Obama Center Displaces Poor Black Families
While the left-wing media is tripping all over itself salivating over the Trump indictment, there hasn’t been a peep about another former president and how the construction of his library is displacing poor black families in Chicago!
South Side Chicago residents have been complaining that the construction of the Obama Presidential Center has led to a significant increase in the neighborhood’s rent, causing the displacement of long-term residents, including many black families.
In 2021 former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama broke ground on the Obama Presidential Center in the South Side of Chicago.
The center, located on a 19-acre lot, will include a public library, playground, community centers, and a museum.
The $500 million project has been largely financed by private donors. The construction, which is still ongoing, is estimated to bring $3.1 billion to the community. In addition, it is predicted to generate another $16.5 million in state and local tax revenue.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Obama told the audience that the center would “give back to Chicago and the South Side in particular.”
“The Obama Presidential Center is our way of repaying some of what this amazing city has given us,” the former president stated.
However, long-term area residents say that the center has already started to result in the gentrification of the community. Since construction began, investors have bought up property in the area and substantially raised rent prices, residents explained.
In that time, the median rent in the area increased by 43%. According to Zillow data, home values have spiked over 130% since the project was announced.
Chicago resident Priscilla Dixon stated that the neighborhoods around the Obama Center used to be close-knit communities home to many black families.
“In political spaces, people can become numbers, experiences can become trends,” Dixon stated. “But the reality is that this is about real people, and we don’t want the Obama Center — the center honoring the first black president — to be another page in the long history of displacing black people or doing harm to black families. The city is the only one that can stop that.”
“I’m a working mother who can’t afford to live in my own community that I’ve lived in for 42 years,” Tahiti Hamer, a Chicago resident, told the local press.
A single mother of three children, Hamer said she was forced to move out of her neighborhood more than a year ago after her landlord raised her rent by almost 40%.
Chinella Miller, a South Shore resident, told the Post that her landlord raised the rent by 90%, pushing her to move to another neighborhood. According to Miller, property listings in the area frequently list the Obama Center as a selling point.
William Sites, a professor in the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the nearby University of Chicago, told the Washington Post, “With a development of this size and economic impact, it was unavoidable that it would have a profound effect on the local housing market and exacerbate existing affordability challenges for many low-income residents of Woodlawn and South Shore.”
Bill spouts off about the left-wing media fixated on TRUMP while ignoring this travesty caused by an Obama-supported development of his library.
Given the story is basically plagiarized from an Washington Post investigation published within the last week including the same verbatim quotes, I would say he’s full of himself.
At least The Daily News gave credit to WAPO instead of being a thief in the night. I wonder if WAPO knows…..I wonder if they care…
Oh I take it back somewhat, he did toss a crumb to WAPO at the end. Sure makes his intro a lie. But that’s our Bill.
Rents around the country have all gone up, so I don’t imagine South Side Chicago is any different. But this was not mentioned. Sure, big projects will increase land values and unfortunately that mean more property taxes which find their way into rent increases. That’s life. From what I read in this article and reading about national rent increases, I would say the first 40% of the increase is actually the real estate crunch and inflation. Communities are also finding it more expensive to run those wonderful social programs, so they raise taxes too. Most likely the portion of rent increase above 50% is all that is due to the Obama Center.
Sad that people have to be displaced but black people are not the only ones being displaced. A quick check of population of South Chicago by race indicates African American. 74%, Hispanic. 19%, White. 5%, and Two or more races. 1%. I guess the other races being displaced do not matter to the article writer nor the complainers.
With all of the bad things we hear about South Chicago, gun violence, gangs, kids being shot dead, etc. I would think this would maybe be just the thing to help turn this area around. Overall, its probably a good thing, but again, said that folks have to be displaced.
This happens more often than people think. Not long ago, long time residents in NY City were being displaced because of a commercial complex being developed in its burbs that caused property values and associated taxes to sky rocket. See “Rents around the country have all gone up, so I don’t imagine South Side Chicago is any different. But this was not mentioned. Sure, big projects will increase land values and unfortunately that mean more property taxes which find their way into rent increases. That’s life. From what I read in this article and reading about national rent increases, I would say the first 40% of the increase is actually the real estate crunch and inflation. Communities are also finding it more expensive to run those wonderful social programs, so they raise taxes too. Most likely the portion of rent increase above 50% is all that is due to the Obama Center.
Sad that people have to be displaced but black people are not the only ones being displaced. A quick check of population of South Chicago by race indicates African American. 74%, Hispanic. 19%, White. 5%, and Two or more races. 1%. I guess the other races being displaced do not matter to the article writer nor the complainers, or it wouldn’t be “woke” enough.
