When Oak Park took a stand for diversity with its adoption of fair housing legislation in 1968, urban gays and lesbians took note and began moving into the near west suburb for its quality of life, good schools, and distinctive stock of affordable houses.
Then, as the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community established itself in Oak Park, in 1989, a small group of human rights activists began working to bring sexual orientation language to the Oak Park human rights policy. Next, OPALGA, the Oak Park Area Gay and Lesbian Association, won village employees’ domestic partner benefits, and convinced village residents to vote in favor of a Domestic Partnership Registry.
Since then, Oak Park has elected an openly lesbian village president, proffered the inclusion of LGBT individuals into all aspects of village life, and hosted a portion of the 2006 Gay Games. Even so, as Oak Park’s property taxes and housing costs have skyrocketed, some gays and lesbians, like other residents, have crossed its borders into neighboring towns in search of a better deal. Brad Bartels, a Board of Director’s co-chair of OPALGA, is not surprised. Gays and lesbians have long been known as urban pioneers, and the recent spilling over into neighboring communities is an example of that, although he points out that there isn’t a zip code in the United States that doesn’t have an LGBT person residing in it.
“Just as housing prices have risen in Oak Park and pushed out other populations, it has put a pressure on gays and lesbians who want to live here,” says Bartels, a Realtor with ReMax in the Village. “They are choosing to move to Forest Park or Berwyn, or Galewood, or Elmwood Park as a place that might be a little bit more affordable from a housing standpoint.”
According to Susan Anderson, a former board member of Berwyn United Gay and Lesbian Organization (BUNGALO), and OPALGA’s representative to the Oak Park and River Forest Chamber of Commerce, there has always been a solid gay contingent in Berwyn. With the establishment of BUNGALO, which is modeled after OPALGA, their LGBT individuals now have more social options and a stronger voice in the community and local government.
“Our growth [in Berwyn] is driven because when people come to Oak Park, they drift into Berwyn and find out that the housing stock is very good here, taxes are less and you get a little bit more for your money. There is a lot of renovation going on in Berwyn, kind of a rebirth.”
Dear old Oak Park
Because Oak Park has a long tradition of viewing diversity as its core strength, it has been committed to bridging the gaps and differences that are often used to try to pit one segment of society against another, notes newly-elected Oak Park Village President, David Pope. Oak Park’s ethos, he adds, is about welcoming everyone.
“I think that many members of the LGBT community, like many other people, feel welcomed in Oak Park because they don’t feel forced to wear any labels or to be anything that they’re not,” he said in an e-mail response. “Here, just as I can simply be David, others can simply be themselves.”
Oak Park Trustee Ray Johnson adds that he was the volunteer coordinator for soccer for the 2006 Gay Games, which brought many LGBT people and LGBT-friendly individuals to the village. However, what is probably making the urban to suburban shift viable, says Bartels, is that in 2006 the State of Illinois signed into law a provision that added sexual orientation as well as a gender identity and expression to its human rights ordinance. That means that LGBT people cannot be discriminated against, especially in communities where gays or lesbians are often fearful that discriminatory practices may still exist.
“These communities are the same as Oak Park in the sense that there is a proximity and closeness to the LGBT community that has been established in Oak Park,” Bartels says. “It also stretches into Brookfield where there is a very growing population of gays and lesbians as well. These towns are different in that each one has its own advantages and challenges. Within some of them you will find that the attitudes towards gays and lesbians may not be as progressive as in Oak Park, but the hope is that over time that will change.”
-Deb Quantock Mccarey