By ANDRES CABALLERO
The UNITY News

In Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, the grief of low-income families is transformed into the joy of more affluent newcomers.

At the neighborhood’s demolished Robert Taylor Homes housing project, Kenneth Jones once paid $69 a month for a three-bedroom apartment. He now pays $650 for a run-down one-bedroom.

“We were struggling before, but now we’re ten times worse,” he said.

Several parts of the community are separated by a slab of pavement. On one side stand plywood-covered buildings surrounded by weeds and garbage. Across the street is a new apartment complex with iron fencing, tidy sidewalks and well-kept pink flowers.

Jones said that thousands who once resided in the Southside’s public housing projects have been offered $600 in financial assistance to relocate to the suburbs.

Kenneth Jackson, a displaced resident, said that in the 1950s people wanted to move to the suburbs. “Now everyone wants to move to the city, pushing low-income residents out,” Jackson said. “Rent is too high now for us to afford. Things are really changing around here.”

Jackson indicated that gang activity was one of the major issues within Bronzeville.

As public housing projects were demolished in the past 10 years, thousands who refused to move to the suburbs were dispersed across the city.

Jones said crime was mostly centered in Chicago’s Southside neighborhoods. But that has changed.

“Now it has spread out everywhere else,” he said.

A soon-to-be Bronzeville resident (who did not want to be identified) said, “I don’t see anything wrong with cleaning out housing if they’re going to better the area.” She added, “My cousin recently bought a house on 39th Street and hasn’t had any crime-related issues.”

Between those with lower and higher incomes that live in the area, Jackson said, “There isn’t much communication. They walk on their side and we walk on ours.”

Evidently, The Chicago Housing Authority’s socio-economic plan for integration has yet to surpass expectations. Interaction between low- and higher-income neighbors has a long road ahead.