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Troubling Development Update

by  Assistant Editor

Dearborn Homes; New Crack City?
Dearborn Homes are becoming like New Jack City,” said Joyce Van Allen, a long time resident of the development, in an interview in January, 2006.

“More like New Crack City,” Louisa Samuel, a relocated resident from Robert Taylor, said as she was visiting Van Allen’s apartment from next door. The residents reported a decrease in violent crime and an increased police presence but complained about a sharp rise in the drug dealing taking place on the property.

“Last year, we had no protection down here,” Van Allen told RJ, “but this year the police presence has increased.”
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“Deadly Moves” – an update

by  

The city, its police department and the Chicago Housing Authority recently proposed to increase police patrols at several public housing sites and in areas where residents have been relocated.

This announcement came after publication of “Deadly Moves,” a series of articles produced this September by Residents’ Journal and the Chicago Reporter investigative magazine on the increased murder rate in and around CHA communities since October 1999. “Deadly Moves” reported that the murder rate in CHA developments nearly doubled since the start of the Plan for Transformation, CHA’s $1.6 billion redevelopment effort.
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Deadly Moves: Lack of Force

by  and Brian J. Rogal

When Francine Washington noticed hordes of police officers outside U.S.

Cellular Field this spring, she walked toward the ballpark and counted them. The stadium, home of the Chicago White Sox, sits about three blocks west of the Stateway Gardens public housing development where she lives with her husband of 23 years.

For years, Francine Washington complained about open drug dealing in the first-floor lobby of the Stateway Garden high-rise where she lives. Only recently have routine police patrols in the building slowed the drug activity.
Photo by Mary Hanlon

“I went out there twice. The first time I counted 105 police officers out there. The next time I counted 107 officers,” said Washington, president of Stateway’s local advisory council, an elected tenant body.
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Categories: Investigative Reporting Uncategorized