Austin Area In The News
The Austin Community was recently high lighted in the Red Eye
The Pride of Austin
City's largest community fights image of neighborhood in despair
RedEye
Published April 15 2009
Lavern Herron came to the Austin neighborhood bearing turkey: turkey breast, turkey burger, turkey ham, turkey bacon, turkey pastrami and turkey sausage, all ready to be tossed in a salad, wrapped in a wrap or grilled in a panini.
As co-owner of Caramel Cafe, a cozy coffee and sandwich shop that opened at 5941 W. Madison St. last summer, Herron wanted to bring a healthy alternative to an area overrun by fast food joints and greasy spoons.
"Our community needed a place like this, a place where you can go and sit down, that's different from regular fast food," said Herron, 32, who grew up in the West Side neighborhood and now lives in Lombard.
Austin, the largest of Chicago's 77 community areas, has for decades been dismissed as a depressed danger zone, a stone's throw yet a world away from scenic Oak Park. Some community activists call it the city's "forgotten child," left to fend for itself--so fend for itself it has.
Behind the gritty exterior of dollar stores, flashing street corner police cameras and storefront churches, some residents and business owners are fighting the perception of Austin as a blighted community.
"You have to believe in the area," said Michael Pearson, 35, who moved his visual media company, Seven Seals Media, to an Austin storefront last summer, tearing the bars off the windows and lifting the ceilings to create a more inviting space.
Said Jacqueline Reed, president and CEO of the Westside Health Authority, Austin's largest community organization: "There's a tremendous sense of ownership and pride in this neighborhood. If there's a vacant lot, people say, 'We have to fix that up. We're no North Lawndale.' "
Because of its size, Austin bears the brunt of Chicago's social ills--the most murders, the most sexual assaults, the most robberies, the most STDs. As of last Thursday, eight of the 80 murders in Chicago this year have been in Austin, according to an analysis of preliminary police data by RedEye. But Austin's per capita crime rate, while high, pales in comparison to some of its peers. And while 24 percent of Austin residents lived below the poverty line at the time of the 2000 U.S. census, the area boasts an impressive housing stock that has attracted core groups of longtime middle-class homeowners and affluent professionals, Reed said.
Reed speaks with pride about the group's Every Block a Village program, which designates citizen leaders on each block to encourage neighbors to interact and create programs such as a support group for grandmothers raising grandchildren. The citizen leaders raised $60,000 several years ago selling catfish dinners to put toward a health clinic.
Westside Health Authority also operates a prisoner re-entry program that helps parolees find jobs and housing. According to WHA, 300 people return to Austin from prison each month.
"WHA is buying abandoned, foreclosed homes and putting ex-offenders to work fixing these up," said Roger Ehmen, director of the prisoner re-entry program.
The do-it-yourself attitude was on display last week, when residents frustrated by what they felt was the city's slow response to fixing potholes took up shovels, rakes and rollers to fill seven potholes on the 4800 block of West Van Buren Street, the Tribune reported. The South Austin Coalition Community Council, which organized the effort, fronted $50 for asphalt mix.
Some help does come from the outside. Ald. Emma Mitts (37th), whose ward includes the northern portion of Austin, excitedly described the stimulus money that Austin would be getting for street repairs. And Austin is one of the 25 community areas in the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program getting a piece of Chicago's $55 million pie to help areas hard hit by foreclosure.
Austin had 1,017 properties go into foreclosure last year, the most of any neighborhood in the city, according to the nonprofit Woodstock Institute.
Thom Viere, secretary of the Greater Austin Development Association, said the housing crisis put a major dent in the neighborhood's upswing. New residents stopped trickling in, old residents lost their homes, and now many buildings sit vacant, subject to thieves who steal the copper pipes.
"We were on a pretty positive track, and now it seems like everything's on hold," said Viere, who owns several buildings in the community. He said 10 to 15 percent of his rental applicants are moving from buildings that were foreclosed upon.
To be sure, Austin faces tough challenges. Drug trafficking drives the area's crime, police say, and Austin's proximity to the Eisenhower Expressway attracts drug buyers from the suburbs, Wisconsin and Indiana. Battles over drug territory lead to gang violence.
