Even though the most recent condominium conversion craze has slowed, many Chicago renters are still at risk for losing their leases.

When the real estate market boomed a few years ago, many developers started buying apartment buildings and converting them to condominiums. The high demand for real estate meant that selling units was more profitable than renting them. The surge of 2004-06 was the latest in a pattern of condo conversions dating back to the 1970s.

As the market for real estate has slowed so has the conversion trend. The trend peaked last year, according to John Bartlett, executive director at the Metropolitan Tenants Organization, which helps tenants learn their rights in scenarios like condo conversions. But, he said, "It's still a problem."

In February 2006, Zakiyya Muhammad found a memo on the door of her Bronzeville apartment saying the building was sold and she should attend a meeting at the local church.  Muhammad said residents were then asked if they intended to buy.

Many of the residents were Section 8 (subsidized housing) tenants and could not afford to purchase their apartments. Eventually, their leases were renewed with a clause requiring them to move within 90 days if someone wanted to buy their space, Muhammad said. She added that renters paying market rate were allowed to stay without the 90-day moving stipulation.

With the real estate downturn, even former hot-spots are experiencing a housing lag. Muhammad said the first building in her complex to convert to condominiums has been experiencing slow sales. Her building is now part of a rent-to-buy program where residents rent for six to eight months with the option of buying and having their payments transferred to a mortgage.

"Not all buildings lend themselves to be conversions," said George Carlson, president of Conversion Specialist Incorporated, a condominium conversion firm that works in Chicago's suburbs. Muhammad said that her building has an assortment of problems including bad plumbing.

Carlson explained that Chicago's real estate market is slowing less than other regions of the country. "If you have a good locations you know people are going to buy," he said. "I think there's a pent-up demand out there."

That pent-up demand was probably what led to the interest in Muhammad's complex; Bronzeville has been gentrifying recently.

"Gentrification, urban flight, black flight, those are the terminologies that we use," Muhammad said.

Condo conversion is part of gentrification. Problems arise when people in the apartments can't afford to buy. Legally, the apartment resident has first option for buying, but many don't have the money to purchase right away.

According to Carlson, about 10 to 15 percent of people who live in a property will buy it if it converts, but the number can be as high as 20 percent or more. He adds that, with tax benefits and appreciation, it can actually be cheaper to own, provided the resident can make the down payment. With the credit crunch, however, even though interest rates are low, some lenders are reluctant to give mortgages to low-income buyers.

At the height of the condo conversion boom came more protection for tenants. They are now legally guaranteed 120 days to move, 180 for the disabled or elderly.

In Summer 2007 the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill allowing former tenants to receive up to $10,000 in damages if a developer misrepresented its intention to convert a building to condominiums.

According to Bartlett, though, "There's certainly not enough regulation [for condo conversions], especially if there's any problems."

Reader Elle T., who describes herself as a 5+ year Bronzeville homeowner who's "cautiously optimistic" about the future of the 3rd ward thinks Mayor Daly's had plans on the table regarding Bronzeville for some time...and that the Olympics are just the capstone.

What do you think?
In a detailed, conspiratorial comment left on the site today, she laid out what she calls a "fairly likely Olympic scenario" for the south side that takes into account recent CTA developments, Pat Dowell's recent aldermanic upset victory over Dorothy Tillman and escalating gentrification throughout the neighborhood:

"So, the Olympics.

Now that we are officially building a lakefront spire making the Chicago skyline a beacon to the world, my mind has invented a fairly likely Olympics scenario. It is my belief that this scenario would be possible no matter who the Aldermen were, so we don't EVEN need to go there. Daley isn't going to let anything or anyone stand in the way of his Olympic dream. And our Olympic nightmare.

Comment if you please.

1. The city actively endorses bringing in real estate developers from outside the state to rapidly build-out Bronzeville, Kenwood, and Woodlawn, and Englewood with modern retail and residential buildings and attractive amenities.

