The High Costs for Out of School and Jobless Youth in Chicago and Cook County

Executive Summary:

This report, The High Costs for Out of School and Jobless Youth in Chicago and Cook County, is the fourth report produced by UIC’s Great Cities Institute (GCI) for the Alternative Schools Network (ASN).

This latest report from UIC’s Great Cities Institute updates data on youth joblessness for Cook County from its 2016 report; compiles and calculates longitudinal employment data dating back to 1960; identifies the location of jobs within Cook County in 2014; maps the number of jobs accessible via public transit to people living in Chicago’s Community Areas in 2014; and calculates individuals’ net fiscal contribution on the tax base, by levels of educational attainment.

Authors:

Teresa L. Córdova, Ph.D.

Matthew D. Wilson

Read the Full Report Here.

 

New GCI report highlighted in Tribune, Sun-Times, Newsradio

Education liaison Miki Grace, right, conducts a mock interview with job seeker Craig Dabbs at Career 360, a youth hiring event focused on careers in transportation, distribution and logistics at Lacuna Lofts, 2150 S. Canalport Ave. in Chicago, Tuesday, May 23, 2017. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Education liaison Miki Grace, right, conducts a mock interview with job seeker Craig Dabbs at Career 360, a youth hiring event focused on careers in transportation, distribution and logistics at Lacuna Lofts, 2150 S. Canalport Ave. in Chicago, Tuesday, May 23, 2017. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and WBBM Newsradio (780AM/105.9FM) feature stories on a new report by the UIC Great Cities Institute on youth unemployment in Chicago and Cook County. The report, commissioned by the Alternative Schools Network, details the relationship between education and unemployment; education and wages, and taxes paid; and the obstacles to job access such as limited public transportation options in neighborhoods where the unemployment levels are highest. Quoted in the stories are report co-authors Teresa Cordova, director of the institute and professor of urban planning and policy, and  Matthew Wilson, an economic development planner with the institute. Chicago Tribune columnist Dahleen Glanton also highlights the findings in her latest column.

Crain’s Chicago Business reported on the findings from a UIC Great Cities Institute report that estimates $9.5 billion is lost in projected tax revenue alone due to youth unemployment in Chicago and Cook County.

Youth Connection Charter School blogged ab0ut the hearing on Monday, June 12 where the report was released.

Jobs for Climate and Justice: A Worker Alternative

michaelgurrero

The impacts of climate change are increasingly severe, taking a toll on our health, environment and our economies. Jobs for Climate and Justice proposes the kind of economic program we must fight for and offers examples of the great organizing efforts around the country – led by working people – that provide the foundation for a transition to a just and climate-safe economy. It is organized based on four elements:

  1. Create good jobs fixing the climate
  2. Protect threatened workers and communities
  3. Remedy inequality and injustice
  4. Lay the basis for a New Economy

Michael Leon Guerrero is the Executive Director of the Labor Network for Sustainability. He has over 30 years of experience as a community organizer and coordinator of national grassroots alliances. He was lead organizer and Executive Director for the SouthWest Organizing Project for 17 years, leading local, state and regional campaigns on environmental justice. These campaigns resulted in clean up of toxic sites and progressive environmental and economic justice policies for Albuquerque and the state of New Mexico. He later served for 8 years as National Coordinator of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, organizing movement building efforts amongst diverse constituencies focused on trade and globalization. From 2014-2016 Michael was National Coordinator of the Climate Justice Alliance, a national network of frontline, environmental justice organizations working for a just transition from extractive industries to sustainable, living economies. He has served on the Boards of Jobs with Justice, Greenpeace and the New World Foundation.

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Jobs for Climate and Justice: A Worker Alternative

The impacts of climate change are increasingly severe, taking a toll on our health, environment and our economies. Jobs for Climate and Justice proposes the kind of economic program we must fight for and offers examples of the great organizing efforts around the country – led by working people – that provide the foundation for a transition to a just and climate-safe economy. It is organized based on four elements:

  1. Create good jobs fixing the climate
  2. Protect threatened workers and communities
  3. Remedy inequality and injustice
  4. Lay the basis for a New Economy

Michael Leon Guerrero is the Executive Director of the Labor Network for Sustainability. He has over 30 years of experience as a community organizer and coordinator of national grassroots alliances. He was lead organizer and Executive Director for the SouthWest Organizing Project for 17 years, leading local, state and regional campaigns on environmental justice. These campaigns resulted in clean up of toxic sites and progressive environmental and economic justice policies for Albuquerque and the state of New Mexico. He later served for 8 years as National Coordinator of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, organizing movement building efforts amongst diverse constituencies focused on trade and globalization. From 2014-2016 Michael was National Coordinator of the Climate Justice Alliance, a national network of frontline, environmental justice organizations working for a just transition from extractive industries to sustainable, living economies. He has served on the Boards of Jobs with Justice, Greenpeace and the New World Foundation.

