Run Helen Run!

Shiller has done nothing for Uptown since being elected in 1987. Just look at her Ward and compare it to the ones next to it. Why is Uptown so damn run down. Take other areas of the city and look at them 5 years ago and where they are now such as Wicker Park/Bucktown.

She stnads for and supports the lowest of the low drug dealers and homeless people.

Besides being an Alderman should not be a life time job. I say get ride of all these long term Alderman. Maybe they should get a real job like the rest of us.

The "petty issue" is prettiness of the neighborhood? Hardly. The "petty issue" is having the main thoroughfairs of Broadway and Sheridan between Montrose and Foster filled with potentially dangerous, and certainly distruptive and rude, derelicts. Not to mention the shootings and muggings. Just a couple months ago, a man was shot in the parking lot of the Harris Bank directly across from Shiller's office! And a year or two ago, a man was shot and killed, for no reason, while walking down Leland.

Where would you "send the homeless and drug addicted"?? I'm not sure, but I can't imagine that sending homeless, drug addicted people to a neighborhood already full of them is exactly the most nurturing social environment to fix their problems.

Have you spent any time in Uptown, Kevin? I live there. And it is indeed diverse, and has many great things going for it. But it's also full of problems, and when there's an Alderman who seems chiefly interested in stonewalling the vocal members of the community while pandering to her "base" of shelter voters, the only logical solution is to vote in a new person.

One of the problems with Shiller is that she is a crook and a liar and does nothing to improve her ward (OK that is 3 things.) she has been known (and this has been documented) to bus in homeless people from other parts of the city on election day and have them vote for her to stay re-elected. This technically isn't illegal because since they are homeless they don't have a residence and therefore could be residents of her ward. They really need to get this crazy woman out of office.

Uh, the poor guy shot on Leland happened in RAVENSWOOD, not Uptown. Unless Leland & Damen is Uptown and no one told me.

I admire Schiller for standing up for the crazies. Don't blame her for it. Blame the federal government for closing down all the mental insituttions and dumping people in one neighborhood in the 80's. We need better social services, not just moving the crazies around. God forbid we try to solve the problem rather than bitch about the inconvienience.

Wicker Park is not an ideal neighborhood. I can't afford Wicker Park. I can afford Uptown & Ravenswood. There is something so lovely about living in a mixed income urban environment where everyone has a chance. Even the crazies. I'm sorry if it's bad for your property values.

Pity the new Uptown condo owners.

They moved in, but the mentally ill and poor have yet to move out.

Life is so unfair.

Don't worry, though: Soon enough, probably within a generation, Chicago will no longer be the last great affordable big city in America.

Schiller, though, is far from the maverick she once was, not when she started voting with the Daley camp.

~Those gay yuppies hate Schiller because the poor annoy them~, says Garcia isn't exactly being fair to the Shiller haters.

They may be jerks, but shouldn't we quote them directly, or does quoting their enemies just make it easier for Kevin to trowel on his opinions?

Oh, yeah, I always get Uptown confused with Mayberry.

>

If you don't mind sending your kid to a school where over half the kids are homeless and over 95% of them live in poverty; if you don't mind sending your kids to school in a neighborhood where there have been seven, count 'em, seven major drug operations busted in the past year, most of them operating within a block of a school; if you don't mind going to a Mickey D's where a 17-year-old kid was shot a couple weeks ago at the freaking DRIVE-THRU... sure, it's a great place to raise a family.

>

How about spread among all the communities in Chicago, equitably? How about getting them into a system of care rather than sleeping in the park in January? Or staying in a shelter, being released into the community at 6.a.m. with nothing to do except sit at bus stops and in alleys, waiting to line up again at 4.p.m. to get a bed for the next night?

Uptown's been a bandaid for Chicago's very real, and chronic, problem of homelessness. And Shiller's been welcoming it with open arms for far too long. Dumping the North Side's homeless into one ward and pretending they're not there isn't a viable solution, not for Uptown and certainly not for the homeless.

I can walk outside my front door and be within a mile of 20 shelters. Tell that to the folks in Lincoln Park who are trying to get the one (well-run) shelter in their neighborhood closed.

My family's been living up Uptown since the 1950s. It's home. We love it. Got nuttin' to do with property values, but with community values.

Look at the neighborhoods surrounding us -- Lakeview, Andersonville, Ravenswood. Great community spirit, funky and fun shopping, all sorts of restaurants, pedestrian-friendly, lots of locally-owned stores, well-maintained and pretty homes. Then look at Uptown (hint, none of the above). Why the difference in circumstances between Uptown and the rest of the area? I can only conclude it's the alderman and her resistance to change, her warped version of 1960s idealism, and her antipathy towards new businesses and any homeowner who isn't subsidized.

By the way, if you're thinking Shiller's just regular folks, think again. She makes a hundred grand a year, lives in a three-flat that her boyfriend bought for her in ANDERSONVILLE (even she doesn't want to live in Uptown), and has a son who has enough money lying around that he can spend ten grand just to enter a poker tournament. Nothing wrong with any of that, of course, but if you're looking for a Working Class Hero(tm) to embrace, you might want to look elsewhere.

