By Kyra Theodore and Evalyse Teruel
@redlineproject
The fight to preserve the culture of the community grows more urgent as developments threaten erasure.
Natalie Hernandez, 21, has lived in Humboldt Park her whole life. Her grandparents have owned their multi-family home since 1980. Now, her and her family worry if they, too, will be displaced.
She’s watched her tight-knit Puerto Rican community change — local businesses have closed, and long-time neighbors have moved out, all while new developments rise. “I used to feel like I was part of a community that represented me,” Hernandez said. “I was around people that I can connect and relate to.”
Now, she says the neighborhood feels like it’s losing its sense of community.
“It feels separated,” she said. “We used to be a community where everyone knew each other, now we don’t feel as close.”
Timeline: History of Humboldt Park
While the effects of gentrification are rapidly reshaping Humboldt Park, the community is being united to push back to protect the neighborhood’s soul. Reina Marcelle, owner of Reina’s Cakes, emphasized the importance of working with and uniting the community, especially the youth.
“The community has to come together, it’s got to start somewhere,” she said. “I’m just one person but if I can just show a light in my space, it will have a domino effect,” adding that she wants to lead by example as a mentor in her community.
At the same time, the city is leaning on policies for affordable housing as one way to respond to the pressures pushing people out of the neighborhoods.
At the corner of Chicago Avenue and Hamlin, a new building is being constructed on the site of an empty lot. When finished, The Ave will offer 52 apartments priced below market rate, reserved for families earning between 20 and 60 percent of the area median income.
Across the neighborhood, similar efforts are underway. A six-story development at 1237 N. California Ave will soon add 40 affordable units. A proposal for 3305 W. Division St would create another 40, aimed at households earning between $20,000 and $70,000 a year.
These projects are part of the city’s attempt to slow displacement in Humboldt Park, where decades of disinvestment have given way to speculative development. Yet housing experts question whether these developments address the real forces reshaping the neighborhood.
“The most prevalent aspect of gentrification is speculation,” said Derick Anderson, a housing scholar and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “People think this is going to be the next hip neighborhood.”
While individual homebuyers play a role, he said, much of the change is driven by investors with expectations of future gains–purchasing properties to flip or hold until values rise. This speculation follows predictable patterns, starting in areas with specific advantages.
The pattern has moved westward from already-gentrified Wicker Park and Bucktown. The eastern edge of Humboldt Park, bordering these trendy neighborhoods and transit lines gentrified first. As this area becomes more expensive, however, attention may shift the once-overlooked western portion of the neighborhood.
“What makes neighborhoods vulnerable is the kind of runaway market forces,” Anderson said. “If there’s cheap housing stock, if there’s substantial vacancies, especially west of Kedzie,” create prime investment targets.
The 606 elevated trail accelerated this process by adding another desirable amenity. “It became like the Blue Line or Milwaukee Avenue– it attracts people to invest,” said Anderson.
In response, the city expanded its anti-displacement ordinance in 2021 to include parts of Humboldt Park near the 606. The ordinance raises demolition fees and offers limited tax relief for longtime homeowners. Anderson described the policy as imperfect but meaningful. “Even if it’s not a perfect ordinance, the fact that there is one makes it a little harder for speculators,” he said. The additional permits and meetings “cost a developer time and money,” potentially redirecting investment pressures elsewhere.
Read More
Read the other stories in our five-part series about Chicago housing issues.
Coverage: The City’s Rental Crisis | Chicago Facing an Affordable Housing Crisis | Mapping Chicago’s Affordable Housing | 2025 project overview
Opinion: A Legacy of Discrimination: Chicago’s Housing Bias | Quiet Displacement: Chicago’s Affordable Housing Crisis
The affordable housing developments offer an incomplete solution. Reflecting on the extent to which affordable housing projects slow gentrification, Anderson suggested, “it may help stave off displacement of longtime residents by giving people affordable options in an area. Will it stave off the speculative market from investing in an area? I don’t know if it does that.”
Humboldt Park continues to change, the question remains whether policies focused on creating and preserving affordable units within an otherwise unregulated market can meaningfully counter the forces driving speculation and displacement. Without stronger protections and a larger supply of truly affordable housing, these efforts may slow displacement but they’re unlikely to stop it.
“Housing isn’t treated like a human right,” Anderson said. “And that’s a bigger problem than any local ordinance can fix.”For many, Humboldt Park is more than just a neighborhood. Residents like Hernandez and business owners like Marcelle are determined to resist gentrification. Not only fighting for their home, but to preserve their identity, and their culture.
“My biggest fear is my community being completely erased,” Hernandez said. “I fear that our culture, our art, our flags, our businesses, our homes, everything that represents who we [the community] are, will be completely wiped out. I don’t want us to just be history.”