CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - The leader of a group that provides youth services around Chicago believes stricter curfews are not the solution to growing violence and unrest among the city's teens and young adults.
Kevin Cherep, the president and C.E.O. of Chicago Youth Centers, said during the COVID pandemic there’s been an erosion in services to help young people cope with the issues they face that lead to violence and unrest.
“The remedy is more of the kind of things that organizations like Chicago Youth Centers do. We provide safe havens for kids in some of the most difficult communities in the city, where violence is the highest, poverty is the highest,” said Cherep.
“We also provide access to opportunities that young people in the South and West Side don’t get, which creates the frustration, which creates a lot of this build up that we are experiencing.”
He added that more also needs to be done to end what he calls a “mass exodus” of social workers from programs like his, which he blames on inadequate pay and too little support to help them deal with the increased stresses they face.
Cherep said that programs like his need greater investment from all levels of government, as well as the community.
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