Irish Pirate's "Lincoln Park" comment is tongue in cheek, playing on a snide and divisive remark Helen Shiller made a couple years ago that some of her constituents who oppose her awful Wilson Yard plan might be "happier in Lincoln Park."

Cappleman represents a hell of a lot more people than gay white males. The author of this article reduces him to the role of Gay White Rich Guy Agenda Pawn and has lazily simplified this issue. Trotting out all the stereotypes ... the Shiller constituents are "families" or are "down on their luck" while the Capplemen supporters are all rich, white and gay. This is very similar to Shiller's tactics of pitting people against each other, dividing them. Nice. Cappleman's rhetoric has mostly been about bringing people together. The author even tries to criticize Cappleman for (good God, say it isn't so!) attempting to raise money in a political campaign! How dare he do that in attempting to unseat a 20-year incumbent with support from Daley's goons! Many of the people who support Cappleman also supported Sandra Reed years ago. This article is liberal college student 101, unresearched and not based on reality.

My friend (the guy shot and killed on Leland who people are using as fooder in this debate) did indeed lose his life in Ravenswood. Right by Quiznos. But the guys who shot him weren't his nextdoor neighbors. Sadly, police detectives told me that the shooters (who jumped in a car they had parked in the alley) "probably came from Uptown or Rogers Park."

It's funny, quite a few of the anti-Shiller people who post on Buena Park Neighbors are liberal and involved in social work. They belong to their block clubs and they attend CAPS meetings. How many of you who are criticizing them do? Shiller's people have purposefully disrupted CAPS meetings in the past and have said it's a program against the poor. I take CAPS and my block club seriously. Do you, or do you just prefer to barstool pontificate?

Sure there are some people who (gasp!) would like a return on their housing investment (how dare they!) but most simply disagree with Helen's (and the mayor's) quest to house as many poor and mentally ill people as possible in their (that's right, it's theirs too) Ward.

after reading mike's post.. i could still swear i read about a shooting (or two!) that happened on malden around leland.

There was a shooting at leland & malden, although it wasn't the same as the killing I mentioned. My mistake. But I pay keen attention to it, since I live a block away from there, and feel that Leland is actually one of the "safe" streets.

Not that I have felt threatened in Uptown, I think being a well-built white guy helps with that, but my female friends are always pretty intimidated walking through the neighborhood alone.

Kevin, I'd suggest that you drop the "gay" angle of your argument for Shiller and pay attention to the actual problems instead. It's focusing on a hotbutton, potential 'easy target' rather than the actual issues at hand.

I have lived in Uptown for almost two years. Sure, one could call me a "yuppie" for buying a condo in a rehabbed building, but I do like the diversity of Uptown. Is there anything wrong with a neighborhood encouraging investment and redevelopment of run-down properties?

Since I've lived in Uptown, I have tried to work with Alderman Shiller's office to improve the neighborhood. Here are a couple of examples of her incompetence:

-When a resident in my building called her office to ask what we could to do eliminate drug dealing around our building, her response was "plant flowers since pretty neighborhood deter crime."

-When there was a gang shooting in front of her office, her office gave no comment. In contrast, the Alderman in Logan Square called a community meeting when there was one random murder. Alderman Shiller does NOT believe crime is a problem in Uptown.

Any Alderman that goes against the recommendation of every block club that surrounds a major parcel for development (i.e. Wilson Yards) and doesn't explain her reasoning doesn't represent her people.

Many people will say "look at all the progress in Uptown with Borders and Agami Sushi." Guess what? The "nice" strech of Broadway is not in Shiller's ward - it is part of Mary Ann Smith's ward (48).

There are a lot of people who want to see Uptown improve so that families feel safe living here. Shiller isn't the person to accomplish this goal.

It's simply not a question about how upscale anyone might want the 46th Ward to be. If you are going to make it a war between the "have's" and "have-not's", then you missed the whole point.

The 46th Ward needs an alderman who can stop the polarizing and who has the ability to unite rather than divide the community. It doesn't matter what one's economic background or race may be, we all want a safe community that's more pedistrian friendly and has more diverse shopping opportunities. The poor deserve the same standards for new affordable housing as is done throughout the rest of the City. Our area should not be exempt from these same standards. It should be a no-brainer that the housing within the Wilson Yard should be mixed-income, as promised.

Ald. Shiller has proven many times over during her 20 years in office that she's not capable of leading a diverse group of residents. Many of the wards everywhere have gone through all types of changes in the last 10 years, but no where have I ever witnessed such polarization as I have in the 46th Ward. Ald. Shiller adds to the polarization. Get her out!

...this is from an old post of mine:

I guess I see the displacement element as being a function of the rule of suck.

