Chicago residents criticize city’s $500 million Obama Center for skyrocketing rents and home prices

Chicagoans are in turmoil after the Obama Foundation’s new $500 million “presidential center” sparked a massive rise in real estate prices, forcing many longtime residents to leave their homes.

The nonprofit, founded by Barack and Michelle Obama, told residents that the sprawling new construction on Chicago’s South Side will transform the city and surrounding neighborhoods — and provide local employment.

But since the announcement of the center in 2015, average rents in the immediate area have risen by a whopping 43 percent, while house prices have risen by 130 percent.

The area has historically been black, with many of those who have since been forced to get up and move around, particularly angry at having been kicked out of their homes thanks to the actions of the United States’ first African-American president.

Among those forced to move is Tahiti Hamer, 42.

The single mother of three had to leave the only neighborhood she’d ever lived in after her rent rose 40 percent in 2021 — the same year construction began on the Obama Foundation center.

Born and raised in the South Side, the single mother of three asked her landlord for help, but they said their taxes had gone up.

She witnessed an investor buy a dilapidated property across the street and sell it for 10 times more, with those same flippers now accused of ripping the neighborhood’s heart, the Washington Post reported.

Hamer now lives in a spacious suburban estate, but says she misses her old neighbor and community — with the Obamas blamed for spurring its regeneration.

The former president and his wife met in Chicago and raised their two daughters in the city before moving to Washington DC in the early 2000s.

Construction on the Obamas’ $500 million presidential center began in September 2021, when the former president and his wife visited the South Side site to participate in a ceremonial groundbreaking

Born in the Windy City, Barack and Michelle still own a residence on the south side, and it’s the town they are most closely associated with.

The $500 million South Side Center is billed as “a historic opportunity to build a world-class museum and public meeting space in honor of our nation’s first African-American president and first lady.”

The development is still two years away from completion, but property listings in surrounding neighborhoods are already saying this will be the next hot area.

Many listings cite proximity to downtown as a selling point, with locals fearing that prices will only continue to rise as the opening date approaches.

In 2019, the area was named Chicago’s worst area in terms of eviction rate, with developers looking to purchase properties and raise rents.

Nearly one in three properties for sale in the third quarter of 2022 were bought by investors looking to flip them.

Barack Obama is pictured with a drawing of what the $500 million center will look like in May 2017

A rendering of what the sprawling Obama Presidential Center is expected to look like in Chicago’s South Side

Retired nurse Linda Jennings, 73, who has lived in the South Side for nearly 20 years, says she is harassed most days by developers who want to buy her apartment. “I say no because this is my home,” she said.

In February, nearly 90 percent of South Side residents said in a referendum that more should be done to create affordable housing and provide assistance to renters and homeowners living near the Obama Center.

Another former South Sider, nonprofit education worker Chinella Miller, 38, was forced out of the house after her landlord raised the rent by 80 percent.

She pleaded for a smaller increase, but was told by her unknown landlord that since their property taxes had gone up, her rent would have to go up to reflect it.

The gentrification of the South Side is likely to flood it with white residents, further angering locals who have previously put up with racism or witnessed the bigotry towards their parents or grandparents.

Barack and Michelle Obama met in Chicago and were married in October 1992

The Obamas raised their two daughters Sasha and Malia (center left and right) in Chicago before moving to Washington DC in the early 2000s

A third resident, activist Dixon Romeo, says his family nearly lost the South Side home their grandparents bought in 1964, which is a mile from downtown.

His mother, a charter school teacher, lost her job in 2021 and soon found herself with a $30,000 tax lien.

Fortunately, Romeo was able to pay off the debt with a $25,000 prize he won last year for his community service.

But he says the incident has given him insight into the stress and upset faced by many of his neighbors who have been forced from their homes by gentrification.

Romeo is one of the most high-profile backers of a proposed new ammunition to cut property taxes and build lots of affordable homes.

He said, ‘This is very personal to me. I do this job because my mother has been extremely vulnerable to being displaced. I myself am extremely vulnerable to being displaced.

‘That drives me. It’s not charity; I am not the one who comes from above to talk to you little people. I am a short person. It’s not an all of you problem; it’s a we problem.’