My Landlord Built His Wealth from Chicago’s White Flight

Mom drove up to the two-story house in her burgundy Buick and handed me an envelope with $600. I hopped out of the car and ran to the front door, thrilled to drop off rent to our landlord. I felt like such an adult. It was 1994 and I was seven years old. From behind the screen door emerged Todd, a tall white man in his late 40s. He greeted me with his usual warm demeanor as I handed him the cash. We rented from him for 15 years. My mother worked as an office clerk for three decades, building a retirement fund that would equal less than the price tag of our entire apartment building in Albany Park, Chicago. In 1984, Todd bought the four-unit multifamily home for $100K, and rented it to four different families including ours. Property values were still on the lower end as a result of the exodus of white residents to the suburbs where non-white residents were excluded by redlining practices- or if they managed to purchase a home in a white neighborhood- pushed out by racist mob violence. <a href="https://aninjusticemag.com/my-landlord-built-his-wealth-from-chicagos-white-flight-c6706997c245">Website</a>