Residents also grapple with high unemployment and high rates of diabetes and other illnesses. Any change comes slowly.
Malcolm Crawford, executive director of the Austin African American Business Networking Association, said he has for years been pushing for better organized business districts that he hopes could potentially put Austin on the map. He envisions transforming Austin into "an African-American gateway" into Chicago, much like Humboldt Park's Paseo Boricua, the grand steel Puerto Rican flags arching over Division Street, represents a gateway to the Puerto Rican community.
Crawford's group completed a study three years ago exploring whether a three-block stretch of Chicago Avenue on the city's western edge could be developed into a "Little Africa" of sorts, with artwork, soul food joints and African restaurants. Austin, which is 90 percent black, doesn't have the highest concentration of blacks in Chicago, but its African-American population is the largest.
"We talk about the strong footprint of cultural pride in Chicago--you have Greektown, Little Italy, and even Boystown," Crawford said. "But you don't have an area that represents African-Americans."
The reality of violence in Austin tempers the optimism that the neighborhood is staging a comeback.
During a sightseeing tour of the neighborhood, Julia Flowers, executive assistant to Jacqueline Reed of the WHA, pointed out lovely Columbus Park, with its pond and golf course; the city's first Wal-Mart; the new Food 4 Less supermarket; MacArthur's soul food restaurant; and a gorgeous stretch of Midway Park, a designated historic district with stately homes.
"And that," Flowers said, pointing to an alley next to a currency exchange at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Austin Boulevard, "is where a 14-year-old girl got brutally raped."
Though some residents say the neighborhood's dangerous reputation is overblown, others live afraid of the violence. "I go to work, take my kids to school and go home," said Jean Beasley, 28, who moved to Austin from the South Side four years ago for the cheaper rent. Beasley said she is waiting to save enough money to move back, because, she said, "I don't like the gangbangers."
"Nobody has anything to do with their time," said Michelle Wright, 19, who moved to Austin a year ago to live with her grandmother. "There aren't any jobs in this area."
Lack of jobs, Flowers agrees, is at the root of Austin's problems. But after 25 years in the neighborhood, she's not going anywhere. "I never think of myself as liking Austin," Flowers said. "It's my community, for better or worse, and you've got to work to make it better."
As co-owner of Caramel Cafe, a cozy coffee and sandwich shop that opened at 5941 W. Madison St. last summer, Herron wanted to bring a healthy alternative to an area overrun by fast food joints and greasy spoons.
"Our community needed a place like this, a place where you can go and sit down, that's different from regular fast food," said Herron, 32, who grew up in the West Side neighborhood and now lives in Lombard.
Austin, the largest of Chicago's 77 community areas, has for decades been dismissed as a depressed danger zone, a stone's throw yet a world away from scenic Oak Park. Some community activists call it the city's "forgotten child," left to fend for itself--so fend for itself it has.
Behind the gritty exterior of dollar stores, flashing street corner police cameras and storefront churches, some residents and business owners are fighting the perception of Austin as a blighted community.
"You have to believe in the area," said Michael Pearson, 35, who moved his visual media company, Seven Seals Media, to an Austin storefront last summer, tearing the bars off the windows and lifting the ceilings to create a more inviting space.
Said Jacqueline Reed, president and CEO of the Westside Health Authority, Austin's largest community organization: "There's a tremendous sense of ownership and pride in this neighborhood. If there's a vacant lot, people say, 'We have to fix that up. We're no North Lawndale.' "
Because of its size, Austin bears the brunt of Chicago's social ills--the most murders, the most sexual assaults, the most robberies, the most STDs. As of last Thursday, eight of the 80 murders in Chicago this year have been in Austin, according to an analysis of preliminary police data by RedEye. But Austin's per capita crime rate, while high, pales in comparison to some of its peers. And while 24 percent of Austin residents lived below the poverty line at the time of the 2000 U.S. census, the area boasts an impressive housing stock that has attracted core groups of longtime middle-class homeowners and affluent professionals, Reed said.
