The challenges Rogers Park faces this summer are not unlike the challenges we have faced in summers before. One only needs to look back at the incredible spate of violence and shooting that occurred on Birchwood and Winchester for something that was worse. And yet, while that hot spot has cooled a new one has risen up.
It is very easy to say that Morse Ave. is worse than ever. It is easy to say that drug dealing is going on in public as one poster to Forum 49 randomly reports for reasons unknown to me. Other neighborhood “experts” tell us that gang banging is prevalent, increasing and a greater threat than ever. And still other neighborhood “experts” report that the neighborhood is over run by poor African-Americans recently relocated from CHA housing projects across the city.
We are in many ways self-creating the bad press and consequently the declining reputation. These very people who make these claims without real evidence will turn around and use these same news reports and hearsay to bolster their arguments about how bad the neighborhood is getting. Yet where is the real factual evidence that this is true? By what standard are you measuring? Crime statistics show that crime is down. CHAC reports that 32 of 6,000 families have been relocated to Rogers Park from CHA housing projects.
I live only one half of a block from Morse and one block from the Heartland Café. Very few people in Rogers Park are closer to this summers “hot spot” than my wife and I. As we walk our dogs 4 times each day we see the people who are out and about. We see what they are doing, where they are doing it, and because I have the good fortune of having a wife who also happens to be a police officer I have a real expert with me who can answer questions about what the police can do and cannot do, what they will address quickly and not address as quickly.
I have also seen and have participated in the activities of the Rogers Park Neighbors, a new organization that has sprung up in my “hot spot” neighborhood to inspire activity by residents, demand more accountability from neighborhood building owners, work with the police and the Alderman’s office to encourage and assist as they redouble their efforts to the most recent events. Nobody can change a neighborhood alone. It must be a team effort by many and even then change happens slowly.
Making a difference is everybody’s job and the new Rogers Park Neighbors group exemplifies that. As always, some have already entered the scene to try to politicize and thereby benefit their personal political ambitions. We must resist those who would divide for their personal benefit and continue to be active, working together to solve problems. I commend the leadership for having done a good job of that. We have to be positive and support things that are designed to help our business strips such as the S.S.A. that now exists on Morse. We have to continue to put our local economic development corporation staff in the street working with our business owners. We should be increasing pressure on the Park District to secure the Goldberg play lot during dark hours by limiting access. We need to continue funding groups that provide alternate lifestyles for young people such as Ceasefire. We also need to understand that at the very root of many of our problems is housing so we must be vigilant in promoting good landlord practices and working with those who are not practicing them as well so they either improve or move.
We live in a mixed and diverse neighborhood by choice. We have our problems, but it is foolish to believe that somehow places like Lincoln Park and Lakeview do not have their own problems. They have problems: they just have different problems. We must also remember that Rogers Park is part of an American society that continues to slowly show less and less care and concern for each other and for interest in being involved. Many just want the problems fixed by someone, they are to busy. I would remind you that you are somebody and you can be a part of the solution rather than an observer, a mud slinger or in the worst case a participant creating the problem. It is the efforts of many people like yourself that will solve this problem, not just a "someone else".
