INTERNSHIP: what Jorge sees daily

13 July 2009

Conversations in the Car between Pilsen and Little Village (Chicago)

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This what we are seeing, he said. In the city of Chicago, one hundred men are deported each week. These are young, working men with families. The family has a traditional set-up so usually the wife doesn’t work. Small kids. Well, then he is gone and suddenly we have these mothers, these kids becoming homeless. That’s why if you come to our office right now, it is like a daycare center.

What do you do? I asked.

Well, we try to find someone to take them in, maybe someone who used to be in the same situation.

That’s how the community is. We open up our homes. The other day, my wife and I were counting how many people we had had to stay. It’s been thirty-four in the past six years. Some stay for days, some for weeks or months; I think this one guy stayed for years. Yeah, he was in the basement for about a year and a half. That’s just how we are.

We’re used to overcrowding. You know, if a young, undocumented man comes here they afford the rent by living maybe 12, 14 to a house. People aren’t there together, you know, eight are sleeping while eight are working and so on. You see it in the grocery store; you see two skinny guys with the two carts loaded up with beans, tortillas and you think, how can they eat that? Well, they are buying for all the guys.

*

Here is something else. We are seeing all these families who are being foreclosed on. You see, if you are an undocumented permanent resident than you can’t get any of the stimulus package money to get loans to keep your house. So we tell them, don’t keep paying your mortgage—don’t try to keep your house as long as possible. If it looks like it is going to happen, it is going to happen. So we tell them, stop paying. If it’s two thousand a month, and you don’t pay for three months than you have six thousand you can put down on an apartment when you loose your house. That’s what we tell them.

Me: Wait. So are there a lot of people like this? Permanent, undocumented residents who have bought houses? How does that work?

That’s the housing boom for you. You could go to the bank and get a loan, granted, they didn’t get good interest rates, they weren’t eligible since they weren’t documented.

Me: Wait, I say. They’d loan to undocumented people? Don’t you need a SS number?

Nope. You need what’s called an IT number, which you can get if you go to any number of places. It’s an Income Tax number and you get it when you register to pay taxes. All you need is your W-2s. So these people would go in with this. They’d get a loan to put down the deposit and then they’d get a loan to help pay for the rest of it. But then they’d have crazy mortgages—like $4,000 a month. But they were so happy, this was America—they had a house. But now, they lose their jobs and they can’t pay the $4,000 anymore.

Me: I get it. So these are the people who arrived after they gave out amnesty in 1986. So they were buying houses in the nineties... oh yeah, right in the middle of the housing bubble.

Exactly, exactly!

*

Trapped in Hell's Garden

Southside Tour. Saturday, June 13, 2009.

We drove back up Dan Ryan highway and I cried. I didn’t want anyone to see me, but I felt angry, nauseous. We had just visited Altgeld Gardens—less like gardens and more like hell on earth, these public housing projects fester in isolation, miles from any sign of humanity.

The projects are located off of 130^th street, a street that juts out from one of the busiest highway in the nation. Cars zip by, in and out of the city, the people inside oblivious to the hell that is these people’s reality. We drove, passing gentleman’s clubs and megachurches. and listened to Arvis talking about the methane that still burns in the nearby dump each night, forty years after the dump shut down, sending poisonous fumes to the Gardens.

We turned off into an area of fields. We pull in and see a boarded up store. Then, we see homes. All along the east side, the brick buildings are closed—haunting rows, their windows like eyes with patches over them.

“They closed because people got sick,” Arvis says.

The projects are toxic—people get cancer and mysterious illnesses. Children are born without genitals, a little boy goes blind after playing in the grass.

The few buildings on the east side that are open have broken blue and white awnings and signs. They are charity centers—there are no stores in Altgeld.

We pass family services, Catholic charities. And then we see an elementary school. We see new houses.

A shiny new school? New, red brick houses?

Arvis says it before I can notice it for myself, but they closed the toxic homes and built new homes literally feet away. If that ground is toxic, how the hell is that ground not toxic?

Beyond that are more projects, rows and rows of new buildings, custom made. Two shiny, new Laundromats sit at the corner. There are lots of little playgrounds, yet all are void are children. It is sickening. I stare in awe at one some politician thought was a good idea—revamp the projects. Build them new homes. No one seems to notice that it’s the location that is toxic—not just because of the horrible chemicals but because of the location. Three to four thousand people are trapped here in an impossibly small amount of space. One bus arrives every day. There are no jobs, no hope, no escape. Nothing.

Arvis points to police cameras on every street corner—installed to watch for drug deals. So the people there are ignored—except when they are caught doing something illegal. I can’t believe it.

Later, someone, blinded by the new buildings, commented that the projects weren’t that bad.

They were the worst place I have ever seen in my entire life.

One hope: This is where Obama did his mission work. I have hope in the fact that we have a president who worked there.