Certain places are more affordable because, well... they suck. The general rule of thumb is that the purchase or rental price of real estate is, in large part, commensurate with the overall suck level of the immediate surroundings; hence, people with lower incomes will generally gravitate toward suckier areas where landlords can only reasonably recoup sucky rent on their investment in order to fill their vacancies. Traditionally, I'd guess that Rogers Parks sucks more than Uptown which sucks more than Lakeview which sucks more than Lincoln Park which sucks for entirely different reasons - but that's my own bias speaking. Over time, however, the relative suck level in a given community can change when the price of rent & real estate in surrounding non-sucky areas exceeds affordability such that the suckiness of an area is usurped by the suckiness associated w/ the financial strain of trying to buy or rent in non-sucky areas. Although those migrating from non-sucky areas to more affordable sucky locations generally refer to this process as "moving", they are often labeled as "gentrifiers"; even though they themselves could just as easily lay claim to having been "gentrified" from their former non-sucky areas of residence. What exactly differentiates someone who is "moving" versus someone being "gentrified" under the same rule of market forces seems to be a function of that individual's race, political affiliation and/or socio-economic standing.

As people who were displaced from their non-sucky communities start to flow into these suckier areas, they bring a number of vitalizing elements; namely, less sucky income which brings more investment which attracts more businesses. Higher income people tend to be less likely to engage in criminal and/or socially distainful behavior as well. In general... they don't suck as much and as a result, the overall community tends to suck less; in fact, it may eventually not suck at all. Of course, with limited space & an influx of more affluent buyers/renters - those who had actually invested their money, such as homeowners & landlords, in this now less sucky area can either sell, rent or borrow against their property on a more lucrative scale... which brings us back to people with lower incomes - many of which may have resided in the sucky community for a long time. Basically, they now live in an area that doesn't suck nearly as much as it used to; and of course, they don't want to have to do as these gentrifiers did & move to another suckier area where rents are more affordable. So, how do they confront this challenge? In Uptown, it would seem the strategy has been to combine their voting power to keep an Alderwoman in office who, in exchange for their vote, will keep the area as sucky as possible for as long as possible so as not to attract those people & their elements which might make the area less sucky - and therefore less affordable. She will create as many roadblocks to development as possible such that potential investors will go elsewhere. In addition, she will work to create as much low-income housing as possible thru gov't subsidies & set asides, effectively enhancing the ghetto aspects of the community, which everyone knows - really sucks. This will be expanded to include a disproportionate number of homeless shelters, drug clinics & the like - which will keep her in office & make her feel like a hero to the poor under a well-oiled self perpetuating cycle of suck. Of course, as market forces continue to levy their weight - ultimately, both the Alderwoman and her constituencies may have to yield & move to wherever the suck level is more in line with their incomes. But for the time being, it would appear the focus these days weighs more heavily on creating more entrenched suck fortresses such as the proposed Wilson Yard plan. That's how I see it anyway.

Is it really the alderwoman's fault that "upscale people" do not want to live in uptown? Maybe it's just too damn far away from downtown? West/South Loop and Wicker Park have benefitted from 5 years of gentrification because of location, not because of their aldermen.

You have GOT to be kidding me!! As an Uptown resident I simply want to be HEARD.

This is not a gay-issue. This is not condo-owner issue.

Ald. Shiller has had 20 years to make the ward safer and she says CAPS is an "elitist organization". Ald. Shiller has had 10 years to remove the scar of the Wilson Yard fire and it's still a vacant lot. I could go on and on here...

Kevin, I appreciate you taking the time to report on the upcoming Ald. election in the 46th. Since you are a "political" reporter I'd also appreciate it if you researched your piece more thoroughly.

Posted by Sara:
"Even if you're homeless, you still have to register to vote from the address of a shelter, and you still have to do it within 30 days of an election, just like everybody else.

Where exactly has this offense been "documented'?"

http://what-the-helen.blogspot.com/
See the posting on how many registered voters are at Currency Exchanges and non-existent addresses. Pretty fishy, eh?

NSH,

aldermen can play a role in improving a neighborhood. Look at the retail available in the 44th, 47th, and 48th Wards....all bordering the 46th Ward. Sometimes right down the street you will see decent retail then you walk into the 46th ward and you get "Smoke Shops" and either vacant or underutilized storefronts.

Southport became part of the 44th Ward after the 1990 redistricting. Before than it was in the 46th Ward. Notice when Southport started to improve? 1992.

Here is a link to a ward map. http://www.chicityclerk.com/citycouncil/alderman/newmaps/46.jpg

Notice how a big hunk is cut out of the 46th Ward from about 4700-5200 north bordering Broadway?

The reason for that is Daley did not want Helen Shiller to keep that area down....literally. Under Mary Ann Smiths reign in the 48th Ward that area has become and is becoming an entertainment and retail district.

NSH, you seem to have good insight into 19th Ward politics and social issues, but you are way off base on Uptown.

Uptown has seen tremendous improvement in spite of having a horrible alderman. With a good alderman the pace of improvement will continue.

