i am powerless
Posted on January 16, 2007 11 Comments
Riding the CTA’s Green Line home to Oak Park is always a jarring experience. While it’s easy to ignore the reality of the vast stretch of urban decay sandwiched between Chicago’s downtown and the wealthy Western suburbs, some days it leaves me in tears, crying helplessly for those who I don’t know, will never know. Every train ride offers a window into countless anonymous lives scarred by an endless cycle of violence and drug use, a view of bleak, gray stretches of undeveloped lots and decaying houses.
You see, riding the Green Line is a direct route through urban neighborhoods affected by poverty and high crime rates. According to the 2000 Census, 20-40 percent of residents in Chicago’s Austin area and Garfield Park live below the poverty line. Reports say that community efforts in these areas have worked to stabilize economic decline, such as this entry for the Austin neighborhood in the online Encyclopedia of Chicago History,
Like other west-side communities, Austin experienced housing disinvestment, vacancy, and demolition, as well as loss of jobs and of commerce as its white population moved to the suburbs and to Chicago’s Northwest Side. Neighborhood groups like the Organization for a Better Austin have worked to stabilize the community, as have nonprofit housing developers aided by South Shore Bank.
and this one for West Garfield Park,
In the 1970s, open-housing laws provided Chicago’s black middle class with an avenue of escape from the city’s increasing poverty and physical decline. In their absence, the area’s economic base eroded further, leaving the West Side vulnerable to illegal drug traffic and accompanying crime. Nevertheless, a few organizations dedicated themselves to turning around West Garfield Park.
But despite these reports, the city I see every day in these neighborhoods is shielded from the view of most tourists, from the dignitaries, from the prosperity Chicago has seen in the last decade. It is rough and it is neglected. And I am powerless to do anything about it.
If I had millions of dollars to share, like the Gates, I would finance an early childhood development center right in the heart of the West side, as big as the United Center. I would invite the mother-grandmother duo who yelled to their beautiful young girls, “You’re stupid! You’re useless! Shut up! No one cares what you think! Shut up!” and the mother whose baby was chewing on a plastic bag for a teething ring as she slept on the train.
The center would also house a large after school program right next to the el, so volunteers from the wealthy parts of the city wouldn’t be afraid to come, and I’d invite the big brothers and sisters who ride the train without parents and look after their siblings, the young boys who shout stories about violent sex across the car (they don’t like their ladies to move during sex, so they held them down), the groups of kids who get in fist fights on the train, the two boys who stole pennies from the wish fountain in River Forest and the teenage moms who ride the train with their babies, alone and cold.
Maybe there could even be a rehab center, for the men and women wrecked by drugs and alcohol. Some ride the train in a daze, while others go on random tirades of loud profanity. Others ask you questions, mostly begging for money for the next fix. Some openly tell everyone they’re trying to get clean, but today just wasn’t the day.
But I know that this would never happen. I don’t have the money to build a United-Center sized community center (and I probably never will), there are no volunteers to staff the center, we could never sustain it and market forces are working against it. Instead of helping these people, instead of building the United Center-sized community center for those who really need it, developers will just drive them out. Situated between 4 and 5 miles of the Loop, property value will likely increase over the next two decades west from the downtown area and east of Oak Park into Austin as old homes are torn down and new ones are built on top of the property. You might think that sounds like a fine idea, but what will happen to the families that lived there before? Those living below the poverty line now surely can’t afford a $400,000 condo. They’ll just have to go somewhere else. And while the neighborhoods will look pretty and be safe, the Green Line riders will just go on living their lives on a new train line.
And I am powerless to stop it. So today, all I can do is cry.
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January 16th, 2007 @ 4:46 am
Dearest Nicole,
I grew up in Maryland near the DC border and often found myself contemplating the same issues you do on my subway ride into DC to visit museums or while riding in the car down 14th Street on the way to Reagan Nat’l Airport. Decaying rowhouses and abandoned buildings would suddenly give way to sleek, tall, safe and elegant office buildings. When I was in high school I dreamed of returning to DC as a successful adult with enough money to jointly invest with my best friends into remodeling some of those rundown buildings and converting them into safe and affordable housing for deserving families. I also contemplated what life was like for people who got on the train from those neighborhoods. I wondered especially about the kids…and I, too, often felt helpless. After college, though, I ended up joining a program that would allow me to teach and I moved to Houston. Here, I taught for three years in poor urban neighborhoods and witnessed firsthand the effects of gentrification. This past August I made a difficult decision to stop teaching, but I’ve found other ways to continue to contribute to the same community in which I worked (i.e. volunteering with various organizations). I’ve also started donating money a lot more, even though it is certainly in modest amounts. I’ve realized that the fact is, one person cannot change the world by himself/herself. You can only contibute the best way you know how to, and try to encourage others to do so as well. You are not Bill Gates (nor am I), but we are certainly not powerless. Something else I’ve experienced is that the smallest, most insignificant of deeds can sometimes make the greatest impact. I know you’ve written before about not being able to particiapte steadily in a volunteering opportunity due to the travel associated with your job, but don’t take for granted the difference you’ve made those times you *have* indeed been able to contribute. Also, by just writing about your feelings here, perhaps you have inspired someone else to go out and do something about this problem, or maybe just to do something for the betterment of the world period. And that in itself (in my humble opinion) is soemthing incredibly powerful. Keep your chin up. I know you’ll figure out some way to make things even just a little bit better. Trust in yourself and the goodness in the world.
