When Tarik Cohen visited participants in READI Chicago’s program in April, he felt an instant familiarity with the men he met.
The men told Cohen about the issues they faced in Chicago, their recruitment into the READI program, and their reasons for meeting at a Catholic Church in North Lawndale.
In partnership with Related Midwest, Heartland Alliance and the Chicago Housing Authority, Bickerdike is involved in a complete renovation that will turn Lathrop into a mixed-income complex of 1,116 units, 44% percent market rate and the rest either public housing or units at below-market rents for those who fall under an income cap.
The last 10 years of Chicago news—and especially nationally—have been less than stellar. Our city’s positive attributes took a backseat to subzero temperatures, police brutality and gun violence, the latter of which earned a national stage when then-GOP candidate Donald Trump mentioned Chicago more than four dozen times during his campaign for president.
A group of men from Chicago’s Austin neighborhood have found a brotherhood in an unlikely situation. Five times a week men from READI Chicago, a Heartland Alliance program, clean up parks around the Chicagoland area. For 32-year-old Scottie Brown, this simple act keeps him away from the dangerous life he used to live.
READI Chicago finds young men likely to be involved in violence, gets them therapy, a job, and a pathway to a real future. It’s hard work. It’s expensive. And it’s effective. Eddie Bocanegra is senior director of READI Chicago at the Heartland Alliance. He joins the podcast this week to explain the program and help us understand the challenges these young men face.
Focusing on disconnected youth who may or may not be in the criminal justice system is an important complement to what violence prevention groups like ours do, which is to focus on the young people most at risk of shooting or being shot. Disconnected youth in Chicago need relationships with caring adults, a path into the legal economy and a feeling of safety in their community. They need to have a stake in Chicago’s future.
A coalition of organizations working to prevent gun violence has challenged themselves and the larger Chicago community to reduce gun violence by at least 20 percent this year, towards an eventual goal of getting Chicago’s homicide rate much closer to Los Angeles and New York City.
Several community groups on Tuesday announced a goal of reducing gun violence by 20 percent in Chicago this year. Though gun violence is worse in some areas of the city than others, they said it is important for all Chicagoans to care about solving the problem.
A coalition of community groups are joining forces to come up with a plan to keep the peace on the streets. A firm that did a survey for the group says 15 Chicago communities experience gun violence daily, and the cost of policing health care and prosecution of those crimes add up to an estimated $3.5 billion a year.
Since her son’s murder in 2017, Bertha Purnell has worked to help other mothers suffering the same tragedy. And she’s made it her mission to try and prevent gun violence in her neighborhood of Austin on Chicago’s West Side.
