Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
If you don’t watch anything else…watch this.
What happened on April 13, 2026 didn’t start that night...it’s the result of over a year of work to bring forward the Evanston Property Tax Circuit Breaker.
A simple idea:
Help longtime residents stay in their homes.
Not a loan. Not a burden. Just relief.
When the Housing4All Plan was discussed, Councilmember Clare Kelly asked for one word NOT be omitted from the document:
Gentrification.
Not implied. Not softened. Named.
On the record:
Shawn Iles supported moving the document forward without it.
Jonathan Nieuwsma sat silent on the word gentrification.
Bobby Burns devalued the urgency to add the word and said the decline in Evanston’s Black population is “nothing new”.
Krissie Harris did not support adding the word. She sat silent...eating.
Juan Geracaris did not push to include it.
So, the question becomes:
If it’s “nothing new”…why isn’t it written?
Because what gets written gets protected.
What gets left out…doesn’t.
Then came the Circuit Breaker.
A program built with Cook County, housing experts, Northwestern students, and residents.
While city staff did not move it forward with urgency, residents were ready to speak...but by their accounts, were never contacted.
And when it came time to act:
The program was pushed to be folded into Housing4All
Property tax relief was stated as “not a priority”
Amendments shifted it toward a loan structure
The final vote did not support the standalone relief program
A program designed to help people stay…
was delayed, reshaped, and redirected.
So, people are left asking:
Who is this actually being designed for?
I documented this entire process in Chapter 18 of Unsafe Black Voice.
Not as a reaction...but as a record.
Watch the full meeting.
Inform yourself.
Because once you see it…you can’t unsee it.
Once you see the pattern…
you can’t unsee your place in it.
If you don’t watch anything else…watch this.
What happened on April 13, 2026 didn’t start that night...it’s the result of over a year of work to bring forward the Evanston Property Tax Circuit Breaker.
A simple idea:
Help longtime residents stay in their homes.
Not a loan. Not a burden. Just relief.
When the Housing4All Plan was discussed, Councilmember Clare Kelly asked for one word NOT be omitted from the document:
Gentrification.
Not implied. Not softened. Named.
On the record:
Shawn Iles supported moving the document forward without it.
Jonathan Nieuwsma sat silent on the word gentrification.
Bobby Burns devalued the urgency to add the word and said the decline in Evanston’s Black population is “nothing new”.
Krissie Harris did not support adding the word. She sat silent...eating.
Juan Geracaris did not push to include it.
So, the question becomes:
If it’s “nothing new”…why isn’t it written?
Because what gets written gets protected.
What gets left out…doesn’t.
Then came the Circuit Breaker.
A program built with Cook County, housing experts, Northwestern students, and residents.
While city staff did not move it forward with urgency, residents were ready to speak...but by their accounts, were never contacted.
And when it came time to act:
The program was pushed to be folded into Housing4All
Property tax relief was stated as “not a priority”
Amendments shifted it toward a loan structure
The final vote did not support the standalone relief program
A program designed to help people stay…
was delayed, reshaped, and redirected.
So, people are left asking:
Who is this actually being designed for?
I documented this entire process in Chapter 18 of Unsafe Black Voice.
Not as a reaction...but as a record.
Watch the full meeting.
Inform yourself.
Because once you see it…you can’t unsee it.
Once you see the pattern…
you can’t unsee your place in it.
