I’ve been driving professionally in Chicago since 2018. Like many rideshare drivers, I invested heavily in this work, buying a car, taking on monthly payments and covering gas, insurance and maintenance. I believed that with hard work, I could succeed.
But in this industry, your livelihood can disappear instantly.
On Jan. 1, I was suddenly deactivated from Uber over an accusation of account sharing. That was enough to trigger an automated decision. There was no investigation, no conversation with a person, just a system error that cut off my income overnight. Two weeks later, Lyft deactivated me as well. There was no accountability and no way to fix the problem.
For a full month, I couldn’t work. I lost nearly $2,500 and came dangerously close to losing my housing. I eventually regained access to Uber, but I’m still deactivated on Lyft.
At the same time, the financial pressure kept building. Just before Christmas, a drunken driver totaled my car. I had to take on a $600-a-month loan to replace it just to stay on the road. Meanwhile, fares continue to drop, gas prices rise, and bonuses disappear. Drivers are left absorbing more costs while earning less.
The toll isn’t just financial — it’s mental. I’ve struggled with the constant stress of not knowing if I’ll be able to keep working. Even now, I feel anxious every time I log on. I’ve experienced being deactivated midshift, stranded far from home with no pay. That fear doesn’t go away.
This isn’t just about me. It’s about thousands of drivers across Illinois who are going through the same thing, quietly struggling to hold on.
Drivers take on all the risk, but when something goes wrong, there’s no support. That’s why Illinois drivers are fighting for the right to unionize. We need fair processes, better pay and basic protections. No one working full time should live in fear that a single error could take everything away.
The Illinois Drivers Alliance is calling on legislators to pass a rideshare drivers’ union bill, which would give us the same rights as other workers in the state — to form a union and collectively bargain for better terms. Give us a voice before more drivers like me are pushed to the brink.
Steven Darkins, Lake Meadows
Saving Black lives through cancer screening
As a cancer survivor and advocate, I often think about what healthcare and cancer prevention mean to my community. The truth is stark: Black people have approximately a 20% greater colorectal cancer incidence and die from it at rates 40% higher than white individuals.
We’re diagnosed young, with late-stage disease and die within five years of diagnosis. These aren’t just statistics. They’re our parents, our siblings, our neighbors.
If screening saves lives and screening options exist, why are we still dying at these rates? The answer is access, wrapped in systemic inequity.
I know this reality in my bones. I am a three-time cancer survivor: colorectal cancer, endometrial cancer and basal cell carcinoma. When I tested positive for Lynch syndrome, a hereditary condition that dramatically increases cancer risk, my history suddenly made sense. I had been in the dark, unaware of a genetic predisposition that could have been caught earlier with the right tools.
For decades, available screening options created real barriers. Colonoscopies, while the gold standard, require extensive prep. Stool-based tests are inconvenient. When your life is stretched thin by work and family responsibilities, preventive care falls to the bottom of your list. I put off my own screening for months while caregiving for my husband and mother. By the time I finally got screened, my cancer was advanced.
This is why new screening tools matter profoundly for communities like mine. Guardant Health’s Shield blood test is the first and only Food and Drug Administration-approved blood test for primary colorectal cancer screening for those 45 and older at average risk. A blood draw removes the inconvenience and time barriers. For Black Illinoisans navigating systemic inequities, this can mean the difference between getting screened and staying silent.
I think about my younger brother, who was diagnosed with metastatic colorectal cancer at 47 and died four years ago. The screening options available today may have saved his life.
But access to new tools is only part of the solution. In Black communities, we’re taught to be strong, to push through pain, to not burden others. These values are rooted in resilience but can cost our lives.
I’m asking every Black Illinoisan to do three things: Talk to your doctor about screening options, make a screening plan, and encourage others in your community to get screened. It could save their life.
Wenora Johnson, Joliet
Stop vilifying gentrification
I’m writing as a longtime resident of Logan Square to rebut the recent op-ed by Carolina Sternberg and Jesse Mumm regarding Gov. JB Pritzker’s BUILD agenda. Like one of the authors, I, too, am a resident of Logan Square. My wife and I have lived here almost 30 years — well before anyone thought of the area as hip and trendy.
I’m sick and tired of authority figures preaching to me about the evils of “gentrification,” which isn’t a recent trend but an inevitable evolution. Every neighborhood in this city has changed its demographics over the years.
Streeterville was a slum and homeless encampment at the turn of the 20th century. Then it changed. Logan Square and Humboldt Park were predominantly Scandinavian, Polish and German before shifting to a predominantly Latino population. Now, over the last decade, it’s transforming yet again. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “The only thing in life that is constant is change.”
Neighborhoods like mine have changed for the better. Sternberg and Mumm can’t tell me that Logan Square is not a better, safer, cleaner and more vibrant neighborhood now than it was 30 years ago.
The two authors are also off base in their solutions to the housing “crisis.” Rent control does not work. In fact, it stifles housing growth.