Uptown is not much further away from downtown than Wicker Park and has the advantage of the lake.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH

Kevin, try for a second to escape from your short-term college student fantasy world, and take a look at the long-term reality of living in Uptown. Yes, homeowners do have a greater financial stake in the community--so who can blame them for getting frustrated with an Alderman who seriously hampers crime-fighting efforts and defends less-dangersous-but-still-annoying antisocial behavior like public drinking/drug use, littering and using the neighborhood as a toilet? Would you want to raise your family in such an atmosphere--regardless of whether you were rich or poor? Why should poor residents deserve anything less than middle-class residents?

Why should poor residents deserve anything less than middle-class residents?

That’s nothing but self-serving crap, chanted by ambivalent liberals ad infinitum, like some perpetual act of contrition, to assuage the guilt of being happy when a new store opens or the next apartment goes condo (or after a paragraph describing all the awful things a nice, middle class family has to witnesss that the poorest have been experiencing forever.)

As Funpants has so loquaciously illustrated, and like the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois, and our federal government has aptly proved, we live in a “pay to play” world, now more than ever before. Despite any big, fat tears for the poor, everyone knows that if you can’t pay to play - and it doesn't matter if it's a fat campaign contribution in exchange for that sweet, no-bid contract, or next month's rent - then you need to kindly get the hell out of the way for those of us who can.

Shiller is just an old school idealist, obsolete.

My comment had nothing to do with gentrification or new stores opening up... And I'm not ambivalent at all when I say Helen must go. I made the comment about living in a filthy crime-infested neighborhood because I honestly believe that these are issues that poor and well-to-do families both want fixed... And Helen Shiller has done everything she can to keep the neighborhood seedy to ward off development. No, poor families aren't dining at Agami Sushi or having Tea at Unique So Chique... But do you honestly believe that we should just write off poor areas of the city and hold them to a lower standard when it comes to tolerating crime and depravity? Give me a break!

Jocelyn,

Not everyone who posted bad mouthed their fellow human beings......well except for Helen Shiller.......most of us badmouthed her.

Her opponent, James Cappleman, is a social worker who has worked with the mentally ill and aids patients.

Don't categorize everyone who opposes Shiller......when you do you are doing a similar thing that the poster you berated was doing.

I personally don't have a problem with well run social service agencies. I understand that there are folks out there with mental health issues and substance abuse issues. Encyclopedias could be written on the amount of alcoholism in my family.

Helen Shiller is not pro poor folks.......she is pro poverty. It works to her advantage. She gets to live in her nice 3 flat at the edge of the ward and assuage her liberal guilt by pretending that stacking poor folks on top of one another is good public policy.

She gets to bad mouth the police, who are imperfect and sometimes corrupt, when they try to fight crime. Her lawyer son represents ward businesses before the city and she gets to call herself a reformer.

She is a corrupt hack. So I am bad mouthing her. Some of her supporters are good and decent folks. Some are nothing more than "poverty pimps" who benefit from the plight of the poor.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH

ARRRRRRRRGH

Generally speaking, I don't like to bash "college kids" too much for speaking their minds - even when I don't agree with them. But I DO tend to point out that their views & social theory are not quite as innovative as they might think. On paper and certainly w/in the microcosm of academia, communism & socialism seem altogether kind... it's when put to the test on the playing field of reality that they quickly lose their luster - and isn't that precisely what happens after college life? Let's face it, there isn't a person around 10 years out from school who doesn't at least smirk at all those things they "thought were true" back in the day.

That being said, it's not just college kids who hold these views. I think most socialists or even communists DO have the goal of improving lives - especially for the lower economic brackets of society - of course, whether or not their methods actually work to that end in the long term is another matter - and I think history provides pretty compelling evidence on that topic... So I suppose it's inconsequential whether or not Shiller's motives are altruistic or otherwise because either way... the effect is the same & I certainly don't expect to make any converts across the lines. One need only look to France to see that even when the toll of socialism is staring them in the face in the form of harsh unemployment, societal upheaval & economic despair - they still can't bring themselves let go of their gov't entitlements - even to save themselves... so I hardly expect Shiller's constituency to look beyond the fact that she will get them free or subsidized rent no matter HOW much sense any opposing views might make in the broader context...

So it seems more than evident that Shiller's platform involves garnering votes by way of offering subsidized living to low-income residents in exchange for their support. While I can certainly appreciate programs & services that battle poverty... it seems to me that Shiller's main goal is simply maintaining her voter base, even if that means perpetuating a cycle of concentrated & stagnated poverty. Growth, development, safety, education, jobs & basically the fundamentals of economics seem to have been thrown out the window in favor of some kind of social state that IMO only "helps the poor" stay poor. What's more, she doesn't seem to make any bones about what she thinks of people who worked hard, followed the rules, paid their taxes, and after many years invested in property. For whatever good intentions may exist, just imagine what our country would look like if Shiller's policies were expanded throughout the nation. Ultimately, in the long run, such class warfare touted by proponents of the welfare state only benefits those in charge of the state - that much has been shown time & time again throughout history...

So what exactly does this mean - that there should be no "affluent" areas? or for that matter, poor areas? That exactly WHERE people live shouldn't have anything to do with what their income dictates? That the local gov't should step in and re-allocate public funds to maintain by way of subsidies who lives in what areas so as to counteract the market forces which place certain value on certain areas?

