How a Near West Side community turns within after outbreaks of violence: 'We always support each other'

It was early August near Arrigo Park on the Near West Side, and Shelia Grier and her family sat on plastic chairs under the shade of a shaggy tree, seeking respite from the blazing summer sun.

The smoky aroma of grilled burgers and hot dogs was in the air. Steps away, Grier's 4-year-old daughter joined scores of other children at the inflatable carnival games around the park.

It was the 45th annual back-to-school fun day for the ABLA Brooks Homes community. The event, which Grier remembers attending when she was a child growing up in the Brooks Homes public housing, was held on fields that have become a de facto park after public housing buildings were torn down.

She recalls once scoring a TV after her ticket number was called in the event's raffle. That luck seems to run in the family, judging by this year's haul.

"A lot of my nieces and nephews, when they were calling out the raffle numbers, kept on winning. They kept running up saying, 'That's me, that's me,'" said Grier, who is in her 40s. The event even used to feature a Michael Jackson impersonator.

"I loved every second of it," she said of the event.

That love extends to the close-knit Brooks community and its people, whom Grier considers to be a second family — even though she hasn't lived there for years. Grier and her family now live in suburban Flossmoor.

Grier left because, although she has fond memories of growing up on the second floor of a 15-story high-rise, she also remembers hearing about some of the problems inside those buildings.

She remembers a boy who shot and killed himself playing with a gun that he had found. Back then, she knew which buildings, which hallways, posed a danger to a little girl. Stories like that are the reason she moved away and raised her children in the suburbs.

"I'm not going to subject my kids to that," Grier said.

But family, whether by blood or choice, is what keeps her and her siblings coming back to the Brooks Homes every weekend during the summer, despite occasional outbreaks of gun violence that have marred the area in recent years.

One such outbreak occurred just weeks before the back-to-school event, leaving the community reeling. Eight people were wounded in a gun battle just after midnight on July 5 in the 1300 block of West Hastings. The youngest victim was 18, and the oldest was 74. No arrests have been reported in that shooting.

About two hours later, 43-year-old Demetrius Dorne was killed in a shooting a couple of streets over in the 1200 block of West Washburne. It's unclear whether the Washburne attack was related.

Neighbors said there was a large Fourth of July gathering on the block hours before those shootings. Some Brooks community members were in the crowd, but residents say it was largely made up of outsiders.

"I love the community, but when you get new people coming in it's different," said Shelia's sister, Katie Grier, who has also since moved to the suburbs, settling in Matteson.

It wasn't the first time a large gathering on that same block ended in gunfire. In May 2019, five people were wounded, two of them fatally. That incident happened during an annual Memorial Day event.

Shelia Grier said that when she visits the area, she stays among family and doesn't walk around the neighborhood.

"If I come out here, I don't come outside. I'm just in the house because I don't want to walk around in fear," she said. "I don't want to live like that."

But she is proud of the place where she was raised. People looked out for each other. Neighbors made sure kids stayed out of trouble, putting the proverb "it takes a village to raise a child" into practice, she said.

"If you thought you were going to go outside and be disrespectful, I bet you five minutes later your parents would know about it," Grier said. "I always tell people I don't knock where I come from ... this is why I go back every week. I'm giving my kids the opportunity to see the best of both worlds."

Putting ‘it takes a village’ into practice

The community displayed that protective togetherness after the July 5 shootings. More than three dozen neighbors filled a room at the Jane Addams Center on July 9, for a meeting to call for more police resources to protect residents. It was the same plea they made after the 2019 shooting.

Representatives with the Chicago Housing Authority and Chicago police officers whose beat includes the Robert Brooks Homes attended the meeting. Most attendees were long-time members of the community, but there were also families with young children.

“We’re really tired of the gun violence in our area, and when we reach out to CPD in our area to protect us, they’re not here," Mary Baggett, president of the Local Advisory Committee for the ABLA-Brooks Homes, said at the meeting. “It shouldn’t have taken eight people to get shot for us to see CPD.”

Residents complained that officers used to patrol the neighborhood on foot, but as one woman put it, “all I see is police riding bikes. I don’t see anybody walking.” They said neighbors regularly call police when large gatherings form, but officers show up only after an incident occurs.

Officers at the meeting apologized for response times, but they explained that there is a hierarchy to the calls they respond to, with incidents such as shootings and accidents getting priority over noise complaints. In the summer, the number of high-priority calls can be overwhelming, officers said.

The CHA officials reminded residents that calling 911 isn’t their only resource. The agency has its own security hotline that is staffed 24/7, they said.

Neighbors also asked for increased mental health resources. Some said they’ve dealt with bullet holes in their doors and shattered windows from shootings. “Residents aren’t able to sleep, nothing is being done about it,” Baggett said. “We need some type of change in the community.”

The officers at the meeting said they'd take the community's concerns to their superiors and develop a strategy. The CHA officials said they'd increase the outreach for the mental health services they already offer.

In the weeks after that meeting, residents reported more police presence at the Brooks Homes, and while there were still some rowdy gatherings, no major incidents occurred.

A community as close as family

The Griers throw their own lively barbecues at the Brooks courtyards on weekends in the summer. They can get fairly large, as Shelia and Katie's extended family includes more than 70 people. The Brooks Homes are the meeting point because the sisters' mom, Yolanda, the matriarch of the family, has lived there for decades.

"My mom's neighbors are my family, too," Shelia Grier said. "When we leave during the week and nobody is there, they watch my mother for me. My mother knows she's safe where she's at."

Those neighbors let the family know if their mother forgot to lock her door or left a window open overnight, Shelia Grier said. New neighbors are also welcomed with open arms and looked after.

Katie Grier said the get-togethers are also something they did as children. She remembers "being with family and having outings as a community, like barbecues and things like that, doing things together."

Longtime residents of the Brooks rowhouses have those same memories and have maintained the spirit of the community, even as the neighborhood has transformed over the last 20 years.

The Brooks Homes were part of the 137-acre ABLA development on the Near West Side comprised of four separate housing complexes: Jane Addams Homes, Robert Brooks Homes, Loomis Courts and Grace Abbott Homes. The Brooks Homes rowhouses, built in 1943, are among the last remnants of the developments.

In the early 2000s, the city decided to raze the decaying ABLA buildings to be replaced by new housing. That eventually became Roosevelt Square, a mixed-income housing development at the site of the former ABLA Homes that will feature fitness centers and retail spaces.

Residents of the Brooks Homes believe the touted investments haven't led to increased safety for their corner of the area. The Grier sisters keep a close eye on their children when they visit the area.

"I want them to just stay in my sight the whole time," Katie Grier said of her 10 children. "I won't take my eyes off them."

"I'm constantly texting them and calling them like 'What are you doing now?'" Shelia Grier said. "They say I'm too protective or whatever, but the streets aren't taking my babies from me."

Shelia's watchful eye has paid off. Her 19-year-old son is attending Western Illinois University. Mom herself has a master's and a bachelor's degree from Saint Xavier University.

The sisters think that if more parents kept tabs on their children — with the help of their communities — incidents like the Fourth of July shooting wouldn't happen.

That's what she loves the most about the Brooks community, she said. "We always go support each other, no matter what."

Michelle Stokes, who was also at the community fun day at Arrigo Park, said the community is one reason she moved to Brooks Homes two years ago.

"I like the neighborhood, I like the community," said Stokes, 42, as her 11-year-old daughter, Nalia Funches, ate a hamburger at her side. "They have events like this which bring everybody together and is good for the kids."

For Shelia Grier, that's one way to build family.

"I know blood can make you family, but you can also make your family," she said.