Drug dealing and prostitution, in particular, plagued the South Side community that borders the Calumet Expressway.
Cars come, do what they want, and then they are gone again.
But things have changed recently. It started when residents united to form a block club, and then strategized with police to keep criminals off the corners permanently. They installed outdoor lights and agreed to keep a light turned on inside their homes at night. They put up address numbers in the fronts and backs of their homes, set up a neighborhood phone tree, and got a stop sign installed. Once their block was in order, residents and beat officers worked with City agencies to get crumbling garages torn down and vacant lots that were filled with trash and abandoned cars cleaned up.