Building Responsible and Community-Driven Development Projects

For the month of March, we will be celebrating Women’s History Month at Chi Hack Night! We will feature presentations from prominent women in tech and civic life here in Chicago. Read more about it here >

Join us on March 22nd as we host a community event at the Currency Exchange Cafe on gentrification and displacement in Chicago.

Panel discussion

Gentrification and displacement are longstanding and underlying issues in Chicago. While they are persistent, they often flare up when there are large proposed developments, or when public investment is used to build what end up becoming popular amenities. The 606 (and similar, proposed trails), transit oriented development, school closings, and the forthcoming Obama Presidential Center, are grabbing headlines currently.

Join us for a panel disussion with:

Janet Smith, Co-Director of Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement / Professor, UIC College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs - For the past 20 years, Dr. Smith’s teaching, research, and community service has focused on equity issues in local and national housing planning and policy. The majority of Dr. Smith’s research and outreach activities are conducted in partnership with community organizations and policy stakeholders through the UIC Voorhees Center. She has led several large-scale housing research projects in Chicago including a regional homeless needs assessment and a rental market study funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Along with Larry Bennett and Patricia Wright (former Voorhees director), Smith co-edited and co-authored Where are Poor People to Live? Transforming Public Housing Communities (ME Sharpe 2006). She and John Betancur recently published Claiming Neighborhood: New Ways of Understanding Urban Change (University of Illinois 2016).

Joy Aruguete, CEO, Bickerdike Development - Ms. Aruguete has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation for the past twenty three years. In this capacity, she supervises operations for this 50-year-old award-winning nonprofit community development corporation dedicated to community controlled development, the preservation and management of affordable housing, economic development centered on job creation, comprehensive community planning and engagement, and the development of community leaders. Ms. Aruguete manages corporate, subsidiary and affiliate business operations of nearly $25 million annually and oversees the work of 75 staff members who carry out Bickerdike’s mission.

Sarah Wick, Project Manager, Related Midwest - Sarah Wick has a passion for sustainable development and focuses on preserving affordable housing for future generations. She is a project manager for Related Midwest since 2013 and is responsible for the financing, acquisition, and transformation of nearly a dozen affordable housing communities in Chicago and the Midwest. Her most recent project is Lathrop, a $170 million investment to create 414 units of mixed income housing on a former Chicago Housing Authority site. Sarah began her career with the Cleveland Housing Network. She has worked as a project manager for New York-based developer, Jonathan Rose Companies, and Boston-based developer, The Community Builders.

Adrienne Samuels Gibbs (Moderator), Independent Journalist - Adrienne Samuels Gibbs is a Pulitzer-nominated journalist- and a native South Sider- whose words can be found in Forbes, Chicago and Pitchfork. She has edited Ebony, NBC News and NewCity, and is a former Chicago Sun-Times writer.

Additional details

• Accessible to the Garfield Green Line stop and available street parking.
• There will be lots of yummy food (with veggie options)!