Even StreetWise Loves Mayor Daley

There’s one publication that’s been giving Mayor Daley nothing but good press lately, but you can’t find it online, and you can’t buy it in any store. OK, you can buy it outside a store. Usually a Walgreens or a 7-11.

The current issue of StreetWise is practically dedicated to Mayor Daley. On April 7, Daley appeared at a breakfast in honor of StreetWise, hosted by Northern Trust Bank and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. The magazine ran an entire page of pictures, and this quote from His Honor:

“StreetWise writes great articles about Chicago. If you give a person money, you make a beggar out of them. [StreetWise vendor] Lance [Bartel] is going to get out of this. We are judged as a city by how we take care of each other. Homelessness is a problem 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We need not-for-profits to help meet the need, not city employees who work from 9 to 5.”

Interesting, considering Daley has been on the bad side of the not-for-profit Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, for opposing the Sweet Home Chicago Ordinance, which would devote 20 percent of TIF money to affordable housing.

On the facing page is an article about the Dr. King Legacy Apartments, a low-income building that opened on April 4 -- the 43rd anniversary of King’s assassination. The building is located at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave., where King lived when he was leading his campaign for open housing in Chicago. That campaign went nowhere, due to the passive-aggressive opposition of Mayor Daley’s father.

According to StreetWise, the current Mayor Daley had this to say at the dedication ceremony:

Mayor Richard M. Daley had just returned from China: “You would be surprised how many people came up to me and talked to me about Dr. King and his legacy, all the way through the world and the peace movement today.”

StreetWise has certainly criticized the Daley Administration in the past, but apparently it’s now following the same rule Daley used when he commented on Dr. King: speak no ill of the dead.

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