So let's say that geographically, UPTOWN is a preferred local... I mean, it's close to the lake - it's got plenty of public transportation, it's not too far from downtown... all very good right? So what exactly entitles poor people to live there? Because thru subsidies and other gov't actions they've been allotted certain "grants"? OK... I can accept that... but honestly, why shouldn't THEY have to face the same market forces everyone ELSE has to face? I used to live in Lincoln Park - then Lakeview - and now here... and it never even OCCURRED to me that I had some almighty RIGHT to live in prime real estate areas by virtue of nothing more than whatever my alderman said was so...

OK, now before you call me some insensitive conservative - Let's all agree that for the underachievers of society, we need to help them out a bit... fine, I'm fine with that.... let's teach them not to do whatever it IS that they're doing that makes their lives so miserable... ok.... so why are they entitled to lake front property? Because they've "been here" so long??? Heck, I've moved from all KINDS of places - I don't think I own the place unless of course I actually OWN it... we're not talking eminent domain. Anyway, when I was gentrified 3 times in the past - I moved to wherever it was that I could afford to live... and if I couldnt' hack it - I would have moved to some other city... that's the way it was for me... and I'm no trust fund kid trust me... SO, if GOD FORBID property values rise, why can't the poor move elsewhere like I had to do? There's plenty of affordable places in Rogers Park & other parts of the city... which is where I would have moved, had I not busted my ass to improve my situation such that I didn't HAVE to do that... Yes, there will always be poor people - but they CAN move from being poor to better off... hopefully and with some hard work... just like me. But exactly WHERE poor people live does change - after all, consider those many families whose incomes are above the subsidy threshold yet below the market due to contrained supply resulting from subsidies & set asides... THEY have to live elsewhere! And why? Because despite working hard, paying taxes, staying out of trouble & actually contributing to society - since they don't qualify for gov't freebees - they've simply got to go somewhere else that they can actually afford - so while we know who would be displaced under the anti-Shiller model and why... the question is, who is being displaced under Shiller's model and why?

I have compassion but there a lot of homeless and crazies in Uptown that aren't getting any kind of mental health or services because Shiller just let's them survive.

Bottom Line Shiller Sucks!!!!!!!!

Would tolerate the homesless and crazies a lot more with someone besides her.

She is a pos alderwomen.

Re: ThisMustBeAJoke

So, I read the post on the "what the helen" blog. So what if 21 voters are registered to a currency exchange in Uptown? Could it be that this currency exchange happens to be sypathetic to the homeless and willing to act as a place where their voting cards can be mailed to them? Why does that mean Shiller is bussing in homeless people from other wards to vote for her? This is all the proof there is for this claim? Everyone should be able to vote. It doesn't seem nefarious that homeless people in Uptown are voting as well.

What the hell. This thread is all about ME.

ME, ME ME.

Ok, maybe not.

Remember to register and vote........both in November and February 27th........or as I call it D-Day. Which is "d day Helen Shiller" goes back to being a photographer.

ARRRRRRRRGH

I just read this:

"Why should poor residents deserve anything less than middle-class residents?"

...well why should middle-class residents deserve any less than upper-class residents, or for that matter - why should poor residents deserve anything less than upper-class residents? Heck, why shouldn't I be allowed to live in a nice big city home on the gold coast at whatever rent I can reasonably afford?

Heeey, I got an idea - let's all pool our money & have the government doll it out equally so everybody's on the same footing... ya know, from each according to his ability - to each according to his need! It'll be a social utopia - the perfect community! Heck, let's call it communis.... uh - wait a minute - um, yeah... I think that one's been tried already - anyone know how well it worked?

idiots...

Funpants,

the comment referred to neighborhood safety and crime.

Which is something the alderbeast never touches.

Fighting crime is classist or racist or someother "ist" to her.

Lower income folks no more want to deal with crime than higher income folks.

Ever see the alderman issue a statment on the recent murders or shootings near her office?

Nope, that would be an "ist" of some type.

Did the alderman fight the police CAPS program. Yessum.

Did her son the lawyer sue the police department over a shooting where the police apparently didn't even fire their weapons. Yessum.

ARRRRRRRRRHG

Sara:

Watch for the coming systematic shift that will start in voter registration. Currency Exchanges, the flop houses, and even the thrift store just south of the Jewel on Broadway will show increases in the number of people registered at those locations. The Wilson Mens Club, the Bachelor Apartments, etc.

In a building-by-building canvass of the 35th precinct of the ward done a few years back, it was determined that over ONE THIRD of the 950+ registered voters did not live at their registered address, and some had not lived at their registered address for more than 2 years.

It's no accident nor coincidence.

You are naive to think that the situation is all above board and that Helen Shiller only has the best interests of the homeless in mind when they are bussed in to vote.

Best interests? Try self interest.

Alex:

We think you are on to something!

It would also make great sense that the homeless and panhandlers make Burton's ward their home. If you are going to panhandle, you may as well do it where there are people with money.

