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CHICAGOREPORTER.COM

VOLUME 37NUMBER 5

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008$5

More than a year after a callfor statewide hearings, thesituation for children withincarcerated parents remainsproblematic. page 8

ALSO INSIDE: BUY ORGANIC—JUST NOT HERE page 18

Always anafterthought

2 THE CHICAGO REPORTER | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008

Founded in 1972, the Reporter is aninvestigative bimonthly that

identifies, analyzes and reports onthe social, economic and political

issues of metropolitan Chicago witha focus on race and poverty. It issupported by contributions from

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FOUNDERJohn A. McDermott

EDITOR & PUBLISHERAlden K. Loury

SENIOR EDITORKimbriell Kelly

MANAGING EDITORRui Kaneya

PRESENTATION EDITORChristine Wachter

REPORTERSFernando Díaz

Jeff Kelly LowensteinKelly Virella

COPY EDITORStacie Williams

INTERNS

EDITORS & PUBLISHERS EMERITIAlysia Tate

Laura S. WashingtonRoy Larson

THE REPORTER READERS BUREAU

Published by the Community Renewal SocietyRev. Calvin S. Morris, executive director

Copyright ©2008. All rights reserved.

On the cover8 Not a priority

Illinois law provides in some ways forchildren whose parents are incarcerated,but a survey of the agencies involvedreveals that often children’s needs areaddressed on an individual basis.

14 Squabbles delay billsto help kidsFeud blocks progress on legislation to aidchildren with incarcerated parents.

16 Bringing families togetherA county jail in Pittsburgh works toalleviate trauma for children.

Also inside18 Buy organic*

(Some restrictionsand limitations apply)Organic food is healthier and environ-mentally friendly—and rarely found inChicago’s black neighborhoods.

22 Organic food at a cost If you've ever asked why organics cost somuch, here's your explanation.

23 Extending organics’ reachTowns get creative to serve poor,urban areas.

DepartmentsEditor’s Note/News.......... 3Spinoffs................................ 4Q&A...................................... 6

On the cover: Illustration by Dennis Nishi

INSIDE September/October

John BetancurLarissa Chinwah

Bryan EcholsJesse GreenbergRobert HonestyMireya HurtadoMaze Jackson

Ann Durkin KeatingJesse Knox III

Rene David LunaEric S. Mattson

Maureen McKeoughMartin J. Oberman

Tim Russell Craig Sieben

Chanté D. SpannCarolyn Trancoso

Grace TsaoBenjamin Van Horne

Aris WhiteRebecca Zorach

In the next issueIn its November/December issue, TheChicago Reporter will take a look atwhether the government has madegood on its promises to fallen militaryservicemen who enlisted asimmigrants. The investigation willexamine what benefits are extended tofamily members and whether theyactually get them. The Reporter willalso investigative whether area energyproviders are adding to the poor healthof Chicagoans, particularly those whoare poor or minorities.

Sherri Tillman co-owns A Natural Harvest Health Food Store & Deli, a 26-year-old South Shoregrocer, cafe and one of the South Side's few places to get organic food. Photo by Vince Munyon.

Stephanie BehneLaura Burns

Alex CampbellMatthew Hendrickson

Kara MaddenJoe O'DonnellAnita ValentinMarian Wang

Don’t miss a beat. Subscribeto The Chicago Reporter.

Already a subscriber?Consider making a donation.

www.chicagoreporter.comWE TREAD WHERE MAINSTREAM MEDIA WON’T

In many ways, childrenwho have an incarcerat-ed parent are like chil-dren involved in a messy

divorce. Children in both sit-uations may feel ashamed,blame themselves for theirparents’ situation, misbehaveor struggle in school.

When children of divorceneed help, there’s a safety netwaiting to catch them. Thelegal process mandates visita-tion with their noncustodialparent, counseling for theemotional tidal wave, moneyfor school supplies andclothes, and the promise of asafe place to live. In somecases, the court appoints aguardian ad litem to representthe children—attorneys whoaren’t beholden to mom ordad but act in the best inter-est of the children.

But when a parent ishauled off to prison, often fora lengthy period of time,there’s no parenting plan, nodemands for visitation, no

orders for financial supportand no lawyers appointed toprotect the children’s rights.The families are often left to

figure it out on their own asreporter Jeff Kelly Lowensteindetails in this issue’s coverstory, “Not a priority.” Fewinstitutions in the criminaljustice system are proactiveon behalf of these children.There is little coordinationbetween government agenciesand nonprofits that mighthelp fill in the gaps.

As with children ofdivorce, the separationbetween a child and parentshould be enough of a com-pelling reason for children ofthe incarcerated and theiradvocates to demand similarattention to details like visi-tation, financial support andtherapy. Some might calltaking such actions soft oncrime. But ignoring thoseneeds only serves to extendthe punishment of the incar-cerated parents to theirinnocent children.

To me, that sounds likebeing soft on common sense.

—Alden K. Loury

Alden K. LouryEditor and PublisherOpinions expressed by the edi-tor and publisher are his own.

In children’s best interest

We welcome letters. Send themto [email protected] or332 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 500,Chicago, IL, 60604. Pleaseinclude name, address and a day-time phone number. Letters maybe edited for space and clarity.

EDITOR’S NOTE Reporter News

Reporter NewsReporter Fernando Díaz has been named

the 2008 Emerging Journalist of the Year bythe National Association of HispanicJournalists. Díaz was honored at the associa-tion’s 23rd annual Noche de TriunfosJournalism Awards Gala on Sept. 12 at theNational Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Among the reasons Díaz was selected wasfor his “desire to converge to other mediaplatforms, develop [The Chicago Reporter’s]Internet coverage, adapt stories for Spanish-language television and uncover informationthat the entire [Latino] community shouldknow,” according to a letter by Iván Román,executive director of the association.

Reporter Jeff Kelly Lowenstein has beennamed a 2008 Ochberg Fellow by the DartCenter for Journalism and Trauma. The fel-lowship allows Kelly Lowenstein, who covershealth for the Reporter, to participate in aweeklong seminar this fall at the annualconference of the International Society ofTraumatic Stress Studies.

Kelly Lowenstein was among just nine jour-nalists selected from around the globe, includ-ing reporters from Colombia, the UnitedKingdom and New Zealand, to receive this fel-lowship. The Dart Center is a global networkof journalists, journalism educators and healthprofessionals dedicated to improving mediacoverage of trauma, conflict and tragedy.

In the coming months, the Reporter willintroduce more multimedia and interactivecontent on its Web site. In September, theReporter launched tcrBLOG, the official blogof the Reporter.

Visit http://chicagoreporter.typepad.comfor insight and context on the news of theday. The Reporter will use the blog to breaknews and to cover this year's historic presi-dential election, all with its unique blend ofcomputer-assisted, investigative reportingand focus on race and poverty. Check backoften and share your comments with theReporter and other readers.

In addition, Editor and Publisher Alden K.Loury has been added to Huffington PostChicago’s lineup of bloggers.

WWW.CHICAGOREPORTER.COM | THE CHICAGO REPORTER 3

Across the nation, childrenof the incarcerated, as muchas their parents, bear theconsequences of misdeeds ormistakes. They are dispropor-tionately poor, AfricanAmerican or Latino and, formany, their lives are shapedby the same cycle of poverty,violence and recidivism thatensnares their parents.

Community RenewalSociety, publisher of TheChicago Reporter, hopes tostop this cycle by pursuing acampaign of public educa-tion, civic engagement anddirect advocacy to ensurethat the needs of these chil-dren are met. The reports inthis issue are part of aninvestigative series by theReporter and our sister pub-lication Catalyst Chicago thatlooks at the lives of childrenwhose parents are or havebeen behind bars. The arti-cles, in turn, will inform thework of Civic Action,Community Renewal’sorganizing and advocacyarm, to build a broad-basedregional coalition to helpthese children.

In its series on childrenwith incarcerated parents,the Reporter chose to with-hold the names and identifi-able photographs of all chil-dren younger than 17 out ofconcern for their privacy.Pseudonyms are used in allcases, even though care-givers of some children gavethe Reporter permission touse real names. Those whoare older are also not namedwhen they requested thattheir identities be protected.


SPINOFFS Keeping Current

The news:After weeks of rumors,Starbucks Coffee Companyreleased an official statementthis summer listing about600 stores that the Seattle-based coffee giant will close.

Behind the news:The departure of

Starbucks in some Chicagoneighborhoods means peo-ple will have to travel far-ther to get coffee. Ananalysis by The ChicagoReporter shows that blackneighborhoods, which havefewer Starbucks to beginwith, will have higher ratesof closure than white, Latinoor mixed neighborhoods.

In Chicago, one of fivestores in black communitieswill close, compared with twoof 75 in white communities.In mixed neighborhoods,there will be two closures of78 stores. None of the sevenstores in Latino neighbor-hoods were on the list of clo-sures. According to a state-ment by Starbucks, the storeclosures are based on severaloperating and contractualfactors for each store.

Fifth Ward AldermanLeslie Hairston said that thestores are not closingbecause of the community’sracial makeup, but becauseof poor planning by develop-ers. “They were looking attraffic count and medianincome, and that doesn’tnecessarily translate intobusiness,” Hairston said.

Hairston has one

Starbucks in her ward—thefirst one in a black commu-nity in Chicago. That store isnot set to close.

Meanwhile, surroundingsuburbs are also feeling theimpact. West suburbanElmhurst, which is 93.4 per-

cent white, according to theCensus 2000, will lose one ofits four stores. Conversely,residents of South suburbanCountry Club Hills, which is81.9 percent black, will lose itsonly Starbucks.

—Stacie Johnson

The news:In July, the unemployment ratefor Illinois rose for the thirdstraight month to 7.3 percent,up 2.2 percent from July of lastyear, according to the IllinoisDepartment of EmploymentSecurity. The number ofunemployed stood at 491,300,increasing by 27,900 betweenJune and July.

