care goes city-wide. if you didn’t notice, it’s by design.
Hello, Neighbors! May 13, 2026 was a rollercoaster and a good reminder of how seemingly random events are connected:
At 9 am Mayor Brandon Johnson announced an expansion to the city's CARE Program, which IS NOW available in all 77 community areas in Chicago. The program sends a mental health professional and an emergency medical technician – not police officers or firefighters — to respond to calls of mental health emergencies. There is still a lot of work to be done, so that we could have the right person responding to the right call at the right time, as our lovely friend Ishan Daya explains. We need to fully fund the expansion of this program to 24×7, and the reopening of the public mental health centers to bring together this ecosystem of care, which depends on CDPH leadership and city council members, which is why we keep organizing.
33rd Ward Alder Rossana Rodriguez, who joined Mayor Brandon Johnson at the 9 am presser on May 13, 2026 explained why this is such a big deal.
The Collaborative for Community Wellness, a coalition of community-based organizations, community residents, advocates, and mental health professionals working on the Treatment Not Trauma campaign and the expansion of the CARE program, spoke at the presser, and Ald. Rodriguez shared this update on her Instagram. Generations of activists and neighbors fought to see this day, and many of them didn’t live to see it. It felt raw, emotional, and uplifting to stand beside folks who didn’t give up the good fight to ensure that everyone in Chicago gets the mental health support that they need…
This uplifting moment didn’t last, as it was quickly followed by another mid morning presser, when national DNC and our state leadership were taking a victory lap congratulating billionaires who fronted the funds for the 2024 DNC convention. The same convention that set the stage for massive losses across the board for the Democratic party, and real life impact for all of us. Yet none of that registered with the local press. If anything, they were busy reminding us why we can’t have good things, as in funding for CARE, which is not guaranteed thanks to the relentless campaign against Community Safety Surcharge (CSS), aka ‘Head Tax’ which was backed by Michael Sacks in the fall of 2025.
As Governor Pritzker put it at the DNC site visit presser, “he (Michael Sacks) a good civic leader in the city of Chicago, who has tried his whole career to support things that really matter to working people, and he's a Democrat". Without skipping a beat, in the same 60 sec segment local news called Sacks as a ‘generous donor” and a ‘friend of the Governor and former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’ and ‘a frequent target of Mayor Johnson’s, because Sacks spent money to oppose the Mayor’s Head Tax proposal’. This framing of Mayor Johnson on one side and two billionaires on the other wasn’t particularly smart, but nobody said propaganda has to be sophisticated to work. Frankly, anyone standing on the opposite side of billionaires who have all the power in the world, and yet are positioned as the victims, is so last century. Get it together, corporate news.
The irony of bringing up the ‘Head Tax’ on the day of the CARE program announcement, while calling it ‘Mayor Johnson’s Head Tax’ was not lost on us. It was never Mayor Johnson’s ‘Head Tax’ or Mayor Johnson’s budget. But it’s more fun to make it sound like a game, where it’s the mayor who lost something, not all of us. This highlights the hypocrisy of centrist corporate democrats who call themselves pragmatic, common sense and efficiency focused, when they are rallying against human and community-centered, lifesaving programs that not only help people, but keep them from ending up in criminal justice system, which is even more costly for society. As if scoring points is all that matters, and there is no consideration to the human cost in their games. They count on us being desensitized to their power games, as we are led to believe that winning and losing is all that matters. The reality of power without humanist purpose is being obscured by how ordinary and unimpressive the messengers are, in our opinion.
How does this relate to us in the 44th ward? Glad you asked.
When Chicago City Council voted 30-18 on December 20, 2025 to approve the final portion of city’s budget for 2026, the corporate caucus went out of their way to exclude reinstatement of ‘Head Tax’, which was around since 1973 until Rahm admin nixed it in 2014. This tax caused no job losses, and even Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson couldn’t find anything wrong with it. In all that petty city council mess, one important message was obscured: the city is not allowed by law to tax the wealth and top corporations directly, and the state is refusing to do it even after the devastating federal cuts, so the burden shifts on ordinary people through property taxes and other fees, because at the end of the day the city has to keep the lights on and pay the bills.
Social media ads ran by Common Ground Collective in the fall of 2025.
These ads were attacking alders who prioritized progressive taxation and praised alders like 44th Ward Ald. Lawson who didn’t.
Our 44th Ward Ald. Lawson, who was weaving and dodging our efforts to get a clear answer on where he stood on this issue, refused to share the feedback (calls and emails) from the ward residents. His hastily put together, biased survey was sent AFTER our People’s Townhall on Nov. 18, 2025, when we directly asked him about where he is getting the information about the ward residents’ sentiment.
After he voted for the ‘alternate budget’ he put the blame squarely on ward residents, as he wrote in a Ward Newsletter sent on Dec 29, 2025.
