Karen Hicks founded A Few Good Women in 2019. Ms. Hicks was in the transportation business, transporting people on dialysis and mental health patients to programs for treatment and rehab. She worked with a cross-section of people to include sexually abused youth, veterans, ex-police officers, ex-offenders, etc. When the city and state closed many of the mental facilities, she went out of business. She moved to Alpine, Texas, and later returned to Chicago. The transportation she provided was linked directly to the mental health facilities. She thinks there is a direct correlation between closing the mental health centers and the many homeless people on the street.
Tell me about your organization, A Few Good Women.
We started in 2019. It makes a difference when women in the community are supportive. We might have wanted a man to lead an effort, but it was great to have women support. The support of women like your mother, your aunt, the ladies in the neighborhood, played a major role in my personal development. I saw this element missing from our communities today. We are somewhat disconnected. We need to connect to our youth. They need the love, encouragement and wisdom from older people. Older people need to connect to the youth for their creativity and courage. It’s a cross-generation thing.
What are your goals?
I want to clean up the communities and make them beautiful. I want to see flowers in our communities. I want people to work with the kids daily.
What are some of your projects?
The projects we have initiated are individual ones, more or less one-on-one based on need. We took one young lady that was in the foster care child system, under our wings. She had been abused and raped by the system. Today she has her own house in Indiana and has adopted four children.
We have had a young man that was on drugs, found him a job, and got him in a program to get him clean. Today, he is working for a construction company.
We have worked with a man who was in prison for 20 years, he and his brother had nowhere to go. We housed them, gave them jobs, and today he runs an organization called “Peace Academy”. He has 70 young men who are considered delinquents and puts them back in school, provides trade-type training, and provides job placement.
How many people are in your organization across America?
I have a membership of about 700. I have been doing this quietly, and we are privately funded.
How do you recruit? What are the remedies for the violence on the street?
We have to get back to grassroots. We talk about it, but we don’t offer jobs, and we don’t get the kids involved. Some of our children have been thrown away. We don’t take time with them. I have not lost a kid that I took time with. We have to find time for our children.
We don’t necessarily take the time to feed our children. We let them eat too many fast foods. We are seeing people in the street who have no families or support systems. I am looking for a few good women to come to the rescue.
We don’t necessarily broadcast it; we just do it. We need programs that give our youth training that leads to jobs. Our kids need love. We have to give them time to express themselves. These kids don’t come from where we came from. They don’t necessarily have families. They come from a system. These kids are numbers in a system. I have witnessed this with my own eyes and it changed my life.
What about the numerous carjackings? Why is carjacking happening so much these days?
The carjackings are being orchestrated by supply and demand. Car parts are valuable. The kids are being offered money for car parts and they steal the cars to fill orders based on supply and demand. Sometimes the kids are being offered thousands of dollars for a certain kind of car. These are not carjackings for fun, and not for joyriding. Today they are getting paid, this is their business.
How has Chicago changed?
There are two classes of people in Chicago – “The Haves and The Have Nots.” The “Haves” went to school, got in the mix, got positions. “The Have Nots” did not have a chance. They came from parents that were caught up in the drug culture, their mothers strung out, and daddies in jail. A lot of girls don’t have mothers. Sometimes we get the girls and just take them to lunch to listen to where they are.
Where do you find these kids?
DCFS homes and group homes. A lot of young people out here are not under any kind of authority. Where are their parents and teachers? They become sex workers and nobody pays attention to them. Young women use sex as a tool to get paid, and the young guys commit crimes for the girl for the sex. The men fall in lust, not love, but get very caught up where they are manipulated to engage in negative behavior.
What needs to be done?
We need to teach trades – cooking, drafting, skills, and the like. Not everyone is a fit for the college or the suit-and-tie life. We need to teach them the basics of life so that they can just live. So many are not getting it. The system is being paid to keep poor youth suppressed. We need to give these schools love and productive environments. Someplace where they can be safe and thrive.
I recruit through Facebook, and we will take referrals. We do a “clean up campaign” in neighborhoods, pop-up style. We work with guys in prison, “Behind the Walls.” These guys do amazing jobs, with what they call the “Fall Back Movement.” They write letters to young boys to remind them that they don’t want to be like them. They encourage the youths to go to school. They say “Fall Back” from selling drugs, and “Fall Back” from prostitution. They tell them to be responsible citizens. Many of the mayors from the south suburbs have given their support on this. “Fall Back” ultimately says stop the violence.
