"Delgado works as a special education aide in the junior high program at Kelvyn Park High School in the Hermosa neighborhood on Chicago’s Northwest side. She spends all day, everyday shadowing her assigned students.

She became an aide through Palenque LSNA, a group formerly known as Logan Square Neighborhood Association. She started in the parent mentor program, which has been sending parents and others into classrooms to support teachers for nearly 30 years.

With state funding, Palenque last year formalized the program to help parent mentors become aides and already has helped 132 parent mentors get credentialed."

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Palenque LSNA Executive Director Juliet de Jesus Alejandre said both ballot questions are based on xenophobic rhetoric and should be rejected.
“We are angry that in 2023 in Chicago an anti-immigrant ballot question is given the light of day,” de Jesus Alejandre said. “It does nothing but sow harmful divisions. It does not address the solutions our city and new arrivals are facing. And it does nothing to address the challenges of disinvested communities that have been here for generations in this community.”

There are nearly 12,100 migrants in city shelters as well as an additional 3,100 men, women and children sleeping at police stations across the city and at O’Hare International Airport.

Of those waiting for a bed to open in a city shelter, approximately 1,500 men, women and children are sleeping in thin tents outside police stations across the city, protected from the cold, wet concrete by only tarps or cardboard, according to data provided by Deputy Mayor for Immigrant, Migrant and Refugee Rights Beatriz Ponce de León.

Anti-immigrant sentiment has surged as the humanitarian crisis gripping the city has escalated, dismaying groups that have worked for decades to welcome immigrants to Chicago.

Palenque LSNA is part of a coalition of community groups led by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights whose members held a rally last Thursday outside City Hall to call on City Council members to reject efforts to put either one of those questions to voters, or to repeal the city’s Welcoming City ordinance.

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At a news conference Tuesday afternoon on Daley Plaza, immigrant rights groups demanded that more be done to support migrants arriving in Chicago.

“They are looking for safe, dignified housing; they are looking for work and to put food on the table,” said Juan Pablo Herrera from Palenque LSNA.

But the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights said what is needed most is money, which has yet to materialize so far.

“The federal government needs to stand up. Joe Biden needs to stand up and Congress needs to stand up,” said Diego Samayoa of Centro Romano.

Dozens of groups have been working with the more than 18,000 migrants who have come to Chicago from the Southern border states over the past year.

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Last year, Pearlie Aaron volunteered as a parent mentor at the school her 10-year-old daughter attends — McKinley Elementary in Bellwood School District 88. Aaron got a chance to work with students on classroom assignments and receive professional development with other parent mentors for about two hours a day.

Now, Aaron is a program coordinator at McKinley for the Parent Mentor Program, a state-funded initiative run by Palenque Liberating Spaces through Neighborhood Action and the Southwest Organizing Project.

On Friday, Aaron and hundreds of other parent program coordinators  — mostly Black and Latino women from Chicago and the suburbs — sat in a packed auditorium at Harry S. Truman Community College on the city’s North Side to celebrate the start of a new school year. 

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Todos Ponen - meaning everyone pitches in - is a project founded by Chef Dávila back in the heat of the pandemic.

"We just saw there was really a huge need for help all around with small businesses, with industry workers, hospitality workers, and then especially undocumented workers," Dávila said.

Partnering with community organization Palenque lsna, the team at Mi Tocaya began churning out thousands of meals.

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The city plans to overhaul the train station canopy as part of the square redesign project. It will be the first major renovation of the structure since it was built more than 50 years ago.

LOGAN SQUARE — The Logan Square Blue Line station canopy is getting a makeover as part of the much-anticipated redesign project.

The city’s Department of Transportation is working with Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa’s 35th Ward office and community groups on the first major renovation of the canopy since it was built more than 50 years ago.

The plan is in the early stages, but officials want to replace the existing plexiglass structure with a sculptural covering with multi-colored lights and sky lights, according to new renderings. Local firm Jacobs Engineering has been tapped to design the project.

Neighborhood groups Logan Square Preservation and Palenque LSNA and the Logan Square Chamber of Commerce are reviewing the proposal, but the design shown in renderings hasn’t been finalized, city spokeswoman Erica Schroeder said.

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Construction is underway for a new affordable housing development in Logan Square that aims to provide families and longtime residents with 89 affordable housing units in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.

The two-building, multi-family development Encuentro Square is aimed at those with a household income no more than 60% of the Chicago Area Median Income. For a family of four, for instance, that amount is $66,180.

