In order for change to truly benefit the community it impacts, the people affected need to be involved. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.
2023 marks the ten year anniversary of the closure of 50 Chicago Public Schools by Mayor Rahm Emmanuel due to a “lack of enrollment.” Of those 50 schools, four of them were in Austin, including the Emmet School.
The low-income areas these schools were in were already facing disinvestment, crime, and dwindling opportunities, and the closures made matters worse.
The four schools in Austin were taken hold of by outside forces that wanted to redevelop them for personal gain.
A 2016 Austin Weekly News article said “The proposal to turn currently vacant Robert Emmet Elementary School, 5500 W. Madison St., into a medical facility and a community center was met with apprehension and skepticism by most of the Austin residents who attended an Oct. 11 town hall meeting organized by Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th). While many said that they liked the proposal in theory, they were worried about how it would affect the neighborhood residents and businesses.”
As a result of negative opinions and pushback from the community on the city’s initial plan, Westside Health Authority acquired ownership of the property in 2018. Around the same time, Austin published its first-ever quality-of-life plan called ‘Austin Forward Together’ (AFT), a roadmap to achieving the shared vision of a thriving community. The AFT plan’s goals include everything from public safety to improving access to jobs.
Many efforts were birthed from the plan, such as the $121-million-dollar ASPIRE Initiative, a collection of four projects that will create a cradle-to-career pipeline for Austin residents, all strategically clustered around existing assets in an area bound by Madison, Chicago, Central, and Laramie Avenues: the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation; a new early learning, health and recreation center called The Aspire Education & Wellness Campus; new programs and support to increase enrollment at the Austin College and Career Academy; and Aspire Housing, a multi-tiered approach to provide homeownership assistance, plus new or renovated units for sale.
The first ASPIRE effort to begin was the transformation of the three-acre Emmet School and site into the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation. Construction is already underway, and once open, the Center will help progress many AFT goals by increasing access to job training in living-wage careers like manufacturing; attracting major commercial anchors; creating paths for youth interactions with mentors and role models; and much more.
Now, Emmet is the only one of the four Austin schools closed in 2013 that embodies the community’s desire to responsively have their needs addressed.
By offering economic and career development opportunities, the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation is adding to the momentum that has been building over the last decade.
The northeast corner of Madison and Central Avenue is no longer a reminder of Austin’s inequitable past, but an engine of new opportunities for generations of Austin families.
The Aspire Center symbolizes a turning point in Austin. It isn’t just about renovating a building, it is about leveraging Austin’s unbeatable spirit and limitless potential.
Learn more at AustinComingTogether.org/The-Aspire-Center
