The pressure for success in Chicago sports
By: Nick Mantas and Aaron Rose Medill Reports The Chicago Bears and Bulls haven’t won a championship in this century. ESPN and Sun Times reporters weigh in on the reasons for what has led to their unsuccessful seasons and what next season could bring for both organizations. During the second segment, we talk about the challenges of […]
Punching Back at the Crime in Chicago’s Southside
By Nick Mantas Medill Reports Children on the south side of Chicago are subjected to an alarming rate of violence from a very young age. Without after school activities to keep these kids from joining gangs, many find themselves in a gang before high school. Sally Hazelgrove took it upon herself to create Crushers Club […]
Community efforts bring about theme of ‘Englewood Rising’ in the South Side neighborhood
By: Hannah Wiley and Joey Mendolia Medill Reports Tina Hammond has brought a splash of color and a message of hope to her Englewood neighborhood. Buying a vacant lot next to her home for $1 through a city program, Hammond and her husband transformed the once bleak empty space into a garden of positivity.
Hiding in plain sight: Chicago neighborhoods fight modern day slavery
By Duke Omara In the grand scheme of things, it was a small victory but for impoverished neighborhoods like Chicago’s Englewood, it was a triumph. After a protracted and sometimes acrimonious City Council battle in March, a bill to allow city strip clubs to sell liquor on their premises was shelved after its sponsor admitted […]
Healthy foods and more for the South Side
By Karys Belger Rich, green cucumbers; vibrant, yellow squash and red tomatoes create a brilliant display. This is the first sight that greets you when you enter the Whole Foods at 832 W. 63rd St. It’s a sight that seems foreign for Lisa Marsh, who spent most of her life in Englewood. “I’m hoping this […]
Turning an adaptive lifestyle into a rewarding lifestyle
By Hannah Gebresilassie A Medill Newsmakers Report When society thinks of people in wheelchairs, we often think of what they can’t do instead of what they can do. In this edition of Medill Newsmakers, wheelchair users in Chicago open up about living an adaptive lifestyle. The perspectives come from gunshot survivors, Skyhawks wheelchair basketball team […]
John the Barber: beats odds to cut hair again, even from a wheelchair
By Hannah Gebresilassie Getting shot six times and becoming paralyzed from the chest-down didn’t stop John “So Icey John” Sharp from becoming one of the best barbers in town. “I got shot up being at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Sharp, 28, says, adding he wont let the circumstances prevent him from continuing […]
For Englewood seniors, the struggle is real but so are the friendships
by Rebekah Frumkin and Carlos D. Williamson For Roger Shannon, finding an affordable place to live was never a problem. His job as a social worker allowed him to live modestly but comfortably. When he first moved into senior citizen community housing 12 years ago, he continued to work, and paid for rent and food […]
Englewood comeback proves ingenuity is homegrown
By Rebekah Frumkin With Englewood set to welcome a Whole Foods on 63rd and Halsted and an adjacent Starbucks this year, the South Side neighborhood is battling stereotypes that it’s an unlikely choice for expansion. “It was almost a national joke, Whole Foods coming into Englewood,” says Jim Harbin, program director at the Greater Englewood […]
An unconventional approach to Chicago’s misunderstood gun violence
By Marisa Endicott January saw its highest death toll from gun violence since 2000 in Chicago this year. There have been over 416 shootings in 2016 to date, 32 of them over this past weekend. The numbers highlight the deep roots of gun violence in Chicago and the city’s inability to combat the problem. While overall crime […]
