The Chicago Reporter

Cover Stories, Inside Stories, Web Extras, Spin Offs, New Voices, Editor's Note, Reporter Impact, Keeping Current

August, 2007 Aldermanic Power Shapes City Land Sales On the surface, last month's squabble between Alderman Dorothy Tillman (3rd) and a few of her constituents on the 4300 block of South King Drive looked like a purely local dispute. The residents wanted to buy neighboring vacant lots, and Tillman wanted to reserve them for single-family gray and brownstones. No sale. But Tillman's power to hold up any transfer of city-owned land without being... > Read More	August, 2007 A Tale of Two Towns: Evanston, Oak Park Struggle to Keep Racial Balance The white residents of Ridgeland Avenue knew about Sherlynn D. Reid long before she arrived in Oak Park in the summer of 1968. Reid, her husband and three young children were the first African American family to get a mortgage from a local bank after the west suburban village passed a fair housing ordinance earlier that year. Visions of diversity in Evanston and Oak Park: Children from... > Read More	August, 2007 Federal Program Shift Puts Dent in Fight Against Infant Mortality In 1996, Tonia Williams was unemployed, with few prospects. Then she walked into the Winfield Moody Health Center and changed her life. Williams, 23, is a single mother raising five children in the Cabrini-Green housing development. She delivered two of them with help from the center's Healthy Start Initiative, a federally funded program geared to reduce infant mortality in the nation's highest... > Read More
August, 2007 Chicago Area Beefs Up Its Borders Not everyone flees when faced with racial or economic change, increased crime or infuriating traffic. There are those who stand their ground. They hunker down, fortress up or circle the wagons. To fight so-called urban problems, homeowners may erect a fence and high-rise dwellers station a doorman in the lobby. Neighborhoods and municipalities in the Chicago area have called upon... > Read More	December, 1969 Translators Still Scarce at Hospitals Despite a 1993 state law aimed at improving the care of non-English speaking patients at health care facilities, hospitals and clinics still aren't providing adequate services for these patients, The Chicago Reporter has found. Only six of 73 Cook County facilities responding to a recent survey by the Reporter employ staff interpreters. The Reporter first revealed the shortage of language... > Read More	August, 2007 Court Ruling Puts More Teeth in Public Housing Plan The Chicago Housing Authority's plan to rebuild public housing on the sites of its worst high-rises may not go far enough to end racial and economic segregation, a federal judge has ruled. On Feb. 23, U.S. District Judge Marvin E. Aspen ordered the CHA to build half of its replacement public housing outside of depressed black neighborhoods as a way of reversing years of discrimination.... > Read More