Behind the news:Latinos may be feeling the

squeeze more than most.According to the IllinoisDepartment of EmploymentSecurity, 10 out of 11 Illinoisindustries with more than10,000 workers reportedemployment losses in July.Industries hit hardest duringthe past year were construc-tion, manufacturing andfinance—sectors which,according to census data,employed the highest per-centages of Latinos.

Illinois has lost 10,000construction, 5,500 manufac-turing and 6,000 finance jobsin the last year, according tothe Illinois Department ofEmployment Security.

Latinos represented 17 per-cent of those employed inconstruction and 23 percentin manufacturing, while theymade up 9 percent in finance.

The “Latino Labor Report,2008” by the Pew HispanicCenter, a nonpartisan researchorganization, reported thatthe recent negative trend inthe construction industry hasespecially hurt foreign-bornLatinos, who depend on theindustry jobs more thannative-borns.

“We found most of theimpact was on foreign-bornworkers and Mexican work-ers,” said Rakesh Kochhar,associate director forresearch at the Pew HispanicCenter. “The constructionindustry is very important toforeign-born Latinos.”

—Matthew Hendrickson

Nailing a job Starbucks closings:grounds for concern

Steeped up northStarbucks stores tend to cluster in predominantly whiteNorth Side neighborhoods. But the rate of the stores closingis highest in black neighborhoods.

Lake Michigan

5

Closed stores

Open stores

White

Latino

Mixed

Starbucks locations

Communities, by raceBlack

Asian

Note: Starbucks locations at Chicago O’HareInternational Airport are not pictured.

Source: Starbucks Coffee Company

Check out tcrBLOG, the official blog of The Chicago Reporter.

www.chicagoreporter.typepad.com

The news:More than 7,000 people affil-iated with minority journalistassociations gathered inChicago this summer for theUNITY 08 Convention, thelargest gathering of journal-ists nationwide.

Behind the news:This year marks the sec-

ond time in more than 20years that the number ofminorities hired by dailynewspapers is fewer than thenumber leaving them.

Despite the anomaly, thepercentage of minorities inthose newsrooms increasedfrom 13.43 to 13.52 percentbetween 2007 and 2008,according to the 2008Newsroom EmploymentCensus conducted by theAmerican Society of News-paper Editors.

Cristina Azocar, who at the

time of the convention was aUNITY board member andpresident of the Native

American JournalistsAssociation, said that theproblem is retention, which has

decreased for minorities since2003, when it was 97 percentin the newsroom. Retention iscurrently at 91 percent, accord-ing to the ASNE report.

Minority journalists needto start looking for otheroptions, Azocar said. Theseinclude working for ethnicmedia, minority-owned newsstations and Web broad-casts, Azocar said. Somejournalists need to stopworking with corporatemedia giants because thereare enough minorities in thefield to change the industry,she added.

Currently, there are 7,113minorities in daily newspapernewsrooms across the coun-try, according to ASNE’s cen-sus. “We have to unplug fromthis system that’s neverserved us,” Azocar said. “Stopbeing complacent and startbeing entrepreneurial.”

—Tatiana Granados


Minority newsroom hires hit new low

Gun violence still high among blacks despite banThe news:The Illinois State RifleAssociation sued the City ofChicago in June to end thecity’s gun ban after the U.S.Supreme Court overturned alaw forbidding handgun pos-session in Washington, D.C.

Behind the news:African Americans in

Illinois were 4.5 times aslikely as white people andnearly three times as likelyas Latinos to die a violence-related firearm deathbetween 2000 and 2005,according to statistics fromthe U.S. Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention.

Gun violence killed morethan 24 African Americansper 100,000 during this

period, compared with morethan five per 100,000 whitepeople. Latinos died at a rateof about 8.4 per 100,000.

No single factor causesthis disparity, said JohnHagedorn, professor of crimi-nal justice at the University ofIllinois at Chicago. But hepointed out that a sense ofresentment—toward thepolice, authority and societyas a whole—can lead to vio-lent resolutions to many dis-putes, and this might be con-tributing to the high rates ofgun violence among AfricanAmericans. Within blackcommunities, he said, “peopledon’t trust the system at all.”

Chicago accounts formuch of the violence inIllinois; about 65 percent ofthe homicides were in the

city, according to CDC andU.S. Bureau of JusticeStatistics data.

The Rev. Robin Hood, aChicago community activist,said that he wants tougherstate and federal laws focusedon “guns that are used fornothing but killing people”and more severe penalties forso-called “straw purchasers”

who buy guns elsewhere andbring them into the city.“They’ve got a worse deter-rent on drugs,” he said.

Hagedorn said such ruleswill have to be adopted byall communities for them tohave any impact. Until then,he said, “nobody’s going toget rid of their guns.”

—Alex Campbell

Hiring tailspinFor years, the numbers of minorities getting hired by dailynewspapers has been on the decline. Now, for the secondtime in 20 years, the number of departures is greater thanthe number of hires.

Source: 2008 Annual Newsroom Employment Census of daily newspapers conducted bythe American Society of Newspaper Editors

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

800

200

Newsroom retention for minorities, 1999-2008

492

392

586

671Retention rate at a10-year high—97%

Retentiondrops to 91%

Hires Departures


Q&A Ken Dunn

Sustaining lifeBy Madelaine Burkert

In 1975, long before people were familiar with the ozonehole or global warming, Ken Dunn founded the ResourceCenter of Chicago to introduce city dwellers to the simple val-ues of conservation and respect for the earth he learned grow-ing up in an Amish Mennonite farming community.

Today, the center—with the still-spry 65-year-old Dunn atits helm—has expanded into a network of nine programs witha common goal: to fight environmental and social injustice.Dunn sees these issues as two sides of the same coin, twinsymptoms of a culture of wastefulness. From a food recoveryproject that collects unwanted items from caterers and grocerystores and distributes them to soup kitchens, to a recyclinginitiative that employs Chicago Housing Authority residents,the center’s programs all reflect Dunn’s belief in maximizingthe resources—human and material—that others disregard.

Dunn began looking critically at industrial capitalism as ateenager, when he and his brothers were put in charge of man-

aging the family farm. The boys acquired more land andinvested in new technologies to maximize their production.

They soon realized they had made a mistake. “I found ittotally lacking in its satisfaction for the farmer and itsresponsibility to the soil,” Dunn says of his foray into indus-trial agriculture. Intellectually curious by nature, he saw hisexperience as a gateway into understanding the central con-flicts of modern life. “I went for a college education to figureout why we’d made those wrong decisions.”

He landed in a doctoral program in philosophy at theUniversity of Chicago, where he found the answer to his ques-tions. “Our economy just is wrong,” Dunn says. “There are val-ues that people have traditionally had that are more appropri-ate for how one should live one’s life.”

As an example, he points to the Mennonite mandate to dono harm to the earth or its inhabitants. “Industrial agriculturedoes violence to the soil, to the plants and animals, and to

Ken Dunn founded the Resource Center of Chicago, which promotes a sustainable way of living by, among other things, running farms in the city. “Whatwe need to do instead is just rethink life starting with place and then think of what resources can support a quality of life.” Photo by Joe Gallo.

A pioneeringenvironmentalist fights aculture of wastefulness.


communities,” Dunn explains. “We have to get back to a placewhere we can be true to our values.”

For Dunn, this means being better stewards of the earth byrevamping the global economic system that he says stripshumans of their connection to the materials they consume—starting with what they put in our stomachs. “There are fewthings that have built community over the ages as much asfood,” he says. “Food production, harvesting, preparation, eat-ing—it’s sort of the center, the heart of the household and thecommunity.”

In its fight against big agriculture, the Resource Centeroperates two City Farms in Chicago—vacant lots that Dunnhas converted, with the help of local youth, homeless and vol-unteers, into fully operational organic farms.

The Chicago Reporter recently met with Dunn at the CityFarm at the corner of Division Street and Clybourn Avenue totalk about his work.

On what ideals is the Center based?

Fundamentally, as a nonprofit, the Resource Center is a sus-tainability organization. But being mindful of its place, it’s in acity whose quality of life is primarily diminished because ofsocial inequity, lack of social justice. One of the big focuses ofany responsible organization in Chicago is to bridge the gapbetween the haves and the have-nots. A lot of our projectslocate on the boundary. We’re at the boundary between GoldCoast and Cabrini Green. Our first site was on the boundarybetween Hyde Park and Woodlawn. By inhabiting the bound-aries, you can encourage participation of diverse populationsand get started on real communication.

All of the Resource Center projects seek to find resources,both human and material, that are not valued or respected prop-erly, and ingeniously bring them together to bring a positive out-come or better utilization of both resources.

The vacant space in our city is definitely a resource that isoften despoiled by dumping and disrespect. By cleaning it up,and the cleaning being done by people [who are] unemployedor homeless, that discarded land can be brought into productiv-ity by the discarded population.

Is the “green” lifestyle a luxury?

We have to admit that sustainability as it’s represented by themedia and understood by the population is an elitist notion, andthat we will not be able to sustain that for the entire population. Ithink a sustainability that focuses on place, that focuses on build-ing a quality of life on local resources, would be the alternative.

Is it possible to reverse global warming?

It can’t be by waiting for the new technology. I think the domi-nant media is jumping on a new form of mass transportation—hydrogen cars or hybrid vehicles. None of these will be our solu-tion because an equitable solution relies on less energy being con-sumed. So a private automobile is out of the question in a sustain-able society. That is, if you have a private automobile for every-body on the planet, just the amount of energy consumed, no mat-ter what form it is, will be beyond what the planet can sustain.

So our solution, to be a true one, has to be in our culture andthe way we produce a quality of life. It cannot be, ‘How do weget each other to these mass rock concerts?’ We have to learnto enjoy music and conversation in our living rooms, rather thanin concert halls and concerts that we fly to or drive to. So tech-nology has no solution because technology is the problem.