2. The CTA finds the money to begin modernizing all Green Line stops south of the Loop.

3. The city approves a secret petition to re-zone the city land Ida B. Wells sits on and lets the highest bidder win! In exchange and as a concession to the 3rd ward residents, they agree to subsidize an apartment complex on some city land that backs up to the el.

4. The city passes a resolution to fine owners of vacant lots if they do not meet certain criteria- fenced and secured, clean, mowed regularly, etc. OR, the city will seize it for being a neighborhood nuisance. Same with vacant buildings and any building where people are arrested for buying or selling drugs.

5. 39th Street beach is finally completed after 12 years, and opens to much fanfare.

6. Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Starbucks, expensive early childhood learning centers, medical buildings, doggie daycares, day spas, and several sit down restaurants open in the area in 2008/2009.

7. In 2008, developers will begin construction, and leave their projects 80-90% compelete until they receive the signal"

8. Go! The Tribune runs a 5-part series on the "new" South Side highlighting safety, affordability, amenities, proxmity to the lakefront, ease of parking, several direct public routes to the loop, and the Olympics.

9. The stampede begins! People buy up the available real estate, the builders finish their projects and by the end of 2009, demographic of the 3rd and 4th wards more closely approximates Wicker Park. Property taxes increase by 100%. Some residents sell, take the money, and run to Tennessee to build a home in the woods to get away from the Olympic frenzy (me).

10. The IOC awards the Olympics to Chicago. Long-time residents complain, but since they are outnumbered, nobody listens. The organize a sit-in in Washington Park to draw attention to their cause. The night before the protest, the city, in a carefully choreographed dance, dispatches 50 tow trucks to the park at midnight to relocate any vehicles, sends in 150 men to chop down all of the trees by torchlight, and the whole thing is over by 2 AM. The protesters arrive, make a statement, and go home.

I haven't thought about what might happen from this point, but I think it will involve people having to sell their homes to the city, no-bid contracts, budget overruns, and a ghost payroll or two. Don't get me wrong, I love the City of Chicago, but we all know how things work.

What do you guys think? Am I way off base? Just a little off base?

Elle"

So how about it? Is she on target? Does the Mayor have a plan this elaborate on the drawing board?

Though the Chicago Urban League's shift in focus from a social service agenda to an economic development agenda was applauded nationally, Chicago residents continue to debate whether community benefits of the program will come at the expense of small-businesses or low-income residents.

Cheryle Jackson, President and CEO of the Chicago Urban League, said the organization studied and consulted with corporate partners while developing the projectNEXT plan.

Jackson refutes critics of the organization's decision to focus on businesses earning between $100,000 and $1 million. With so many organizations focused on social services Jackson said, the Urban League made a decision to continue the Civil Rights agenda through economic empowerment. The program is created to help assist successful black-owned Chicago businesses expand and grow, Jackson said.

Urban League Public Relations and Marketing Communications Consultant Derrick Baker said projectNEXT is specifically tailored to Chicago.

"We've got more black-owned business in Cook County than in any other county in the country," Baker said. "It makes sense that the development of business empowerment be a key component into who you are and what you do. That ties in specifically to this county because of the number of black-owned businesses: over 64,000."

Harold Lucas, president of Bronzevilleonline.com and a community activist, is skeptical of the Urban League's agenda. The black middle-class was built on serving the indigenous low-income population on the South Side, Lucas said. That public housing has been demolished and those residents displaced, Lucas feels, is the reason for the Urban League's shift in policy.

"I'm speaking for low-income people in public housing and the indigenous people in the community who have basically been exploited, dispossessed and dislocated from the community," Lucas said. "That's already been done."

As the city of Chicago competes for the 2016 Olympic Summer Games and development of towers around the south lakeshore, Lucas sees two critical issues: a lack of community organizations developing infastructure as more residents move in and a lack of building capacity for local business owners to grow and serve both residents and tourists.

