CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Southeast Side environmental activists said they’ll continue their push for cleaner air after the federal government threatened to withhold money from the City of Chicago for trying to locate pollution-causing businesses in Black and brown communities.
A U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) letter blasted the city this week for almost allowing a metal shredding and recycling company to move from mostly white Lincoln Park, where residents wanted no part of it, to the mostly brown and Black Southeast Side, which has been a residential and industrial area for more than 150 years.
East Side resident Gina Ramirez, who played a critical role in the HUD complaint, said, “Land use and zoning policies in Chicago are very broken, are very racist and this is paving a way to, kind of, reform that — hopefully.”
“The city was acting in a racist way,” Ramirez said. “We never changed our narrative, and it was such a relief to have this confirmation from a federal entity.”
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Olga Bautista, director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force, said there is room to bring green jobs to the Southeast Side.
“We do not believe the narrative: ‘You can’t have good jobs and clean air,’” Bautista said. “We want restorative justice, not just environmental justice. But we need to have jobs here that are also going to repair harm that has been caused to people in this community for decades.”
In its letter to the City of Chicago, HUD pointed to a 2017 Environmental Protection Agency report that said 77% of toxic substances released into the air in Chicago are concentrated in the Southeast Side.
HUD said the city could lose hundreds of millions in federal money if it doesn’t get its act together.
Bautista said Southeast Siders plan to keep the city’s feet to the fire to improve its land use policies and that the residents cannot rest on their laurels.
“Now we want to get involved in that implementation,” Bautista said. “Exactly how is the city going to improve land use policies, permitting and also enforcement?”
Ramirez said the Southeast Side has potential, can be cleaned up, and that it can remain a great place to raise a family.
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