Residents of Chicago’s South Side Say Obama Presidential Center ‘Causing Harm’ to Black Families

Residents of Chicago’s South Side Say Obama Presidential Center ‘Causing Harm’ to Black Families

Some people living in Chicago’s South Side claim that the Obama Presidential Center is causing harm to black families, by raising rents and increasing home prices.

Activists in the area have been battling the center’s creation for various reasons for years.

FOX News reports:

Chicago South Side residents say they’re being displaced by Obama Center: Causing ‘harm to Black families’

Chicago residents are growing increasingly concerned about the damage the Obama Presidential Center will have on their community, as longtime South Side families are being displaced by soaring rent prices and unsustainable living costs which they blame on the former president’s project.

The Obama Presidential Center hosted a ceremonial groundbreaking in September 2021, revealing a massive 19-acre plot that is designed to host a public library branch, playground, community centers and a museum that aims to revitalize the South Side of Chicago. It is being financed mostly through private donations.

But the ongoing $500 million project, which remains under construction, has reignited fears among longtime residents that the center will gentrify the community and that the positive “economic impact” promised by the former president will instead raise property values and make housing costs unaffordable.

An article published Monday by the Washington Post, titled “Chicago neighbors say Obama center is raising rents, forcing them out,” examined the center’s impact on neighboring communities, noting that median home prices have more than doubled since the center was first unveiled.

Amazingly, the Washington Post wrote about this:

Chicago neighbors say Obama center is raising rents, forcing them out

The Obama Foundation has told residents that the $500 million presidential center will help transform some of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods and offer opportunities to those who live there. But Williams and others have watched its construction with mistrust. With the center’s opening still two years away, rents in the surrounding South Shore and Woodlawn neighborhoods already are rising. Median home prices have more than doubled since the center’s location was unveiled. Some longtime residents have been priced out.

In February, nearly 90 percent of voters on the South Side told city officials via a referendum that they should do more to create affordable housing and provide aid to renters and homeowners who live near the Obama Center. But whether the city acts on that will depend on the next mayor.

As Brandon Johnson, one of the two Democrats competing to replace Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) in a runoff Tuesday, strode into the packed room last month, people already had their hands up, questions at the ready.

“Will our rents be raised?” asked one resident.

“Will we have to move?” asked another.

“Some of us have lived here for more than 40 years,” a woman said.

The Daily Mail reports that the price increases are significant:

The nonprofit founded by Barack and Michelle Obama told residents that the sprawling new build on Chicago’s South Side will transform it and the surrounding neighborhoods – and provide local job opportunities.

But since the center was announced in 2015, median rents in the immediate vicinity have jumped a staggering 43 per cent, while house prices have risen 130 per cent.

The area is a historically black one, with many of those since forced to up sticks and move particularly upset at being booted from their homes thanks to the actions of the United States’ first African-American president.

Can anyone recall a story more rich with irony?

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