Tenants in Woodlawn are Resisting Removal. So Can the Rest of Us.
Dip discusses recent tenant movement developments in the area near the soon-to-open Obama Center in Chicago.
Tenants at Chaney Braggs Apartments in Woodlawn, Chicago held a news conference to launch their union on March 5th. It followed some of them being offered $2,000 to leave.
This is happening in the shadow of the Obama Presidential Center, set to open on Juneteenth (blegh).
Photo by Paul Blenkhorn on Unsplash
What’s causing problems: Residents pointed out that buyers from California plan to give the building a “gut-rehab,” increasing the rent, which would invariably displace folks. The building has been neglected for years, landing on a list of landlords who haven’t addressed building code violations. This puts the building in company with the 75th street/South Shore building that was subject to a major ICE operation.
- Backstory: From “slum clearing” in 1950s Bronzeville, to UChicago gobbling up space in Woodlawn, these “revitalization” projects are just kicking out folks so that richer ones can take their place.
- Repair in these contexts is often the first salvo of removal. Purposefully abandoned areas–especially places that have been redlined–can be returned to with a “benevolent eye” and receive investment. This makes a place attractive and creates good PR, which feeds into the kinds of displacement that it was supposed to fight.
- As market-rate housing–even if it’s “affordable”–prices folks out (especially when taken under new ownership to make a profit), the need to move beyond “yes” or “no” to constructing new units becomes clear. A potential move forward exists in “Social Housing”; capping the rent based on income (moving away from private interests) while discouraging segregation (moving away from public–a.k.a., state managed–interests).
- Many of these problems come from a lack of tenant power. Community organizations like Woodlawn Housing Preservation Ordinance exist, but have not been able to stem the dollar tide.
The fight back: The newly-minted tenant union is working with Southside Together Organizing for Power. Their demand is straightforward enough: they want to stay, and they want affordable rent.
The potential: Refusing displacement and improvement as gentrification is a powerful seed. It, if it’s well-taken care of, can grow into autonomy and self-determination, inspiring people across Chicago and beyond.
The plan: Tenant power can be built in a model broadly following the Jackson-Kush Plan, with some inspiration from the article Contra Contra.
- Turn yards into farms: Yards, church lots, and squares of green can be mapped for the sake of small-scale growing, like in Stone Temple, the Chicago Bungalow Association, and plots accessible with things like the Urban Agriculture Land Access program. The pitch is this: people who own land but can’t/won’t work it link up with people who want to use it to produce food. A food co-op/coalition can be built or plugged into, and tenants can use that to support each other and build food security.
- Turn garages into factories: If folks have car sheds, basements, shared spaces, or… garages, they could make them into workshops. These spaces could be filled with tools for sewing, mending, threading, and repair, alongside exploring 3D printing for needs left unfulfilled by traditional crafts. These could be linked up with and act as makerspaces and tool libraries, building up a library economy.
- Own land in common: Tenant unions can be a bottom-up anchor for managing housing, ensuring that eviction becomes an impossibility. Running a community land trust and demanding the conversion of housing into cooperatives will ensure long-term affordability.
- Assemblies on every block, neighborhood, side, city: Unions should work with the neighborhood, connecting with nearby unions and creating deliberative spaces as alternatives to public meetings. The people should set the agenda, rather than be told what’s happening. Demands, defense, and campaigns can be coordinated here. This is what starts to create the rebel cities that are able to stand up to oppression, authoritarianism, and fascism, while allowing the people to live well.
Neighborhoods survive–and thrive–by ensuring that they do, through their own efforts. No masters, no landlords; free the land!
