Update on the homeless sisters

By JP Paulus in January 2018

I'll let Worlee Glover's post from Concerned Citizens of Chatham speak for itself. We know them as the homeless sisters, however, we don't know their acutal identity. Hopefully in any further reports we'll find out soon. What is known, is that they have a brother in Ohio.

Previously: What a sad story that occurred over the weekend in Chatham

What a sad story that occurred over the weekend in Chatham

JP Paulus' shot of the sister's collapsed tent Jan. 2018

Back in January 2018, JP Paulus wrote about a pair of homeless sisters. They had camped out on the lot of a now closed Church's Chicken at 87th & King Drive:

They are two sisters who sit under a makeshift tarp tent. They claim it is a church, and that as such, gives them the right to be encamped wherever they are. They seem to sit in 2 chairs under the tarp, stay there all day, and then sleep there. They only occasionally come out.

They have been encamped by the former Church's Chicken on 87th & King Drive. They seem to have been there some time after it closed, and when they took off the Church's sign.So it has been a number of weeks, if not months.

Last week, I noticed that one of the chairs seemed to be down. A few days later, the "tent" hadn't returned to normal.

Now this was back in January. What a difference three months make? Here is something of an indirect update provided by Worlee Glover at Concerned Citizens of Chatham:

Coming soon BlockClubChi

Thanks to Robert Feder and his tweet we learn about a new operation being created by former editors of DNAInfo Chicago. Last fall the news outlet which also owned Chicagoist was abruptly shut down after the DNAInfo affiliate in New York decided to unionize. DNA Info is owned by Joe Ricketts whose son Tom Ricketts owns the Chicago Cubs.

BREAKING: Former @DNAinfoCHI editors @stoomey @jensabella @slulay2 reunite to launch @BlockClubCHI neighborhood news site: https://t.co/OhfPd0mhy2 pic.twitter.com/SXIk1lXKGK

— Robert Feder (@RobertFeder) February 6, 2018

All the same through the @BlockClubChi on Twitter we learn of a kickstarter campaign. So while the venture is about to start they're looking for funds to get operations going. According to Feder this is expected to be subscription based service.

Five full-time reporters/producers — Kelly Bauer, Mauricio Pena, Alisa Hauser, Mina Bloom and Lee Edwards — will comprise the initial news staff along with a team of freelance contributors. Bauer, Pena, Hauser and Bloom previously worked at DNAinfo.

While the approach to covering Chicago neighborhoods will be similar to that of DNAinfo, Block Club Chicago will rely on a subscription-based model for funding. Readers will be asked to subscribe once they reach a certain number of stories each month. Prices have not been set, but they’re likely to be around $4.99 a month.

In addition to a Kickstarter campaign, major support will come from Civil, a new decentralized, blockchain-based platform that’s helping start up hyperlocal newsrooms across the country. Civil was launched last year with $5 million from ConsenSys, the world’s premier venture crypto studio.

Sabella briefly worked as managing editor of The Takeout, a food site from The Onion and The A.V. Club, before rejoining Toomey and Lulay to create Block Club Chicago.

Here's hoping that when this venture is up and running BlockClubChi will soon be covering the many stories that occur in our communities as DNAInfo had. I'm glad to see there will be some efforts towards that.

Chicagoist: 6 People We Met In Chatham Tell Us How The Historic Neighborhood Is Changing

First got wind of this via Concerned Citizens of Chatham. Most of the people you see here are business owners in Chatham, the first one especially who is owner of Dat Donut. Here's the introduction:

Neat lawns and tidy bungalows line quiet residential streets in Chatham, a South Side neighborhood that, in some areas, still looks the part of a black middle class utopia.

Chatham represents the old bastion of black economic mobility in Chicago, where working class folk, political movers and shakers, business people and other professionals have formed the foundation of the tight-knit community since the 1950s. Yet the signs of decline are impossible to ignore, especially on once-thriving business corridors like Cottage Grove and 79th Street that are rife with empty storefronts and the types of businesses you’d expect to see in troubled urban communities: liquor stores, dollar stores, fast food joints, hair salons and payday lenders.

But if Chatham is anything, it is resilient. Despite its ailing local economy and high crime rate, despite the scores of residents and businesses that fled the neighborhood in recent years, the community still has a way of keeping people there—even luring new residents and entrepreneurs who see opportunity where others only see neglect. Though Chatham experiences more crime than some Chicago neighborhoods, it is not one of the city's most-violent communities. Between July 19 and Aug. 18, Chatham saw reports of at least 61 violent crimes, including 2 homicides, and just over 220 property and quality-of-life crimes such as thefts and property damages, according to a Tribune analysis of the city's data portal, making Chatham the 13th-most violent community in Chicago, tied with Chicago Lawn, in the past month.

