There are moments in public life when elected officials choose to meet historic issues — or not.
In the ’60s, village trustees in Oak Park took on an issue few municipalities in the U.S. were willing to face: passing a local fair housing ordinance to start undoing more than a century of race-based discriminatory housing practices.
By 1967, only 11 black families lived in Oak Park, including the family of Dr. Percy Julian. Many of these families had to purchase their homes through “straw buyers,” because homeowners and realtors would not close a contract with Black buyers.
In 1968, the Oak Park Village Board, over heated opposition, passed the Fair Housing Ordinance that prohibited panic-selling as well as placing “For Sale” signs in front yards. They did so against a backdrop of physical threats to board members. Two trustees voted against that ordinance (See https://www.oakpark.com/2018/05/29/looking-back-at-a-pivotal-time-in-oak-park-history)
A second historic moment for Oak Park arrived on Halloween in 2023. For the prior year, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas had been sending tens of thousands of newly arrived migrants, mostly from Venezuela, to Chicago by the busload. Hundreds of these new arrivals camped in a tent city outside the Austin Police District headquarters. Many had been accessing showers and free clothing at nearby St. Catherine-St. Lucy Church in Oak Park.
When freezing temperatures hit on Halloween night, sleeping bags froze to the ground. Small children walked around the encampment in short pants, T-shirts and clogs, despite the freezing temperatures. The city of Chicago was overwhelmed and unresponsive to the growing humanitarian crisis.
Then an ad hoc group of Oak Parkers responded. Oak Park pastors opened their church basements. And the migrants found themselves in warm, if crowded, church halls in Oak Park.
With the leadership of Village President Vicki Scaman and support from some but not all of the trustees, an action plan developed. In an unprecedented way, village government and hordes of local volunteers collaborated to address the crisis. With state and county funding, a plan eventually came together to transition the remaining migrants to a central “family transitional shelter” at St. Edmund Church.
Vicki Scaman led the charge in finding a solution. This had not been on her agenda or anyone else’s. But she saw the humanitarian crisis and acted.
The same cannot be said for her opponent in the upcoming village president election, Trustee Ravi Parakkat. He voted against the transitional shelter plan, even though the village has now been almost totally reimbursed for its out-of-pocket costs. He saw the migrant issue as someone else’s problem and a distraction from the village’s focus.
Because the plan had funding not only for the shelter but also for next-step housing, and because of a Herculean effort by Oak Park village employees and residents, the remaining shelter residents quickly transitioned to rental housing and the shelter closed after operating for several months.
So Oak Park has faced two out-of-the-box existential crises in the last 60 years: fair housing in the ’60s and the recent migrant crisis. Unfortunately, with the goings-on in Washington, DC, a third crisis, this time a constitutional one, may be at hand.
We will need strong political leadership at the local level over the next four years to counter potentially unconstitutional actions by the Trump administration. This is not the moment for a village president who looks for ways not to get involved in the issues of the day.
That’s why I will be voting for Vicki Scaman’s re-election in the upcoming village election.
Jack Crowe was executive director of the short-lived Oak Park Family Transitional Shelter at St. Edmund Parish.