City of Chicago NSP making a difference in Chicago Lawn

By Bill Healy
City of Chicago NSP
 
Chicago Lawn’s sturdy brick two-flats and bungalows, lined up like soldiers in a row, are the personification of a certain Chicago spirit – tough, resilient, humble and enduring. Good thing, too, because those buildings have stood up to a lot over the years – racial upheaval, unemployment cycles, and most recently a series of foreclosures that have left buildings on many blocks boarded up and abandoned.
 
But earlier this summer, Chicago’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), through a community open house and barbecue, shined a light on its efforts to breathe new life into some of those blocks by acquiring and renovating vacant, foreclosed properties and selling them to qualified buyers of modest means.
 
The tour of six NSP properties started and ended at the Greater Southwest Development Corporation, on West 63rd Street a few blocks west of Western Avenue. Groups of about 10 to 15 boarded a school bus and walked between the houses.
 
Sharon Banks brought her two children – Steven, an incoming high school freshman, and Summer, an incoming third-grader – to tour the homes with her. It was Summer who spotted the balloons outside an NSP property and urged her mom to find out what was happening. Banks, who works as a teacher’s aide at the local elementary school, not only got to view six unique houses, she also walked away with a gift card that she won as part of a raffle at one of the houses. 
 
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Chicago Lawn NSP houses currently on the market (many already under contract) are:
 
6324 S. Campbell Ave.
 
6351 S. Campbell Ave.
 
6354 S. Rockwell St.
 
6405 S. Rockwell St.
 
6433 S. Talman Ave.
 
6501 S. Artesian Ave.
 
6408 S. Talman Ave.
 
6348 S. Campbell Ave.
 
6511 S. Maplewood Ave.