One Story Up

One Story Up has moved!

2009-11-30T16:13:11Z

If you've been wondering where all the updates are, you've been missing out!

This blog has moved to another site - true/slant.com.

You can find One Story Up here: http://trueslant.com/megancottrell/

Same stories, same author, same stuff - just a new address.

This site will hold the archive for awhile, but all new updates and posts will be on true/slant. All my old posts are now up on true/slant too (although they need to be edited for layout, and that process is happening slowly).

As always, you can follow me on twitter - @mmcottrell.

Please change your bookmarks and subscriptions! See you on the other side!

Where's the bailout for the poor?

2009-11-17T20:16:16Z

Fifty people gathered around Lenise Forrest's home in Cabrini-Green this morning, asking a very pertinent question: "Where's our bailout?"

They gathered to stop Lenise from being evicted and to start a new movement - the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign. They say they're going to stop any eviction in the city that's happening because of a person's economic means. The rich got bailed out, they say. We will not be put out.

Continue Reading...

Everything I know about journalism, I learned from David

2009-11-17T02:35:00Z

An unlikely pair

Today, I got the news that my mentor just died.

I'm really heartbroken. I'm in pieces, actually. What is there to do or say, except to write? The medium we both loved best.

David McClendon was hired at the Chi-town Daily News just a couple of weeks before I started there as an intern. We sat back to back in a small office. On my second day, David got my attention by turning around and poking me in the back of the neck. It was weird, and I remember thinking, "I don't know about this guy... Who pokes their new co-worker in the back of the neck?"

Yeah, I'm terrible with first impressions.

David and I became fast friends. We were an unlikely looking pair. David was a six foot tall very large black man from New Jersey. Whenever we went somewhere together, we got quite a few looks. You just don't see someone who looks like a NFL linebacker and a pre-teen white girl walking down the streets of Chicago every day.

Moving here from Michigan, I had a very lonely and difficult autumn. I took an internship that threw me into the midst of city reporting without much experience and with few friends.

David was also lonely. He came here on a lark, to learn something about online journalism, but didn't know anyone in the city.

David was a fine journalist, but he was also a teacher, a coach. He always said "good job" when I earned it and "better luck next time" when I deserved it. He gave me my first copy of the AP Style book, and drilled me on my style points (which I'm still terrible at, but not for lack of David's effort). He pushed me to do more. When other people looked at me, they saw a little white girl, too-green to do anything of substance. But David saw in me the makings of a good reporter. He intended that I would be one and did all he could to help.

And then, he got sick. He was sick almost the whole time I knew him. First it was bronchitis, then pneumonia. David always sounded like Darth Vader after he climbed one flight of stairs to our office. He coughed on the phone when I called in my 11 p.m. deadline. When we walked somewhere, he always had to tell me to slow down. It always seemed just as he was getting better, he got sick again.

Reporting is a lonely job. Especially when you have no idea what the hell you are doing. It's like clawing at a steel door, hoping someday you'll be let inside. Most days, I felt terrified. If it wasn't for David, I would have quit.

Last winter, there was my husband, my best-friend Liz, and there was David. That was all the people I knew well enough to share anything with.

He only got more sick. In March, he ended up in the hospital for six days, diagnosed with sarcoidosis of the lungs and heart. Soon, after, he was let go from his job at the Daily News.

I cried the day he was fired. I held it together through our staff meeting, and then halfway through the day, burst into tears in the bathroom directly adjacent to the newsroom. It was embarrassing - the last thing you want to be in a room full of male co-workers is that girl that cried. But I had lost the person that made my work bearable on the days when it really sucked.

When I started this blog, David was my biggest supporter. Working without an editor is tough, and David was still mine, even though we were both unemployed. He read and corrected, redlined and re-leded. He cheered me on in my successes and encouraged me when I was down.

The day I launched the blog, he sent me this email:

On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 3:43 PM, David McClendon <david.mcclendon@gmail.com> wrote:

I think this blog has lots of potential, Megan. And because of the glamour shot, I won't be surprised to see you speaking on the subject on TV one day. Don't be shy!

One thing I hope you are able to do is personalize the stories. Always remember to put a face on the issue so readers can relate as best they can. You have already showed that you can do that. Keep it up.

Keep up the good work! I'll be reading.

David

Sarcoidosis did a number on David's heart and lungs. He even started a blog about his struggle. On numerous medications and restrictions, he moved back to New Jersey to be with his family. He was getting better every day. Two weeks ago, he called me with the news that his echocardiogram came back showing significant improvement. We were overjoyed, and I was planning to take a trip to the East Coast and have David take me to New York City.