“My decision to support a different proposal from the Mayor’s proposed budget also directly reflects what I heard from hundreds of constituents across the 44th Ward over the last few weeks. Through our survey, nearly two-thirds of residents expressed their opposition to the Mayor’s budget and less than twenty percent expressed support for the Mayor's budget. Residents also communicated support for finding ways to improve government efficiencies, and most shared strong opposition to the Head Tax”.
One would ask, why not just stand on business and defend your position? Also, what efficiencies are ‘residents supporting’? Could he possibly elaborate? But alas, to this day Ald. Lawson refused to share the actual number of calls and emails that his office received in support of the Protect Chicago budget, and our FOIAs on this subject were denied twice. The reason for this petty mess is that we know from our fellow organizers at JCUA that almost 300 residents expressed their support for the Protect Chicago budget, but we could never get our alderman to share the actual numbers or give any reason beyond anecdotal corporate talking points that he could never back with so much as a link. As we learned later, Sacks donated close to $373,000 to the campaigns controlled by alders who opposed ‘Head Tax’, including $28,400 to Friends of Bennett Lawson Candidate Committee, and Sack’s backed Common Ground Collective ran ads against the alders who supported taxing top corporations to fund mental health services.
So why would a ‘good civic leader in the city of Chicago, and a friend of Governor and former mayor Rahm Emanuel’ tank a marginal corporate tax meant to fund much needed mental health service in the city? Maybe, the answer is adjacent to the same reason why Ald. Lawson didn’t include CARE expansion announcement in his weekly newsletter on May 15, beyond a thumbnail buried deep under the pile of other scary crime and police stuff .
Do people in Lakeview not need free, accessible non-police crises response? Or public mental health services? Since most of Ald. Lawson’s newsletters lead with robberies, thefts, burglaries and police updates, why wouldn’t he share one good thing that happened in the safety space in a long time? We heard about ADU’s over and over and over again, but one good thing that we can all rely on? Not a word!
If you think this was the end of the day on that fateful Wednesday in May, you’d be wrong, so we leave you with what happened in the evening of the same day, May 13, 2026.
Ald. Lawson actually showed up to the monthly 19 Police District Council (PDC) meeting, for the first time this year. Imagine our surprise! The topic of the meeting was… CARE expansion! Just as our district councilor Jenny started her presentation, exactly 16 minutes into the meeting, Ald. Lawson… left. Since 19 PDC meeting IS the only truly democratic open forum in our ward, this was a missed opportunity for him to have a grown-up conversation with his residents, and for us to ask him important questions about CARE, and about the policing plan for this year’s Pride. Last time we had a chance to ask him about the embarrassing and expensive level of over-policing after last year’s Pride, his answer was that he hopes that it rains each year, and everyone goes home. What kind of grinch doesn’t want people to enjoy Pride?!
So, what should we do with all this messiness?
We have a plan! Since our alderman doesn’t hold any public meetings, on Monday, May 18, 2026 we sent a letter to our Ald. Lawson’s office, organizers of Pride Chicago, 19 Police District Council, and a few members of local press. We are not asking for the world, or to make any scary policing decisions, just a community gathering, a kiki if you will, about making Lakeview Pride safe and welcoming FOR EVERYONE. Pride didn’t start as a celebration of wealthy men, surrounded by busloads of police officers. It started when the marginalized LGBTQIA people pushed back at the police and state for harassing and criminalizing them, so what are we even doing here having this conversation in this year of our Lord 2026? Who is being protected and who is being harassed now?!
We leave you with a couple of possibilities. Let things continue as they are, which frankly is just a lazy slide into full oligarchy, and terrible boring fashion. Or, do some democratic stuff while we still can! And maybe, just maybe, it’s possible to bring fresh energy and make enough changes to improve the lives for people in Lakeview, so that fun, interesting and adorable people can ALSO afford to live here, and not just the wealthy in ugly suits. Honestly, why are they so boring?!!!!
So here are three easy and impactful ways to engage:
We want accessible mental healthcare and city-wide non-police crisis response fully funded and expanded to 24×7. How do we get it? First step is to sign TNT petition and share it with three friends. bit.ly/tntpetitions
If you want to learn more and get involved, we have the action page ready for you!
We want a community dialogue (a kiki) so that we could work together to make this year’s Pride fun AND safe for EVERYONE.
JOIN OUR COMMUNITY PETITION to request a public community forum about making this year’s Pride celebration safe and inclusive for EVERYONE. bit.ly/lakeview4everyone
Finally, with the legislative session ending at the end of May, we need to be heard on Tax Justice. Our friends at One Northside are holding two actions: May 20th right here in Lakeview outside of our favorite alderman’s office and, on May 27 in Springfield.
Join us if you can, AND text three friends.
Always text three friends. Send them this page, you will definitely have something to kiki about next time you see them.
With LOVE,
44th Ward Action
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