Bronzeville Chamber of Commerce founder Johnnie Blair said his organization will work with Jackson and the Urban League's new agenda.

"It's key that she took a bold leap into that zone, because that's what the chamber is all about," Blair said. "Particularly in an area like Bronzeville, it's going to be the main seed planted into earth with the type of people we have moving into it.

"We've got a broad cross section of people moving here, but many of them are far more advantaged than those in the past."

Top-earning businesses with revenues between $100,000 and $1 million can look forward to a refocused Chicago Urban League to assist them, but small business owners lack advising mentors and struggle to connect with new residents after losing many displaced customers.

For 22 years, Dorothy Scott’s popcorn and candy shop, located in the Lake Meadows strip mall at 35th and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, has served treats and hot dogs to local residents. Scott’s business perseveres despite losing many customers displaced from the Ida B. Wells and Robert Taylor Homes housing projects.

Courting new residents has been difficult. Scott wonders how organizations like chambers of commerce and the Chicago Urban League can help local business owners drum up new customers and use inventive ways to advertise.

“We have a lot of high-rises that are middle-income and they don’t patronize in our area,” Scott said. “They seem to do their shopping maybe in an enclosed mall or in an area where they work.”

Scott said over the last two years, a collective of business owners on 35th Street have used several ways to attract new residents. Under its previous director, the Bronzeville Chamber of Commerce used marketing efforts like trolleys to ferry visitors from the McCormick Convention Center to the 35th Street business strip. The defunct 35th Street Merchants Association tried giveaways and even a Mayor’s Ball to introduce local businesses to their new neighbors.

Success was limited. Chamber directors moved on.

“It was for the middle income as well as the lower income [residents],” Scott said. “They did as much as they possibly could as far as trying to bring the people out.

“They just didn’t come.”

Entrepreneurs like Lawrence Griffith must develop an idea into a business plan investors will bankroll. While chambers of commerce help local businesses by providing strength in numbers, intensive assistance programs for startups are rare.

Griffith, a Hyde Park resident in his mid-30s and creator and CEO of SampleSaint, is carefully selecting investors. A former Proctor & Gamble product and planning manager, Griffith, won the 2005 Miller Brewing Urban Entrepreneur contest with his cell phone coupon technology company. Finding business mentors has been difficult.

Entrepreneurial advice programs by many nonprofit organizations are self-serving, Griffith said. He only found mentors to offer him strategic advice and refine his business plan by using company contacts.

“To date, there is not in existence in the city of Chicago or in the state of Illinois, a not-for-profit organization that actually helps the entrepreneur understand the equity investment game, understand what actual documentation they need, i.e. a proper financial model, a proper executive summary, a functioning business plan and potentially even a private placement memorandum,” Griffith said.

“No one talks to you about that. No one educates you on that. But more importantly, even those organizations that talk to you about business plan writing, you might if you are lucky, get a template. You might get a one-day seminar if you are lucky, but that’s about all you are going to get.”

Griffith said typically, the communities such organizations purport to help have no knowledge of business plan writing. “To find someone to write a business plan for you or consult with you could be between $10,000 and $50,000. These organizations in essence are dysfunctional.”

Cheryle Jackson, president and CEO of the Chicago Urban League, said the organization cannot be all things to all people. ProjectNext is created to support and help take successful black businesses to the next level, Jackson said.

“Other community resources do exist to advise and help small businesses grow and Urban League partners do so,” Jackson said.

Despite their challenges Scott and Lawrence Griffith embrace mentoring neighborhood students and other business owners.

For Scott, former residents remain loyal, visiting from south and southwestern neighborhoods like Dalton, Bolingbrook, Riverdale, Blue Island and Chicago Heights. Visits are like reunions and Scott sees former residents who worked in her shop as teenagers. Some went on to become lawyers, pathologists and business owners. Scott said she could have retired long ago, but enjoys mentoring the neighborhood students she employs.

“Most of the employees that I had were all the 16 to 17-year-olds that were in the lower incomes who I tried to help get through high school and college,” Scott said.

