In this news video, three of the four candidates who participated in the Chicago Mayoral Forum on Education at Walter Payton College Prep High School on December 15, 2010, talked to Residents’ Journal after the event about their plans for public housing, if elected next year. Pastor and state Sen. James Meeks said, “We need to make them better.”

Former Ambassador and US Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun said, “I believe we should stop tearing them down,” and cited the still-standing Lathrop Homes development on the North Side as an example of a development that should be made into environmentally sound, “green” housing.

“We can provide both public housing and public safety without running (residents) out to the suburbs or forcing them to go hunting for someplace to live,” Moseley-Braun said.

City Clerk Miguel Del Valle said, “We need more affordable housing in Chicago.” Del Valle emphasized that the Chicago Housing Authority’s current plans to redevelop Lathrop Homes do not provide enough affordable housing. “The foreclosure crisis has hit us very hard.”

The future of Chicago’s public housing will continue to be in front of the mayoral candidates all through the election.

The National Public Housing Museum recently announced that in January, they are inviting the mayoral candidates to participate in a “Conversation on Public Housing in Chicago.”

The discussion will take place January 11 from 5 pm to 7 pm at the Chicago Cultural Center. Public housing residents and media figures will have the opportunity to question each of the candidates to learn how they will “ensure public housing to be a significant part of their agenda,” if elected.

In a press release, National Public Housing Museum Executive Director Keith L. Magee stated, “It is essential for the residents of Chicago to know exactly how the incoming Mayor will handle this delicate and important topic.”

We The People Media/Residents’ Journal staff regularly appear on the programs of other news organizations, providing our unique perspective on Chicago’s vibrant political scene, the future of poverty policy and progress of efforts to recreate public housing as mixed-income communities. Here are links to three recent print and radio reports in which Residents’ Journal’s staff were quoted:

Listen to Editor-in-Chief Mary C. Johns on National Public Radio’s “Here and Now” program about the past and future of public housing: http://www.hereandnow.org/2010/12/16/cabrini-green

Read Mary’s comments on the end of the North Side’s Cabrini-Green development in this story from the Associated Press:

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/01/chicago-closes-infamous-public-housing-complex/

Listen to Publisher Ethan Michaeli talk about Rahm Emmanuel and the campaign to become Chicago’s new mayor on WBEZ Public Radio’s weekly political roundtable,
“The Best Game in Town”: http://www.wbez.org/blog/best-game-town/best-game-town-14-rahms-residency-burris-bid-and-big-issues-race-mayor

Check out these appearances in other media, and make sure to look below for the articles and videos from our own national-award-winning adult reporters as well as our youth reporters.

In this holiday season, please don’t forget that your support will help us ensure that these important voices remains a part of our national conversation. Please click the “Support” tab and check out our new e-commerce service to make a donation. Remember that We The People Media/Residents’ Journal is a registered 501 c3 organization and all donations are tax-deductible. Any size donation is appreciated, but $100 or more will be especially helpful to our work.

Residents’ Journal’s live coverage of former U. S. Ambassador to New Zealand, and U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun’s, supporters’ breakfast media briefing at Pearls Place on December 16, 2010, on issues concerning low-income people across the city as well as other matters of governance in her bid to be the next Mayor of the city of Chicago in 2011.

Since Mayor Richard M. Daley took over the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), thousands of elementary students have failed under a policy which is proven failure, according to members of the Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE), parents of retained students, as well as their advocates from the Chicago Teachers’ Union and other groups.

They say “The policy has resulted in systemic violations of the civil rights of African-American and Latino students.”

So, they filed a discrimination complaint against CPS for their promotion policy on Dec. 8, asking the U. S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for relief on behalf of their affected children.

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Tjuanne Pitchford, 36, one of the last of the two remaining families at the historical Cabrini–Green public housing site, packed his and his brother’s belongings and moved out of the last high rise building on December 7, 2010.

He is temporarily moving into the Francis Cabrini Rowhouses nearby, waiting for his Section 8 Housing Voucher to come through.

Cabrini-Green resident, Tjuanne Pitchford, one of the two last families living at the 1230 N. Burling St. CHA high-rise building, was in the process of moving out to temporarily live in the Cabrini Rowhouses on December 7, 2010. Photo by Mary C. Johns

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