If cultural overhaul is needed, is the society’srecent focus on taking baby steps ill-advised?

Well, the baby steps are necessary, because we’re only goingto alter our culture if we can continue with pleasures that we’reused to. So, instead of telling everybody, ‘All right, done with this—back on the farm and no purchasing anywhere,’ most people’senjoyment of life would greatly decrease. They have no experienceon the farm, of how to take pleasure from working on a farm.

Can baby steps lead to meaningful change beforeit’s too late?

I don’t think so. Climate change will eliminate a lot of speciesbefore we really get it turned around. And so the question to usis, ‘Do we turn it around before our species is one of the onesthat is eliminated?’ But what does a reflective and hopefullyresponsible individual do with such circumstances? You do thebest you can. And you just ask—whether you succeed or not—‘Was I on the right side as we went careening?’

It was a piece of graffiti that I saw in the early ’70s on agarage door in Hyde Park that got me to my major perspective.The graffiti read: ‘The party continued as usual, as the elevatorplummeted from the 96th floor.’ I kept trying to figure out,‘What does that mean?’ And then I noticed, ‘Oh yeah, all ofthese things that I have as reservations [about] modern societyis the modern party. And we’re plummeting from the 96th floor.’We have a little, very little, time. So that’s what made me say,‘Let’s quit trying to figure out how to tweak the industrial econ-omy or switch our teaching and our focuses of our universities.’None of that can be tweaked. We just have to say, ‘We’ve beenon the wrong track, and the party we have should be not onethat caused the plummeting. But let’s have a party.’

Is it possible to find environmental solutions thatdon’t unfairly burden the poor?

The conflict exists when the assumption is that we’re goingto be able to keep our dominant economic system or remnantsof that dominant economic system. As soon as you bring in howwe’re going to eliminate congestion in New York City, you’ve gotto be using our dominant economy, so you’ve got to find solu-tions that work in our dominant economy. But what we need todo instead is just rethink life starting with place and then thinkof what resources can support a quality of life. And that’s one ofthe reasons I’ve emphasized urban agriculture, in that we caneliminate a whole cycle of the dominant economy, or the domi-nant food system, by using the space that’s local and theresources of the rain and sun that fall on that space.

In order to pay the high price of production without exploit-ing either the soil or the people, we sell over half of the produceto high-end restaurants at top-tier prices, but we sell at the localfarm stand to the local population at what they’d expect to pay.

Traditional peoples have throughout the ages met most of theirneeds in open air markets, and many people still do. Let’s assumethat quality of life and human needs can be met in open air mar-kets. And what characterizes them is you usually exchange thingswith the producer. You start appreciating the item; it’s got a deepervalue because you see all that’s invested in it.

Start valuing everything in your life, everything you touch,because it has deeper meaning. In looking at farmers markets,how our social needs are met there, needs for beauty, culture,enhancement—they can all be met in farmers markets. We’vejust got to start looking at the small examples of sustainable andequitable living and build something from there. �


COVER STORY Children of the Incarcerated

ero seconds.That’s how much time Cynthia had to prepare

before her father came home after more than fouryears in prison.

Planning would have made things better, shethought later, after the year during which her mother

and father fought constantly, during which her father drankheavily and ended up committing another crime that got himlocked up again. Talking to him on the phone before his

Z

Illinois law providesin some ways forchildren whoseparents areincarcerated, but asurvey of theagencies involvedreveals that oftenchildren’s needsare addressed onan individual basis.

By Jeff Kelly Lowensteinand Christiana Schmitz

NOT APRIORITY


return would have helped. So would have visits to the prisonto prepare her family for the change.

Instead, the moment she had thought about for years atnight in her bedroom on the second floor of her family’s red-brick townhouse in north suburban Niles just happened. Therehe was in the doorway, and things started moving way too fast.

The sheen of the visit, like the smell of a freshly cleanedroom, quickly wore off. Soon her father was yelling at Cynthia,whose name has been changed to protect her identity, and her

sister about why the house wasn’t clean, about taking respon-sibility, about being respectful.

Although she generally obeyed her parents, this timeCynthia yelled back. It all seemed so unfair to her. She told herfather if he wanted her to take responsibility, he shouldn’t havegotten arrested and gone to prison. Then she stormed upstairsand stayed in her room, leaving her mother standing there inhelpless frustration.

In an ideal world, a social worker would have helped

Denise Bailey-Gordon hugs one of her children during a visit at Lincoln CorrectionalCenter in downstate Illinois. Contact visits are allowed at nearly all of the 28 prisonsoperated by the Illinois Department of Corrections. But some advocates say thedepartment’s definition of contact is too restrictive. Photo by Jon Lowenstein.

Cynthia get used to her dad again long before he left prison.But for many children with incarcerated parents, Illinois isnot an ideal world.

More than one year after state Senate President Emil JonesJr. and Rep. Constance “Connie” Howard called for statewidehearings about the experiences of children with incarceratedparents, the terrain for Illinois children like Cynthia is decid-edly uneven.

Although each phase of the law enforcement process—arrest, adjudication, incarceration and release—includes someaspect that addresses the needs of children like Cynthia, inpractice their needs are an after-thought—typically addressedon an individual and inconsistent, rather than systematic, basis.

The Chicago Reporter found that formal arrest protocols areabsent, the attention paid to children’s needs during the sen-tencing phase of the legal process is erratic and limited to asmall percentage of cases, and no programs are specificallydedicated to reuniting families before the parents’ release.

The Reporter found:

� None of the 16 police departments surveyed has formalarrest protocols or policies about how to handle an arrestscene where children are uninvolved but present.

� The collection of information about an offender’s family isa required element of “presentence reports” that generallyare written by probation officers and sent to judges. Thesereports generally are produced only when the defendant isfound guilty, but there is no agreement about theimposition of a specific sentence.

� The Illinois Department of Corrections allows contact visitsat all but one of the state’s 28 prisons, but they can berevoked as a disciplinary measure. Some advocates say thedepartment’s definition of contact is far too restrictive.

� The corrections department has child-friendly visitingareas in all five of the women’s facilities. A department

spokesman said “many” of the 25 men’s prisons have suchareas but could not say how many. The department alsohas no programming during the pre-release processspecifically designed to reunite families.

� Communication gaps that work against children’s needsbeing met exist between the different agencies involved.

Although Illinois has made some progress in talking abouthow to meet the needs of these children with incarcerated par-ents, the findings show that in many ways the state still fallsshort of that goal, said Dee Ann Newell, a former Open SocietyInstitute fellow who has worked with organizations in 16 statesdedicated to helping children with incarcerated parents.

“There’s a lot of incredible interest in how to serve the chil-dren in the community,” Newell said. “But in terms of actualplace and polices, [Illinois] is just now on that pathway.”

The issue is a critical one as tens of thousands of children,who are disproportionately poor and African American orLatino, ultimately end up joining their parents in America’sprisons. According to a 2004 U.S. Bureau of Justice Statisticssurvey, about 3 percent of the inmates said they have a childin the prison system.

Improving service delivery is vital, according to Gail T.Smith, executive director of Chicago Legal Advocacy forIncarcerated Mothers, a nonprofit organization that provideslegal and educational services to maintain the bond betweenincarcerated mothers and their children.

Having a comprehensive approach can both increase serv-ice quality by highlighting best practices and reduce the neg-ative consequences children can experience from their par-ents’ incarceration, Smith said, adding that the issue is par-ticularly urgent now because the United States is the world’slargest jailer, with more than 2 million people imprisoned orin jail in 2007.

“Because of the explosion [in prisoner numbers], andbecause it’s clear that there is an impact on the children to thedisruption, if we don’t stop and take three steps back, we riskhaving an even larger number of incarcerated people that willimpact education budgets, infrastructure budgets, housing,jobs and all of that,” Smith said.

In many cases, children’s first glimpse at their parent’sinvolvement in the criminal justice system isn’t during atrial or a visit; it’s at the moment of arrest.

In some instances, advocates say, children could be forcedto lie face down on the ground with a gun pointed at theirhead. Other children could have to watch their parents beingdragged forcibly from their homes.

A survey of police departments in the state’s 10 largestcities, as well as six cities with a high rate of prisoners return-ing in 2005, yielded mixed results.

Law enforcement officials in 11 of the 16 police districtssaid their officers make an effort to minimize trauma for achild during the arrest of a parent.

Tactics include asking the arrestee to step outside so thatthe child does not see his or her parent being handcuffed,making the arrest when the child is not home, asking the childto leave the room, allowing the parent to hug the child good-bye or even carrying stuffed animals in squad cars.

“We don’t employ monsters,” said Sgt. Tim Curry of theMaywood Police Department. “We do take measures to safe-guard kids’ physical and psychological well-being. We like tomake sure the kid is safe.”

But the extent to which children can be taken into consid-eration depends on the individual officer’s discretion and the



Power PointsThe road for children with incar-cerated parents in Illinois is arocky one. While their needs aretaken into account to somedegree at each step of the criminal justice system, they aremet only in haphazard ways. The Chicago Reporter found:

� No police department surveyed has a formal policy forhow to deal with arrests when children are at the scene.

� Probation officers must collect information about anoffender’s children for presentence reports, but thereports are only written in certain cases.

� Some advocates say that the Illinois Department ofCorrections’ definition of “contact” visit is too limited.

� The corrections department has no programming duringthe pre-release process specifically designed to helpfamilies reunite after the offender is released.

� Communication gaps exist between some of the agenciesinvolved in the stages of the incarceration process.

For more information about the people and organizationswe write about, go to www.chicagoreporter.com.


behavior of the person under arrest. While police officerstalked about easing or eliminating arrests in front of children,they acknowledged that “best practice” scenarios aren’t alwaysrealistic—particularly during dangerous arrests.