This evening, my dear friend Felicia called me to say that David had collapsed in the grocery store on a trip to buy milk. They tried to restart his heart, but it just wouldn't. He was gone.

I am pretty much a wreck. I may be for awhile. There are people in your life who help you figure out who you are, who you really want to be. David was one of those people for me, and knowing he's gone makes me feel a little more alone, a little less sure.

Sir Issac Newton said, "If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants." Any success I have in writing, any confidence I have in the ability to report, any feeling in my heart that journalism can make a difference in the world, I owe it to David.

To my giant, to my mentor and my dear, dear friend: I love you and miss you.

And because of you, I will keep working. I know somewhere you'll be reading.

At the end of her rope: Cabrini-Green resident faces eviction tomorrow

2009-11-16T15:05:00Z

Lenise Forrest outside her unit in the Cabrini Rowhouses

Last Tuesday was really frightening, but it's this Tuesday that Lenise Forrest really fears.

Last Tuesday, she says, the sheriff came to her two-bedroom apartment in Cabrini-Green, knocking on the door briefly before kicking it down. Several men came in, she says, putting guns on her and her brother and serving her with an eviction notice.

Seven days, they said, and they would be back.

So it's tomorrow that's worrying her. The day the sheriff comes back to haul her and all her things out of her apartment and onto the street.

Where will you go? I ask.

I don't know, she says.

Continue Reading...

Don't fall into the poverty trap. You might never get out...

2009-11-13T17:05:00Z

image via wikipedia

Until you earn about $40,000 a year, you're pretty much stuck in poverty, economists' numbers show.

In fact, until you get past $40,000 a year, any raise or higher paying job you get might actually sink you deeper into poverty.

Take a look at this story about a single mother, who after getting a higher paying job, didn't spend a dime more and couldn't pay her bills:

Continue Reading...

Health care: the beginning and end of the cycle of poverty

2009-11-12T15:33:46Z

Image from the Library of Congress via Flickr

African Americans make up a third of Chicago's population. But they're nearly half of the city's disabled population.

What accounts for that disparity?

It's not race. It's poverty.

According to statistics from a recent edition of the Chicago Reporter, when you control for poverty, that racial imbalance disappears.

Why does that imbalance exist?

Continue Reading...

Victory for Chicago family facing eviction!

2009-11-09T20:13:51Z

If you're new to One Story Up, you might not be familiar with the Bledsoe family.

Back in July, we met the family - three children who were living with their grandmother in Rogers Park when she suddenly died. Their aunt - Erica Bledsoe - became their guardian, but the company that owned their Section 8 apartment wanted to evict the family, which would have left them homeless.

After months of organizing and community support, HUD stepped in and got the company to give the family a lease. The story is pretty moving and poignant - you can listen to Erica Bledsoe tell her story on Vocalo with me last week.

We're getting together to celebrate this important victory, next Saturday, November 14th at Mess Hall - 6932 North Glenwood Ave in Chicago from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

It'll be a potluck with music and discussion of further efforts to start grassroots organizing within the Northpoint apartment community.

Three simple rules for getting out of poverty - but how easy are they?

2009-11-09T17:56:53Z

Photo by PSD

We're a nation of bootstraps. Pull hard enough and you can pull yourself from rags to riches.

Or so we like to think. New research suggests we're not as strapping as we might think when it comes to economic mobility.

New research from the Brookings Institution shows that economic mobility - the chance a child born into a poor family has to escape poverty - isn't as robust as we might think.

If you're born into a middle-class family, there's a 76 percent chance you'll end up middle class or even wealthier. Born into a poor family? Only a 35 percent chance.

But Brookings has a solution. Three simple rules to end up middle class, no matter how low you started out. What are they?

Illinois: hitting up the poor for their bottom dollar

2009-11-06T14:59:43Z

Image from Magical Screencaps

If you've ever seen Disney's Robin Hood, you might remember a scene where the rotund sheriff of Nottingham steals the birthday present of a 7 year-old rabbit, a gold coin his poor rabbit family scrimped and saved to give him.

The state of Illinois is getting in on that action.

A report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows 16 states that gouge even the poorest of the poor on their income taxes.

The report measured the threshold at which states stop taxing - how low you can go until you don't owe. Illinois? We can go pretty low.

Six reasons people hate public housing

2009-11-05T16:26:00Z

the ad in a Huntsville newspaper

Two U.S. cities are engaged in a knock-down-drag-out fight over public housing in their communities: Galveston, Texas and Huntsville, Alabama.

In Galveston, Hurricane Ike demolished 569 units of public housing just a year ago. Now residents of Galveston don't want that public housing rebuilt.