Jobs for Climate and Justice: A Worker Alternative

Photo by Marjorie Childress

Photo by Marjorie Childress

We are so happy that Michael Leon Guerrero will be joining us at Great Cities Institute on Friday morning, 10:00 a.m. June 9, 2017 to present on “Jobs for Climate and Justice:  A Worker Alternative”.  As a long time organizer on environmental and economic justice issues, we are excited to hear from Michael about his work with the Labor Network for Sustainability.

Here is an article that Michael wrote a couple of years back when he was with the Climate Justice Alliance.  Check it out.

Below is an interview of Michael with TheRealNews.com at the People’s Climate March.

Becky Glass, Managing Director of the Labor Network for Sustainability, will also be with us at Great Cities on Friday.

Here is a short bio on Michael’s background.  We hope that you can join us.

Michael Leon Guerrero is the Executive Director of the Labor Network for Sustainability. He has over 30 years of experience as a community organizer and coordinator of national grassroots alliances. He was lead organizer and Executive Director for the SouthWest Organizing Project for 17 years, leading local, state and regional campaigns on environmental justice. These campaigns resulted in clean up of toxic sites and progressive environmental and economic justice policies for Albuquerque and the state of New Mexico. He later served for 8 years as National Coordinator of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, organizing movement building efforts amongst diverse constituencies focused on trade and globalization. From 2014-2016 Michael was National Coordinator of the Climate Justice Alliance, a national network of frontline, environmental justice organizations working for a just transition from extractive industries to sustainable, living economies. He has served on the Boards of Jobs with Justice, Greenpeace and the New World Foundation.

Wealthy blacks just as likely to be segregated as poor here

Photo by Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago

Photo by Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago

A Crain’s Chicago Business article examines the finding from a UIC Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy report that Cook County black households that earn $100,000 or more annually are nearly as likely as those earning under $25,000 to be segregated from whites. UIC experts interviewed in the article are Kasey Henricks, report co-author and postdoctoral associate in the institute, and Maria Krysan, report contributor and professor and head of sociology.

In Cook County, affluent black people are more likely to live near poor blacks than near white people of their income level—or any income level—according to a new study from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“This tells us that racial inequality is its own independent thing, separate from income,” said Kasey Henricks, a co-author of the study, which was released May 15. “It’s not true when people say the continuing segregation in Chicago is the consequence of wealth dynamics and not necessarily the pattern of racial dynamics.”

Henricks, a postdoctoral research associate at UIC’s Institute for Research on Race & Public Policy, wrote the study with Amanda Lewis, the institute’s director and a professor of African-American studies. Titled A Tale of Three Cities: The State of Racial Justice in Chicago, it uses data to highlight the different conditions of the black, white and Latino populations of Cook County on health, education and other attributes, including housing.

Full Story from Crain’s Chicago Business

 

Partnering for the Common Good: The Humanities meets (Social) Science

Freshwater Lab poster recording conversations from the biannual summit.

Freshwater Lab illustrated poster recording conversations from the biannual summit.

So many good things happen at UIC.  Even as the Spring 2017 Semester came to an end, the campus was vibrant with activities sponsored by Freshwater Labs, and the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.

On May 10 -11, the Freshwater Lab at UIC, directed by Professor Rachel Havrelock, sponsored a summit to focus on water issues facing the Great Lakes Region. The Freshwater Labs is a project of UIC’s Institute for the Humanities.  Policy makers, researchers, activists, and indigenous leaders from throughout the Great Lakes Region gathered to discuss water quantity and quality and covered a range of topics including the diminishing supply of the world’s freshwater, aging oil pipelines, lead contamination, water delivery and filtration systems, municipal finance, privatization of public water supplies, green infrastructure, hydraulic fracturing, impacts of emergency management laws, etc.

The opening keynote was delivered by Maude Barlow, National Chairperson, Council of Canadians, who has written and worked extensively to promote water as a human right.  Denise Abdul-Rahman, Environmental Climate Justice Chair, spoke about the work of NAACP Indiana.  Day One also included a panel on environmental justice led by Antonio Lopez of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) and a panel of mayors from Toledo, Benton Harbor, Racine, Gary, Milwaukee, and Inkster, Michigan who discussed pressing issues and strategies at the local level.