And if you are going to be homeless, at least you can be homeless in an area with great scenery and amenities. The quality of food and/or trash found while dumpster diving is probably of better quality, too.

We should have thought of this earlier.

Damn.

How many newer owners, prior to buying here, knew the number of subsidized housing units, the number of shelters and other social service agencies, and the percentage of lower income residents in Uptown? The majority of the angriest owners I've spoken with had no clue. They evidently did no research on the neighborhood - and the realtors evidently left out that information from their UptownIsHot!Hot! sales pitches.

But that's a lot like ordering "the house special" without asking the waiter about it, then complaining about the ingredients when the meal arrives.

To a lot of us who've lived in Uptown a long time, though we appreciate all efforts to help us make the neighborhood safer and rid it of gangs and drugs, many of the complaints about the homeless & poor population, the shelters and the agencies - which aren't going away any time soon, by the way - come across more like whining about the french fries that came with "the house special" when you expected a baked potato.

" Asked about arguments that Uptown has too many poor people already, Shiller sounded exasperated. 'Maybe they want to live in Lincoln Park,' she said of the critics. 'That’s not what this is.'"

The argument has been said many times that the people who bought in Uptown should have done their research first.

What about the families living in subsidized housing who have lived here for years? Do they and their children have to put up with crime and squaler? Do they have to put up with drug deals going on on the streets? Do they have to witness grown adults defecating outdoors? Do they have to be stopped by dozens of people with mental illness trying to bum some change?

Why is it that standards of safety for people living in poverty have to be less? I think it's rather bigoted of people living outside of Uptown to insist that residents of all economic backgrounds deserve lower standards just because this is Uptown.

I know plenty of people with kids who move out of this neighborhood, but it's not because they are priced out. They simply don't want to expose their children to what goes on in this neighborhood day in and day out. I wouldn't live here if I had school age kids here either.

The problem we deal with in Uptown is having an alderman who thinks that she is always right, who doesn't want to represent people who respectfully disagree with her points of view or her means of conducting business, and who loves the status quo because it has always worked for her. I'm gay. With the exception of one year, I've lived in the 46th Ward for 15 years, both as a renter and as a "condo"--Helen's codeword for us evil middle-class people who had the gall to buy homes here. I used to have a lot of respect for her until I saw first-hand that she is an opportunist politician on an ego-trip she can satisfy ONLY by putting herself up on a pedestal for the poor masses intended to view her as "the Savior". She hasn't had one good original thought that benefits the entire ward--she's old and worn.

Gays and lesbians don't trust her these days because they see her as an opportunist--she jumped on the HIV community's bandwagon when she could be seen as a saintly figure wading into the midst of the modern version of leprosy when HIV was decimating the gay community. She does the gay community no good these days unless it's something with strings connected directly to her.

She discourages businesses that are not nail-and-hair-weave or greasy spoons...because many new businesses don't always cater only to low-incomes. A few years ago, Metromix reviewed a new restaurant that opened on Wilson and gave it a thumbs-up...and the first comment was from someone who complained that it shouldn't be in Uptown because they had nothing on the menu costing less than $10 and the neighborhood residents "couldn't afford it." Well, having grown up in a family of 6 that couldn't always afford more on meals than macaroni and cheese with green beans we grew ourselves, I learned that you save money to go to restaurants for special occasions--it's not your god-given RIGHT to walk into a place and order anything off the menu--but Helen encourages the mindset that "what's yours is MINE, even if YOU work for it and *I* snatch it away from you."

Helen claims that the Wilson Yard development plan was put together by "the community"...sure, if you consider sociology students from the University of Chicago to be "the community". The people--mostly "condos"--who are actually having to pay for Wilson Yard are getting NOTHING from it, not even some property-tax-paying neighbors--since I seriously doubt that Target will ever build in a location surrounded by the demographics we have. And to pour gasoline on the fire--figuratively and literally--the TIF board that "advises" the all-powerful-decider who will decide what gets built by tax money she didn't pay in a locality where she doesn't live contains ONE (yes, ONE) person who lives in the TIF district, and also contains the very developer who is raking in all that money to build a development that only contains very low-income housing and senior housing at a location I would NEVER even THINK about having my own grandmother live in because of traffic and physical safety issues. And really, would Helen want to live right next to the noisiest stretch of the Red Line, where she wants to put the new Cabrini Green?

The one year I lived in Lake View ended with me leaving because the new landlords who bought the place where I lived decided to more than double the rent I paid. Using Helen's logic, I should have been able to stay there, because I liked it there but was priced out of the market. But because I don't live on welfare, I found my condo, borrowed money for a down payment from my family, and got a mortgage to finance it at a monthly payment less than my old rent. It happened to be in Uptown, because it was what I could afford. But taking on a debt load and tieing myself down to a place I could call my own magically transformed me, in Helen's eyes, to an evil "condo". Hell, the day I closed, I was waiting in Chicago Title and Trust for the realtors and lawyers to show up while I read the headline story in the Tribune about "tensions between long-time renters and condo buyers in Uptown". The fact of suddenly becoming one of "THEM" became crystal-clear when the residents of my building invited Helen in to see what the developer had done...and when a lesbian former resident mentioned that two of the 16 apartments in the 6-flat next door kept her up with noise past 2:00 a.m. most nights, Helen became very icy and snapped "If you don't like it, you can move!" Not a helpful thing for an elected official to say to a voter who had to get up at 4:00 a.m. to go to WORK, and who wasn't asking for intervention from the Almighty Alderman to begin with.