And in Huntsville, the local housing authority is planning to buy some foreclosed homes and turn them into public housing. But not if the upper middle-class residents of South Huntsville have anything to say about it.

They even took out an ad in the local paper, stating "Public housing is coming to your neighborhood," trying to get people to come out to a local meeting, where either side engaged in a heated debate over whether public housing should be allowed there.

It's not just Galveston and Huntsville - it's everywhere.

People have a visceral reaction to the words "public housing" and it's usually not good. These reactions often appear in the comments sections of articles like this or on this blog, at community meetings and in other public forums.

Wentworth Gardens struggles to bridge the gap between neighborhoods, gangs

2009-11-04T20:52:00Z

Beatrice Harris, resident leader at Wentworth Gardens

Beatrice Harris calls everybody baby.

"How ya doin', baby?" "Hey, baby." "Don't worry about it, baby."

She's earned the right. As one of the matriarchs of Chicago's Wentworth Gardens, she says she's had a tough job in the last few years, trying to make one community out of a divided complex.

For years, Wentworth, a small housing development directly south of the White Sox stadium, served as a "relocation resource" in the Plan for Transformation. As Chicago tore down the massive high rises that were Wentworth's neighbors, like Stateway Gardens and the Robert Taylor Homes, Wentworth took in many of those displaced by the demolition.

The low-rise development is a patchwork quilt of families from different parts of the city: Altgeld Gardens, Ida B. Wells, Stateway, LeClaire Courts, Harold Ickes, Deaborn Homes and the list goes on. Like families are living together, Harris says. One whole corner of Wentworth is dedicated to former Ida B. Wells residents, a trend Harris says serves to further divide people.

"Nobody wants to trust nobody," she says.

Continue Reading...

One Story Up is moving to True/Slant

2009-11-04T20:10:00Z

Photo by Amarette

Just wanted to let you know that starting today, I'll be making the transition over to a new site. I'm moving One Story Up from ChicagoNow to True/Slant, another blog site with more of a news focus.

Same stories, same person, same everything - just a new address.

For the next couple of weeks, I will be blogging in both places and slowly directing you, my loyal readers, to the new site. It will take a few weeks for the total of my archives here to be moved to my new blog. Please be patient.

The address for my new page is: http://trueslant.com/megancottrell/

Bookmark it!

I've really enjoyed starting my blog here at ChicagoNow. It's been a wonderful opportunity, one I hope to expand upon. I've loved the community here at ChicagoNow, especially working with great contributors like Teresa Puente, Marian Wang, Joe the Cop and Alexander Russo. I'll miss being a direct part of the community, but I'll still be on the site a lot - reading, commenting and enjoying everyone's fine work.

Hear One Story Up on Vocalo this month!

2009-11-03T03:30:16Z

Erica Bledsoe

Tune in to 89.5 FM on Tuesday mornings from 9 to 10 a.m. all through November to hear stories from One Story Up on Vocalo, Chicago Public Radio's little sister station.

This week, I'll be talking with Erica Bledsoe, who narrowly escaped the eviction of herself and her three nieces and nephews last month after her mother died suddenly last year.

The story started here on One Story Up and quickly morphed into a vigil, protest and movement to help the family stay in their home.

Each Tuesday will be a new guest, talking with me about stories from Chicago's public housing. Tune in and tell me what you think!

You can listen on the web or participate through the web.

Hope to hear from you!

City offers thousands to lure mixed-income buyers; State offers down payment help

2009-11-02T19:00:00Z

A slow housing market means sellers everywhere are trying to lure buyers into purchasing a home.

The Chicago Housing Authority is no different.

If you purchase a home in one of the Plan for Transformation's new mixed-income communities, you could save up to $118,000, according to a press release from Find Your Place in Chicago, a marketing campaign from the city of Chicago and The Partnership for New Communities.

That huge sum comes from three different ways to save:

Continue Reading...

Chicago's public housing through international eyes

2009-10-29T17:30:00Z

Raquel Rolnik talks to Sean Johnson, a resident of Altgeld Gardens, about his housing problems

I imagined she would be austere and solemn. Sort of like the White Witch of Narnia, only not evil and speaking several languages.

Turns out that Raquel Rolnik, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, is anything but reserved. It's not often you meet a Brazilian housing policy expert who empathizes with a black man from Chicago's public housing, but that's just what Rolnik is like. On her three day visit to Chicago, she's taken to the streets, trying to meet people and hear their stories directly.

Her tour of Chicago's public housing started at the city's most famous development - Cabrini-Green.

Continue Reading...