The development will be located near the western edge of the neighborhood bordering Hermosa and Humboldt Park at 3759 W. Cortland St. and 1844 N. Ridgeway Ave.

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Ramirez-Rosa credited the pedestrian upgrades to local community organization Palenque LSNA's Avondale-Logandale Parent Mentors "who, concerned for the safety of their children, first advocated for pedestrian safety improvements at this intersection and along this stretch of Wellington."

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LISC Chicago announced the winners of the 29th annual Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards (CNDA) on June 22 in Chicago, where top community development projects, architectural achievements and individuals from across the city were honored. The ceremony started with Mayor Brandon Johnson’s keynote speech, followed by the awards ceremony where winners accepted their awards alongside a network of supporters. This year’s theme, “Communities Lead, Communities Succeed” reflects power that comes when communities across Chicago set their own neighborhood vision and lead on practices and investment to advance their shared goals.

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Gentrification has been impacting the city of Chicago for decades. @mel.chalk spoke to Logan Square residents and officials about the effects of gentrification on the Latino population and the local plans to combat it.

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As Mayor Brandon Johnson closes out his first week in office, Chicagoans are closely watching this new era unfold. In the city’s Latino communities, public safety, the cost of living, job opportunities, schools and environmental justice are at the top of the long list of issues people are hoping to see the new mayor address. Organizations in those communities say they’re as ready to work with Johnson as they are ready to hold him to his word.

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The dollars will allow the land trust to buy and fix up more properties, furthering the nonprofit’s mission of slowing gentrification-fueled displacement in the Logan Square area.

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Logan Square is one of many communities in which residents are facing a significant increase in their property taxes.  

The area used to be predominantly Latino, but over the years that number has decreased to about 36%.

Some longtime Latino residents say they don’t know how long they will be able to keep paying property tax hikes, maintain a home and survive.    

“Now we have to choose between putting our kids through college and paying for the home, fixing our home or paying our taxes,” said Norma Rios-Sierra, a Logan Square resident who also grew up in the area.

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The Cook County Treasurer’s Office is facing a class action lawsuit accusing it of discriminating against Black and Latino homeowners in the way it acquires and disposes of properties whose owners are delinquent on taxes.

Michael Bell and Michelle Kidd are the named plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed Dec. 15 in federal court in Chicago. They are joined in the action by the Southwest Organizing Project and Palenque LSNA, formerly the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, both nonprofit organizations. 

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Local experiments show there are innovative ways to create housing stability in Chicago, but we need more allies in our struggle for housing justice, so this is an invitation to stand in solidarity with us. Violence, crime and population loss are the byproducts of harmful investment and speculative disinvestment and they hurt us all, not just targeted and vulnerable populations.

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With multi-unit dwellings giving way to single-unit homes, Logan Square leaders pushed for measures to keep the neighborhood’s Latino population in place.

Right next to the California stop on Chicago’s Blue Line, one-bedroom apartments in a new luxury building start north of $2,000 a month. Recently built single-family homes on adjacent streets frequently go for $1 million or more. Coffee shops and craft breweries have become neighborhood staples. 

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“We know these property tax increases are due to demolitions, to new construction and to speculation in the housing market, which for some reason increases the value of land when White people deem a neighborhood is desirable,” Diaz said.

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For the 10th straight year, the Logan Square Ecumenical Alliance gathered Chicagoans Saturday morning to demonstrate against vacant buildings and a lack of affordable housing in the Lathrop Homes development on the North Side.

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Dia de los Muertos altars, or ofrendas, are created in memory of those who have died, and invite the spirit of the deceased to visit, with bright decorations, flowers, food and drink. Rios-Sierra said she was inspired to create a community altar to cyclists because of the surge in people on foot or bicycle killed by drivers since the pandemic. 'This year I was inspired by the work Palenque did with [the equitable transit-oriented development think tank] Elevate Chicago that had a lot to do with equitable development and walkability of our neighborhoods,' she said. 'I did a little research and realized there’s a whole database on bicyclist and pedestrian deaths. I thought that was so sad. There were a lot more deaths during the pandemic. The number of people killed on the streets was higher. I thought it was time to create a space to honor those people who had been lost.'

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Advocates and elected officials say they believe they have a secret weapon: Small-time Latino two- and three-flat owners who can be persuaded to hold on to their properties and keep them affordable for working-class families, rather than cashing in on the real estate boom or being priced out of their own neighborhood.

A coalition of advocates is even asking some of these “mom and pop” landlords fearful of losing their property to skyrocketing taxes to sell their property to a community land trust, preserving affordable housing for working-class residents.

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