“We don’t want to have to handcuff somebody in front oftheir children … but it depends on the situation,” said AnnDinges, public information officer of the Elgin PoliceDepartment.

None of the 16 departments surveyed has an explicit policyfor arresting a parent while a child is present. Instead, officerssaid their protocol when making an arrest in front of a child isto make sure that the child is left with another parent, anappointed guardian, or the Department of Children andFamily Services.

Many see this lack of policy as a shortcoming. NellBernstein, advocate and author of the book, “All Alone in theWorld: Children of the Incarcerated,” cautioned that, withoutintensive training and support from the top, individual proto-cols may have little value.

Bernstein also underscored the need for advance planninglike having an extra officer available when police believethere are going to be children present during an arrest. “If youare arresting somebody on drugs, it would be great if every-

body would be beautifully behaved. Given that that’s notgoing to happen, does that mean that you don’t have to payattention to children’s needs?” Bernstein said. “If we have totake some extra steps to make that happen, that’s what weneed to do.”

Wayne Walles, commander of the Waukegan PoliceDepartment, said the nature of some arrests work against cre-ating a formal policy. “An arrest situation is very fluid andvery rapidly changing,” he said. “There are too many variablesto dictate it by a hard-and-fast policy.”

According to state law, dependent people’s “excessivehardship” because of imprisonment is one of 13 miti-gating factors that can allow judges to shorten a defen-

dant’s sentence or to consider alternative sentencing methods.Some advocates say a family impact statement needs to be

presented as evidence of such hardship.According to Newell, the idea of such statements was mod-

eled on an environmental impact assessment, which is anevaluation of the likely influence a project may have on theenvironment. Some cities like San Francisco have moved for-ward with the development of a form to document suchimpact—but not in Illinois.

A woman talks with her son in the visiting room at Cook County Jail. Opened in May, the room provides a welcoming space for parents to visit withtheir children. Photo by Jeff Kelly Lowenstein.

The state law, however, requires that the defendant’s fam-ily situation and background be included as part of the pre-sentence report, which generally is written when the defen-dant is found guilty, but there is no agreement about theimposition of a specific sentence.

The Reporter surveyed probation officers, as well as publicdefenders and circuit court judges, in the 10 Illinois countiesthat had the highest number of returning prisoners in 2007.

Each of the 10 counties, probation officers or officials saidthat information about a defendant’s family is collected inpresentence reports. In most cases, the information aboutchildren is self-reported and not independently verified, sev-eral officers said.

Jeffery Jefko Sr., deputy director with Kane County CourtServices, said his county’s presentence report includes achance for the defendant to make a statement about theimpact his or her incarceration would have on the family. “Wedon’t edit it all,” said Jefko, who has worked in the probationfield for about 30 years. “As we get it, that’s how it’s typedinto the report.”

Jefko estimated that 25 percent of defendants write such astatement.

After its completion, the presentence report must be sentto a judge as well as to attorneys on both sides at least threedays in advance of the presentence hearing, according toIllinois law.

Public defenders and circuit judges interviewed said theypresent and consider the impact of the offender’s incarcerationon children and other dependents during the sentencing phase.

Still, there were some who called the impact on children a“secondary concern” compared with the punishment of the per-son who committed a crime. “Family shouldn’t be a ‘get out of jailfree’ card,” said Patrick Kelley, a Sangamon County judge.

“I wouldn’t want to consider a statement by a parent orspouse and not have that person subjected to cross-exami-nation,” said Terry Gamber, resident circuit judge ofJefferson County.

For cases in which there are mandatory minimum sentences,judges have no discretion to consider the impact on a defen-dant’s children. Nonviolent drug offenses, for example, are onetype of crime that carry a mandatory sentence in Illinois.

“Sometimes the judge’s hands are kind of tied,” saidHerman S. Haase, a public defender in Will County. “There’sso much mandatory stuff right now … that, even though it’stough on the defendant’s family, the judges just don’t havemuch of a choice.”

A number of the public defenders appeared open to receiv-ing information about the impact of incarceration on a defen-dant’s children as a standard practice.

But others expressed strong opposition to the idea. “I resistthe idea of the introduction of information about people’schildren being a mandatory element of the presentence inves-tigation,” Gamber said.

Even in cases when a defendant’s family situation doeslead to the defendant’s sentence being mitigated, that samesituation does not necessarily play a significant role in wherethat prisoner is incarcerated.

Deb Denning, deputy director of the Illinois Department ofCorrections’ Women and Family Services division, explainedthat the women’s side of the department tries to place pris-oners in the county where they lived before their incarcera-tion. Derek Schnapp, a department spokesman, said that, formale prisoners, being a parent “may play” a factor in prisonplacement but is not the determining factor.

For his part, Steven M. Mensing, a warden at Vandalia



MethodologyThe Chicago Reporter conducted a survey to assess thepractices employed at each stage of the incarcerationprocess: arrest, adjudication, incarceration and release. TheReporter contacted 16 police departments—10 from thestate’s largest cities and six communities with high rates ofprisoners returning. The Reporter also called probationofficers, public defenders and circuit court judges in the 10counties that as of January 2007 had the highest number ofprisoners returning. The Illinois Department of Correctionsanswered questions about contact visits and waiting roomfacilities that are friendly to children.

Survey results: a mixed bagChildren whose parents are incarcerated live in uneventerrain in Illinois. On the one hand, their needs are pro-vided for in some way during their parents’ arrest, trial,sentencing and incarceration. But that attention isoften inconsistent and unsystematic.

departments said their officers take actionto ease the trauma for children who are

present when their parent is being arrested. Actionsinclude asking either the child or parent to leave theroom or even giving the child a stuffed animal.

departments had official policies for howto deal with an arrest in which children are

present when their parent is being arrested.

Illinois law cites excessive hardship on a defendant’sdependents as a possible mitigating circumstance dur-ing sentencing.

public defenders said they present judgeswith either witnesses or written state-

ments about the impact of incarceration on a defen-dant’s children.

judges said they consider the impact ofincarceration on children or dependents

during sentencing.

judges and public defenders said theyconsider this to be a primary concern.

Illinois law requires a presentence report with informa-tion about a defendant’s family, educational and workhistories to be collected in certain cases.

probation officers said their reports containinformation about the defendant’s family.

said the information is self-reported.

said the information is mostly self-reportedand sometimes independently verified.

11 of 16

0 of 16

8 of 10

7 of 10

5 of 10

9 of 105 of 104 of 10

POLICE

PUBLIC DEFENDERS & JUDGES

PROBATION OFFICERS

Source: A Chicago Reporter survey of judges, public defenders and probation officersfrom 10 counties and police departments from 16 cities.


Dropped ballsAlthough Illinois law and police departments in some way provide for children with incarcerated parents, the situation for thesechildren is far from perfect. This flow chart details the gap at each stage—during the parent’s arrest, in the court system and inprison—between how advocates say the system should function and the reality children experience.

ARREST � � � �Ideal: Make arrest scene less traumatic

� Remove children from the scene

� Allow children to hug their parent

COURT � � � � � � � � � �Ideal: Incorporate children’s needs in sentencing

� Include them in presentence reports sent to judges� Consider the hardship caused by parents’ absence

Ideal: Send information about families to the Illinois Department of Corrections for placement considerations

PRISONIdeal: Facilitate visits

� Place inmates as near the families as possible

� Allow contact visitsin child-friendly areas

Ideal: Set up programsdesigned to successfully reunite families

REALITY:No police department

surveyed has an officialpolicy in this area.

REALITY:Presentence reports are written only in a

limited number of cases.

Information about children often is not verified.

Judges’ hands are often tied bymandatory sentencing.

The corrections department often receives noinformation about families.

REALITY:Placement is rarely based

on family location.

The correctionsdepartment’s definition ofcontact is too restrictive,

advocates say.

No programs exist forreuniting families.

Source: A Chicago Reporter survey ofjudges, public defenders and probationofficers from 10 counties and policedepartments from 16 cities.

Correctional Center, a male facility, said placing a prisoner inthe county where he lives could entice prisoners to attemptan escape. He explained that prisoners are more likely to“rabbit” when they are close to home than when they are faraway from where they live.

Mensing did support the approach of alternative sen-tences such as drug treatment and intensive probationsupervision. Under many of these sentences, defendantsreceive a suspended sentenceand drug treatment, with theunderstanding that a stiffersentence will be given for sub-sequent violations. Thesearrangements often allow thefamily to stay intact, to addresssome of the causes of thedefendant’s behavior and keepthe prison rolls down, saidJames K. Booras, chief circuitjudge of Lake County.

“They are a good idea, obvi-ously, for a few reasons,” Boorassaid. “They get the jail population down. We don’t receive theresults of rehabilitation that we should since we are incarcer-ating too many people. I think it’s used more often now …because we have no jail space.”

Twelve-year-old Jackie loves to see her father in prisonand knows that he feels the same way. “He smiles a lotwhen he sees us,” says Jackie, who is an honors student

at National Teacher’s Academy.The visits take place in a large room with lots of families sit-

ting around tables. Her father asks about how Jackie, whosename has been changed to protect her identity, is doing inschool before spending most of the time talking with her moth-

er. Jackie always ends the visit happy that she has seen him.According to Januari Smith, department spokeswoman, the

corrections department allows “contact visits” at all but one ofits 28 prisons.

Only inmates at the Tamms Correctional Center, a maxi-mum-security facility, do not have this privilege, she said.

Smith said children visiting parents are allowed to exchangean initial and departing hug and can hold hands during the vis-

its. But the visits can be revokedas a disciplinary measure.

Author Bernstein said label-ing such an arrangement as acontact visit is a complete mis-nomer. “If my kids came homefrom school and said, ‘Hug mewhen I come home and hug mebefore … bed,’ I would not con-sider it a relationship but avicious consequence. Manyprisons offer much more sup-portive visitation. That’s whatchildren need and that’s what

they deserve. They didn’t do anything wrong.“Call it what you want, but don’t call it a contact visit … That

sounds like torment advertising as a contact visit,” she said.Denning of the corrections department’s women’s division

said that the five women’s facilities practice a different brandof contact.