What no one has noted so far is that the most disruptive, destructive, dangerous, anti-social "neighbors" we have to deal with are the ones who moved into subsidized housing within the past year or two. I challenge any one of you who pooh-pooh us real residents with a real stake in the neighborhood to welcome with open arms a) crack dealers transacting business in front of a building where children are playing on the sidewalks, b) finding used condoms and used sanitary pads and used diapers flung over the fence into your yard or onto your back porch, c) seeing an alley fight escalate in seconds to gunfire while you sit on your back porch, d) listening to the newest bunch of gangbangers to move in across the alley from you carrying on their yelled conversations with their buddies and their mamas at 3:00 a.m. every warm summer weeknight, e) watching good people--long-time residents of subsidized housing next door--cower with their children behind locked doors because they are afraid to call their landlord or the police about the dealer upstairs or the whore turning tricks out of her free apartment down the hall, f) having to call the fire department because the gangbangers set off a bottle rocket in the full dumpster abutting the building where those cowering families live--and almost LIVED, as in past-tense, g) calling 911 in groups to get the police to LOOK at the open-air drug market that just opened with the newest temporary resident gangbangers across the street, h) having a couple dozen people you KNOW don't live anywhere near you sitting on the hood of your car parked out on the street, and i) watching your back and watching your dog when you take him for a walk, because the gangbangers might have their pitbull running loose on the street again.

And have your "representive" alderman not listen to anything you have to say, because you are NOT one of her "constituents"--you are a "condo" and you're on your own with no one to go to in City Hall about any of it.

That's what the problem with Helen is. She's in her own little world, without an ounce of experience in urban planning, ignoring the fact that a vibrant and living city is one that is constantly re-inventing itself. The old way of doing things doesn't work, and she knows no other way--and she doesn't even want to TRY. It's all fine and good to be a college student with ideals, but academics are a poor substitute for learning reality on the ground. If you don't live here and have never experienced what we have described, then I either challenge you to MOVE here and see how you deal with it, or SHUT THE FUCK UP. We're vocal because we have no choice but to live where we've put our roots--we HAVE to make it work--and we've stuck around unlike the kids fresh out of college who try the "urban experience" until the baby comes along and they move to Schaumburg.

This article completely dismisses James Cappleman as some gay shill candidate. That's a huge disservice to him.

It's funny though ... reading the generalized, uninformed, trite, boilerplate 'liberal' hand-wringing sandwiched inbetween posts about that cool new beer or the newest ironic dive bar on Milwaukee. See you at the Hideout, everybody. We can drink PBR, smoke American Spirits, bitch about how the city's getting so gentrified and discuss our fantasy Pitchfork lineup. Very original.

At this point the only thing I can do to be heard in the 46th ward is vote on February 27th. Vote Helen Shiller out of office. I knew what the area was like when I moved here. I was just shocked to learn that the leader of my ward really didn't find things like drugs, gangs a violence to be a problem. I figured those things existed, but that there would be someone working on the problem. Unfortunately, Alderman Shiller sees police cleaning up the streets as a problem, going as far as discouraging the CAPS program in the ward. What really surprised me is that Shiller claims to be for the less fortunate, but at the same time thinks it is okay for them to deal with the drugs, violence and prostitution.

Sadly, the only thing Helen Shiller stands for is collecting her $100,000 salary. That's more than most of us rich, white, "yuppies" see in a year.

Read this and partake in the splendiferous mugnificence that is the internetz.........as da prez might say.

From the News Star Newspaper

http://www.pioneerlocal.com/newsstar/news/109313,SN-WilsonYardRally-102506-s1.article

Housing at root of rally

October 25, 2006
By LORRAINE SWANSON Staff Writer

The Uptown Neighborhood Council staged a rally at Clarendon Park on Oct., 21, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Wilson Yard fire and what the community groups calls "dead promises" to redevelop the five-acre site that has remained empty since a fire destroyed a CTA maintenance barn Oct. 26, 1996.

The group of concerned Uptown business owners and residents has been at odds with Ald. Helen Shiller's (46) plans to redevelop the site that they say has changed drastically since plans were first presented to the community in 2004. Original plans called for a Target store, 78 subsidized housing units and 99 senior suites, as well as a multi-screen movie theater that pulled out of the project last April.

Shiller wants the site used for stores, and for-low income and "affordable" housing. The UNC says plans to include moderate-income families are nowhere to be found in the latest Illinois Development Housing Authority's 2005-2006 Low Income Housing Tax Credits Reservations rent structure breakdowns.

