Tio Hardiman, known on the streets as "Mr. Ceasefire," spends his days, and many nights, stemming gang violence in some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods.
His group, Violence Interrupters, which he founded in 2004, also provides aid to the crime victims. Some city policies, he says, undermine that support for the victims, and the residents of the neighborhoods on the West Side and South Side where his staff, many of them former gang members themselves, work.
One such policy is the winter parking ban.
“It hits the people in some the most distressed neighborhoods the hardest, because they have fewer options to park,” Hardiman said of the ban that began Dec. 1. "I can understand if they’re predicting a blizzard, but it's foolish to have this every day.”
The ban covers 107 miles of main streets throughout the city, imposing parking restrictions from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. The policy holds even in the absence of snow.
The towing is a minimum $150 fee, in addition to a $60 ticket and $25 per day storage fee.
Hardiman said he is also no fan of an increasingly aggressive ticketing policy where Uber, Lyft and other shared-ride drivers can lose their business licenses over just a few unpaid traffic tickets. No other major U.S. city has such a policy.
“Not a good decision,” Hardiman said, referring to the city code. “There has to be a way to work this out so people can earn money and pay off the debt.”
A recent Sun Times report shows ticketing in the city was up 25.7% during the first six months of 2022, from 853,906 tickets through June 30, 2021, to 1,073,919 tickets during the same period this year.
A ProPublica breakdown of millions of citations found that between 2015-19, households in majority Black and Hispanic ZIP codes received tickets at around twice the rate of those in white areas.
This regressive ticketing policy is preventing Chicagoans from working and communities of color are being impacted disproportionately, a local pastor told the Southland Marquee for an earlier story.
"This is a regressive city policy that targets Black and brown communities, keeping them in a cycle of generational debt," the Rev. Tyrone McGowan, associate pastor at the United Church of Christ in Robbins, said. "It primarily affects low-income Black households. Eight out of the 10 ZIP codes with the most ticket debt are Black ZIP codes. So many people, who are already struggling financially, sink even further into debt as a result of this policy. Many go into bankruptcy, which is not an ideal solution, over something as simple as an unpaid ticket."
Violence Interrupters most recent activity report covering January to June 2022 says the group mediated 32 gang conflicts, with much of their efforts in the Austin, Englewood, Chatham, Roseland, West Humboldt Park, and East and West Garfield neighborhoods.
The activity report also says that staff spent 800 hours working with over 80 at-risk youth – an effort that discourages young men from joining gangs. They also intervened and prevented numerous fights on the Southside.