The most interesting interview is of Artemus Gay who is a Liberian immigrant who moved to Chatham recently from Roger's Park. He wants to help build a community of African immigrants to Chatham to help keep up its prestige. Gay especially notes that other Africans seem to have an aversion to living on the south side.

The first part of this series produced by City Bureau was published in the Chicago Magazine. We see a group holding "church" out in the open at 79th/Cottage Grove. It's a great article I recommend you read and hopefully in the near future it'll be the next post worth discussing.

The Princeton University Summer Journalism Program

Information courtesy of TUCC Higher Education Corp.

The application for summer 2010 is available here.
What is the Princeton University Summer Journalism Program? We welcome about 20 high school students from low-income backgrounds every summer to Princeton's campus for an intensive, 10-day seminar on journalism. The program's goal is to diversify college and professional newsrooms by encouraging outstanding students from low-income backgrounds to pursue careers in journalism. All expenses, including students' travel costs to and from Princeton, are paid for by the program. Students who attend the program come from across the country. Bios of our students from this past summer can be found here. The program will enter its ninth summer in 2010.

What is the program like? Classes at the program are taught by reporters and editors from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The New Yorker, CNN and ABC News, among other media outlets. Students tour the Times and CNN; cover a professional sports event (in past years, a Yankees, Mets, Jets or Liberty game); cover news events in the Princeton area; film and produce a TV segment; and report, write, edit and design their own newspaper, The Princeton Summer Journal, which is published on the program's last day. The program is also designed to give students a taste of what life is like at one of the best colleges in the country—students live on campus and eat in one of the university's cafeterias—and to prepare them to apply to top schools. Students meet with Princeton's top professors as well as the school's president and its dean of admissions. Students attend seminars on every aspect of the college admissions process. They also take a practice SAT and attend an SAT class taught by Princeton Review. The program's 2009 schedule can be found here. After students return home, program staff remain in contact with them, assisting them during the college application process and helping them to apply for journalism internships once they are in college.

What have our students accomplished? More than 165 students have graduated from our program during the past eight years, and many return each summer to serve as mentors to our current students. We are proud of their academic and journalistic accomplishments. Four of our alumni are currently enrolled at Princeton. Others have gone on to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, the University of Pennsylvania, Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, Georgetown, Bowdoin, Johns Hopkins, the University of Virginia, New York University and many other selective schools. Their work has been published in college newspapers across the country, including The Daily Princetonian, The Yale Daily News, The Brown Daily Herald, The Columbia Spectator, The Cornell Daily Sun, The Middlebury Campus and The Bowdoin Orient. Our alumni have also landed jobs or internships at The New York Times, The New Republic, The Miami Herald, The New York Daily News, The Dallas Morning News, The Star-Ledger, The Philadelphia Daily News, NBC and CBS, among other outlets. Alumni reflections on the program can be found here.
Who is eligible? This program is intended for low-income students with excellent academic records who are committed to pursuing a career in journalism. To apply for the program, you must meet the following qualifications:- You must currently be a junior in high school.- You must live in the continental United States.- You must have at least an unweighted 3.5 grade point average (out of 4.0).- You must have an interest in journalism.- The combined income of your custodial parent(s)/guardian(s) plus child support payments, if any, must not exceed $45,000. (Note: This program is for students from under-resourced financial backgrounds. If the combined income of your custodial parent(s)/guardian(s) plus child support payments, if any, exceeds $45,000 and you still wish to apply, you may attach a statement explaining why you believe your family qualifies as financially under-resourced.)
Who runs the program? The program was founded, and is still directed, by four Princeton alumni from the class of 2001—Richard Just, Michael Koike, Gregory Mancini and Rich Tucker—who wanted to diversify the world of journalism. It is staffed by professional journalists, young alumni of Princeton, current Princeton students, and students who attended the program in past summers. Except for one student intern who is hired annually to help coordinate the program, everyone associated with the program is a volunteer. More information about the program's directors can be found here.
Who funds the program? The program is funded entirely through the generosity of donors, mostly Princeton alumni. In 2009, we received 275 applications, but, because of funding limitations, we were able to accept only 23 students. We receive so many applications because we are, to our knowledge, the country's only high school program that seeks to propel low-income students into professional newsrooms by combining journalism education with intensive college admissions preparation—and pays all the expenses of students who attend. Every year, with guidance from the program's staff, our students apply to, and are accepted at, the country's best colleges, where they go on to write for top student papers and earn internships at the nation's most influential newspapers, magazines and television stations. This year, we could have filled our class many times over with outstanding students. We would like to increase our class size to meet the extraordinary demand among low-income students for spots in the program, and we are therefore currently seeking a donor to help us expand the program in future years. More information about how to donate to the program can be found here. If you are considering a donation and would like more information about the program, the best way to reach us is via email at sjp@princeton.edu. You can also leave a message at 609-258-8046. During the academic year, no one answers that line, but we check the voicemail regularly. If you leave a message, we will return your call.