"Wilson Yard plans continually change for the worse," UNC president Randy Lehner told 150 Uptown residents gathered at the rally.

"We're here to tell our current city leadership that this neighborhood will not tolerate the bad urban planning that's been saddled on Uptown for the past 10 years," Lehner said to the cheering crowd.

Waving signs reading "Wilson Yard -- Ten Years of Broken Promises" and "46th Ward -- 20 years of despair" and marching to a boom box blaring New Orleans jazz, protesters carried a casket past shuttered store fronts and the Wilson Yard site to the 46th ward office at 4544 N. Broadway.

While the 46th ward office is closed on Saturdays, protesters gathered in front and inserted handwritten "broken promises" into the casket, spelling out their frustrations and what they characterize as Shiller's attempts to shut out community input into the changed Wilson Yard plans.

"Let's not look at this as a death, but as a transition to a vibrant community," UNC member and rally organizer Katharine Boyda said.

The more than 1,200 members of the UNC as well as other community groups say they want to honor the original plans of affordable mixed-housing and a movie theater.

"Alderman Shiller asks me for money, but she doesn't want to hear what I have to say," said Susan Jendrezak, who lives in Buena Park.

"People should have a stake in the community. Low income people shouldn't have to rent all their lives. It perpetuates poverty," Jendrezak.

The Wilson Yard redevelopment project is part of a $50 million tax increment financing, TIF, district, which permits the city to acquire vacant land and make infrastructure improvements so that the area becomes productive again. Plans call for two, nine-story rental buildings to be located at 1036 W. Montrose Ave. and 4400-4428 N. Broadway. One of the buildings includes 99 one-bedroom, low-income senior rental apartments, and 78 units of 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom rental units in the other.

"Affordable" units in the family building have been described as suitable for families of four, earning 80 percent of the area median household income or up to $54,000. The "affordable" housing component has been touted by the alderman and other community groups, such as Organization of the North East, ONE, as suitable for families living on a "firefighter's" or "teacher's" salaries.

The latest IDHA rent structure breakdown for the Wilson Yard project includes 16 units in the family building for families of four earning 60 percent of the area median income. The remaining 62 units are being set aside for "very low income" or "extremely low income" renters.

Further, the IDHA 2005-2006 Low Income Housing Tax Credits Reservations dated Oct., 16, 2006, does not include rent breakdowns in the family building for moderate-income families.

"Basically, you're warehousing people who range from low income to extremely low income. When you bring in the mixed-income factor you see middle-class people living with people of limited economic means, it changes the dynamic. Instead of (low income residents) feeling a sense of opportunity, it creates a sense of loss and hopelessness," said Boyda.

A petition signed by more than 2,500 46th residents opposed to what they term as "100-percent subsidized rental housing in Wilson Yard," was submitted to Mayor Daley, IDHA, the Department of Planning and Development, Shiller and other members of the Chicago City Council in 2004 and 2005.

Ten Uptown block clubs also oppose the current housing plans. The Uptown Chicago Commission has also stated in a position paper that its first preference for Wilson Yard is "housing for ownership, including affordable home ownership."

Construction of the new Aldi's supermarket has already started at the Wilson Yard site, with plans to open in December, according to developer Peter Holsten's web site. Construction on the other pieces of the project, including a Target, ancillary retail and the residential buildings, is expected to start in 2007.

I hate when leftists say 'white middle class' as a derogatory term. It sugsest we are all "Archie Bunkers" and no one of color is 'middle class'. The middle class is under attack by rich [who want to screw the rest of us and "poor" [or people who refuse to work for $$] What about middle class people of color? Are they not worth living in a safe area?

Yeah, some are down on thier luck and want a job, but I have zero sympathy for career criminals and violent gangs.

If people think 'diversity' means crime, dirt, hopelesness, and hauman feces on the street, than enjoy it.

It is unfair for yuppies to move into Uptown. They can afford to live anywhere they choose. There is something deeply disturbed about people who want to displace those who are less fortunate.

Poor people don't have the money, family connections or the education to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. No one can survive on $5.15 an hour, or even $7.25 an hour. Leave Uptown alone!

I for one am supporting Helen Shiller in this election. I live in Uptown, and I rue the day that my rent will skyrocket because of people flipping their real estate.

I'm as disgusted as anyone else with the crime in Uptown, but I had no illusions before I moved here.

I am only here because the rent is cheap, and I am not looking to change anything. It is simply a trade-off.

I really can't afford to live anywhere else - so don't throw me out of my home, either!

Vote Helen Shiller in 2007!

I'm as disgusted as anyone else with the crime in Uptown, but I had no illusions before I moved here.

I am only here because the rent is cheap, and I am not looking to change anything. It is simply a trade-off. -Tom

Tom, I understand you had no illusions before moving to Uptown and crime is simply a trade-off for living in this affordable area.

A quick question to you, Tom.
As the mom of the kid who was killed earlier this winter in Uptown mourns the loss of her son, is it just a trade-off for having a cheaper place to live?