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A casual reading of the July 26 Neighborhood News article, “Bait and Switch,” may leave you wondering why a 125-year-old community agency is actively deceiving its immediate community. Erie Neighborhood House is situated in the West Town community area, just minutes from the Loop. Author Ben Joravsky’s description of our neighborhood, “where property values are starting to rise,” sorely minimizes the degree of change that market forces have brought to bear on this community. Over the last 15 years rents have soared nearly 400 percent. A recent Sun-Times study listed West Town as having the fourth greatest increase in all of Chicago of median home-selling price, a 48 percent increase in the last 5 years. Hundreds of families with 20 to 30 years of community roots and relationships have been uprooted and forced to negotiate a new existence in an unfamiliar neighborhood. In the context of this gentrification, Erie’s innovative solution to meet the needs of longtime residents is a drop in the bucket.
Erik Nordgren