“We encourage moms to hold kids and sit on laps,”Denning said, adding that the prisons sometimes providecombs for mothers to comb their daughters’ hair. Sheexplained that each of the women’s facilities also have a childarea where mothers can sit down with books, read to her child,play on the floor or watch a video.

What does exist, according to Robin Riggs, re-entry pro-

‘Call it what you want,but don’t call it a contact visit.

That sounds like tormentadvertising as a contact visit.’

Advocate and Author Nell Bernstein



By Jeff Kelly Lowenstein

Maxine Johnson’s first day in prisonin 2005 remains seared in hermemory. She remembers the

shackles on her legs binding her to anotherprisoner and the guards barking commandsat inmates during the intake process.

But mostly she remembers her fear ofthe unexpected as she began her three-year stint and her visceral anxiety aboutthe four grandchildren for whom she wasthe legal guardian. The grandchildren,ranging from 11 to 17 years old, had goneback to live with their mother, Johnson’sdaughter. She had a gambling addiction,and Johnson didn’t think she could han-dle the responsibility. “It was horrible,”Johnson says about the first day. “I wasworried about my grandchildren.”

Johnson did not hear about any serv-ices for her grandchildren that day orduring the nine weeks she was in theintake unit. Not until a year later, in fact,did she learn about transportation serv-ices provided by Lutheran Social Servicesof Illinois, and that was by word ofmouth from other prisoners.

That could be different now, as severalpieces of legislation addressing theneeds of children with incarcerated par-ents have been introduced, and, in onecase, passed unanimously by bothchambers of the Illinois GeneralAssembly. These bills, along with anattempt to hold meetings with policedepartments across the state about howto handle arrests of adults when theirchildren are present, indicate to somethat the concerns of these children havemoved to the political mainstream.

But celebrations hailing a dramaticchange are premature. One bill, whichneeds Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s signature tobecome law, may be stymied—not becauseof a lack of consensus about its impor-tance, but to ongoing constitutional andprocedural squabbling among Blagojevich,state Senate President Emil Jones Jr. andstate House Speaker Michael Madigan. Theother bill was still in committee in theHouse at the session’s end in late May. Andthe planning between Lutheran and thepolice was in the early stages.

“It’s gotten to be a very contentiousand elaborate game where good publicpolicy seems to be low on goals of whatwe’re trying to do,” said Kent Redfield,

professor of political science at theUniversity of Illinois at Springfield.

Introduced as Senate Bill 2879 by stateSen. Kwame Raoul, the bill has several keypoints. It called for the state’s human serv-ices and corrections departments to workcooperatively with community organiza-tions to identify service providers and todevelop informational materials aboutavailable social services like mentoring andfamily counseling programs.

In addition, the corrections depart-ment would provide the information toinmates in a sealed envelope during ori-entation and pay for postage to send thematerials to the children’s caregiver.

“The impetus for the bill is … the factthat in many cases children follow thesame pattern that led their parents to beincarcerated,” Raoul said. “This is an effortto break the cycle.”

In its March/April 2007 issue, TheChicago Reporter identified gaps in prison-ers’ awareness of available services suchas counseling as one of several barriers totheir children accessing services.

On April 17, the bill passed by aunanimous vote in the state Senate. Itpassed on May 21 in the state House bya 114-0 vote.

According to Raoul, the bill would costthe state between $5,000 and $10,000.

Blagojevich spokesman DavidRudduck said the legislators have toresolve the placement of a “rulemakingauthority” amendment on the bill by theHuman Services Committee.

The amendment, which eliminatesBlagojevich’s ability to change the sub-stance of a bill, has been placed, onMadigan’s instruction, on hundreds ofpieces of legislation since January.

Madigan spokesman Steve Brownsaid the measure is necessary becauseBlagojevich violated the separation ofpowers between the legislative and exec-utive branches last year in his efforts topass a health care bill and disregarded aruling about the issue by the JointCommittee on Administrative Rules.

Brown said Blagojevich’s action creat-ed a constitutional crisis. He acknowl-edged that the amendments have had theeffect of slowing down legislation, butsaid it was a necessary price to pay forpreserving the political process.

“To ignore that behavior, you might aswell cede all authority to the executive

branch,” Brown said.Jones’ spokeswoman Cindy

Davidsmeyer said the current legislativeprocess does not need improvement.This attitude has led Jones to instructDemocratic members to file nonconcur-rence motions that would eliminate therulemaking amendments. “We don’tbelieve in the need to amend this legisla-tion with a competing process,”Davidsmeyer said.

In the case of Senate Bill 2879, ratherthan going to Blagojevich, the noncon-currence order meant that legislationhas not reached Blagojevich’s desk.

The University of Illinois at Springfield’sRedfield said the constitutional dispute is asignificant one but should not take prece-dence over progressive legislation.

“We’ve been severely limited in ourability to address problems becauseeverything has become secondary to thepower struggle,” he said.

Another piece of legislation that hasnot reached Blagojevich’s desk is oneintroduced in January.

That bill calls for the development ofpolicies that address the arrest of anadult in front of their children, establish-es guidelines for officer training andallots two additional local telephonecalls to a custodial parent.

“Once a parent is taken away from a kid,you could have the kids home alone,” saidstate Rep. LaShawn Ford, who introducedthe bill. “They will become victims ofcrimes themselves if they don’t have cor-rect guidance once they are incarcerated.”

If the proposal becomes a statute, itwould enforce the efforts of advocateslike Ranjana Bhargava of Connections, aPrisoner and Family Ministry program ofLutheran Social Services. Bhargava saidConnections is in the planning stages ofa presentation about proper arrest pro-tocols that would be given in policedepartments statewide. She said thepresentation will be four-fold, askingofficers to find another adult who can bewith the child, make the arrest with aslittle trauma as possible, explain what ishappening to the child and not rebukethe child—all as matters of policy.

“This is a movement that has toinclude children as the future invest-ment,” Bhargava said.

Christiana Schmitz helped research this article.

Squabbles delay bills to help kids


grams administrator for the department, is a plethora of pro-grams for ex-offenders in preparation for their release. Shecited programs dealing with education and lifestyle changes aswell as one- or two-day “re-entry summits” for offenders.

At a recent re-entry event at Vandalia Correctional Center—the facility’s first—about 150 inmates sat in chairs on a carpet-ed gym floor.

Summit participants heard motivational speakers like ex-offender and author Victor Woods and found out aboutemployment possibilities after their releases.

“The important thing to know is that there [has] neverbeen a better time to be an offender,” Riggs said.

Programs dealing with parenting are available to offendersof all levels at all facilities, according to Smith, but none thatspecifically deal with family reunification. She said it was notpossible to provide data about how many prisoners partici-pate in the programs.

Denning of the women’s division said she would like tohave such programs but explained that the cost prohibits it:“Do we love that idea? Absolutely. Will I say that is going tohappen? It’s in our five-year goals.”

There are also gaps in communication between agenciesinvolved. Just one of the police departments said theysometimes pass information about the children of the

arrestee to the jail in which the parent is held. The content ofpresentence reports is not always passed onto the Illinois

Department of Corrections. Denning said that any informa-tion about prisoners’ children comes only from the parentsthemselves.

Roberta Fews, deputy director of the office of programs andsupport services at the corrections department, said she andothers are committed to closing the gaps so that more infor-mation can be transmitted and the children’s needs can be met.

Some say legitimate privacy concerns exist, and that par-ents, for fear of having their custody removed, should havethe choice whether to disclose if they have children.

Newell said figuring out some balance is important to bestmeet children’s needs.

“If we are going to talk about comprehensive services, weare going to have to have comprehensive communication,”Newell said. “There are going to be layers with consents andan ethical sense [that] we don’t need to use concern for chil-dren as another layer of exploitation.”

These and other challenges notwithstanding, she soundedguardedly optimistic about the state’s treatment of thesechildren.

“We’re taking the first steps of a very big mountain,” saidNewell, a national authority on the subject of children withincarcerated parents. “I definitely think things are improving,[but] we’re not where we need to be.”

Contributing: Alex Campbell

[email protected]

Craig Townsend takes a break from attending a re-entry summit at Vandalia Correctional Center, where he listened to inspirational speaker VictorWoods. Townsend is serving his second prison term. One of his daughters wishes she had more help in preparing for his first release several years ago.Townsend’s current stint is slated to end in 2009. Photo by Jeff Kelly Lowenstein.

By Jeff Kelly Lowenstein

Avisit to the Allegheny Countyjail in Pittsburgh used to bestressful for inmates’ lovedones and their children.

The sounds of frustrated guards andharried parents yelling at childrenrebounded off the walls in the lobby ofthe 16-floor facility. The area resem-bled a 1940s Greyhound bus station;rows of steel chairs faced vendingmachines that provided a constanttemptation during waits that stretchedout for hours.

A result: Many parents chose not tobring their children to see their fathers,mothers, uncles and grandparents.

A visitor from the old lobby mightnot recognize the new one.

Since its opening in 2007, it hasoften been chockfull of children playingand waiting to see loved ones. Gone arethe mold, chairs and the vendingmachines, replaced by bright blue andyellow walls, a wooden bench thatmarks a carpeted area for children toplay and create artwork to hang on awall. Volunteers and paid staffers helpadults peruse resources about how toget a GED or sign up for parenting

classes. Far from the dreaded experiencethat used to creep at an agonizingly slowpace, waiting is now something thatmany children don’t want to end.

The lobby’s transformation, whichinvolved hundreds of individuals andorganizations volunteering their time, isjust one part of an unusual, if notunique, collaboration in the country tomeet the needs of children with incar-cerated parents.

