Be honest, what does any of that do? Lots of south siders, equipped with section 8 vouchers left the south side en masse for the south suburbs which had better schools, peaceful neighborhoods, robust economic corridors, and tight nit communities and now the south suburbs are going to shyt. What do you expect these communities to do?
You can uproot these folks from one environment to another environment that’s the complete opposite and they will still bring their former environment with them, because they are bringing a mentality. And how they think informs their reality.
Reform starts at home, before the community could ever do anything to help. These families need to learn that because they are struggling, it doesn’t give them an out to raise criminals. Millions of black people have raised normal kids in spite of discrimination, redlining, loss of economic opportunities, etc.
My own people left Englewood and Washington Park in the 60’s for the burbs. But I still had family that stayed behind and raised their kids in the city. We still have our family homes on 61st and Racine and 57th and Indiana. Despite the neighborhood changes, none of my cousins succumbed to getting involved in criminal activity, still live in those neighborhoods, and are living normal lives. Why? Because of their family.
We can volunteer and be mentors, we can come in and try to establish businesses to bring economic resources to the community, we can establish neighborhood watches, we can try to reform the schools, but if a kid is not mentally receptive to any of that because his family didn’t lay the groundwork, none of that stuff even matters.
You consistently put the bulk of the responsibility on the wrong parties.
If anything, I can concede that we need to expand mental health resources and make that the most top priority. Expansive therapy is needed to change these home dynamics.