January 16th, 2007 @ 7:04 am
Just find out what little things you can do. Is there a church that needs clothes or a food pantry that needs donations no matter how small? Sometimes money isn’t the best thing to help people but taking the time to care.
January 16th, 2007 @ 2:52 pm
Wow, I related to your post having lived in Chicago for 7 years (4 years in Hyde Park and 3 years in Rogers Park, at opposite sides of the red line).
While I was in grad school I even made a film about the racial segregation along the red line and also volunteered for AmeriCorps because I wanted to “give back.” Volunteering was disappointing in some ways because I met so many hopeless people who were stuck and therefore took advantage of the welfare sytem, but I still felt that AmeriCorps enabled me to do something for my community.
However, I now think that the best impact one can have is to give back financially and try to get involved at a governmental level to actually affect the policies that are keeping so many people down (eg. a stagnant minimum wage). I made $9,300 as a f/t AmeriCorps volunteer so it was hardly enough for me to make any sort of financial difference in my own life or anyone else’s! The challenge is keeping your ideals even as you move higher and higher in up the class ranks.
January 16th, 2007 @ 3:13 pm
Since moving to Oak Park and taking the green line into work every day I definetly am seeing the exact same things you are. Every day as I stare out the window I feel the exact same way, as well. It’s is extremely frustrating that just a few blocks away so many people are living in such decay. I actually told my boyfriend one day that if had an unlimited amount of money I would remake all of that area but allow everyone who currently lives there to stay, just upgrade everything. I know this is such a fantasty dream and would never work in the end, but it’s so hard to watch out the green line window day in and day out and feel, like you said, powerless.
January 16th, 2007 @ 5:14 pm
Do not be sad. There will always be poverty. But do not dispair. You are not powerless.
You have the power of one.
Your actions can affect the lives of others. Volunteer for Big Brothers/Big Sisters; contact a school and inquire about becoming a mentor, look for ways to volunteer,….
You can make a difference. Even if it’s only one person’s life that will change.
Good wishes to you. -CJ
January 16th, 2007 @ 6:16 pm
I just spent the weekend in Chicago and observed some of the the things you discuss here. As one strolls down Michigan Ave and admires the thousand dollar purses, it’s hard to imagine the poverty and despair that occurs close by. I love visiting the great cities of the U.S. but every time I do I am constantly reminded of the poverty that lies within. I can feel you have passion about this topic by reading this post, but for some reason you seem to have given up or not even tried. I urge you to realize there are things you can do even if you have little time to do so. It’s difficult and you may feel like your not making a difference, but you are. Even if you have only little time and little money, volunteering and donating can help. Don’t forget about the effect political changes can have on poverty too.
January 16th, 2007 @ 6:36 pm
I make annual donations to Children’s Memorial Hospital, and occasional donations to the Urban Studies program at my West Side Alma Mater. I also make monthly donations to West Side goodwill stores, and in my school days, I spent a good deal of time volunteering at various West Side locations, including UIC’s Center for Early Childhood Intervention, a YMCA and several soup kitchens. I also recently worked with the Hands On Chicago network to revitalize a South Side school. I have also, in my experience, regularly volunteered as a tutor for underpriveleged school districts (in Peoria), among other things. The little things don’t add up, though, to the scale of need in the area I visit every day.
- B.B.
January 16th, 2007 @ 11:09 pm
Volunteer in a school. Read to kids. Help them with homework. Doesn’t matter what you’re there for: listen to them. Let them know you are on their side (even if it looks like they don’t care). Show them that you are a small point of stability in their lives (they often have little stability). Help them to have self-confidence and self-worth. Help them to know that they do (or will) have options, that if they don’t like where they are (or might just rather be somewhere else), they can do that. They don’t need to know yet how hard that is…
I am a teacher in a really really poor inner-city school, and listening, providing stability, and giving hope are the three most important things I do. Content is secondary….
February 22nd, 2007 @ 6:04 am
I was just directed to your blog and love it and have linked it on my mine…I just moved from living in the South Loop in Chicago and frequently rode the green to Oak Park, I know exactly what you’re talking about — needless to say, Chicago is one of the most racially segregated city in America and I think it’s the same with “classes” as well —- agreed?
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