I’m very happy to be assigned to this area because I know the streets. I grew up in Austin, and my parents still live there, just off Chicago Avenue. Now when I go to CAPS meetings and people talk about their concerns, they’re the same things I was growing up with: you’ve got to go through the gangs, you have to watch when you’re coming back from school. In fact, it’s only gotten worse. Now these guys have guns.
John Campos, 48, has been an organizer for CAPS, the city’s community policing initiative, for 13 years. He currently works in the 11th District, a stretch of the west side struggling with poverty, drugs, and violence. He’s often accompanied on the job by his German shepherd, Zeus. —Mick Dumke
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It’s a drive-through drug market. There are corners—like Wilcox and Kostner—that are chronic with guys selling drugs. Many times during the day you can’t get down the street because you have to wait in line. Yet it’s a good block; even the kids slinging dope, they’re known by their neighbors and everybody kind of goes about their business.
And yet, there is plenty of good on the west side, and it almost goes block to block. Some blocks look like Afghanistan and others look like any other street in Chicago—beautiful homes, well-kept lawns.
But I couldn’t say that anything is guaranteed. I know people who have been active for twenty years and they still have problems on their block. Everything can affect everything else: the alderman; the liquor store that finally got closed down, or opened up, or expanded; one bad landlord. Or they established a drug spot on that corner, and it’s really dragging things down.