“I gave as much as I could to the community in helping some of these kids get an idea that maybe they could be an entrepreneur one day,” Scott said.

Griffith said organizations that only offer basic information to entrepreneurs are not enough. “This is a new stage of technology, of new and innovative ideas.

“And there are a lot of us out there who have these ideas, but there is no one out there to help us shape and form those ideas so that we can better understand how to move forward.”

Jorge Felix understands the battle over gentrification better than most.

As a Puerto Rican resident of Humboldt Park, Felix says he's concerned the neighborhood's character will change and lower-income homeowners will be pushed out. But as the program director at the Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, Felix says he welcomes new artists to the area.

Felix said many people are thinking about gentrification, but they don't discuss it because it is too contentious. Felix said he tried to put together a panel of artists to talk about gentrification, but found few find willing participants.

"A lot of people are afraid to deal with these issues and talk openly about them," Felix said.

So Felix came up with his own solution for tackling the controversial subject: Pair the newer artists with established community artists, have them work in community schools and let the art projects do the talking.

That's the basis behind IPRAC's newest venture, which kicked off on Oct. 21 and will continue through the spring. The Building Community through the Arts (BCA) project in Humboldt Park will, according to Felix, "engage and address the issue of gentrification in the area.

"All these new artists are moving in and we understand that arts are a big force for gentrification," Felix said. "And we have been trying to educate the outsiders, the artists who are moving in, and get them involved with the issues in the community. So this project was perfect."

The BCA undertaking, which received a $30,000 grant from the Local Initiatives Support Commission of Chicago, is also backed by Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education.

Felix said that project details are still being worked out, but eight artists have already been selected for placement in pairs in four area schools. The goal is to have each pair of artists create a community project for Humboldt Park through soliciting students' ideas and concerns about the neighborhood.

The artists have also already attended one of three planned workshops. That workshop, which took place Saturday, featured representatives from CAPE talking to the artists about integrating their own work with community issues.

Future sessions will center on strategies and approaches for developing the artwork in tandem with students, according to Scott Sikkema, program director at CAPE. The artists will then guide the students through the actual artistic process starting in January.

Ultimately, Sikkema says he hopes more discussion of community issues will emerge from the project.

"There's a tendency to think that a community issue is straightforward," Sikkema said. "But there's the question of, "How do you explore it with students?" It's one thing to say, "Oh we're going to talk about gentrification," then do a documentary video. That's been done and that's OK, but there might be other ways to explore it, to have the dialogue, to make the art."

Felix said CAPE's assistance with the logistics has left him able to focus his side of the project on building both communal and individual relationships among Humboldt Park's diverse cross-section of artists.

"We identified new and established community artists, and engaged them in a discussion on the needs of local artists," Felix said. "Actually, it was amazing, because those two groups found they have the same needs, issues and fears. And we found out that it was in the best interest of the new artists moving into the community to engage the issues of the community."

Hector Arce is one of the artists chosen for the BCA program. Arce, 24, moved to Humboldt Park from Puerto Rico about two years ago. He said he's not sure if he's considered a newer or more established artist, but said he can still help link his fellow artists with the area's concerns.

"Right now have I friends coming here from Puerto Rico who are artists, so I'm kind of like a bridge, connecting people to the community," Arce said.

Arce said his objective is to become ingrained in Humboldt Park through his work in the school.

"I hope to get the experience of communicating with the community," he said. "I want to put more roots down here, so if I leave Chicago, I can have a place to come back to."

For his part, Felix said his goal is to have the newer artists not only work with the students to create quality community-centered artwork " art he hopes to show during the El Barrio Art Fest at IPRAC next summer " but also become integrated and see themselves as full community members, not simply gentrifiers.

"If they want to stick around and find affordable housing in the community, they need to be engaged," Felix said. "Because if just they come in and gentrify, they're going to be kicked out eventually, like the rest of the locals."