A pair of progressive wardens, anopen-minded judge, human serviceagencies and a dedicated local founda-tion have combined to create and fund afull-time position for a county advocatefor children with incarcerated parents

and their families, work on arrest proto-cols for area police officers, change thenature of contact visits in the countyand establish a safe place for children togo in the first hours after their motheror father is arrested. Underpinningthese specific policies has been a com-mitment to rehabilitation through rela-tionships, with the family at the center.While all involved acknowledge thatmuch work remains to be done, signifi-cant progress has been made in creatingsystemic policies and paying consistentattention to the needs of children withincarcerated parents.

Susan Phillips, assistant professor atthe Jane Addams College of SocialWork at the University of Illinois atChicago, said that no program in thecountry can yet be pointed to as a “bestpractice.” But she praised the thought-fulness, commitment to conversation,strategic allocation of resources andassessment of results she has seen inAllegheny County.

“Nobody has the answers … [but]what they have is a process for learning.That’s what needs to be created,” saidPhillips, who recently completed anevaluation of programs being developedor restructured to deal with children

with incarcerated parents in 14 states.The Pittsburgh Child Guidance

Foundation has been one of the keyplayers in creating the process Phillipsdescribes. A comparatively small foun-dation—in 2007, its total assets wereabout $7 million—the organization’smission is to improve the emotionalhealth of children 12 and younger inAllegheny County by joining with awide range of public and private organ-izations. In 2003, the foundation, head-ed by Claire A. Walker, launched a six-year initiative, “Advocating for Childrenof Prisoners.”

As part of the initiative, the founda-tion conducted research that consisted,

in part, of interviews with inmates whostressed how important family visitswere to them. The research also foundthat, on any given day, about 7,000 chil-dren in the county have a parent whohas been arrested.

The numbers grabbed the attention ofRamon Rustin, who became warden ofAllegheny County jail in October 2004.Approaching the end of his third decadein corrections, the bass-voiced Rustinhad locked up plenty of people—the lastjail where he had worked got a $34 mil-lion expansion approved shortly beforehe left—and recognized that a differentapproach could yield better results.

“The numbers were pretty impres-sive,” he said. “Claire got me thinkingabout the effect on kids and inmates.

“We are trying to provide really goodvisits rather than enforce separationbetween parents and kids. We are try-ing to facilitate that relationship,”Rustin said.

Rustin was part of a collaborativethat was started in 1997 by his prede-cessor, Calvin Lightfoot, and his coun-terparts at the county’s human servicesand health departments. The collabora-tive attempted to provide services moreseamlessly to inmates. A three-yearevaluation of the collaborative pub-lished in January found that it not onlysaves the county more than $5 millionper year, but its inmates also had a 50percent lower recidivism rate comparedwith another group of inmates who didnot receive services.

The lobby became the group’s firstproject after learning about the datagenerated in the foundation’s study.Walker said that more than 100 individ-uals and organizations participated inthe project, including students fromarea universities.

Jane Werner, executive director ofthe award-winning Children’s Museumof Pittsburgh, played a major role indesigning the space. She said that theproject, which she did on a volunteerbasis, educated her. “I had never talkedto people who had been incarcerated,”she said. “I had never been to a jail or ablock where there are people in orangejumpsuits everywhere. It tests yourhumanity.”

She added that a volunteer from the


COVER STORY Best Practices

‘They’ve got the big picture, even thoughthey’ve not instituted all the pieces. I do not know of

anyone else ... who has done what they have done.’

Bringing families togetherA county jail in Pittsburgh works to alleviate trauma for children


museum worked with the children toreduce the potential trauma of visitingtheir parents by having them do roleplays in which they practiced seeingtheir parent behind glass. “We wantedto make the situation less scary [and]more of a known quantity,” she said.

The waiting area opened in thespring of 2007 but is far from the onlyaspect of the work.

Starting in 2006, the foundationfunded a full-time position of an advo-cate for children and families of theincarcerated. Originally slated for twoyears, the position will be extended andpaid for by the county.

Jill Brant, who has served in thatposition, explained that the major pur-

poses of her job were to make policiessystematic and to bring the various par-ties involved with the children togetherto improve communication.

In practice, Brant says that she hasfocused largely on developing arrestprotocols for officers. Convened byJudge Kim Berkeley Clark, the groupincluded members of the law enforce-ment, medical, legal and social servicecommunities united by a common goalof figuring out how to have the arrest ofa parent create as little trauma for his orher child as possible. The group met fortwo years starting in mid-2006.

Training for the protocols, whichinvolve helping officers be sensitive toneeds of children witnessing their par-

ent being arrested, will begin inOctober, Brant said.

Brant explained that one of the goalsof the protocols is to reduce the numberof children who end up in the child wel-fare system. One way to reach that goalis the creation of a “Comfort Place,” anarea where children who do not have anyplace to go can stay for four hours whilewaiting for a caregiver to arrive.

The first few hours can be critical,according to Erin Dalton, deputy direc-tor for data analysis, research and eval-uation at the county’s Department ofHuman Services. “A lot of the initialtrauma can be the immediacy of the jailarrest,” Dalton said, adding that this wasa factor in the collaborative’s decision tofocus on jail, rather than prison.

Walker of the Child GuidanceFoundation said the average stay in jailin recent years was 41 days. Sheexplained that a large number of prison-ers are released within 48 hours, whileanother group can be in jail for months.

Another project has been to changethe nature of contact visits by creatingvisitation protocols. The majority ofvisits currently take place with theinmate and the loved ones separated bya thick pane of glass. Brant and Rustinboth said that an area has been set up tohave in-person contact visits, and thatthey want to expand that program. Forher part, Clark said the protocols alsowill involve the collection of data toassess the visits’ impact and distribut-ing that information to the public.

Each of the people involved said thereare plenty of areas that need improve-ment. Brant pointed to telephone calls,which must be made collect and also havean additional county charge that rendersthem unaffordable, while Rustin said hewould like to have more visits and ananalysis of their impact on inmates andthe children. Dalton of the Department ofHuman Services said the county can bemore effective at locating the childrenand assessing their needs, while Walkerof the Child Guidance Foundation saidcommunication between all agenciescould be better.

These challenges aside, the work hasbeen launched and is unlikely to stop.

“They’ve got the big picture, eventhough they’ve not instituted all thepieces,” said Dee Ann Newell, a formerOpen Society Institute fellow and anational authority on children withincarcerated parents. “I do not know ofanyone else at the county or local [level]who has done what they have done.”

Ashley Walker helped research this article.

A joint effort has made the waiting area in Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County much more attractivethan before. Photos courtesy of Pittsburgh Child Guidance Foundation.

Before

After


CHICAGO MATTERS Access to Organic

On a one-acrevegetable farmin Chicago, abearded, 6foot, 3 inch-

tall black man squats before abed of green, leafy radishes.Unlike most produce, thesehave been grown withouttoxic chemicals.

As he reaches into thedense foliage to harvest them,an oversized black t-shirthangs on his thin squareshoulders and red basketballshorts skim his calves.

Sunglasses shield his eyes,and a Bluetooth rests on hisright ear. He sees a red, tennisball-sized bulb and grabs itsplume, plucking the radishfrom the ground. “That’s a bigboy,” said Arthur King, 36,smiling as he pinches thestringy roots and threadsthem between his fingers toremove the dirt.

King is proud of his largeradishes but prouder of whatthey represent. Unlike the bulkof organic, or low- to no-chemical food in Chicago,

these radishes are not headedto white neighborhoods, anupscale grocery or gourmetfarmers market. GrowingHome, the Chicago nonprofitthat runs this organic farm, isone of the few growers whomarkets its organic food topeople of all races and incomes.

The roughly 10 poundsKing gathers—just enough togauge buyer interest for therest of the season—will betaken to the grand opening ofthe Englewood FarmersMarket the next day, along

Organic food ishealthier andenvironmentallyfriendly—andrarely found inChicago’s blackneighborhoods

By Kelly Virella

Buy Organic*

(Some restrictions and limitations apply)

Adults and youth from God's Gang work side by side to harvest a crop at a farm in Indiana. One of the goals of the Chicago nonprofit organizationis to engage youth in urban agriculture. Photo by Kelly Virella.


with several bunches of organ-ic collard greens and kale.

Englewood is a predomi-nantly black, low-incomecommunity that, like mostblack Chicago neighborhoods,offers residents few grocerieswhere they can buy organicfood. Organic food is healthierand environmentally friendly,but rarely found on storeshelves in Chicago’s blackneighborhoods. “It’s easier tofind a semi-automatic weaponin our communities than it isto find a tomato, much less anorganic tomato,” said LaDonnaRedmond, a food justiceactivist at the Frederick BlumNeighborhood AssistanceCenter, a Chicago StateUniversity urban planningthink tank.

No one has proven thatresidue from the carcinogensand neurotoxins—cancer-promoting and nerve-damag-ing toxins—used to growmost produce in the U.S.makes healthy adults sick,according to a March reportby the Organic Center, a non-profit, pro-organic researchand education foundation. Buta recent study suggests prob-able links between adultexposures to pesticides anddiabetes, cancer, birth defects,premature birth and severalneurological diseases associ-ated with aging, such asAlzheimer’s disease, accord-ing to the report.

The environmental benefitof organic farms is also com-pelling, said Jerry DeWitt,director of the LeopoldCenter for SustainableAgriculture at Iowa StateUniversity. Fertilizer thatruns off into the MississippiRiver has helped destroy thefish habitat in an 8,000square-mile section of theGulf of Mexico. The nitrogenin the runoff promotes exces-sive algal growth, suffocatingmarine life. Organic farmspollute less because their soilbetter traps the nitrogen,reducing the amount enteringthe water, DeWitt said.

“People are going organicbecause it is better for thesoil, better for water, better

for animals and better forhumans,” DeWitt said.

