One steamy night in early June about 400 residents of Uptown and Edgewater gathered in a local Chinese restaurant to toast the formation of a new neighborhood group.
Most observers figure they have a long way to go. “I don’t want to knock their success, that’s not our purpose,” says Ken Bruck, executive director of the Edgewater Community Council, a group that has long feuded with ONE. “There’s room in this area for a lot of groups. I see them reaching out to institutions. That’s commendable. We’ve been doing that for years.”
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But old myths die hard. In 1987 ONE opposed the construction of a shopping mall on the grounds that it would displace poor residents and shopkeepers–a campaign that most observers, in retrospect, call one of the silliest ever waged by a community group. The issue was whether the city should help finance the construction of a mall in an abandoned car dealership at the intersection of Berwyn and Broadway. The Edgewater Community Council supported the project, so naturally ONE did not.
By 1989, ONE had racked up a bank debt of $45,000 and owed another $25,000 in unpaid bills. That’s when they called on Hoyt.
In May 1989, Hoyt became a consultant to the group. Under his direction, ONE sliced its payroll from 14 to 3, its budget from $450,000 to $260,000. “I had a CD cashed out to pay back part of the debt, but that still left a $45,000 obligation,” says Hoyt. “And we couldn’t use grant support to pay off debt.”
Their biggest coup came on the housing front, where a year ago they forced HUD secretary Jack Kemp to make good on his pledge to allow tenant control of the federally subsidized high rise at 850 W. Eastwood. For months, ONE had worked with bankers, developers, congressmen, and housing activists on a tenant-management plan. When Kemp delayed implementation, ONE resorted to street protests.
“There are risks to joining a group like ONE; it’s not an easy decision to make,” says Lau. “We don’t want to offend other groups in the community. And we don’t want to be used or manipulated by ONE or anyone. In the end, we decided that we have to work with [other groups]. The problems are too big for one group to solve on its own. If Asian youth are fighting with black youth, for instance, it’s pointless to [try to] solve that without working with blacks.”