Vibrant colors leap from the brick wall and shine onto the street. Two giant hands clasped tightly together tower over a child's coffin. Standing tall next to protesters and rioters, they symbolize the words above them: "Unidos Para Triunfar," or Together We Overcome.

This mural is one of many artistic pieces that grace the buildings of Humboldt Park. The murals, some of which date back to the early 1970s, are among the oldest outdoor murals in the country.

Much like the community they represent, these works of art are being threatened by gentrification.

Marisa Alicea, associate dean for The School of New Learning at DePaul University, has been photographing the murals for nearly 30 years.

"We've definitely lost a lot of murals to the gentrification process," she said. "Either developers want to build a building next to it or sometimes new residents in the community don't find the images very appealing or relevant to their own reality."

Such was the case in July 2001 when "La Crucifixion de Don Pedro Albizu Campos," or The Crucifixion of Don Pedro Albizu Campos, which depicts Puerto Rico's best known leader hanging on a wooden cross alongside two former political prisoners, was nearly erased by the white cinderblock walls of an emerging condo.

Activists and community organizations banded together and saved the mural with the help of both Ald. Billy Ocasio (26th) and a win in court. Now the mural is in need of another renovation, since the previous construction damaged its foundation and defaced the lower parts.

Eduardo Arocho, a community consultant, is helping to organize the re-restoration of "La Crucifixion" and said not all murals have been so lucky.

"We've been able to save several," he said. "But with other [murals] we have to fight. Gentrification does that to everything."

With the increase in new buildings and new residents comes a larger need for the protection of these cultural symbols. Chicago law, however, protects only indoor murals, leaving outdoor murals to the community.

In conjunction with the Institute for Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, the Humboldt Park Mural Restoration Program has been working to restore and protect the artwork and history these murals represent.

John Weber, a professor of art at Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, has painted and restored four of his own murals in Humboldt Park, including "Unidos Para Triunfar."

"The point of [the program]," he said, "is to provide a focus and an umbrella which places the effort to save any one mural in the broader context of saving a larger body of socially significant art work."

Weber agreed that area development poses a threat to art.
"The danger of loss is mainly a question of property sale to new owners," he said.

"Especially developers who want to "cleanup" and who are ignorant, unconcerned and sometimes outright hostile about art or culture or existing community ties, no less community history."

The program does most of its work in the summer but has taken a temporary backseat to the renovation of the Humboldt Park stables. However, educational programs, walking mural tours and similar events will continue to keep the artwork alive. In fact, in the past two years, three new murals have appeared along Paseo Boricua, which stretches along Division Street from Western Avenue to Mozart and is a staple of the Puerto Rican community.

"They are about educating our community and representing the reality of particular communities," said Alicea, co-founding member of the program. "Here's our community and it's about claiming a place in the history of Chicago."

"Unidos Para Triunfar," or Together We Overcome, was painted in the 1970's and was recently restored by artist John Weber. Like many murals, it addresses the social, economic and developmental issues of the Humboldt Park community.

"La Crucifixion de Don Pedro Albizu Campos," 1971, is the oldest exterior Puerto Rican mural in Chicago. The piece, off of North Ave. and Artesia, was recently endangered by a condo builder. The community plans to build a small park on the now vacant lot.

Darren Jones found everything he was looking for in his duplex condominium on 37th Street: hardwood floors, granite countertops, picture windows. The only catch: If he wants grab a drink with friends, pick up a prescription or go out to dinner with his wife, he has to leave the neighborhood.

Young, middle-class professionals like Jones are transforming Bronzeville, but business has not yet caught up with their demand for services and retail. According to a market analysis commissioned by the Quad Communities Development Corporation (QCDC), over $450 million of spending leaves the neighborhood annually due to a lack of retailers in the area.

“We all talk about it all the time,” Jones said, “We always talk about the need for a sports bar.”