But few grocery stores inblack neighborhoods give resi-dents the option to buy organ-ic. As the black populationincreases, the number ofstores selling organics in acommunity area decreases,according to a Chicago Reporteranalysis. The Reporter sur-veyed 209 grocery storesspread across nine of thecity’s 77 community areas.They were the three mostpopulous black, white andLatino neighborhoods:

� The population of thewhite neighborhoods wasless than one-third of thetotal population of thecommunities examined,but were home to nearlytwo-thirds of the storesthat carried organics.

� Ten percent of stores inblack communities carryorganics, compared to 24percent in Latino commu-nities and 63 percent inwhite areas.

The Midwest’s largest

distributor of organic food,Goodness Greeness, is locat-ed in Englewood. The com-pany ships organic produceto 1,200 to 1,500 grocerystores across the nation.Ironically, none of them arein Englewood. Because thecompany doesn’t sell to thepublic, its neighbors can’t getits food without leaving theircommunity.

One of the company’s 15Chicago retail outlets is in ablack community. One is in aLatino community, three are inmixed communities, nine arein white communities and oneis accessible through the In-ternet. When the owners triedto interest local grocers in sell-ing organics, the grocers inblack communities said no.“African Americans are just aseducated on the issues andmore than willing to pay themoney,” said Bob Scaman,president of Goodness Gree-ness. “They just have to drivefour miles to get it.”

In West Garfield Park, apredominantly black com-munity on Chicago’s Westside, access to organic food is

so limited that when a doctordiagnosed Redmond’s sonwith severe food allergiesnine years ago, the foodactivist resorted to growingorganic produce in her back-yard. The closest place shecould buy organics was atWhole Foods in west subur-ban River Forest.

Residents of black com-munities who want organicfood can leave their neigh-borhoods to get it or attend afarmers market. More thanone-third of Chicago’s 27black community areas havea farmers market that sellssome organics, according to aReporter analysis of thecity’s list of farmers markets.There are 10 farmers marketsin black communities, com-pared to nine found in whitecommunities. Just one farm-ers market is located in aLatino neighborhood. Thereare 13 in mixed communities.

Another way residents ofblack communities can getorganics is through delivery,directly from the farm totheir neighborhood. Butfewer organic farms deliverto Chicago’s black communi-ties. The Reporter foundthat there are just threedrop-off points in Chicago’s27 black communities, com-pared to four in Latinoneighborhoods, 11 in whiteneighborhoods and 21 inmixed neighborhoods.

What some people want isan actual organic grocerystore, and not having them isinconvenient and unfair, saidInez Teemer, founder ofChicago’s Black VegetarianSociety. Teemer, who lives inChatham and has no car, saidthat her neighborhood Jewelcarries a small selection oforganics, but she travels 10miles to get groceries. “Whydo I have to travel all the wayto the North Side to go toTrader Joe’s?” she said.

Origins in the U.S.Nineteenth-century Amer-

ican farmers didn’t have man-made fertilizers, but theirfarms were far from organic.Many used lead and arsenic as

This is the secondinstallment in a three-part series for ChicagoMatters: GrowingForward. This year’sChicago Matters— theaward-winningmultimedia publicaffairs series made possible by The Chicago CommunityTrust with programming from WTTW 11, Chicago PublicRadio, the Chicago Public Library, and The ChicagoReporter—will examine how the choices we make todayimpact our environment and the future of our region. Formore information, visit www.chicagomatters.org.

Power PointsAs black population increases in a community area, thenumber of stores selling organics in that communitydecreases, according to a survey by The Chicago Reporter of209 grocery stores spread across nine of the city’s 77community areas. The Reporter found that:

� The rate of stores that carried organics was higher in whiteneighborhoods, even though they catered to fewer people.

� A majority of the stores in white communities carryorganic foods, while just 10 percent of stores in blackcommunities do.

pesticides, said Warren Belas-co, professor of AmericanStudies at the University ofMaryland, Baltimore County.When a German scientist re-vealed the chemistry to makefertilizer in 1840, most U.S.farmers continued to use ani-mal manure for another centu-ry. But it wasn’t because theywere environmentalists orhealth enthusiasts. Manurewas cheaper. Plus, the equip-ment to spread man-made fer-tilizer didn’t come into useuntil the 1940s, said FredKirschenmann, a distinguishedfellow at the Leopold Centerfor Sustainable Agriculture atIowa State University.

Between the 1930s and the1940s, U.S. commercial farms

more than doubled theiraverage annual consumptionof commercial fertilizer.Around 1947, when the U.S.Department of Agricultureargued that fertilizers wouldhelp farmers grow more foodper acre, farmers beganspreading it on their fieldsbecause they saw it as simpleand a way to raise profits.

The widespread use of fer-tilizer and pesticide revolu-tionized the U.S. food system.Farmers started growing asingle crop because the fertil-izer and pesticides allowed formechanization, which allowedthem to plant, harvest andraise even more food. Butwithout multiple species ofcrops and animals, the farms


CHICAGO MATTERS Access to Organics

Orrin Williams of Growing Home takes a look at the tomatoes he's growing in Englewood. Williams has worked to provide leadership in order tocreate sustainable business opportunities in Englewood. Photo by John Booz.

Why care about organic food?� Eating organics can reduce your consumption of

pesticide residue by 350 percent.

� There’s a probable link between adult exposures topesticides and diabetes, cancer, birth defects,premature births and several neurological diseasesof aging, such as Alzheimer’s.

� By avoiding pesticides, fathers-to-be, children under13 and pregnant women can improve their health,have fewer underweight babies and lower rates ofbirth defects.

� Organic fruits and vegetables contain higher levelsof vitamin C, anti-oxidants, and polyphenols, whichare anti-inflammatories that promote brain andeye health.

Source: The Organic Center.

lacked natural predators, fer-tilizers and decomposers,which healthy ecosystemsrequire. Soils grew thin, dryand infertile. Pest outbreaksand epidemics of infectiousdisease emerged. Instead ofdiversifying the species theygrew, farmers added moretoxic chemicals.

A few soil scientists con-demned these changes, argu-ing fertilizers and pesticideswere harmful. In the late1960s and early 1970s, a smat-tering of U.S. farmers and gro-cers began to listen andstopped using them. Manywere hippies who moved fromcities into the countryside andtaught themselves to growfood without chemicals. Asthis agrarian reform move-ment materialized in Chicago,it bypassed black neighbor-hoods. One of the first organicgrocers in Chicago, RainbowGrocers, opened on the NorthSide. Orrin Williams, 59, anAfrican American, lived at69th and Indiana in the ParkManor neighborhood at thetime and remembers carpool-ing to Rainbow and buyinggroceries in bulk to share withhis friends. “Since the earliestdays of organic agricultureevolved it never has paid anyattention to our community,”Williams said.

Today’s disparityOrganic farmers, meat and

poultry packers, manufactur-ers and distributors said theydon’t discriminate. “We’ll sellto anybody, as long as youhave a health food store andthat’s your primary focus,”said Michele Raddatz, a salesrepresentative for NOWFoods, a manufacturer of or-ganic dietary supplementsand organic dried goods.NOW Foods supplies 18stores on Chicago’s SouthSide, Raddatz said. Few inde-pendent grocers in black com-munities have expressed aninterest in organics, said Rad-datz and Jessica Cohen, mar-keting manager for SommersOrganic, an organic beef andpoultry processor in North-west suburban Wheeling.

Despite market researchto the contrary, the grocers inpredominantly black com-munities don’t believe theircustomers will buy organics,said Wes Jarrell, a professorof sustainable agricultureand natural resources at theUniversity of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign and co-owner of Prairie Fruit Farmsin Champaign. “A big part of[the limited access to organicfood in black communities]is the pre-conception bysuppliers that no one will paymore, that there’s no appre-ciation for what it takes toraise food,” Jarrell said.

It’s not just a pre-concep-tion, said Erika Allen, whomanages the Chicago branchof Growing Power, aMilwaukee-based nonprofitworking to establish a healthyand equitable food system.Selling organic is labor inten-sive, Williams said. A grocerhas to go to a market, buy thefood, power a freezer to storeit and regularly inspect it anddiscard what’s rotten. It canbe a risky proposition withlow profit margins, saidSherri Tillman, co-owner ofA Natural Harvest HealthFood Store & Deli, a 26-year-old South Shore grocer andcafé. Produce spoils easilywithout aggressive market-ing, Tillman said. Her storesells organic vitamins, sup-plements, and packaged foodsand plans to start sellingorganic produce this fall.

Major chain groceries—which carry organics in alltheir Chicago stores—have alarger customer base andenough staff to rotate their or-ganic produce, said Redmond.

But they also have morestores in white neighborhoodsthan black ones. There are 13Jewel food stores in predomi-nantly white community ar-eas, six in predominantlyblack communities and fourin majority Latino communi-ties. Dominick’s has six storesin predominantly white com-munities, seven in mixedcommunities, two in blackcommunities. Spokespeoplefor Dominick’s and Jewel de-

clined to explain the disparity.David Vite, president and

CEO of the Illinois Retail Mer-chants Association, said dis-posable income, not race, de-

termines which communitiesget grocery stores. “We ac-knowledge there are places inChicago where there are issueswith access to fresh food,” Vite


Myth Busters� A higher percentage of black people buy organic food

than white people—54 percent of black peoplesurveyed said they had bought organic food in thepast year. Fifty percent of white people said the same.

� Black people are more willing than white people topay a premium for organic food—28 percent ofblack people surveyed said they would pay 10percent more for organic good. Twelve percent ofwhite people said the same.

Source: The Hartman Group; Mintel

MethodologyThe Chicago Reporter assigned each community area a

race based on the percentage of black, white, Latino andAsian residents living there, according to the 2000 census.Any community whose population was at least two-thirdsblack or at least two-thirds white was labeled black orwhite. Any community whose population was more than50 percent Latino or Asian was labeled Latino or Asian.

