Crain's Chicago Business

Rousemary Vega gets emotional when she walks down Augusta Boulevard in Humboldt Park. It's hard for the mother of five to see the former Lafayette Elementary School with its signs now touting the Chicago High School for the Arts.

"They closed Lafayette School and gave it to another school. Do you know how fucked up that is?" she asks. "Me and my children have to walk past it every day. And now that building is not open to the community. They have great programs in there that the community cannot benefit from. How unfair is that?"