Making it in Chicago: Dead Ends and Detours on the Path to Opportunity

Crystal Paul is the State Investigations Editor with the Illinois Answers Project. She previously served as Interim Features Editor with The Seattle Times, where she created the A1 Revisited Accountability project, re-examining issues in historical coverage at the legacy newspaper, and co-created the Communities beat to center coverage on under-covered and marginalized communities in Seattle. Her background includes award-winning enterprise, news, and communities reporting for various publications in Chicago.

Jim Daley is the investigations editor at South Side Weekly. Previously, he was a news editor at the Chicago Reader and The TRiiBE. His work focuses on the intersections between government, public safety and community organizing. He grew up in Chicago and has a degree in biology from UIC.

Cecile was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, graduating from Kenwood Academy High School. She is a community organizer, urban planner, policy maker, and community and economic developer. For over 10 years, Cecile served as the Co-Executive Director of Blocks Together, a community organizing organization on Chicago’s West Side. During her time there, she contributed to citywide changes in economic development and school reform, organizing millions in local school improvement efforts, mobilizing intergenerational coalition of residents.

She played a key role in writing and passing two historic laws regarding transparency in facility management and school action prevention for Chicago Public Schools. Currently, Cecile is the Executive Director of Teamwork Englewood, a community-based organization that aims to improve the quality of life for Englewood residents through community planning, engagement, and direct services. The organization provides youth leadership and after-school programming, job training, and employment opportunities for residents with backgrounds. In 2022, Teamwork Englewood launched the first Community Legal Clinic in Englewood, specializing in the expungement and sealing of criminal records.