The painful history of Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood often is measured in the number of sex offenders who live there, rape victims who suffer there and the string of women who have died there.
But another telling barometer of its troubles looms quietly over the streets: more than 600 abandoned buildings.
The latest rash of killings in abandoned South Side buildings has refocused attention on the blighted landscape of Englewood, where police have counted one of the highest concentrations of long-forsaken shops and homes in the city.
The vestiges of poverty cling stubbornly to Englewood, a neighborhood that has been passed over in the wave of economic development that has washed over much of the city and nation in recent years. The reasons are tangled in a complex mixture of race, politics and money.
Just as complicated is why so many abandoned structures–some with gaping holes for windows and doors, some charred by fire, and others that serve as dope shooting galleries or public urinals–are concentrated in the area.
Police have now linked 11 killings of women and three sexual assaults in Englewood and nearby neighborhoods to four different men. Many of the victims have been prostitutes and drug users, lured to secluded spots such as abandoned buildings, stairwells and alleys–and then strangled.
At least one killer, linked to six murders through DNA evidence, has been scouting abandoned buildings by day and taking his victims to them by night, police theorize. His sixth victim, Constance “Tiny” Bailey, was taken in June to a third-floor attic of an abandoned tire shop accessible only through a trap door above a stairwell.
In Englewood the problem with abandoned buildings is so severe that Englewood Police District Cmdr. Maurice Ford ordered his patrol officers to compile a block-by-block inventory. What the officers found, Ford said, surprised him. His police district, which includes only part of the Englewood neighborhood, has 629 abandoned buildings.
Next to each address, the officers noted the building’s condition, whether it was boarded up, only partially boarded, or open and hazardous.
Police said demolishing abandoned buildings would cut down on crime, and 58 buildings in the Englewood Police District are slated for so-called “fast-track” demolition, according to the city’s Building Department. Started in 1993, the fast-track program is designed to streamline cumbersome legal procedures to raze buildings in months rather than waiting for a case to wind through Demolition Court.
On average, 1,000 buildings are torn down through fast-track and Demolition Court each year, said Building Commissioner Mary B. Richardson-Lowry. She acknowledged that the figures police came up with for the area are valid.
“But do all of them qualify for demolition? No,” said Richardson-Lowry, explaining that they each may not meet the legal definition of an abandoned building.
Even when buildings are boarded up with plywood over the doors and windows, they still can be easily broken into by anyone with the strength or tools to yank off the protective boards, police said.
“An abandoned building brings down a neighborhood,” Ford said. “Abandoned buildings are fire hazards, and gangs use them for dog-fighting.
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“The buildings attract derelicts, drug dealers and perverts. And, we know, they attract serial killers,” Ford added.
Compounding the problem for city officials and police is that the identity of many of the owners of the buildings are hidden behind bank trusts. About 60 percent of the 426 buildings currently slated for fast-track demolition citywide are in such trusts, Richardson-Lowry said.
She said her investigators are working with police and city agencies to assess the problem buildings in the area, and that they plan to put up photos of abandoned buildings along with the names of the owners on a citywide cable television program.
There have been some other creative efforts to target slum lords: The city has a 28-year-old city ordinance requiring security guards be placed at boarded-up vacant properties from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m.
But most owners of abandoned buildings rarely abide by the ordinance, said Jennifer Hoyle, spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department. A judge can order an owner to post a security guard outside an abandoned building, but the city does not have statistics on how often that happens.
On the West Side, police are taking part in a pilot program that tickets the owners of unboarded vacant buildings with fines as much as $500 a day; it targets buildings that do not have a security guard posted. Englewood would be the next district to try the ticketing strategy if the program is expanded citywide, Ford said.
This month the city also started posting signs on abandoned parcels of land identifying the property owners by name and address. But those efforts are small when compared with the scale of the problem in neighborhoods such as Englewood.
In the first week of the pilot program, the city posted 10 signs at vacant lots citywide, but in just one of the 15 beats making up the Englewood District, police counted 132 vacant lots.
Abandoned buildings and vacant lots compound the problem of the already poor housing stock in the area. The average value of homes in Englewood–$41,000–is about half of that for the rest of the city, according to census figures. From 1970 to 1990, Englewood alone sustained a net loss of 33 percent of its housing units.
The conditions that have led to so many blighted buildings have been decades in the making. Many of the middle-class families, who constituted a fabric that held the community together, moved out long ago, Ford said.
Some critics charge that the area has been neglected by City Hall. They contend the focus is on development in the Loop and neighborhoods farther north.
“There’s no political support from City Hall,” said John Paul Jones, a lifelong Englewood resident and member of an organization called the Englewood Community and Family Task Force.
City officials said there are plans in the works to revitalize Englewood, including a proposal to relocate Kennedy-King College from 6800 S. Wentworth Ave. to 63rd and Halsted Streets. This could include plans to revitalize a strip mall and new homes, but it is still in the conceptual stages, said Andy Norman, a deputy commissioner in the Planning and Development Department.
The area at 63rd Street and Ashland Avenue–a flourishing shopping area decades ago — also has been designated as a commercial redevelopment area, which allows the city to acquire abandoned property.
“Englewood is on the agenda for major revitalization plans,” said Becky Carroll, spokeswoman for the Planning Department.
Pam Dominguez, an Englewood resident since 1959, called the city’s plans “not enough, but a start.” She questioned why other neighborhoods are developing more quickly than Englewood.
“Looking north you see many more apartments and development than on the South Side,” Dominguez said. “You very rarely see abandoned or neglected buildings on the North Side.”
Community leaders are urging the city to develop a comprehensive affordable housing plan for the area. They argue that tearing down buildings and leaving vacant, weeded lots–the kind where 11-year-old Ryan Harris was murdered last summer–are not a viable alternative.
“Let’s save the buildings. Let’s do rehabs,” Jones said. “Demolition is not the answer. We need reinvestment.”
Other residents said they would like the city to convert some vacant lots into playgrounds. “If Mayor Daley could get the extra funds, we could turn all these lots into playgrounds and basketball courts. It’s very simple,” said Linda Walker, 35, a married mother of three, who lives near two of the crime scenes where a recent serial killer struck.
Still, Ald. Terry Peterson (17th), whose ward includes parts of Englewood, has been an avid supporter of the fast-track demolition program.
“You want to preserve as much of the housing stock as possible. But when you have abandoned buildings near schools and senior citizens, you want to get rid of those buildings,” he said.
Ald. Shirley Coleman (16th) recently turned to the federal government for help, and U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) toured the Englewood neighborhood.
Tearing down every abandoned building would not stop crime, Ford acknowledged, but it would help the community’s view of itself.
“These buildings create opportunity for crime,” he said. “Take away the opportunity, and that makes a difference.”