HOW THE OBAMA CBA WAS WON

Devondrick Jeffers, an activist with the Obama CBA Coalition, speaks at City Hall in October of 2018.

By Ebony Ellis, AmeriCorps VISTA

On September 9, Chicago’s City Council passed the Woodlawn Housing Preservation Ordinance, a historic law with the potential to stop the displacement of thousands of low-income and working-class Black residents who live near the future Obama Presidential Center. Our organization, Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, had a role in helping this ordinance pass— an effort that took five years.

That effort was led by the Obama Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) Coalition, a group of community organizations that banded together in 2016, when the Obama Foundation announced that it had selected Jackson Park on Chicago’s southside as the site of its future presidential library. That announcement created local excitement, but it also spurred well-founded fears that low-income residents in the area would be excluded from the new jobs and other benefits brought by the development. More worrying, the new project would likely cause rising land values and soaring rents to drive the displacement of Black families who had lived in the area for generations.

The Coalition sought to win commitments from the Obama Foundation, the University of Chicago, and the City (which subsidizes the project with taxes) to share the benefits of the big development with the long-time residents of Woodlawn, the mostly Black neighborhood connected to Jackson Park. They wanted commitments to train and hire local residents for jobs generated by the library, as well as housing protections for long-time neighborhood residents, among other benefits.  

Allegra Fischer (right) attends a CBA town hall meeting.

That year, an attorney named Allegra Fischer joined the staff of Chicago Lawyers’ Committee in order to work with community organizations on issues of equitable development.

“I did a little community organizing before becoming a lawyer,” recalls Allegra. “I always had a ton of respect for community organizers, and I was really excited to collaborate with [the Obama CBA Coalition].”

As the Coalition began organizing residents’ demands, Allegra helped put them together into a written framework called a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), a legally enforceable document designed to infuse equity into local development. Allegra was also involved in organizing community gatherings and participating in discussions about different aspects of the proposed CBA.

“Looking at how other developments pushed out Black people in the last ten to fifteen years, it was a big concern,” says Allegra. “We wanted to make sure this was done in a way that doesn’t displace residents.”

Indeed, the impact of the announced development was immediate. Property values in Woodlawn rose by 23% in the first half of 2017, according to Redfin.

In 2018, Allegra relocated to California, leaving the Coalition work to a new attorney at Chicago Lawyers’ Committee named Cliff Helm.

“As the Coalition’s legal counsel, we started walking through what was and was not possible,” says Cliff.

Cliff worked with Coalition members to conduct legal research and turn the CBA proposal into a city ordinance that could be debated and voted on by aldermen in City Council. As the Coalition built power through organized community actions, the City’s Department of Housing began meeting with them to negotiate the details of the proposed ordinance. Cliff helped the Coalition negotiate with City administration officials, but without an ally in City Council their ordinance, they hit a stalemate.

That changed in early 2019 when Jeanette Taylor, a former community organizer who had led a month-long hunger strike to reopen Dyett High School, was elected to represent the 20th Ward. Ald. Taylor championed the proposal and pushed forward a final compromise with the City.

“Our victory moment was the day it got finalized,” Cliff remembers. “It caught us by surprise.”

In July 2019, Alderman Jeanette Taylor introduced the ordinance in City Council. After five years of advocacy, protests, and negotiations, the final compromise included:

• The reservation of 52 City-owned vacant lots for affordable housing for people earning up to 50% of the Area Median Income.

• A “right of first refusal” for tenants, meaning that a landlord who decides to sell their building must offer their tenants the option to purchase it first before going on the market.

• A $1 million commitment to the Home Improvement Grant Program, allowing Woodlawn residents who have owned and lived in their home for more than five years to apply for grants of up to $20,000 dollars.

• A $500,000 commitment to the Renew Woodlawn program, which helps low- and middle-income people buy homes in the neighborhood.

Chicago Lawyers’ Committee was only one of many groups that worked together to win the ordinance’s passage. Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP), Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), and other community organizations led the movement to secure this victory.

David Zegeye is a Student Organizer with UChicago Against Displacement (UCAD), an ally member of the Coalition. Earlier this year, he joined in the Coalition’s Tent City protest on a vacant lot in Woodlawn to put pressure on the mayor’s office to approve the ordinance.

“The city has always prioritized the White populations,” said David. “If you talk to a South Sider, you know it because of how much pride they have.”

The tent city protest was one of the final actions that clinched support for the ordinance. On September 9, City Council unanimously voted to pass the Woodlawn Housing Preservation Ordinance.

Hearing the news in California, Allegra Fischer was blown away by the Coalition’s success.

“It’s unprecedented for community groups to have a win like this,” she says. “This is a change in power dynamics.”

The Obama CBA has proven that organizing works. This win underscores the importance and effectiveness of grassroots organizing for structural change. Its success can be used as a blueprint for strategizing with other neighborhoods around Chicago that are facing similar threats of displacement and gentrification.

For Cliff and others involved, the work now continues to implement these protections. “We have to come up with new strategies to hold the City accountable,” he says.

The fight’s not over yet.