Nobody is entitled to lay an exclusive claim to any neighborhood in this city. I don’t want to sound heartless. It’s a shame people have to move because they feel priced out. My wife and I sweat over the rising taxes we pay on our small hovel, and perhaps one day we will have to sell.
But because of gentrification, our little hovel has increased in value tremendously over the years, and there are many others just like us whose primary investment, our homes, will help propel us into a much easier retirement. And that’s a good thing.
So, thank you, gentrification!
Tony LaMantia, Logan Square
Protect healthcare workers
Earlier this month, hundreds gathered for John Bartholomew’s funeral procession after the police officer was murdered and another was seriously injured at Endeavor Health Swedish Hospital. The texts and safety alerts brought back memories: I was at work in another hospital six years ago when we heard about a shooting at Mercy Hospital, where Dr. Tamara O’Neal and two others were killed.
Workplace violence in the healthcare setting is shockingly common. Healthcare workers account for almost three-quarters of nonfatal workplace injuries or illnesses due to violence. This threat comes from patients, visitors, outsiders, intimate partners and co-workers, and the spectrum ranges from harassment and intimidation to threats and acts of sexual or physical violence.
When long wait times, unmet expectations, difficulties with communication and organizational factors are factored in, it is understandable that being sick or being a caretaker is stressful. But threats, intimidation and violence are never acceptable, and many professionals who take care of you suffer from psychological repercussions, including moral injury burnout, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. This cycle can affect patient care and can lead to worsening staff shortages, challenges with recruitment, reduced access to care and worsening inequities if safety-net hospitals shut down.
The Health Care Violence Prevention Act was enacted in 2019 and requires hospitals and other healthcare facilities to implement comprehensive prevention plans, train staff and coordinate with law enforcement to address violent incidents. We need to integrate hospital violence intervention programs with community violence intervention programs and provide paths to post-incidence community follow-ups. Because events are underreported, we need to create a statewide reporting system for real-time reports of all incidents and annual data dashboards.
Violence in communities spills over to violence in the hospital. The safety of healthcare workers is foundational to patient care. It is critically important to maintain the humanity of patients and healthcare workers as these solutions are implemented. We need and deserve a comprehensive public health approach that includes improving equity for all Illinoisans, closing loopholes to reduce access to firearms for those who we know should not have access, and prioritizing safety-net hospitals and systems that lack sufficient resources.
Dr. Deanna Behrens, chair, Firearm Injury Prevention Committee, Illinois chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and fellow, American Academy of Pediatrics
Advocating for Endeavor Health’s nurses
I support and thank the nurses who are trying to improve conditions at Endeavor Health hospitals.
Endeavor‘s Highland Park Hospital was my “home hospital” for over 50 years. It was a model suburban hospital — outstanding staff, great service, and infused with kindness and humanity toward patients.
As the mergers increased and the “corporatization” of medicine marched on, it has withered into a glorified mini-clinic. The staff is smaller, and fewer procedures are performed, which means patients are often transferred to other hospitals. Emergency room waits are endless, with an overworked and harried staff.
With the great demand for healthcare, it seems that there is enough “business” for all of the local hospitals. The Endeavor logo, instead, has become a symbol for poor and limited service, instead of being a source of quality medicine.
I am shocked to see that the CEO was paid over $5 million in 2024 for overseeing the demise of a once proud nonprofit system, while nurses are getting pay cuts.
I am glad that the nurses are fighting back, and I hope they succeed in shaping up this formerly outstanding hospital system.
The health and lives of the people in this community depend on it.
Carol Kraines, Deerfield
CPS closures could be a smart move
The Chicago Public Schools never had a balanced budget in the decades I lived there. Like clockwork, cuts need to be made again. With declining numbers of students, it makes sense to close schools with low enrollment. Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel did and was vilified, but it was the right move financially and needs to happen again — if everything is on the table.
Barbara Orze, Cedar Lake, Indiana
Bears move to Indiana might not be a bad idea
The Bears would win with a state-of-the-art stadium in Hammond, Indiana, without having to invest the enormous sum of money necessary to make it happen.
The fans would win for the same reason. For many fans in the Chicago area, the trip on game day to Hammond would be shorter than fighting traffic to Arlington Heights.
Most importantly, the state of Illinois, and by extension its residents, would win by letting Indiana pick up the $1 billion tab for a new stadium. Millions of Illinois tax dollars that would otherwise be diverted to subsidize the project could go to schools and essential infrastructure, where they are most needed.
The Bears were never the Illinois Bears; they are and would continue to be the Chicago Bears, only with a new home very near Lake Michigan.
We should all say, “Thank you, Indiana!”
Jeff Mercer, Budlong Woods
Think this thing through, people
President Donald Trump says he’ll “suspend federal gas tax.” And then what? Stop repairing bridges on the interstates?
Lauretta Hart, West Ridge