While Bronzeville has more than its fair share of fried chicken joints and liquor stores, basic amenities are hard to find. Many residents do their grocery shopping in the South Loop to get the quality produce they say they can’t find at the local Jewel. While there, they also drop off their drycleaning and run the other errands they wish they could do in the neighborhood.

“I had to drive two miles to get ice,” Osei David Andrews-Hutchinson, an IT Systems Administrator and community activist said.

But efforts are being made to change all this. Bernita Johnson-Gabriel, New Communities Director for the QCDC is one of those working to stimulate commercial development in Bronzeville.

The QCDC has lobbied shopping center developers and partnered with the Little Black Pearl
community arts organization to create a more hospitable commercial corridor along Cottage Grove Avenue.
Working with high school students, the group designed and installed 82 banners from 39th to 51st streets bearing the logo “The Grove: A Place to Grow.”

According to Jennifer Zellner of P&W Partners, a commercial developer along Cottage Grove Avenue, these efforts are starting to pay off. People call her every day “with brand new ideas” looking for retail space along the avenue. She turns down payday loan stores and dollar stores in favor of more upscale retail businesses, which she said will help generate sales taxes and foot traffic.

“The future of that strip is not what it was before.”

Another strip where new businesses are starting to spring up is on 35th Street between State and Indiana.

Kimberly Crawford, opened a Postnet franchise on 35th Street last September to provide services she knew her neighbors needed. Business has been good, she said, and the overall response positive.

“They enjoy being able to walk down the street, or to make a short trip. They’re happy that we’re here.”

Condo owner Jones said that he and his friends are also interested in starting a business in the area to capitalize on the growth they see is inevitable.

“I think the condo market in Bronzeville is going to take a slight hit over the next two years,” he said, “but even if it takes a hit, it’s going to rebound when the commercial starts. ”

Zellner agreed and pointed out that one of Bronzeville’s biggest assets is land.

“It’s one of the last areas in Chicago where you have a largely blank slate.” Zellner said. “ You can put so much more creativity behind it.”

The new Park Boulevard development on 35th and State promises a “welcoming mix” of homes “at price ranges for all budgets”-- but some area residents say that it won’t meet their needs.

“I make $50,000 a year, how am I going to afford a $200,000 condominium to stay in a neighborhood that I’ve lived in all my life?” Debra Daniel, 56 said. “These people need to get real.”

Daniel, who lives with her grandson in a two-bedroom apartment on the 3300 block of Cottage Grove Ave. is looking for a new place to live because her home of 17 years is being converted to condominiums. Although she admits that her situation is better than many of her friends and neighbors, she still faces tough choices. If she can’t find someplace affordable within the city limits, she will have to move in with her son, who lives in the far south suburbs—a two-hour commute from her job at the Merchandise Mart.

“Gentrification is great unless you’re one of the people being gentrified,” she said.

Park Boulevard replaces the drab high-rise complexes of Stateway Gardens, where low-income residents were siloed together. The new development calls for an integrated community of low-rise townhouses, pedestrian-friendly streets and green spaces.

As the model for future Chicago Housing Authority projects, one-third of the 1,300 new units will be sold at market rate, one-third will be rented to those with CHA vouchers and the rest sold at affordable rates. Under the guidelines set out by the developers, a two-person household earning less than $72,350 could purchase a two-bedroom affordable unit for $232,000; a comparable unit at market rate would start at $290,000.

Even those who can afford market-rate apartments, however, were surprised at the prices of the Park Boulevard units.

Lanre Kalejaiye, 25, who wants to move to Chicago from Bloomington, Ill., was turned off by the cost relative to the lack of amenities in the area.

“They’re too expensive for being so close to the highway and across the street from the McDonald’s,” Kalejaiye said.

While ground level retail space will create a new commercial corridor along the currently underdeveloped stretch of 35th and State, Kalejaiye said he was unwilling to wait for the community to transform.

Nearby, at the last remaining Stateway Gardens building, residents and former tenants seemed resigned to the changes.

