West Garfield Park activist fights to improve ‘wellness’ of community
Lashone Kelly, interim director of the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative, stands at the end of a strip of a half-dozen boarded-up houses in the 3900 block of West Wilcox street in West Garfield Park. Her organization works to rally other community groups to collaborate to bring investment to the West Side neighborhood, which has struggled to retain population since the 1950s, when the Eisenhower Expressway cut an eight-lane swath of pavement through the south end of the community.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Kelly is a lifelong resident of Chicago’s West Side. Born in West Garfield Park, her family moved to Austin when she was a child. When she married, she moved into a house on the east side of the park. Before joining the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative, she worked for the Chicago Department of Housing, chasing bad landlords and trying to rescue derelict buildings.
Lashone Kelly
Interim executive director, Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative
We have a lot of advantages in West Garfield Park. We have the Blue Line and the Green Line that run through the neighborhood, we have the most beautiful park in the city and some beautiful housing stock. What we don’t have is resources.
When I was growing up, you had Sears (just north of West Garfield Park) that had hundreds, maybe thousands of jobs. You had a Western Electric plant (in Cicero). You had Brach’s candy factory. You had major retailers up and down Madison and Pulaski. Those jobs are gone. …
If you go 5 miles east of West Garfield Park, which is the West Loop, or 5 miles west, which is Oak Park, the life expectancy for residents is 13 years longer than it is in West Garfield Park. That has to do with violence, but also with a very high rate of infant mortality. ...
About 25% of the parcels in West Garfield Park are vacant or city- or county-owned. That’s also the highest in the city. That’s also an opportunity to redevelop something positive in those spaces. …
We had the Aldi close (in 2021) in the middle of the night. They closed up on Friday, and on Saturday, the store was empty. The way they did it really hurt people. … Now there is no major grocery unless you go to Oak Park or the Pete’s on Western (about 3 miles east). That’s a long way if you’re a senior on the bus.
We have two projects proposed for the Aldi site, both about $80 million with city subsidies, that will bring back an anchor grocery store and provide housing. That’s a significant investment.
We have another $10 million committed to the Sankofa Wellness Village, which will have a grocery and space for the arts and wellness care from Rush Medical Center. That’s a significant investment.
I see the guys waving their little bags on Madison Street, and I’m nosey, so I pulled over one time and asked, ‘What are you selling?’ And the guy said, ‘Just weed.’ I asked, ‘Aren’t you worried about getting arrested?” And he said, ‘Nah, it’s legal.’ I don’t think some of them know what they’re doing is even against the law.
They say if they arrested everyone on Madison, there’d be guys back out there in a day, and they’d have to keep arresting them. I just know that it isn’t happening on Michigan Avenue and State Street.
I think things are changing. The last few years, things got so crazy, I think people started paying attention again. People are tired. It’s like, enough is enough.