Chatham faces problems with crime, aging residents

Planting flowers along right-of-ways is one way that residents show they care about their neighborhood. For years, Chatham residents have planted flowers along King Drive.
Courtesy 6th Ward Alderman's office

Changing dynamics have hurt neighborliness - alderman

Even good neighborhoods can face tough times.

The middle-class, South Side neighborhood of Chatham has long been considered a strong and secure neighborhood. But more recently, residents have been challenged by an aging population and a generational divide, says Ald. Freddrenna Lyle (6th), not to mention a tragic increase in crime in recent months.

Notably, in May, Army National Guardsman and Chicago policeman Thomas Wortham IV was shot and killed when, according to police, thieves tried to steal his motorcycle. In the past few months, there also have been a number of burglaries and shootings that have left neighbors on edge.

When Lyle was growing up in Chatham, she said the neighborhood had a vital system of block clubs. Residents on blocks that shared an alley would work together to keep it clean and to take care of one another.

"We have less workers and fewer young legs," Lyle said. "Many are single women who have outlived their husbands, and don't have the resiliency to head off some of these problems. When I became alderman, we had the second largest population of seniors in the city."

Almost all of her peers have moved to other neighborhoods or suburbs, she said, but those who have come back don't seem to have time for neighborhood events.

"Their children have homework and dance lessons and karate lessons, and we haven't been able to get that group to understand the value of CAPS [Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy]," she said.

"And we have trouble getting our young back because the seniors didn't leave, and because of the schools. If you move back here, you might have to put your child in private school. You cannot have a vibrant community without the schools."

The alderman thinks that the proliferation of magnet schools has put neighborhoods like Chatham at a disadvantage. When she was growing up, all the children on the block went to the same school, but now they are dispersed among many schools. That means their parents don't meet at school functions.

"We have to become involved in the schools in our community," she added. When she was growing up, she could walk to school, and so could everyone else. Everyone knew one another.

"If you were somewhere else and were threatened, even the bad kids would protect you because you were from their school," she said. "Now we have children on one block who go to five different schools."

Still there are some things that can be done and are being done. For one thing, neighbors in Chatham have planted flowers on the corners of King Drive between 87th and 92nd every year, which shows everyone who passes by that neighbors care about their community.

"We all say it takes a village to raise a child," Lyle added. "There is some truth to that, but in urban America, the 'village' is the block. We stress that through block clubs. We have to get the blocks talking to each other, and connecting.

"If you have a house with children out of control, the other 39 houses on that block can adopt that family and mentor the children. One burglar told us he would not go where people were outside watering the grass."