Empty Schools, Empty Promises
Interactive map: Closed schools still burden distressed Chicago neighborhoods
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Black neighborhoods with a legacy of disinvestment and segregation struggle to repurpose shuttered schools.
Education
Cutting benefits program for low-income families could cost CPS millions
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The cash-strapped school district eliminated a unit that helped eligible families sign up for public benefits. Now it could lose millions of dollars in state poverty grants, while thousands of children go without food and health insurance.
Employment and Labor
Reverse commute is a long haul on public transit
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As manufacturing and other jobs decline in the city, Chicagoans who depend on public transportation struggle to commute to the suburbs for work.
Race and Culture
In Kenwood, black picket fences
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Black middle-class families are drawn to South Side neighborhoods like Kenwood, but the city’s long history of segregation casts a shadow on their quality of life.
Education
Mix-up in poverty counts puts school budgets in jeopardy
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District officials are warning principals that their schools may lose poverty dollars due to an inexplicable undercount of low-income students this year.
Gallery
A community out in the cold
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Even during the winter, home for some Chicagoans is a viaduct or a park bench.
Criminal Justice
A community solution to cash bail
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Low-income people frequently have to stay in jail because they can’t afford to post bond. A new organization in Chicago wants to help change that.
Gallery
Jobless in Chicago’s financial district
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The city’s unemployed can be seen throughout Chicago’s downtown, but in many ways, they are invisible.
Housing
Affordability ordinance could ease Chicago’s housing segregation
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The Affordable Requirements Ordinance, ARO, forces developers to create more affordable housing and pay more into a city fund for the housing.
Poverty
Black Chicagoans most likely to live in deep poverty
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Seven Chicago communities, all of them predominately black, have the highest percentage of residents living in deep poverty.