“It’s building back up, but they don’t want us back down here,” James Wilcot, 24, said. “They want all of us moved away from here.”

Others seemed skeptical that those who were displaced from the housing projects would be able to move back. Under the Plan for Transformation, CHA residents who meet certain criteria will be re-located into rental housing on the site of the new development.

“They look alright,” Sean Watson, 28, said, “but to have people think that they will be moved back in […] They’re just selling them the dream.”

James Morgan, an area resident, who grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes, said a lot of blacks won’t be able to afford the condos, but he was taking a wait-and-see attitude on the new project.

“They’re beautifying it and it looks great, but I don’t know if it’s going to work,” he said. “There are a lot of rich people who might not want to live with poor people.”

If the mixed-income model did work, Morgan said, it could benefit lower-income residents by making them “strive to do better.”

“I hope it happens,” he added, “but I just don’t know.”

Loud boos came from the crowd at the Pilsen Neighbors Community Council public meeting Thursday, but not the kind you hear on Halloween night.

Upon hearing President Bush had signed on Thursday a law to build 700 miles of fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, jeers rose from about 250 Pilsen residents gathered at Benito Juarez High School to discuss local and national issues.

“Are we farm animals that we need a fence to keep us out?” said Mariela Marcellez, a 19-year-old Truman College sophomore and undocumented Mexican immigrant.

Marcellez said after marching last spring for immigration reform, Hispanics must vote this fall.

Decorated with red, white and blue balloons and paper festoons, the meeting celebrated the “Your Vote, Our Hope” campaign.

National and local groups registered more than 30,000 Hispanic voters in the Chicago area in recent months in time for the Nov. 7 elections, said Michael Rodriguez, field coordinator for the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute.

Throughout the two-hour meeting, speakers called, “Your Vote,” and the crowd responded, “Our Hope.”

The audience was as animated about local education as national politics.

They applauded as Natividad Loredo, principal of Benito Juarez High School, described the school’s construction plans.

“After many years of struggle we will have a park, a soccer field, a baseball field and an expansion for our school,” he said.

Pilsen Neighbors, a community organization founded in 1954, announced an education task force representing eight elementary schools, two middle schools and the high school in the Pilsen area.

Jose Alvarez, Chicago Public Schools deputy chief of staff and a native of Little Village, said he and his colleagues are looking forward to working with the education task force.

Gentrification is a key challenge facing the task force, he said in a pre-meeting interview.

“They want to be able to attract new families moving into the neighborhood,” he said.

Enrollment is down in Pilsen schools he said, as families with children move farther south and west. He said Pilsen Neighbors has been thinking of new programs that would draw more of the middle class families to public schools.

Ald. Danny Solis (25th) spoke to the crowd in support of the task force.

“It’s about time that Pilsen becomes the Mexican-American community that is best in the Midwest,” he said.

As Solis and other speakers were on the stage, a group of 15 parents from Whittier Community School raised signs in hot pink, orange and green.

“Listen to the demands of our children,” read one.

We are looking for answers, not evasiveness,” another said.

Maria Cerrantes, 29, a mother of four with two children, 7 and 6, at Whittier, interrupted speakers to state the group’s demands.

The children are languishing in a school that is too small, with as many as 40 students in some classrooms, Cerrantes said in Spanish in a separate interview. The alderman promised more than a year ago that the school could expand into a long-empty adjacent police station.

“The more than 400 children of Whittier School are still waiting for Alderman Solis’ response,” she said. “We don’t know why he’s not helping us.”

In an interview after the meeting, Solis said the plan was still in the works. “That’s something I’ve made a commitment to,” he said.

Pilsen Neighbors encouraged meeting attendants to stay involved in their work by signing up for the task forces, which in addition to education cover civil rights of immigrants, health care and economic development.

Toward the end of the meeting teenagers went around the room to collect purple sign-up cards from the audience.

Rodriguez of the leadership institute said the scene reminded him of a church offering.

“We’re giving our blessings here,” he said.