Now that the last knee has jerked, kicking the Village of Addison in the pants for anti-Hispanic behavior, where will the posse strike next?
Which middle-brow suburb will be the next target of the fair-housing crusaders and their not-so-pro-bono Loop lawyers? Which town wants to take on the U.S. Justice Department and the ever-so-correct experts of the downtown press?
From Streamwood to Mt. Prospect, from Bensenville to Blue Island, mayors and managers of suburbs with sizable Hispanic populations have to be asking themselves those questions.
And unless they’re closet masochists, they have to be shelving any plans they might have had to redevelop parts of their towns that need it the most. They have to be turning a blind eye toward the crime and the overcrowding in those cheaply built, drywalled apartments that should never have been jammed so densely down by the river or over by the state highway.
Better not make waves if those apartments are occupied by Hispanics. And many of them probably are, because that’s where newly arrived Mexican immigrants can afford a toehold on the suburban housing market.
Best not to disturb them, though, even if it’s becoming obvious that in 10 to 20 years these will be among the worst slums in the Chicago region. Better not, Mr. Mayor, or you surely will be “Addison-ized.”
In case you’re just back from vacation, to be Addison-ized is to attempt to redevelop a ramshackle subdivision or two, only to be hauled into federal court on civil rights charges and made to look like a white-sheeted booster of the Ku Klux Klan. To be Addison-ized is to agree to a principled out-of-court settlement, only to have the news media–including the mighty New York Times–equate your compromise with an admission of bigotry, if not guilt.
Not that Addison didn’t make some mistakes.
Back in the early ’90s, when the working-class village began condemning and clearing the worst of the Green Oaks Court and Michael Lane apartments, it had no specific rebuilding plan in place. Nor was the suburb paying relocation benefits to displaced renters, though owners (mostly absentee) were paid full appraised value.
Those turned out to be strategic omissions. They enabled advocacy groups like Hispanics United of DuPage County and Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities to allege in a 1994 class-action lawsuit that Addison’s goal was not urban renewal but Hispanic removal. And while “relo” benefits weren’t required by law (because federal dollars weren’t involved) it did appear renters were getting the short end.
And so the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division weighed-in on the plaintiffs’ side, whereupon Addison officials, though still convinced they were trying to do the right thing, agreed to halt further demolition pending resolution of the case.
They probably figured they’d get a fair shake in federal court and that the downtown media, after taking a closer look, would agree that something ought to be done about conditions in those apartments. Fat chance.
After two years of tedious negotiations and escalating demands by the plaintiffs (who wanted Addison to roll back the entire urban renewal effort, rebuild the demolished apartments, set up a fair housing commission and pay big damages to the displaced) village officials elected to settle on what they thought were favorable terms.
Under the settlement Addison will: start offering relocation benefits to future displaced renters, and pay $5,000 each to families displaced earlier; pay a premium price for past and future condemnations; pay $60,000 to the fair housing groups that filed suit; and, most distastefully, pay $2.5 million in plaintiff’s legal fees. (They wanted $4.7 million.)
In return, Addison gets to finish its project, condemning and clearing another 120 low-rent apartments so developers can be brought in to build mixed-priced condominiums arrayed around new public parks.
Ten days ago Mayor Larry Hartwig declared he was “pleased to announce” the deal because it would spare Addison taxpayers the expense of a trial and allow the town to proceed with its plan.
Then came the following day’s news accounts, including a Page 1 treatment by The New York Times which carried a headline: “In Illinois, Hispanics win a legal clash of cultures.” A Justice Department bigwig was quoted as saying “Their (Addison’s) intent seemed to be to rid the village of Hispanics.”
(Which is curious, because the population of Addison, where I once spent summer weeks loading Pepsi trucks alongside black and Hispanic workers, will be one-quarter Hispanic by the 2000 census. It has been one of the more Latino-friendly communities in DuPage County. So much so that you’ve got to wonder why the Justice Department chose to weigh in there, when so many wealthier suburbs have managed to price and zone themselves beyond the reach of most Hispanics.)
The Chicago papers also left no doubt as to who won and who lost, and which was the side of justice and truth. The Tribune interviewed one displaced Latina “who was given only hours notice that her condo building was set to be demolished the next day.” Turns out the village had contracted to pay $199,000 for that family’s apartment building and had given the family three months to move out. (Because of the lawsuit, the hulk was never demolished.)
So step right up, you well-intentioned suburban officials. Who’s next to be Addison-ized?
