Dual labors of love: Documenting a Chicago neighborhood that would not die
By Martha Irvine
Chicago-based triple-threat Martha Irvine – a national writer who now reports in text, photos and video – has always been interested in telling stories about the city’s neighborhoods that buck stereotypes. So when she was approached by a property attorney who was volunteering his time to a grassroots project to “reclaim” abandoned housing in a neighborhood on the city’s South Side, she visited the neighborhood and launched a multimedia project.
Irvine also applied for and received a Restorative Narrative Fellowship from ivoh.org and the Michigan-based Fetzer Institute – funding for journalists to tell the stories of people coming together to solve problems. The fellowship allowed Irvine to spend a bit of her own time pursuing the story,evenings and weekends,in addition to time on the clock. Emily Leshner,now a New York-based AP producer and shooter,also became interested in the project,spending a weekend in Chicago to shoot with Irvine.
Some neighbors were wary at first. But Irvine – who describes the project as “a labor of love” – just kept showing up and worked her contacts,eventually finding Hasan Smith,a former gang member who was rebuilding a foreclosed home for himself and his wife,Mary,with the help of others returning from prison. Irvine decided to follow him through the process of rebuilding the home,checking in regularly to document the process. She also spent time interviewing neighbors and community organizers who would be “supporting cast” in the story, explaining the nuts and bolts of just how this neighborhood was making its comeback.
Irvine also documented various examples of the community collaborating,while not sugar-coating continued issues with crime. She spent an evening riding along with violence interrupters from a group called Cure Violence,formerly CeaseFire.
In fact,Chicago police statistics showed that violent and property crimes in the neighborhood have dropped a stunning 45 percent since 2008,when the mortgage crisis first hit.
Edward “Tron” Borden Jr., right, watches as his mentor, Hasan Smith, measures ductwork at Smith’s future home in Chicago, March 18, 2019. “In my world, Hasan is somebody,” said the 30-year-old Borden, who is a longtime gang member. Smith’s knowledge of the streets, his past as a gang member, and the fact that he’s turned his life around after prison often give him more credibility with young men like Borden, who are part of a reentry program for gang members and young men recently been released from prison. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Hasan Smith holds photos on Sept. 11, 2019, taken by a friend in 1974 for a school project in Chicago. He was 15 and already involved with gangs. Four years later, he shot and killed a man in a drug-related crime, spending more than 27 years in prison. He is now trying to make amends by mentoring young men like him and giving back to the community. On the back of the photo on the right, Smith’s mother wrote: “My Baby, Son Nathaniel.” Smith said his mother was deeply saddened when he went to prison but stood by him until her recent death. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Hasan Smith poses for a photo in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, Oct. 29, 2019, near the former site of the demolished Stateway Gardens projects where he grew up. Smith said that, at the time, there were few options for kids like him, so he got involved with gangs at a young age. After spending nearly 30 years in jail for shooting and killing a man, he now tries to help others escape the life of crime, as he did. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Ali Rashad, right, the program manager for the Inner-City Muslim Action Network’s construction program, does an inspection in Chicago as Hasan Smith, second from right, and others watch, May 30, 2019. Much of the work was done by young men returning from prison and former gang members who are learning construction and life skills. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Mary and Hassan Smith, center with backs to camera, pray with well-wishers outside their newly rehabbed home in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood of Chicago, Sept. 6, 2019. The home is one of dozens that were vacant – many of them lost to foreclosure during the housing crisis that began in 2008. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Hasan Smith prays in the bedroom of his new home in Chicago, Sept. 28, 2019. Smith converted to Islam while serving more than 27 years in prison for armed robbery and shooting and killing a man. He was drawn to the teaching of the Quran, the routine of daily prayers and the strong sense of community. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Hasan Smith plays a drum to welcome Catholic Cardinal Blase Cupich, of the Archdiocese of Chicago, to the city’s Chicago Lawn neighborhood, June 6, 2019. Neighbors of various races and religions have banded together to save the neighborhood after it was decimated by the 2008 mortgage crisis. Smith, who is Muslim, took a break from rehabbing his own home to come to the event for the cardinal. “That’s a nice piece of really what’s been happening around here,” he said of people of many faiths and races uniting. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Hasan Smith holds the hands of his grandson, D’Angelo Brown, 2, as they listen to a band at a housewarming party in Smith’s backyard in Chicago, Sept. 28, 2019. Because he was in prison, Smith missed much of the growing up of his own children. He hopes family will gather often at the home that he helped rehab for himself and his wife, Mary. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Hasan Smith uses a jackhammer, May 30, 2019, to break up an old sidewalk next to the Chicago home that he and his crew rehabbed for himself and his wife Mary. The previous owners lost the home to foreclosure after the 2008 mortgage crisis hit. Smith, 60, could be found working at the home most days, even when his young crew was not there. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Hasan Smith walks through the Chicago home he was rehabbing for himself and wife Mary with the help of “returning citizens” like himself, March 18, 2019. Smith, once a gang member and drug dealer, served more than 27 years in prison for shooting and killing a man. He is now 60 years old and excited about his new life. He and his wife moved into the home in September. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Hasan Smith, right, stands with Taqi Thomas, in the backyard of Smith’s new home in Chicago, Sept. 28, 2019. The good friends met in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood more than a decade ago when they were residents in a halfway house for men returning from prison. Both are now homeowners and giving back to the community in various ways. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Taqi Thomas, right, patrols the streets with another member of Cure Violence in Chicago, on May 22, 2019. Members of Cure Violence, many of whom are former gang members, interrupt violence acts in their neighborhood. Violence and property crimes in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood have dropped by about 45 percent since 2008, when the mortgage crisis first hit. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., kneeling on left, leads civil rights marchers singing and praying in front of a real estate office on Chicago’s Southwest Side, August 1966. Neighborhoods that King visited included Chicago Lawn, where he was confronted by an angry white mob and was struck by a rock. “I have never seen, even in Mississippi and Alabama, mobs as hostile and as hate-filled as I’ve seen here in Chicago,” King said at the time. – AP FILE PHOTO
New U.S. citizens, many of them originally from Mexico, stand on the altar for a photo at St. Rita of Cascia Catholic Church in Chicago, March 30, 2019. The neighborhood, known as Chicago Lawn, shifted from mostly ethnic-white in the 1960s to African American and has become increasingly Hispanic since the 1990s. It has long been known as a good place for prospective homebuyers to purchase their first homes. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
People sit down for a meal during a celebration of new U.S. citizens at St. Rita of Cascia Catholic Church in Chicago, March 30, 2019. The neighborhood, known as Chicago Lawn, is an eclectic mix of Hispanic immigrants, African Americans, Catholics, Muslims and Jews. Leaders from these diverse groups have successfully worked together to bring back neighborhood, which was decimated by the 2008 mortgage crisis. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Graphics illustrate the reduction of vacant homes in the Chicago Lawn neighborhod of Chicago over the past seven years. – AP / PHIL HOLM
Nine of about 350 vacant homes and apartment buildings that remain in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood of Chicago are shown, March 18, 2019. Community organizations, neighbors and private developers rehabbed and “reclaimed” more than 300 vacant homes and apartment buildings since the neighborhood was hit hard by the 2008 mortgage crisis, with more to be completed. That success prompted Illinois lawmakers this summer to approve an additional $12 million to rehab more of those homes, and another $3 million to begin the same process in North Lawndale, among the Chicago neighborhoods hardest hit with violence and poverty. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Jose Mena, 60, stands outside his apartment building in Chicago, June 2, 2019. He and wife Maria, both Mexican immigrants, moved to the Chicago Lawn neighborhood in 1990. As neighbors and friends lost their homes to foreclosure after the 2008 financial collapse, the couple joined protests outside banks to help persuade the institutions to help people refinance or come up with repayment plans. Neighborhood organizers say this pressure helped save more than 500 people from foreclosure in a neighborhood that was already filled with hundreds of vacant homes and apartment buildings. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
Jessica Garcia, left, sweeps the street in front of her new home beside her daughter Kayleen Garcia, 2, in Chicago, June 1, 2019. The home Garcia and her husband purchased was rehabbed by the Southwest Organizing Project, or SWOP, using funding from the state and local residents. Garcia said owning their own home was her “sueño” – her dream. – AP Photo / Martha Irvine
The story ran in an array publications and websites – from Fairbanks,Alaska,to Billings,Montana, to the Christian Science Monitor and the Daily Journal of Commerce.
On the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune version of the story a reader posted: “Think about what those houses have seen and the stories they could tell. Makes me want to be a part of it.”
An apartment building at 62nd Street and Washtenaw Ave. in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood of Chicago shown Nov. 15, 2013, top, and again on April 19, 2016, bottom. The building was the first of scores of vacant buildings that have since been rehabbed and reoccupied in Chicago Lawn. – Southwest Organizing Project via AP
The social media response was strong all of Thanksgiving week – from Twitter to Facebook and LinkedIn. The Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation was among many that retweeted the story to followers.
Calling the packaged “incredibly uplifting,” one woman added: “Loved the video,too. Inspiration station.”
And one reader emailed: “It’s always been my feeling that there aren’t enough models out there of unity,determination and success,and if there were more of those,what seems hopeless could probably be turned around. I wish to God we could read more articles like yours! A constant diet of news about terrifying threats to our democracy,racism and viciousness,is just pouring salt in our wounds for absolutely no useful purpose,because most of us can do little or nothing about those problems, and thus feel increasingly hopeless and helpless. It would be good to know if there is anything we could do to help with the terrific work the folks in Chicago are doing. Thanks for the bright spot.”
For an all-formats package that shed light on a Chicago neighborhood’s success story and resonated with readers, Martha Irvine earns this week’s Best of the States award.
