Letter from TRC’s Executive Director:

Over the years, I've watched Bronzeville be gentrified little by little. When we first started TRC 30 years ago, there was hardly any development in this area, much has changed since then as we now see it being driven by profit instead of community-building.

There appears to be renewed efforts to try and push poor people out of Bronzeville. We are starting to put too much value in the profit that can be gained from the real estate rather than the things residents actually care about: the quality of schools, amenities, etc. While we applaud efforts to diversify Bronzeville's economic base, we hope that the community will adopt our view and that of the Chicago Rehab Network that development can and should be done without displacement.

This does not mean; however, that low-income people should be kept and expected to remain low-income forever. It is our mission to help people achieve self-sufficiency instead of leaving them behind.

Keeping in line with our upcoming event's theme "A New Us For A New Era", we need to figure out who we are what we value as Bronzeville is gentrified.

One project we're working on in collaboration with Housing Opportunities and Maintenance for the Elderly (HOME) is the second phase of the Senior Village project. This housing project will be designed to integrate seniors, a population often isolated in senior housing, into a supportive intergenerational community. The goal of this project is to reflect mixed-income senior development.

Since our community forums in the early 2000s, this project is being motivated by community need rather than funder interest and as a result is proving especially difficult to complete.

This project is just one example of what we are doing to combat the negative effects of gentrification and who we want to be in the "New Era."

Warmest Regards,

Patricia Abrams
Executive Director of TRC