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Residents’ Journal Reporters talking about Current Youth Articles

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Click on the image to view the fourth episode of this season’s “RJ TV,” on August 1, 2011.

Watch Residents’ Journal’s reporter Quintana Woodridge talking with UYIJP student Tyreshia Black talking about her reports on the environment and a trip she took to the Shedd Aquarium this summer.

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Discussing the Oakwood Shores Mixed-Income Community

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Click on the image to view the third episode of this season’s “RJ TV,” on July 25, 2011.

Watch Residents’ Journal’s reporter Quintana Woodridge talking to Pilar McKinney, director of community life at Oakwood Shores, about programs and opportunities for public housing tenants in that Chicago Housing Authority mixed-income community..

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CHA Launches Initiative to House Women Ex-Offenders

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Ex-offenders rights advocate Willie J.R. Fleming commends CHA Board members during a recent meeting to discuss creating housijg for women ex-offenders. Photo by Mary C. Piemonte.

Women ex-offenders who formally lived in Chicago public housing will get a second chance to get supportive housing under a plan announced this week by the Chicago Housing Authority Board of Commissioners.

At their Aug. 16 public meeting at the Savoy Square Community Center, 4448 S. State St., the CHA Board authorized interim Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ponce to contract with the Viceroy Apartments on the Near West Side to set aside 17 units of subsidized housing for formerly incarcerated women who once lived in public housing.

The Viceroy Apartments is a six-story brick hotel that was constructed in the 1920s and is located at 1519 W. Warren Blvd. Heartland Housing is redeveloping the structure to include historic preservation of the façade and a total rehab of the interior and its 89 studio apartments, according to an Aug. 10 letter from CHA staff to the board that was e-mailed to Residents’ Journal. The letter indicates that 72 units in the building will for homeless women or those at risk of being homeless. The CHA waiting list will be the primary source of referrals for these 72 units. The remaining 17 units will be master-leased to St. Leonard’s Ministries to provide permanent supportive housing to women ex-offenders. The City of Chicago is donating the property, while Low Income Housing Tax Credits, Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) funds and other sources will be used to complete the rehab. Rent will be set at approximately $685 per month.

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Commissioner Fails to Show at Mental Health Town Hall Meeting

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Community activist Lonnie Richardson discusses the need for mental health services for young people at a town hall on Aug. 5. Photo by Mary C. Piemonte.

Dozens of people concerned with the state of the city’s mental health services, who packed a community meeting this week, were disappointed when the city public health commissioner did not show up.

N’Dana Carter, a member of the Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) community human rights organization, who was moderating the event at Mercy Hospital’s Joyce Auditorium, 2525 S. Michigan Ave., on the evening of August 5 told the audience that Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Bechara Choucair called and cancelled two hours before the meeting began.

“Our fearless leader Dr. Choucair…called at 3:30 p.m. to cancel. He will not be here,” declared Carter, a consumer at the Greater Grand/Mid-South Mental Health facility at 4314 S. Cottage Grove.

“Dr. Choucair didn’t make the meeting tonight, because he felt that we were going to ambush him. And he was afraid. He was afraid because the citizens of the city of Chicago and our visitors want the mental health clinics, and they don’t want privatization of any of the health clinics,” she added.

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Mayor Continues Search for New CHA Head

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Tenants from the Julia C. Lathrop Homes public housing complex on the North Side object to CHA's plans for their development during a recent CHA Board meeting in March. The new CHA CEO will have to decide Lathrop Homes' future. Photo by Mary C. Piemonte

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is still searching for the right person to head the Chicago Housing Authority.

Previous CHA CEO Lewis Jordan resigned his position two months ago after questions were raised about his and other CHA employees’ use of government-issued credit cards.

Former CHA board member Carlos Ponce is serving as interim CEO and overseeing the controversial effort to demolish or rehab all of its family and senior housing stock that officially began in January 2000.

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Residents’ Journal Publisher on WBEZ

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Earlier today, We The People Media Executive Director Ethan Michaeli, who is also the publisher of the Residents’ Journal, was on Chicago Public Radio’s “848”program discussing new Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s vision – or lack thereof – for the always-turbulent Chicago Housing Authority. You can listen to that segment by clicking here: “Chicago Housing Authority residents await permanent leadership.”

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Remembering Ms. Amey

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CHA Board Commissioner and tenant Hallie Amey (center) with former Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd Ward, from left), Cook County Commissioner John Daley and former CHA CEO Terry Peterson during a street naming ceremony in her honor on January 23, 2004. Residents' Journal archive photo by Mary C. Piemonte.

Longtime public housing advocate Hallie Amey, 89, died Tuesday, July 19, 2011 from a long illness. Amey was first appointed a commissioner to the Chicago Housing Authority on July 7, 1999, by former Mayor Richard M. Daley.

She was reappointed by Daley on July 22, 2009. Amey, who was the president of the CHA Wentworth Gardens Resident Management Corporation, was also the secretary of the tenants’ Local Advisory Council at the South Side public housing development near U.S. Cellular Field.

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USDA Contest to Celebrate Success in the Summer Food Service Program

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The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), which oversees the administration of 15 nutrition assistance programs, including the child nutrition programs, launched a photo contest today “to look for and promote best practices in the Summer Food Service Program,” which provides free, healthy meals to children 18 years old and younger in low-income areas during the summer months.

The “Food, Fun and Sun” program story and photo contest is open to sponsors and sites participating in the Summer Food Service Program.

For more details about the Food, Fun and Sun! Summer Food Service Program Story and Photo Contest, including submission guidelines and contest rules, visit the competition webpage at http://challenge.gov/USDA/195-food-fun-and-sun-story-and-photo-challenge.

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Residents’ Journal Editor-in-chief talking about Summer Youth Employment

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Click on the image to view the second episode of this season’s “RJ TV,” on July 18, 2011.

Watch Residents’ Journal‘s Editor-in-chief Mary C. Piemonte, talking to Jitsu Brown, the education organizer from the Kenwood/Oakland Community Organization, about his group’s efforts to get Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to fund an Community Youth Investment Act, he signed into law last year, to employ youth throughout the City of Chicago this year.

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Residents’ Journal Publisher talking about an Environmental Project for Youth

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Click on the image to view the first episode of this season’s “RJ TV,” on July 11, 2011.

Watch Residents’ Journal‘s Publisher Ethan Michaeli talking to our Urban Youth International Journalism Youth Program Coordinator Quintana Woodridge about our teen reporters’ participation in the environmental project funded by the McCormick Foundation.

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