From these communities, the Reporter selected the threecommunity areas with the highest black, white and Latinopopulations. There were not enough Asian community areasto participate in the survey, so no data was collected on them.The Reporter surveyed the stores that have licenses to sellfood or liquor in each selected community area. Researcherscalled or visited 209 stores spread across the ninecommunity areas to determine whether they carried organics.

Location, location, locationWhite neighborhoods are home to 63 percent of storesthat carry organic. Latino and black neighborhoods havethe fewest—30 and 7 percent, respectively.

BLACK COMMUNITIES Stores % with organics

Auburn Gresham

Austin

South Shore

LATINO COMMUNITIES Stores % with organics

Belmont Cragin

Logan Square

South Lawndale

WHITE COMMUNITIES Stores % with organics

Lake View

Lincoln Park

Near North Side

Source: A Chicago Reporter survey

9

27

12

26

31

32

26

20

26

0%

0%

42%

27%

29%

16%

62%

65%

62%


CHICAGO MATTERS Access to Organics

said. For every dollar that atypical grocery store earned in2007, 98 and 99 cents of itcovered the cost of runningthe business, which meansonly one to two cents of it wasprofit, Vite said. With such alow profit margin, he said, gro-cery stores cannot afford toexperiment with openingstores in locations with lowdisposable incomes.

African Americans don’thave as much money as whitepeople, but no one can denythat they buy groceries, evenorganics, Williams said.

“There’s this business modelafoot that said [major gro-cers] don’t have to serve thiscommunity,” he said. “‘I’mgonna sit back and put mystore in a place where theeconomic and demographicprofile said that I want toplace my store,’ and then thegravy is all those black folkwho show up and shop.”

What is being done?In the spring of 2009,

Redmond intends to breakground on Good Food Market,a 20,000-square-foot grocery

store at Pulaski Road andWashington Street in WestGarfield Park. Redmondintends to franchise Good FoodMarket in cities with similaraccess disparities. OrrinWilliams has similar aspira-tions for the projects he’scoordinating at the Center forUrban Transformation, a non-profit that he founded in 2000to address food justice issues.The nonprofit plans to open amobile grocery store, deploy-ing street vendors with carts ofproduce, and supply staff torefresh and restock organics

at independent grocers.It could be years before

either project spreads. “Mypaternal grandmother wouldtell you, ‘Don’t shop in theblack community’, becauseshe knew that the quality inwhite communities was bet-ter,” Williams said. Williams’grandmother would be 109 ifshe were alive today. “We’restill in the same situation.”

Contributing: Madelaine Burkert,Alex Campbell, Stacie Johnson,Beth Wang and Matt Hendrickson

[email protected]

For the last 30 years, TheresaMarquez has worked in the organicfood industry. Currently, she is the

chief marketing executive at theWisconsin-based CROPP Cooperative,home to the Organic Valley and OrganicPrairie food brands.

Over the years, she’s learned the prosand cons of the organic industry. And oneprevailing element is that people whoneed organic food the most can’t afford it.

Organic foods have always cost morethan their conventional counterparts,and the forces driving up the cost ofordinary groceries are similarly affectingthe organic industry.

High-priced organic food is the resultof supply and demand. In recent years,organic food sales have increased, butthere are not enough organic farmers tomeet that demand, leading to high pricesat the grocery stores.

There are several reasons farmersaren’t responding to the market opportu-nity, said Jim Slama, founder ofFamilyFarmed.org. A few years ago, somefarmers switched to organic productiondrawn by the opportunity to charge a pre-mium on a product in short supply. Butone major obstacle dissuaded the bulk offarmers from making the switch: thethree-year transition period required for afarm to be certified as organic from theU.S. Department of Agriculture.

During the transition period, farmersimproved the quality of their soil so theycould sustain crops without using syn-thetic fertilizers or pesticides.Unfortunately, some farmers lost moneywhile waiting the three years. While

learning new growing techniques andprepping the soil, they weren’t allowedto use the old chemicals they relied on tocreate bountiful harvests.

The short-term threat of smalleryields and profit scared away potentialorganic growers, said Harriet Behar, out-reach coordinator at the MidwestOrganic & Sustainable EducationService, a nonprofit that offers trainingto farmers making the transition. “A lotof farmers say, ‘Well, can I make itthrough those three years?’”

The lean years were worth it to somefarmers, who anticipated making up theirlosses with the additional profits theywould eventually earn with organiccrops. That was changed with the cur-rent energy crisis.

Government mandates and soaringfuel costs increased demand for U.S.ethanol production and the redirection ofland from growing food for consumptionto food for fuel. The change was one of

the reasons that the cost of conventionalfood increased dramatically. From 2005to 2007, the price of field corn rose from$2.00 to $4.00 per bushel, while wheatjumped from $3.42 to $6.65, according tothe U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Suddenly, farmers were making a lotmore money on the crops they werealready growing. Though the price oforganics also rose, it wasn’t enough totempt farmers away from the boomingconventional market. In fact, some farm-ers who had begun the transitionprocess went back to conventional farm-ing production, Clarkson said.

The end result was fewer organicfarmers and an even smaller domesticsupply of organic food, though con-sumers were clamoring for more.

“The organic world has succeeded atfinding a wonderful demand,” Clarksonsaid. “What it has not found is sufficientproduction.”

—Madelaine Burkert

Organic food comes at a cost

ITEM

Milk, 2%

Bread, whole wheat

Grade A eggs, large

Ground beef, frozen

Naturally expensive From supply and demand, to the economy, to the lengthy process it takes tocertify a farm as organic—there are many reasons why organic food itemssometimes cost the consumer twice as much as conventional ones.

ORGANIC

$6.99/gal. (Organic Valley)

$3.19/loaf (Healthy Life)

$4.29/doz. (Eggland's Best)

$6.99/lb (Sommers Organic)

CONVENTIONAL

$3.49/gal. (Country's Delight)

$2.00/loaf (Butternut)

2.19/doz. (Rose Acre)

3.99/lb. (no brand)

Source: Peapod.com


�

By Beth Wang

With the number of peoplesuffering from obesity,diabetes and other chron-ic health conditions rising

in the United States, awareness of theneed to find ways to provide healthierfoods, especially in communities whereavailability is sparse, is also increasing.

Cities like New York and Chicagohave adopted different ways to bringhealthier food options to neighbor-hoods that lack them.

A study conducted by the New YorkCity Department of Health and MentalHygiene revealed East and CentralHarlem have few supermarkets. Most ofthe stores that did exist didn’t carrylow-fat milk or leafy greens. In Marchthis year, New York City Mayor MichaelBloomberg signed the Green CartInitiative. Green Cart is the term usedto describe a pushcart from which peo-ple can buy fresh fruits and vegetables.The city has allocated 1,000 permits forthe carts. This year, 500 full-term per-mits were made available. By 2009, offi-cials expect to add 500 more.

The goal for officials is to increasefruit and vegetable consumption inneighborhoods by 75,000 people andsave at least 50 lives a year, according toa city spokesperson. A 2006 study con-ducted by the Mari Gallagher Researchand Consulting Group stated communi-ties that have no or distant grocery storesbut nearby fast food restaurants are morelikely to have increased numbers of pre-mature death, heart disease, diabetes andother chronic health conditions.

Mark Winne, director of theCommunity Food Security Coalitions’Food Policy Council Project and authorof “Closing the Food Gap,” has helpedmany cities throughout the country andin Canada develop food policy councils.The councils allow people in all sectorsof a city, state or county’s food systemto convene and address food and agri-culture needs. The councils also try toeducate people on the benefits of freshproduce and growing food locally.

The idea of the councils is growing inpopularity in the United States and the

number of councils have doubled in thelast five years, Winne said. “For quite awhile now there’s been a growing aware-ness that the food in the country is nothealthy food,” Winne said. “It’s producedin a way that’s harmful to the environ-ment, our bodies and communities.”

Winne helped develop Chicago’s FoodPolicy Advisory Council, which in 2002started working with community and citygovernment to promote community foodsystems. Lynn Teemoeller, one of threeco-chairs for the group, says the councilhas come a long way in the past six years.

“The idea of a food policy council isbecoming more common,” Teemoellersays. “It’s an idea that I think governmentis getting more comfortable with. In a lotof ways, there are still all the challenges.But I think our work is becoming moreclear to us with what needs to be done.”

The focus of the council is unity, saysTeemoeller. Building community foodsystems and working with the govern-ment to support that is one of the mainpriorities. She says as a city, Chicago isslowly moving forward and admits somecities have more experience. On theother hand, Chicago is unique becauseof the availability of land for communi-ty gardens and urban agriculture.

“I come from New York City and landis a lot harder to access there than inChicago,” said Teemoeller, who helped thenonprofit Quad Communities Develop-ment Corporation start a farmers marketin Bronzeville. The nonprofit conducted asurvey of more than 200 area residentsand found while 93 percent of respon-dents said that they prefer to purchasefresh produce, only 6 percent of themchose community area stores as their pro-duce provider, said Executive DirectorBernita Johnson-Gabriel.

Both Teemoeller and Johnson-Gabriel said that the Bronzeville marketis unique not only because it is the onlycity-sponsored farmers market inChicago, but also because it providesresidents with the options they men-tioned in the survey. The east side ofBronzeville does not have the land avail-able to support farming so the farmersmarket is the only avenue currentlyavailable to bring fresh foods to thecommunity, Johnson-Gabriel said.

“You have to be innovative and creative.Most importantly you have to go to thecommunity to find out what they want,”Johnson-Gabriel said. “We didn’t sit in avacuum to find out what should happen.We went out to the community.”

Extending organics’ reachTowns get creative toserve poor, urban areas

Finding organic food in urban areas is not always easy. In Chicago, many people must shop attheir farmers markets to get produce otherwise not offered at nearby stores. Photo by Joe Gallo.

Best Practices

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