Great Cities Institute Director, Teresa Córdova, provided opening comments on Day 2 highlighting the various themes that emerged during Day One, bringing focus to the importance of the public good – and of water as a public good; water as sacred and as a gift of Mother Earth; and the challenges and responsibilities of stewardship of the Great Lakes.  In her comments, Teresa also took note of the incredible assembly of knowledgeable and committed individuals and organizations and emphasized how critical their role was to the future of the region.

The remainder of Day two was spent in working groups on the following topics:  Water Costs and the Human Right to Water; Great Lakes Digital Storytelling; Environmental Justice Campaign Messaging, Story Production and Grassroots Media; Oil Pipelines and the Great Lakes; Water Delivery and Lead Pipes; and Can We Be Good Water Neighbors? – Culture, Place and Watershed Politics.  The day ended with a closing ceremony.

On Friday, May 12, The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, directed by Jennifer Scott, with assistance from UIC’s Institute for the Humanities, directed by Susan Levine, sponsored a panel on the Common Good. Participants were UIC faculty from Social Work (Cassandra McKay-Jackson, Health Policy Administration (Patricia O’Brien), Occupational Therapy (Kathy Preissner), Nursing (Teresa A. Savage), and Latin American and Latino Studies (Amalia Pallares).  This event was the culmination of a yearlong series.  The National Endowment for the Humanities funded the project for non-humanities faculty from UIC to “explore Progressive Era frameworks, the history and philosophies of public services, and the role of the state in citizens’ lives. The purpose of the seminar was to explore the significance and legacy of the ‘Common Good,’ a topic more resonant than ever.” The notion of “citizen,” of course, was defined broadly and true to the Hull House legacy of serving immigrant communities.

GCI Director, Teresa Córdova, offered opening comments and then moderated the panel.  She spoke about the role and responsibility of government in providing public goods and services. Drawing upon readings on the public good, she stated that discussions of the common good requires moral judgments about the role, as well as the scope, of government in serving its citizenry (defined broadly).  Citing a blog from The Rock Ethics Institute she said, “a decreased prioritization of public goods is in effect a diminished sense of social responsibility among citizens.”  It is that diminished sense of commitment to one another, she argued, that is so dangerous to us as a society and allows the festering of hate, scapegoating and disregard for life and future generations. A yearlong study of The Progressive Era framework provides the opportunity to reaffirm values of moral obligation to one another. Professor Córdova concluded that we should not shy away from having those tough conversations about what it takes to assure our common good.

Abandoned in their Neighborhoods: Youth Joblessness amidst the Flight of Industry and Opportunity

Executive Summary:

“More Jobs, Less Violence:  Connecting Youth to a Brighter Future,” is the title of the 2017 Youth Employment Hearing sponsored by Alternative Schools Network and held at the Chicago Urban League on January 30, 2017. Other co-sponsors of the hearing include Chicago Area Project, Youth Connection Charter School, Westside Health Authority, Black United Fund of IL, National Youth Advocate Program, La Casa Norte, Lawrence Hall, Mount Sinai Medical Center, Heartland Alliance and Metropolitan Family Services. Each of these groups work directly with young people, providing mentorship and employment related opportunities. Elected officials from federal, state and local government attended to hear the data presented and the voices of young people who testified on their experiences related to employment. This report, produced by UIC’s Great Cities Institute, provides a supplement to the voices of the young people and those that work with them.

Authors:

Teresa L. Córdova, Ph.D.

Matthew D. Wilson

Presentation Slides
Orginal Report

 

Securing the Common Good Public Colloquium

In the past few years, questions around the common good have risen to the level of national debate and the depletion of funding for public services demonstrate that much has changed since Jane Addams founded the Hull-House Social Settlement in 1889. The result of a year-long series of seminars grounded in the work of Progressive Era activists and the Hull-House Settlement, this interdisciplinary program will explore the importance of the humanities in understanding common good issues such as: Housing, employment, labor, health, education, and citizenship.

Presentations will focus on the historic and contemporary experiences of Mexican-Americans at Hull-House Social Settlement, the development of progressive education, The history of nursing ethics, Occupational Therapy’s origins in Chicago, and Jane Addams as an alternative leadership model in Social Work. Speakers include: Cassandra McKay-Jackson, Patricia O’Brien, Amalia Pallares, Kathy Preissner, and Teresa A. Savage. Teresa Córdova, Director, UIC Great Cities Institute and Professor, Urban Planning and Policy, will facilitate the discussion to follow the presentations.

Refreshments free will be served.

Jane Addams Hull-House Museum in partnership with UIC’s Institute for the Humanities created Securing the Common Good: Hull-House History at UIC – a National Endowment for the Humanities supported initiative designed to foster teaching and learning about the common good at UIC by creating new avenues for utilizing one of the campus’ most significant humanities resource, the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.

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