South Side Weekly

04/09/2025

South Side organizations are hosting Migra Watch trainings and preparing for a possible military incursion this weekend.

Local organizations are hosting Migra Watch trainings and preparing for a threatened military incursion.

15/07/2025

The call for assistance prompted more than a dozen CPD units and several high-ranking officers to respond to an immigration facility at 2245 S. Michigan.

An officer in the department’s “fusion” center told 911 dispatchers Homeland Security Investigations—a division of ICE—were calling for help. He also wanted to avoid media attention.

19/06/2025

In our latest issue: 75,000 gathered in downtown Chicago on June 15 for “No Kings,” a wave of national protest calling to tax the rich, demand a Gaza ceasefire, and oppose what many call authoritarian moves by the Trump admin.

Photos by Paul Goyette, recap by Jacqueline Serrato.
https://issuu.com/southsideweekly/docs/ssw_06.19.25_72be65d109b238

18/06/2025

“We are not seeing any legality or rationality in ICE’s choices of enforcement right now. It’s very much just, if we feel like we have some sort of way to deport them, we will,” a lawyer said.

On June 4, ICE agents arrested a community organizer and mother, Gladis Yolanda Chavez Pineda along with at least nine others in Chicago’s South Loop. A petition urging her release has drawn over 10,000 signatures.

17/06/2025

"A proposed ordinance being voted on tomorrow would give the Chicago Police Department the unilateral authority to impose “snap curfews” on teens, with no oversight and no clear rules."

Who benefits from snap curfew? Take a look at this Op-Ed by Robert Vargas

What giving police unchecked powers to detain teens means in authoritarian times.

09/06/2025

Weekly investigations editor Jim Daley will join Illinois Answers journalists in discussing "Making it in Chicago: Detours and Dead Ends on the Path to Opportunity" at a live podcast taping at the City Club of Chicago tomorrow!

https://www.cityclub-chicago.org/event/2/5697/making-it-in-chicago-dead-ends-and-detours-on-the-path-to-opportunity

09/06/2025

Education, housing, health care, safe neighborhoods, and jobs are all key to upward mobility, but out of reach for many in Chicago. A new Illinois Answers Project series co-published with the Weekly explores what's driving inequality and where solutions may lie in our latest print issue.

https://issuu.com/southsideweekly/docs/ssw_06.05.25

04/06/2025

Home repairs are essential to helping senior Chicagoans stay in their homes as they age. Local organizations are working to provide support without compromising seniors’ ability to pass their homes on to the next generation.

Laura Stewart for Illinois Answers Project

This story was originally published by the Illinois Answers Project as part of their series Making it in Chicago: Detours and Dead Ends on the Path to Opportunity. aShon Minter Williams is waiting for a letter that could arrive any day now—one that may force her to leave the home her family has ow...

04/06/2025

Can we build a system that makes room for our freedom?

Opinion: Black and Brown Youth Need Commitment, Not Criminalization.

✍️ Kofi Ademola and Reynia Jackson

y first time speaking in front of the City Council, with Mayor Richard M. Daley at the helm, was in the 1990s as a teenager arguing against the so-called anti-gang ordinance. What I didn’t know then was how this racist policy was connected to a long historical arc of Chicago controlling, regulatin...

02/06/2025

Catch The Weekly's Investigations Editor, Jim Daley, on ABC7 as he discusses his reporting collaboration with the Illinois Answers Project, exploring the links between divestment, poverty, and gun violence.

Block clubs and other community-driven programs offer ways for people to connect to deter violence in Chicago.

31/05/2025

The Child Care Assistance Program significantly reduces costs for Illinois families and it can be an essential source of income for child care businesses.

Yet it doesn’t provide enough relief for many families and providers, an Illinois Answers Project investigation found.

Story by Madison Hopkins and Meredith Newman

While the state infuses hundreds of millions a year into child care programs, the strict eligibility requirements and limitations for its largest child care subsidy exclude tens of thousands of families.

29/05/2025

Since 2022, Cook County has spent more than $4 million to forgive nearly $500 million worth of medical debt for 278,000 residents.

But an analysis of Cook County’s debt relief accounts show that many of those people should have qualified for free care.

Reporting by Binghui Huang for Illinois Answers Project

Cook County became the first local government to buy medical debts in bulk. But data shows the majority of debt was relieved for people who likely should have qualified for free care—a sign that hospitals are failing to screen for some of the region’s poorest patients.