When E.F. Hutton Talks

The mayor was amazed about how much subsidized housing money was being forked over for very meager dwellings.

Recent murders of a two young girls in the Englewood neighborhood brought the situation on his radar screen.

The mother of one of the young murder victims still had not had the window repaired where the bullet smashed through and killed her daughter.

Mr. Daley found this reprehensible.

Now I could be reading more into his comments than he intended but it seemed that the icing on the cake of this tragedy is that the rent on the home where the drive by occurred is $1,500 a month.

More than likely the head of the household is paying a small amount while CHAC subsidizes the lion’s share.

As a slight aside you need to know that Englewood really isn’t the garden spot of Chicago.

In fact, its high crime rate and rampant shootings makes it one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city.

Anyone who charges $1,500 for rent in Englewood should be drawn and quartered.

Regardless of who’s paying, for $1,500 a month the mayor feels that you shouldn’t have to look at the bullet hole in the glass that took the life of your child.

I whole heartedly agree.

I also saw an “in” to start a dialogue about the multiple problems within our condo association so I raised my hand to speak.

I remained focused and to the point---“Why are landlords in the CHAC program still being subsidized when their properties (or properties) are in the middle of the foreclosure processes?”

“It seems to be a waste of money, sir.”

I further went on to explain our situation and how I strongly believe that the landlords were getting paid literally until the day the foreclosure became final.

His eyebrows flew up and he exclaimed, “That’s ridiculous!”

Once again, I whole heartedly agreed.

He assured me that he and his staff would look into this matter and he’d get back to me.

Now I just didn’t take that for the normal level of bullshit that politicians give you. If Mr. Daley wants to ignore you---you are immediately persona non grata. He did seem really concerned so I took him at his word.

By the time everyone had said their piece, it was time to wrap it up and hit the road. It left little time to do a post mortem with the mayor or any of his aides.

I did have to go to my second job and daylight was burning.

So I’m sure you could imagine my surprise when I got a phone call from city hall a few days later.