Medill Reports
October 08, 2009
For those in the yellow brick road to affordable housing, OZ is crowded
By Grant Slater

Jaramillo, 33, needed a clean break and Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation provided that when it agreed to strike her boyfriend’s name from her lease after she made her way into affordable housing.

“They usually don’t do that at all, breaking the lease, but it saved my daughter from a lot,” she said.

It was Jaramillo’s idea that she fill the role of Dorothy in a rally and march for the Sweet Home Chicago Coalition on Thursday, which seeks to siphon a greater portion of the money from Chicago’s many tax increment financing districts into affordable housing projects. (See related story.)

In a speech to the 200 people assembled, Jaramillo clicked onto the stage in her ruby slippers and told the crowd how her ticket to affordable housing had allowed her to receive a degree in political science from Loyola University, set her sights on a master’s degree and focus on her 3-year-old daughter, Samieh.

Jaramillo runs a program at the Association House of Chicago that places ex-convicts in jobs, mostly with Chicago's Streets and Sanitation Department.

Jaramillo’s parents have now moved into her three-bedroom apartment in the Harold Washington Unity Co-op with its steel doors and earth-one walls on the West Side. She shares a bed with her daughter.

As leader of the co-op’s tenant council, Jaramillo must deal constantly with her fellow residents losing their jobs and the specter of increased rent.

“The biggest issue with the members of this co-op is complacency, unless you set a mandatory meeting or threaten their lease,” Jaramillo said.

Three of her neighbors have lost their income in the last year, she said.

There is pressure on the tenants because the backlog of applicants for affordable housing is long. For every Jaramillo, there are many people like Paula Burns.

Burns, 60, has been homeless for two years after losing her job as a caretaker in a nursing home. She now lives in a shelter, dormitory-style, with five people to a room.

"If I could find some stable funds, then I’d be able to afford housing, but it’s tough,” Burns said.

She marched silently, trailing at the back of the pack of protesters. The march stopped and protesters laid symbolic yellow bricks on the neighborhood street as Burns looked on from the back of the line.