View of the Lathrop Home looking south across the Chicago River. Oil painting on canvas.
Today at lunch I met with a colleague from the Lathrop Leadership Team. I am very concerned about what the City of Chicago and the Chicago Housing Authority have done to the Lathrop Homes and the Lathrop community over the past ten years. Below are my remarks to the Board of Commissioners of the Chicago Housing Authority presented at the Regular Meeting held March 15, 2011, at 8:00 a.m. at Seward/Stanton Park-Cabrini Parkside, 375 West Elm Street, Chicago Illinois. I'll be making some of the same points if I get a chance to speak tomorrow during the public comments portion of the City Council meeting.
Good morning Commissioners.
My name is Rachel Goodstein.
In 1978, I moved west of Halsted to the then scruffy area called DePaul.
In 1992, Dan Cotter, now the retired CEO of Cotter and Company/True Value Hardware, recruited me to be a member of the Board of Managers of the Julia C. Lathrop (now the Daniel A. Cotter) Boys and Girls Club.
From 2002 to 2004, I served as president of that board.
I have been part of the Lathrop community for twenty years.
I am here to congratulate your predecessors who got it right eighty years ago when they built the Lathrop Homes.
I am here to urge you to show the same wisdom as your predecessors and repopulate, rehab, and renovate the Lathrop Homes just as you did at Lathrop’s sister property, the Trumball Park Homes on the south side.
Lathrop as it was designed and was being managed is the Transformation!
Lathrop has always been well located: surrounded by market rate private housing, near educational and park facilities, close to jobs, and served by bus routes. Lathrop has green space, recreational facilities and community services. And Lathrop is historic.
But under recent management, over the past ten years, Lathrop has needlessly been transformed into a ghost town. That’s wrong! That’s shameful!
The CHA has deliberately set the stage for “waste” (That’s a real estate law term.) of publicly owned real estate. Lathrop is being emptied because it is well located on desirable land. It is being set up to be a land grab.
The CHA is not fulfilling the mission of the CHA to provide housing for those in need. There are homeless in Chicago and you, the CHA have emptied habitable units for no reason.
At Lathrop the CHA is setting the stage for a land grab. Turning a public asset into private gain. That is not your public mandate.
Your mandate is to provide housing.
So here is a simple solution. Renovate and rehab Lathrop just like you did the Trumball Park Homes.
As a citizen, as a taxpayer, as an advocate for good government I urge you to act with wisdom as your predecessors did. Repopulate Lathrop. Renovate Lathrop. Rehab Lathrop. Be really truly green and preserve Lathrop.
Thank you.
Good morning Commissioners.
My name is Rachel Goodstein.
In 1978, I moved west of Halsted to the then scruffy area called DePaul.
In 1992, Dan Cotter, now the retired CEO of Cotter and Company/True Value Hardware, recruited me to be a member of the Board of Managers of the Julia C. Lathrop (now the Daniel A. Cotter) Boys and Girls Club.
From 2002 to 2004, I served as president of that board.
I have been part of the Lathrop community for twenty years.
I am here to congratulate your predecessors who got it right eighty years ago when they built the Lathrop Homes.
I am here to urge you to show the same wisdom as your predecessors and repopulate, rehab, and renovate the Lathrop Homes just as you did at Lathrop’s sister property, the Trumball Park Homes on the south side.
Lathrop as it was designed and was being managed is the Transformation!
Lathrop has always been well located: surrounded by market rate private housing, near educational and park facilities, close to jobs, and served by bus routes. Lathrop has green space, recreational facilities and community services. And Lathrop is historic.
But under recent management, over the past ten years, Lathrop has needlessly been transformed into a ghost town. That’s wrong! That’s shameful!
The CHA has deliberately set the stage for “waste” (That’s a real estate law term.) of publicly owned real estate. Lathrop is being emptied because it is well located on desirable land. It is being set up to be a land grab.
The CHA is not fulfilling the mission of the CHA to provide housing for those in need. There are homeless in Chicago and you, the CHA have emptied habitable units for no reason.
At Lathrop the CHA is setting the stage for a land grab. Turning a public asset into private gain. That is not your public mandate.
Your mandate is to provide housing.
So here is a simple solution. Renovate and rehab Lathrop just like you did the Trumball Park Homes.
As a citizen, as a taxpayer, as an advocate for good government I urge you to act with wisdom as your predecessors did. Repopulate Lathrop. Renovate Lathrop. Rehab Lathrop. Be really truly green and preserve Lathrop.
Thank you.
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