The Lawndale Neighborhood Organization wins first campaign as fledging organization

By Maurice Redd

Throughout the years, the National Training and Information Center has not only offered training, research and technical assistance to community groups across the country but it has also been instrumental in the creation of new grassroots organizations.  In the last 10 years, Blocks Together, the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council and the Albany Park Neighborhood Council were started in Chicago with the help of NTIC. 

This fall another organization is getting off the ground with NTIC’s help.  The Lawndale Neighborhood Organization (LNO) is quickly working to build power for residents on the West Side of Chicago. 

Staying in the NTIC mold of empowering neighborhood residents, LNO has not started with a formulated agenda of issues to force on the community.  Its mission is to be a tool for the community residents to determine the problems in their community and fight for the solutions.  Many community organizations have issues they work on whether or not residents see them as problems in the neighborhoods.  For example, if you would have done a poll of community executive directors and political figures in Lawndale the issues of crime, education and jobs would be among the most frequent responses. 

However, for LNO’s first public meeting in October, 150 residents came out to discuss problems with rats in the community. 

"Rats as big as cats"

For months, rats had been moving into the neighborhood and community members didn’t know what to do.  Rats were in their parks, their front yards, their trash and slowly moving into their homes.

Lawndale residents faced a growing rat crisis due to nearby construction of Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) train tracks, unearthing the homes of hundreds of rats who poured into the neighborhood.

Faced with “rats as big as cats,” neighborhood residents called on city workers to rid their communities of rats.

 “When the city workers came out to my home they told my brother and me we had to find the rat holes ourselves and tell them where to put the poison,” said Lawndale resident Cynthia Harris.  In disbelief, the two informed the workers that they didn’t know how to find rat holes and felt it was the worker’s job to do this.  The workers then left without putting down any poison.

At their first public meeting, LNO members invited city officials from the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation - in charge of rat control - the CTA and the local alderman to hear demands to address the rat problem. Throughout the meeting, 150 residents and city officials listened to stories of how the rats were getting out of hand and how the city had not responded to the problem.

After the meeting, the Streets and Sanitation Department surveyed the neighborhood and issued 1,477 new garbage cans to residents.  The department also towed 55 abandoned cars and targeted 37 dilapidated garages for demolition – all havens for rats.  They also reported that 27 alleys had received a thorough sweeping and cleaning, which included removing weeds and brush where rats may breed.

They ended by committing to putting poison down again before Thanksgiving with periodic visits to continue to assess the area and keep the alleys clean and well kept.

The CTA also acknowledged that their construction work was a factor in stirring up the rats.  They announced that they would be proactive and put down poison along the entire stretch of the train line going through the community once a month without residents having to call. 

At the next meeting, CTA representatives pulled out two maps demonstrating the difference in their effort to rid the neighborhood of rats before and after the public meeting.  The first  map of Lawndale showed the Blue Line train tracks running through the community with three small shaded areas (covering three blocks) showing where they had previously put down poison.  The second map showed the entire area surrounding the Blue Line shaded ranging around 20 blocks, signifying how they had changed their policy

“This is the first time in 40 years I have seen the city respond in this way to a problem in Lawndale,” said a long-time Lawndale resident upon seeing the results of the public meeting.

Maurice Redd is the former Project Director of NTIC’s National Youth Organizing Project.    Maurice has B.A. in Psychology from Beloit College and a M.A. in Social Work from the University of Chicago.  Maurice is currently Director of the newly formed Lawndale Neighborhood Organization on the West Side of Chicago

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