Chicago Newsroom 02/14/19

Published on Feb 20, 2019

Melissa Sanchez (ProPublica Illinois) and Elliott Ramos (WBEZ) join Ken Davis for a discussion about their multi-part, multi-platform series of investigations about spiraling fines and impoundments in Chicago. These City policies, they report, are driving thousands of Chicagoans into bankruptcy and creating intractable indebtedness. They reveal that 67,000 cars were booted in Chicago in 2017 alone simply for failure to pay City sticker fines and non-moving violations such as expired license plate stickers. They discuss the fact that, as the City has raised penalties for these infractions since 2007, Chapter 13 bankruptcies have risen from 1,000 to more than 10,000, and that individual debt to the City has risen from $1,500 to $3,900. This program was produced by Chicago Access Television.