CHRIS OCKEN
W
hen it comes to boasting and passing out the good- ies, most of Chicago treats its West Side like a way- ward stepchild.
Te West Side has problems. Its schools have all but
fallen apart. It lacks affordable housing. During the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, businesses and manufacturing fled to the suburbs, leaving behind a workforce ill-prepared to com- pete in the 21st-century’s technological economy. But the West Side also has thousands of determined
Transforming neighborhoods,
one entrepreneur at a time
By Robert Elliott
On the West Side of Chi- cago, budding entrepre- neurs get the help they need at Bethel New Life’s 12-week class (photo above),
shown gather-
ing on a recent Tuesday evening.
Launched in
March, it’s the third such class. Janet Ford, stand- ing in the doorway of her accounting business, is a graduate.
CHRIS OCKEN 30
www.thelutheran.org
people—individuals, churches, community organiza- tions—who are out to change all that. Tey are building better lives for themselves and the image of life on the West Side of the country’s third largest city. Tey include people
like Mikica Riley and Janet Ford and organiza- tions like Bethel New Life. Riley and Ford, owners of new West Side businesses, got started with the help and training of a 12-week entrepreneurship pro-
gram launched two years ago by Bethel New Life’s Small Business Development Center. Bethel New Life was created in 1979 by members of
Bethel Lutheran Church to develop affordable housing in its West Side neighborhood, West Garfield Park. Today its mission has expanded to meet more community needs, with its focus spilling into adjoining neighborhoods of low income and high unemployment. Te entrepreneurship program is one of several aimed
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