Georgette Braun: A closer look at Fairgrounds residents in Rockford

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Georgette Braun: A closer look at Fairgrounds residents in Rockford Rockford Register Star February 1, 2015 Who lives in Fairgrounds Valley? Seems a good time to look more closely at the people in the west-side Rockford Housing Authority complex, given the City Council’s action two weeks ago. The council voted against partnering with the agency to apply for a $28 million federal grant to demolish the 210 units on the property and replace them, in part, with 59 single-family homes for low-income renters and relocate many Fairgrounds residents. The addition of two possible east-side housing developments near New Towne Drive and Newburg Road are part of the plan. One big concern among aldermen was that the proposal would keep poverty concentrated on the Fairgrounds property, 1015 W. Jefferson St. The plan can still go forward without the city being part of it, but more on that later. Facts about Fairgrounds and its residents, according to information provided by the RHA and CEO Ron Clewer: — Children make up 66 percent of the 668 residents. Average family size is 3.5. — Females, whose average age is 31, head 93 percent of the households. — Nine of 10 residents are black. — The median length of residency is 2.4 years. — Less than a third of residents older than 18 years receive food stamps. — About 94 percent of the residents are from the immediate Rockford area; 6 percent come from the Chicago collar counties. Even a dozen or so years ago after Chicago was closing its low-income complexes, a relatively small amount of those who had lived in the Chicago projects moved into RHA complexes. — Most adult residents work; the average annual gross income is $6,402. — The average monthly rent charge ranges from $14.53 to $53.44. — About 30 percent have a ninth- to 12th-grade education; 31 percent are high school graduates or have a GED; 21 percent have some college. — Adults are required to work at least eight hours a month volunteering in such places as schools or for the United Way or Boys & Girls Club. That’s if they are not working or going to school or are elderly or disabled. Erica Smith, 26, moved to Fairgrounds two years ago. She and two other women met with me and a photographer Wednesday in the community center on the property before she showed us her two-bedroom apartment, where she and her 5-year-old daughter live. She previously lived in St. Charles, a Chicago collar-county community. Her stepfather is originally from Rockford but advised her against moving here because of the crime. Smith moved here because the cost of living is lower. She had been better able to make ends meet when she was living with a significant other at Fairgrounds, she said. Even so, Smith is trying to build a better life. She’s taking classes and hopes to be a paralegal. And she is organizing game nights for children at the community center with help from her cousin, Kiera Hicks, 23. Hicks, who has no children, moved to Fairgrounds two years ago from Downers Grove. Her sister and mother had moved to the east side of Rockford. Hicks said she is a high school graduate and attended child-development classes at the College of DuPage for a year and a half, but she hasn’t been able to find a job. “We’re not hiring right now” is what she hears from places where she applies, she told me. “I feel miserable. No jobs, no place for the kids to play, gun violence,” Hicks said. She said she’d met a young woman at a New Year’s Eve party, and two weeks later, the woman — Tarina Mitchell, 22, — was shot dead on Oakley Avenue, a few blocks from where Hicks lives. No arrests have been made. Jazz Fort, 15, was killed Jan. 2 in a drive-by shooting while in a parking lot with others in the 800 block of Lee Street, just outside Fairgrounds property. No arrests have been made. “Our properties are in neighborhoods where there is a significantly higher amount of crime than other neighborhoods,” Clewer said. A 2013 survey of Fairgrounds residents showed that 73.77 percent of respondents said fear of crime prevents them from walking outdoors always or sometimes. Last year, 18 people were killed in Rockford. Despite the fear, “we’re trying to be positive,” Hicks said, especially with regard to planning activities for kids at Fairgrounds. Ericka Jackson, who has six children ages 2 to 15, has lived at Fairgrounds for four years. She works full time in home health care for the elderly and is looking for a second job. A cousin watches her children while she works. “Just because we live here, we are not low-budget scum,” she said. “We are normal people just wanting to raise our families.” Clewer said applying for the $28 million grant is not dead just because the city doesn’t want to be part of it. A July 1 deadline looms to submit the plan. “I can do it without city approval. I don’t want to do it without city approval, but I don’t see we have any choice as a community.” He said summits and meetings to outline next steps will be held with regional partners, including Transform Rockford. The grass-roots group aims to turn around the city’s social and economic woes by 2025. The group’s executive director, Mike Schablaske, and more than 100 others attended a City Council meeting a week ago to push for a housing summit. Clewer said he’s been encouraged by the dialogue the past few weeks: “There’s a changing recognition of who we are serving. We’re seeing a lot more understanding.” Georgette Braun: 815-987-1331; gbraun@rrstar.com; @GeorgetteBraun – See more at: http://www.rrstar.com/article/20150201/News/150209986]]>