“I think this center is going to be an example of what we can do across America in urban areas,” Brooks said. “If we don’t wait on government and take responsibility for ourselves, we can change the trajectory of these neighborhoods and urban centers.”

Nearly 400 households currently are on waitlists to move, records show. About 150 of the requests are labeled an “emergency” by the CHA. And 241 of the transfer requests are to accommodate disabilities. Among the other reasons CHA residents have sought emergency transfers: “infestation … mold … fire.” Records also show 103 transfer requests cite the Violence Against Women Act, and 24 are described by CHA as “not habitable.” This comes as about 18 percent of the CHA’s roughly 21,400 public housing units — 3,978 apartments — are vacant, most of them because they are uninhabitable, records show.

“What’s so interesting about this dynamic in Chicago [are] the intentions versus the outcomes. What does it look like if your goal is European-style social democracy, but you’re elected to City Council of Chicago? What levers do you really have to bring that about? You don’t have a lot.”

A new policy at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools establishes “standards for viewpoint-neutral education” and gives teachers guidance on how to handle “contested issues.” The policy says teachers are allowed to take a stance on “widely settled historical judgments,” like denouncing slavery and the Holocaust, but taking a position on current debates is discouraged. A list of “active areas of disagreement in contemporary public debate” where teachers should remain neutral includes abortion, immigration laws and enforcement, policing and climate policy.

On average, 220 homeowners lose their homes to the county’s tax sales every year, entitling them to an average estimated compensation of $70,000 each,

“The dying, violent city is scheduled to produce it’s own version of the hunger games. And the city is invited to bring popcorn.”

A coalition of community and labor organizations, including Chicago Teachers Union, SEIU Healthcare Illinois, United Working Families and others gathered outside the Amazon warehouse to disrupt the company’s deliveries and call upon elected officials to make large companies “pay what they owe in taxes,” organizers said. State Sen. Graciela Guzmán was also in attendance.

“Panelists—including … Chicago Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez—described using elected office for movement purposes, and leveraging government and law as tools of resistance against what they called a ‘white nationalist, patriarchal, MAGA, fascist project.’ Chicago’s Sigcho-Lopez discussed elected socialists’ ‘responsibility to open up our spaces to organize and organize and organize from the ground up, organize in every space you know.’ He also praised local efforts like Los Angeles’s ‘rapid response’ network. That organization, trained by the far-left immigration-focused group Union del Barrio, is one of the nation’s most radical anti-ICE networks.”