When CoreCivic Comes to Town: Lessons from Elkhart’s Grassroots Struggle to Preserve a Vibrant Community
By Sydney Boles and Rowan Lynam Medill Reports In Pembroke, Illinois, it started in Hopkins Park; in Gary, it started right across the street from their small airport; in Crete, it was Balmoral Park. In Elkhart, Indiana, it started at the intersection of county roads 7 and 26. It was a stretch of weeds and […]
Beyond the itch: The real cost of bed bugs
By Sydney Boles Medill Reports Andrea Sturm was teetering on the edge of homelessness in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood when the bed bugs came. Too itchy to focus, furious at her landlord for allegedly neglecting the problem, Sturm sprayed her apartment with alcohol to kill the pests. Then she lit a cigarette. The burn marks covered […]
For Minimum Wage Workers, Affordable Housing is Further Out of Reach, New Study Shows
By Sydney Boles Medill Reports A new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition shows that affordable housing is further out of reach for minimum wage workers in Chicago than it was in 2015. Someone working at the Chicago minimum wage would have to work 1.6 full-time jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment, up […]
