Contact Stigmaweb's video: 1074 Chicago Blues

4) Fill in the blanks based on what you listen: "A long time coming, but tonight because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America. Thank you. God bless you and may god bless the United States of America." When Barack Obama claimed victory in front of 200,000 supporters right here in Grant Park, his message of hope, change and jobs resonated across the nation. But four years on, have those promises been delivered? Driving through Roseland on Chicago's notorious south side, the poverty is obvious. Gang warfare, violence and crime have long been a fact of life here. In fact, it was working out of this church that a young Barack Obama cut his political teeth in the late '80s working as a community activist. But as President, his promises of change aren't being felt here. "We had a whole generation that never votes. We ain't employed. Nobody votes." Diane Lattiker is angry about what this area has become. "To the politicians you don't care" -- "I care." "You need to vote to" Diane runs a community youth center here. Her main focus is to keep young people like Jessica Morris away from gangs and the thriving drug trade on the streets outside. Jessica has been trying to turn her life around ever since her brother was killed in a shooting two years ago. "I used to be fighting all the time, going back and forth to jail. Selling drugs. Shooting guns at people. All type of stuff. I've been shot before myself." Murders are so common here they know longer shock these young people. While we are talking, Jessica finds out yet another person she knows has died. "There is Trey... had passed away!" "Oh! He did? I ain't know he dead." "The funeral was like, last month." "It was last month. I went to it." Do they feel in many ways that they have been forgotten though? "Yes, I feel that some time too." Today another volunteer is at the center, showing these young people how to apply for jobs online. With unemployment running at 9.4% in Chicago work is hard to find. But regardless, they still have faith in President Barack Obama. "Yes, they do. They are angry with him. They wonder what he's doing sometimes. I guarantee you they will be on line on Election Day." It's not just young people on the fringes who are struggling. In downtown Chicago I meet Bonita Franks. She comes here every day to hand out her resume to commuters, and ask for donations. "For the first time in my life I worked 39.5 years. I'm zero balance right now." Bonita has been unemployed for most of the last two years. Even so she still supports Obama, and thinks he should be given another term. "It wasn't going to be a quick fix, no matter what happened. Whoever got into the office wasn't going to be a quick fix. It will take time to straighten out things that have gone astray." Fall-out from the housing bubble remains one of the America's biggest problems. In this Chicago neighborhood families have been evicted on nearly every street, leaving foreclosed homes to become havens for drug users and gangs. But now the community is fighting back. "Yes, there was shootings and everything - everything in here." A local businessman, known as Mr D shows me around a foreclosed home that had been stripped by local hoods. "They ripped out the bathroom?" "Yes, yes. " Mr D is paying to fix up the house out of his own pocket. "They were stripping the wood and everything, see all here." The renovated home will then be given to a homeless family to occupy in defiance of the banks. "100,000 of these in the city of Chicago." The takeovers of abandoned homes are being organized by JR Fleming. He heads a group called the Anti-Eviction Squad. "We are trying to bring the business and the churches and encourage the banks and the government to assist." Although JR is disappointed with the President, he doesn't consider the Republicans a better alternative. "We know that the Republicans are big banks, big business. Nobody is looking at how to do this from the bottom up. I'm not giving the Democrats an easy pass because we see that we used to be Democrat and things have gotten worse, they have not gotten better. Some sectors of the economy things have recovered and things have gotten better. When it comes specifically how things have gotten worse."