Reed speaks with pride about the group's Every Block a Village program, which designates citizen leaders on each block to encourage neighbors to interact and create programs such as a support group for grandmothers raising grandchildren. The citizen leaders raised $60,000 several years ago selling catfish dinners to put toward a health clinic.
Westside Health Authority also operates a prisoner re-entry program that helps parolees find jobs and housing. According to WHA, 300 people return to Austin from prison each month.
"WHA is buying abandoned, foreclosed homes and putting ex-offenders to work fixing these up," said Roger Ehmen, director of the prisoner re-entry program.
The do-it-yourself attitude was on display last week, when residents frustrated by what they felt was the city's slow response to fixing potholes took up shovels, rakes and rollers to fill seven potholes on the 4800 block of West Van Buren Street, the Tribune reported. The South Austin Coalition Community Council, which organized the effort, fronted $50 for asphalt mix.
Some help does come from the outside. Ald. Emma Mitts (37th), whose ward includes the northern portion of Austin, excitedly described the stimulus money that Austin would be getting for street repairs. And Austin is one of the 25 community areas in the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program getting a piece of Chicago's $55 million pie to help areas hard hit by foreclosure.
Austin had 1,017 properties go into foreclosure last year, the most of any neighborhood in the city, according to the nonprofit Woodstock Institute.
Thom Viere, secretary of the Greater Austin Development Association, said the housing crisis put a major dent in the neighborhood's upswing. New residents stopped trickling in, old residents lost their homes, and now many buildings sit vacant, subject to thieves who steal the copper pipes.
"We were on a pretty positive track, and now it seems like everything's on hold," said Viere, who owns several buildings in the community. He said 10 to 15 percent of his rental applicants are moving from buildings that were foreclosed upon.
To be sure, Austin faces tough challenges. Drug trafficking drives the area's crime, police say, and Austin's proximity to the Eisenhower Expressway attracts drug buyers from the suburbs, Wisconsin and Indiana. Battles over drug territory lead to gang violence.
Residents also grapple with high unemployment and high rates of diabetes and other illnesses. Any change comes slowly.
Malcolm Crawford, executive director of the Austin African American Business Networking Association, said he has for years been pushing for better organized business districts that he hopes could potentially put Austin on the map. He envisions transforming Austin into "an African-American gateway" into Chicago, much like Humboldt Park's Paseo Boricua, the grand steel Puerto Rican flags arching over Division Street, represents a gateway to the Puerto Rican community.
Crawford's group completed a study three years ago exploring whether a three-block stretch of Chicago Avenue on the city's western edge could be developed into a "Little Africa" of sorts, with artwork, soul food joints and African restaurants. Austin, which is 90 percent black, doesn't have the highest concentration of blacks in Chicago, but its African-American population is the largest.
"We talk about the strong footprint of cultural pride in Chicago--you have Greektown, Little Italy, and even Boystown," Crawford said. "But you don't have an area that represents African-Americans."
The reality of violence in Austin tempers the optimism that the neighborhood is staging a comeback.
During a sightseeing tour of the neighborhood, Julia Flowers, executive assistant to Jacqueline Reed of the WHA, pointed out lovely Columbus Park, with its pond and golf course; the city's first Wal-Mart; the new Food 4 Less supermarket; MacArthur's soul food restaurant; and a gorgeous stretch of Midway Park, a designated historic district with stately homes.
"And that," Flowers said, pointing to an alley next to a currency exchange at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Austin Boulevard, "is where a 14-year-old girl got brutally raped."
Though some residents say the neighborhood's dangerous reputation is overblown, others live afraid of the violence. "I go to work, take my kids to school and go home," said Jean Beasley, 28, who moved to Austin from the South Side four years ago for the cheaper rent. Beasley said she is waiting to save enough money to move back, because, she said, "I don't like the gangbangers."
"Nobody has anything to do with their time," said Michelle Wright, 19, who moved to Austin a year ago to live with her grandmother. "There aren't any jobs in this area."
Lack of jobs, Flowers agrees, is at the root of Austin's problems. But after 25 years in the neighborhood, she's not going anywhere. "I never think of myself as liking Austin," Flowers said. "It's my community, for better or worse, and you've got to work to make it better."
