Recently, I became extremely inspired.  Each year on Christmas, my mother, boyfriend and I drive to the not so great areas of Chicago to find homeless people and provide them with our spare coats, blankets, socks, gloves, etc.  We also give out money, home cooked,hot food and hot drinks. 

My mother realized that we had run ourselves out of coats and blankets and wrote the letter below to her neighbors. I’ve removed her address for obvious reasons.  In turn, I wrote a note to my friends and associates (also pasted below).

What suprised me most was the response from many of my friends and even more suprising, the response from friends of friends and so on.  With each response, I became more and more energized and am optimistic that this year is the beginning of something great.  We can make a difference, even if only a small one, in a homeless persons life and for me that is the best holiday gift!  The gift of hope.

My letter:

Happy Holidays!

I feel very fortunate to be blessed with wonderful family and friends and success in life so that I don’t have to worry about my next meal or the roof over my head. This year, we are especially eager to help those who aren’t as fortunate. While we contribute to the larger charity organizations, the giving that my mother, Dan and I do is much more personal, and of course, more rewarding. There is a great feeling of taking care of our own in Chicago.

If you have any items that you would like to donate, please let me know and I will arrange to pick them up from you.

Coats, shoes, scarves, gloves, blankets, toiletries are great items to give to a homeless person living on the street. We will cook a warm meal and bring hot coffee and chocolate to share with the homeless when we go to warm and feed the Chicago homeless.

Of course, if anyone else would like to spend time on Christmas Day helping with the delivery, you are more than welcome. For me, the experience has been humbling yet heartwarming and I would be glad to share it with you.  Sari Levy

Mom’s letter below:

Dear Friends/Neighbors,

Some of you know me, other of you do not.   My name is Norma Levy.   When I lived in the city and my children were growing up, at Christmas we used to deliver food and goods for an organization called the Little Brothers of the Poor.  I felt my children needed to know how fortunate they were and they loved doing it.

Since they have gotten older, my daughter, her boyfriend, and I have been dropping off blankets, warm clothes and food to the people who live on the street in the city (Chicago) on Christmas Day.  I know there are agencies who do this, but there are still plenty of people out there who actually live on the streets, mostly addicts and mentally ill.   

We are running out of blankets and warm clothes.  If any of you have items you would like to donate, I would appreciate it very much.    If instead, you prefer to donate cash, I will be glad to purchase extra food or blankets.  If I’m not home, you can leave any donations at my front door. 

Thank you for your support and I hope you have a wonderful holiday. Norma      

By the way, if you wish to donate any warm clothes or blankets, please contact me via email at:  slevy@lucidrealty.com or phone at 877 LUCID 99.               

Barack Obama’s house at 5046 S. Greenwood in the historic Kenwood district of Chicago can be found on the MLS system. Built in 1910 and sitting on a 70 x 150 foot lot on the west side of the street, this 3 story Georgian home has 14 total rooms, 6 bedrooms, and 5 1/2 baths spread over 6500 square feet and a 4 car garage. Here are a few other key stats on the Obama house:

• Master bedroom is 19 x 14
• His office is 22 x 15
• Kitchen is 20 x 20
• Family room is 38 x 36
• Property taxes appear to be about $22,000 per year best I can tell

I wonder if the size of Barack’s office relative to his bedroom is any indication of his priorities.

I found the following photo of the Obama house on Flickr:

The empty lot on the left of the house is owned by Tony Rezko and has been the subject of much speculation regarding the relationship between Tony and Barack. The two properties were purchased from the same seller and closed on the same day, June 15, 2005. Subsequently, the Obamas purchased a strip of the empty lot from the Rezkos in order to expand their yard.

The Obamas got their home for $1.65 MM compared to a listing price of $1.95 MM. From the public release of the Obama’s tax return for 2007 we know that they deducted $58K of mortgage interest. So I assume they put a fair amount down on the purchase. The CCRD site has no record of this transaction. Perhaps it wasn’t recorded or some legal maneuver was used to avoid the public record. I do know that the transaction was done through a trust to maintain Obama’s privacy. So much for that idea.

I found a very interesting article from someone who lived in the Obama house many years ago. He provides an in depth description of the history of the house and what it looks like on the inside.

The picture above was obviously taken well before Obama won the nomination. The secret service and the Chicago police had not yet taken over the neighborhood. I drove past this area a few weeks ago and noted a couple of interesting things. First, there are signs on 50th St. about a mile away from the intersection with Greenwood requesting all trucks to divert. That seems reasonable except that I didn’t see any capability to enforce that displayed. Once you get to the intersection they have concrete barricades set up on Greenwood to prevent any vehicle from approaching the house and there were numerous Chicago police cars and officers manning the entrances. I didn’t see any donut eating.

If the Obamas decide to sell the place - it’s going to be vacant for the next 4 years - I would be happy to cut them a great deal on the commissions. I suggest that as part of the realtor vetting process the secret service should administer a lie detector test to any prospective realtors.

For those not familiar with Chicago here is a map showing where the house is:

Special Thanks

Special thanks to David Dalka, who runs an Internet Marketing strategy blog, for suggesting this post.