Christiana Powell’s family has lived in Woodlawn for three generations. When her grandfather bought their three-story home at 61st Street and Greenwood Avenue in the 1950s, the neighborhood was still predominantly white. Powell says that her family was one of the first to integrate the neighborhood.

Early Friday morning, law enforcement evicted Powell and the three other families living in the building. She had received a final eviction notice last month. Supporters rallied around Powell, moving her and the other residents’ belongings from the sidewalk into trucks.

In 2016, Powell had noticed her mortgage costs surging from $800 to $3,500 a month. She alleges that U.S. Bank, without her knowledge or consent, changed her mortgage from a Federal Housing Administration loan, a government-backed loan with more flexible income requirements and lower down payments, to a conventional mortgage that is not insured by the government. Powell’s property was foreclosed upon in 2021.

UChicago United for Palestine alleged in a press release that U.S. Bank’s actions were “illegal” and that “Powell’s title was handed over to developer GA Roslyn in 28 days, a violation of Cook County law which specifies that a judicial sale cannot occur within 90 days.”

When reached for comment, a U.S. Bank spokesperson told the Maroon that the bank is just the trustee for the mortgage-backed security that contains Powell’s mortgage, while a separate servicer of the loan controls loan modifications and foreclosure proceedings. Powell’s loan servicer could not be reached for comment.

In 2022, the property was bought by developer GA Roslyn, LLC, which has also obtained construction permits for multiple other Woodlawn properties. Powell alleges that the developer harassed and attempted to intimidate her and the three other families living in the building, causing her to file three police reports. The most recent report was on July 1.

Powell says she has filed a motion for reconsideration in the appellate court and has a case on appeal in the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

After Powell’s final eviction notice last month, community members and advocacy organizations launched an encampment on the property beginning July 18. Supporters kept her company until the eviction.

“People don’t leave me alone during the day,” she said in an interview with the Maroon on August 12. “They come by, we sit, we talk. We spend time here together.”Local organizations, including Southside Together Organizing for Power, NotMeWe, and UChicago Against Displacement also stood by Powell at protests outside of Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s and Chief Judge Tim Evans’s offices on August 8.

Powell says that her eviction is just another part of a “massive land grab taking place in Woodlawn,” spurred on by the construction of the Obama Center in Jackson Park.

Since Jackson Park was announced as the location of the center in 2016, fears of gentrification have mounted among many South Side residents. A 2017 study from the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University identified Woodlawn as a neighborhood with an increasing vulnerability to displacement due to its proximity to the Green Line and to the Obama Center’s construction site. Data shared by real estate company Redfin also shows housing prices increasing; the median sale price of homes in the neighborhood grew from less than 200K in 2020 to 300K in 2024.

Homeowners on fixed incomes, like Powell, worry about being priced out of their neighborhoods.

“You have developers like this that are coming in, buying up the property, raising the rent so high that the longtime residents can’t even afford it. So they’re being pushed out,” Powell said.

Another factor that Powell says contributes to gentrification in the neighborhood is the University’s growing presence south of the Midway.

“The University of Chicago has wanted property over here for years. They tried to get it back in the late sixties. And when they couldn’t get it, they basically sat back and waited,” she said. Powell says that things changed once the University crossed 61st Street.

The University’s landholdings in Woodlawn extend beyond just campus buildings. In 2014, the University spent more than $18 million to purchase property near Washington Park, including what would become the Arts Block along Garfield Boulevard. And in 2020, UChicago bought the neighborhood’s only Jewel-Osco store.

Powell said she believes the University should take responsibility for Woodlawn residents getting pushed out of the neighborhood. “There needs to be reparations coming from the University of Chicago in the form of grants to help longtime residents remain in Woodlawn,” she said.

According to the South Side Housing Data Initiative, 20 percent of the parcels of land comprising Woodlawn now contain vacant lots. Powell says she remembers Woodlawn as a “vibrant, alive community” before economic conditions in the neighborhood declined.

“We had grocery stores, two movie theaters, a bakery, a Chinese restaurant, shoe stores. Everybody knew everybody. There were always plenty of people walking up and down 63rd,” she said.

Powell says she first began noticing the neighborhood changing in small ways, like grocery stores closing and buildings being rebuilt.

“It’s the way little things would happen,” she said. “It was a slow murder—that’s how I look at it.”