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Chicago does a study and finds--duh--the poorest people have the poorest housing and poorest access to good schools
The poorest blacks and Latinos live in neighborhoods of Cook County farthest from job opportunities and good schools, according to a study being developed by a Chicago housing advocacy group.
The first phase of the study, commissioned by the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities, crunched census data and school and tax records from 129 of Cook County's municipalities to highlight disparities in employment and educational opportunities among different pockets of the county.
Its results showed that the vast majority of affordable housing--92 percent-- exists in areas with the lowest access to jobs and highest concentration of minorities, mostly in the south suburbs. And less than 2 percent of housing in high-opportunity areas, in northwest suburbs such as Rosemont and Schaumburg, is considered affordable.
The concept that the most affordable housing and least number of good jobs are concentrated in the south suburbs while the northwest suburbs have the best jobs but lack cheap housing is not new, study organizers acknowledged. But the report is one of the few recent tools to measure the claim, they said.
"There is an imbalance between where affordable housing exists and where employment opportunities are taking place," said John Lukehart, the Leadership Council's vice president and study organizer. "These disparities are not things that happen by accident; they are not features of the market. These are issues of public policy. And we need to start taking an honest look at them."
The study's first leg, done by Minnesota-based research firm Amerigis, looked exclusively at Cook County and took nine months to complete. It was handed out to activists and politicians at a leadership forum last month. The study will next look at the six counties surrounding Cook, then be distributed to other agencies and lawmakers.
The report ranked municipalities into four groupings--"lowest," "low," "high" and "highest"--based on employment opportunities and test scores. The results highlighted a decades-old problem: The majority of the "lowest" ranked communities were in the south suburbs, while the "highest" were to the northwest.
Also, 95 percent of African-American residents and 86 percent of Hispanic residents, compared to 55 percent of white residents, live in the two lowest categories, the report showed. Of the households in the highest opportunity group, only 4 percent were African-American, it said.
"A lot of folks think fair housing is no longer an issue because there is no outward sign of discrimination. But it's still there," said Joseph Martin, executive director of Diversity Inc., a non-profit anti-discrimination agency based in the south suburbs. "Otherwise you wouldn't have a concentration of minorities in the poorest areas.
"Given the choice, would you select an area to live where you know the economic opportunities have been stagnant? No."
The 51-page report illustrated a case study of four communities spanning the region: Harvey, Cicero, Wilmette and Schaumburg. Harvey, in the south suburbs, had a poverty rate of 22 percent, 47 percent affordable housing and an 80 percent African-American population, the study said. Schaumburg had good access to jobs, a 3 percent poverty rate, 3 percent African-American population and 2 percent affordable housing, the study reported.
The study also used a tax-base ratio--a formula comprised of property and sales taxes for each municipality--to show that the differences between the poorest and richest communities in Cook County are wider than other comparable metropolitan areas, such as Minneapolis-St. Paul and Portland, Ore.
"The problem is we don't think of ourselves as regional," said state Rep. Julie Hamos (D-Evanston), who reviewed the report. "That's why this study is a good teaching tool. It helps us look at the region as a whole."
The gap between Cook County's haves and have-nots is compounded by the lack of investment in minority communities, the report noted.
As recommendations, the study suggests changing education funding, enacting state policies that support lower-income households in gentrifying areas and the "aggressive and consistent implementation of the affirmative fair housing requirements."
— Rick Jervis
Study details job, housing `imbalance'
Chicago Tribune
2004-01-15
www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/southsouthwest/chi-041150224jan15,1,861200.story
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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