!

Green Jobs Now!

2009-05-21T16:16:00.006-05:00

By: Christian Mitchell and Prentice Butler

Year after year, independent experts and government panels come to the same conclusion; Illinois has a massive structural deficit, one that cannot be fixed by even the most draconian budget cuts – a deficit that requires additional revenues, including an increase in the state income tax. That’s why SOUL (Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation) and scores of other community and civic organizations support SB750, to adequately fund our public schools and other essential Illinois services.

Equally important, Illinois has not had a capital budget in over a decade – and the results are evident in our communities. Our infrastructure is collapsing, and our overall unemployment rate (9.4%) is above the national average (8.6%) – for African Americans, it was at 12.1% at the end of 2008. It is appropriate that the Governor’s favored proposal is called Illinois Jobs Now !– we need jobs, and we need them now!

As a grassroots community organization on Chicago’s south side, we believe that by focusing on “Green” Jobs we can potentially turn the tide in the struggle to provide living wage economic opportunities to the people of Illinois. Some would not associate a green movement with an urban grassroots community organization - it is generally assumed that it is a topic that is only of interest to the intellectual elite of our society. We want to topple this assumption. As crucial as increasing revenue is to solve our structural deficit, a capital budget is equally crucial to address our infrastructure and put people back to work as we transition from a carbon based economy to a green economy. This will be the new industrial revolution and poor and working families should get in on the ground floor.

The “Green Jobs Movement” is not just about planting trees or driving a Toyota Prius - it is also about practical steps, like weatherization, that have the potential of saving hundreds of dollars a year for people that are being overcome by the rising costs of heating and cooling their homes. For this reason, SOUL is pushing the Urban Weatherization Initiative, an amendment to the capital bill that would provide millions of dollars for both the work and training associated with this need, and engage churches and community centers in outreach and communication.

A substantial portion of the housing stock in our cities is older than a half century, and needs substantial upgrades to move toward energy efficiency. The Initiative if funded, could put thousands of people in cities to work almost immediately, blowing insulation, caulking cracks, replacing old boilers and appliances. This new industry will not only benefit college graduates, but also high school dropouts and high-risk/at-risk youth. The skills required will translate across a wide range of new industries, including the ever-evolving green economy.

A well-funded “Green Jobs” movement will not only create job opportunities, it will save the lives of youth that are dying on the streets of our cities at an increasingly alarming rate. Many of these young men and women do not have the ability to earn a living for themselves in traditional job markets and find themselves participating in activities that put their lives at risk. We are once again heading toward summer, which always heralds an increase in the violence in our communities. While important, gun control proposals alone are not a good substitute for providing men and women with jobs that can provide the means to support their families. Living wage work gives people a sense of self-respect and dignity, and is an important alternative to the violence that has taken too many of our children from us.

At a time when the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, we have an opportunity to restore that dream of the American middle class, begin the work of restoring our neighborhoods and our climate, and reclaiming the lives of our children. The “Green” movement is a key element of that answer. This is why a capital budget is so important – because without it, the Urban Weatherization Initiative cannot happen. It is unacceptable to have a budget that cuts more than 14,000 teachers and it is equally unacceptable to not invest in Illinois’ workforce and take an important first step into a green economy. Our legislators must step up to the plate. State legislative leadership complained for much of the past 3 years that Governor Blagojevich was the obstacle for either addressing the structural deficit or passing a capital budget. He is gone, and no longer serves as an excuse. Now it’s time for our legislators to step up.

Because now is not the time to step back.

SOUL Organizes for Equitable Transit on the Southside

2009-04-14T23:57:00.010-05:00

On January 11, more than four hundred South Side residents came together to celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and call upon elected officials to address issues of public transit, affordable housing, and community violence. The event took place at St. Mark United Methodist Church and drew congregants from more than a dozen churches and nonprofit organizations across the South Side and South Suburbs as well as a bus full of students from the University of Chicago.

SOUL’s Gold Line transit proposal – affectionately known as the “Soul Train” – got a

major boost from the event. South Side residents suffer from the longest commute times in the Chicago area. Metra’s Electric District line goes through underserved areas of the Southeast side, but thousands of South Side residents do not use the line because trains are just once an hour during off‐peak hours and people cannot use their CTA farecards or transfer between Metra and the CTA in most circumstances. SOUL is proposing that Metra run trains every ten minutes from 6:00 a.m. to midnight, accept CTA farecards, allow transferability between CTA and Metra, and build a new station in Bronzeville.

Five elected officials made public commitments at the event to support the Gold Line. Alderman Toni Preckwinkle, State Sen. Will Burns, Alderman Michelle Harris, Alderman Willie Cochran, and a representative of Alderman Leslie Hairston all agreed to put pressure on Metra and the RTA to do an “alternatives analysis,” a study that is the first step in getting federal money for transit improvements. In addition, Alderman Preckwinkle
announced that she had just introduced an ordinance in the Chicago City Council calling for the city’s Olympics plans to include affordable
housing, Olympics jobs for South Side residents, and the Gold Line.

SOUL believes that the King Day celebration was a significant step forward in demonstrating community support for the Gold Line and
making it clear to elected officials that South Siders are organizing to demand justice. Stay tuned for upcoming action alerts!

Will Tanzman