Again, sad that these folks, mostly low wage earners, are being displaced. But with all of the bad news coming out of South Chicago such as gun violence, gangs, killings, kids getting shot dead, I would think that in this case this just might be something needed to turn that area around. But like in all situations, it will just move the problem to another area. This problem has happened a lot in NY City where property values and taxes skyrocket due to commercial development and again, the low wage earners lose. See “https://www.urbandisplacement.org/maps/new-york-gentrification-and-displacement/” Maybe Chicago South Side needs to contact NY City to see how they are solving the problem.
And these are the Independent/Unaffiliated points of view.
Sorry for the repeat!
That’s why I passed on the gefilte…..
Hey Frank, here is an interesting article on how stock markets have performed under each POTUS. See “https://www.aol.com/finance/stock-market-performed-under-president-220026645.html” .
Hope there isn’t a test. Wish there was a comparison grid…. try this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/07/23/historical-stock-market-returns-under-every-us-president/?sh=6b8fa1f4faaf
yeah, yeah, dems better, but some startling repubs…. I have been doing this for awhile and have yet to consider the President, or his party, beyond the actual policies in play as they interact with the economy on the world stage. Also, there’s hangover, so it didn’t matter, for example, what Trump did in 2017 and 18; Obama’s recovery was in play and we would follow that course for a bit. Likewise, Biden followed the Trump spending spree and his economy rock n rolled until Trump’s free money inflation finally caught up to us. But if you just based it on history, you probably would not have believed that could happen. Presidents can nudge the US economy, but they don’t control it. And they have even less control over the world economy.
So, Biden is a Dem, got some good numbers stock wise I think, but I am pretty much out of standalone equities, have lots of fixed assets now earning decent returns and I am fine betting against history.
It all depends on so many things that a President has no control over.
I lived near Chicago when this was proposed. Obama and the city said NO ONE will be displaced. No ONE will be forced from their homes. The project will create jobs and be a driving force for the people of the southside of Chicago. This will be a boom for the the city and the people will benefit greatly
Just ad this to the lies of Obama and the Democrats
THE CORRUPT CHICAGO POLITICAL MACHINE IS PAYING 550 MILLION TO THROW PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR HOUSES AND TOTALLY DESTROY THE BLACK COMMUNITY. RENTS WILL BE UN AFFORDABLE. THE MONEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN USED FOR THE PEOPLE INSTEAD OF THE VAIN POLITICIANS BOYCOTT! YOU LET THE RADICAL MARXISTS LIBERALS RUN ANYTHING AND THIS IS WHAT YOU GET. HOW COULD YOU SPEND 550 MILLION DOLLARS ON ANY SHRINE CRIMINAL!!!!
In addition to the gentrification of this section of Chicago, Obama had zoning changed to confiscate a park to build his mosque-like presidential library, that will not even be the typical “presidential library”.
“Firstly, the Presidential Center is run by the Obama Foundation, a private nonprofit. All other presidential libraries and museums going back to Herbert Hoover are run by the National Archives and Records Administration, a federal agency. Some skeptics fear this privatization opens the door for partisan interests to curate what is meant to be a public archive.”
Just like Obama had land in Hawaii re-zoned to build his monstrosity in Ohau, Obama had land in Chicago re-zoned to build his mosque in Chicago.
“The Obama Presidential Center was built on 19.3 acres of wooded public parkland in Jackson Park, a historic urban park on the National Register of Historic Places—despite considering an alternative site near Washington Park. This raised major concerns for local environmentalists, who learned over one thousand mature trees in and around the park would be felled; migratory birds would be harmed by tree removal and the construction of a tower so close to Lake Michigan; and two major roads would have to be closed. These problems would not be present if the Presidential Center was built at the Washington Park site. Preservationists were also concerned about the precedent the project sets in allowing powerful interests to confiscate public parkland.”
Two-tiered justice in this country. Democrats are above the law.
ARE PEOPLE REALLY SURPRISED BY OBAMAS BEHAVIOR. WHEN IS THE LAST TIME OR EVER THIS GUY DID ANYTHING FOR THE BLACK PEOPLE. HE IS JUST A SELFE SERVING CORRUPT POLITICIAN. WHO THINKS HE IS STILL RELEVANT. BUT THE OBAMAS FILLED THEIR POCKETS JUST LIKE ALL POLITICIANS, BUT STILL GIVE US RACE HATE AND STILL DIVIDE OUR COUNTRY. TIME TO MOVE ON.