The 15th District Council’s 10th meeting Thursday focused on Austin’s youth, centering the discussion on the fentanyl crisis and gun violence.
One attendee started the meeting’s period of public comment asking about whether it was right for the Chicago Board of Education to vote to remove Chicago police officers from schools last month, adding that he knows of some kids who have good relationships with their school’s police officers.
“The optics of an armed officer can be a deterrent, a distraction, or can be perceived as a threat,” said Carmelita Earls, chair of the 15th District Council.
Arewa Karen Winters, who spoke personally and not as the 15th District Council’s nominating committee, added that she gets the pros and cons of having police officers in schools.
“I understand both sides: why we want to keep police officers in school, but I also understand some people’s sentiment that it’s not necessarily saying that the children are going to be safe because it’s just addressing a problem and not necessarily getting to the root of the problem.”
As Chicago police are restricted from entering Chicago Public Schools, Winters suggests they should be replaced with counselors or restorative justice programs. Though 39 high schools will no longer have one or two police officers on campus, Chicago Public Schools still have over 1,4000 security officers not employed by the Chicago Police Department.
“I personally feel that it should have been up to the individual schools,” Winters said.
The Chicago City Council passed an ordinance in 2021 that created 22 district councils for most of the city’s 25 police districts. Along with the newly constructed Chicago Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability — which gets input from the community and has the power to advance reform — the ordinance’s district councils exist to improve public safety and policing in Chicago.
Every district council’s three members are chosen through municipal elections every four years, though the first elections occurred February 2023. That was no different for the council of the 15th District, bound to the North and South by Division Street and Roosevelt Road, Austin Boulevard to the West and Cicero Avenue to the East.
The 15th District Council is composed of Earls, Winters and Deondre’ Rutues, community engagement specialist. Since last year, the 15th District Council has held monthly meetings to discuss efforts of public safety and police accountability on the West Side.
Other public comments Thursday addressed the dozen-or-so tents set up in Columbus Park and excess trash in the area. One of two police officers at the meeting from the Chicago Police Department’s 15th District said that police will only get involved if the unhoused community begins interfering with locals’ use of the park. He added that officers will investigate whether nearby shelters have room to take them, and if those individuals would want to go to a shelter.
Another attendee asked about the West Side’s fentanyl crisis, questioning whether the two 15th District police officers in attendance knew where young people are purchasing it, since it’s often mixed with other street drugs, and what the community can do about fentanyl exposure and use.
The police officers at the meeting said that many officers carry Narcan and are zeroing in on areas where there suspect fentanyl sales, although fentanyl arrests are rare. Rather, many fentanyl-related arrests are associated with gun crimes. But that doesn’t account for the number of people, especially young ones, affected by the drug.
“Austin has seen such a rise in non-fatal, fentanyl-related overdoses coming through West Suburban,” said Aisha Oliver, founder of Root2Fruit Youth Foundation, which provides support to youth on Chicago’s West Side. One of the doctors at West Suburban Medical Center reached out to Oliver because the hospital doesn’t have resources to help the daily flux of young people experiencing non-fatal, fentanyl-related overdoses.
“We can’t stop it by going to drug spots because there’s so many,” Oliver said. Rather, she suggests focusing on educating adults and parents, and figuring out why children are taking drugs.
Of the five fentanyl-related deaths of young people that she knows of, “most of the parents whose kids died didn’t know that their kids were using,” Oliver said. Those five kids, she added, died from organ failure after taking pills laced with fentanyl and cleaning substances.
Root2Fruit is currently organizing Pushing Peace, a program where young people speak in local schools. Oliver said the organization has also partnered to bring Pushing Peace to West Suburban, Rush Medical Center, Lurie’s Children Hospital, the Chicago Department of Public Health’s Prevention Partnership and the PCC Community Wellness Center.
Al Stinson also spoke at the meeting. With Kenya S. Hawkins, Stinson founded Yrudition as a new nonprofit that helps to restore emotional well-being and provide trauma education.
Trauma stays in the body, Stinson said, and often overflows when triggered. He compares the reaction to shaking a can of pop.
“The system is set up for us to be pop,” Stinson said, but Yrudition’s goal is to help regulate the body, so this reaction becomes like shaking water. “We focus so much on the pain of our triggers. Let’s focus on the elevation of our triggers.”
Much of Stinson’s trauma education overlaps with learning about gun violence.
“When we get triggered, we automatically pull triggers,” Stinson said. “From the age of 14 to 24, the number one death is through gun violence.”
One day, Stinson was doing trauma training at an elementary school. Hawkins noticed a group of preschoolers come into the room to play with Legos while they listened, and she watched as one of the boys constructed a gun.
“Not only did he make it, he pointed it at one of the students,” Hawkins told the Austin Weekly News. “Did he know what he was doing?” After, Stinson talked to the boy, and he and Hawkins decided to start Yrudition.
Hawkins and Stinson work full-time at a nonprofit that offers mental health services, and both have trauma and resilience life coach certifications.
“Our communities are just riddled with trauma,” Hawkins said. So in June, Yrudition will have its launch party, and in July, offer its first cohort, targeting the youth in Austin and West Garfield Park.
The cohort will meet weekly for six months to a year and cover trauma-informed care curriculum, teaching about the science of trauma, how it impacts the body and brain, and how to turn it into strength.
“We really want to meet you where you are,” Hawkins said, “and continuously work with you so that you can transform your mind, which will eventually transform your life and transform the way you think.”