Decades in the public eye earned Rev. Leon Finney Jr. respect — and reproach

The highlights of the Rev. Leon Finney Jr.’s half-century career read like a who’s who of what’s what in Chicago politics and history.

Finney was trained in the art of community organizing by the legendary organizer Saul Alinsky and recruited to The Woodlawn Organization by Bishop Arthur Brazier.

He has had ties with mayors Jane Byrne, Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel — connections that saw him appointed to the Chicago Housing Authority’s board and the Chicago Plan Commission. He was an ally of future President Barack Obama when Obama was still a state senator.

At 81, Finney still has the ear — and respect — of some of the city’s most powerful people.

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White calls Finney a housing “guru,” someone White would refer people to because he’s a “gentleman who would do his best to provide housing for those in need.”

Ashlee Rezin Garcia / Sun-Times

“He’s always been a community leader and also provided housing for those in need, and he’s always been at the forefront of making society a better place in which to live,” White said.

There’s also another take on Finney. Lou Doss is a former tenant who says she lived in a building managed by Finney’s Woodlawn Community Development Corporation. She said conditions in her building were bad — and that political connections shouldn’t allow someone to avoid proper oversight.

“I think it’s outrageous, and I think it’s not fair, and I think someone needs to be held accountable,” Doss said.

Finney’s home base is Woodlawn on the city’s South Side. But he has long moved comfortably through the halls of power.

White said he’s known Finney for about 25 years and that they are in the same fraternity — Kappa Alpha Psi.

John Tweedie / Sun-Times

“We will not only take on a job, but we will take on the responsibility that comes with it,” White said of the fraternal connection and Finney’s connection to it.

Born in Louise, Mississippi, Finney is the son of Leon Finney Sr., creator of the famed Leon’s Bar-B-Q.

Leon Finney Jr. followed a different path. He joined The Woodlawn Organization in the 1960s under the mentorship of Alinsky — revered as the father of modern community organizing — and Brazier, who marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and built the Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn.

Leon Finney Jr. fought against slumlords and an encroaching University of Chicago. He later led the organization and created the Woodlawn Community Development Corporation.

Brian Jackson / Sun-Times

He also racked up political appointments.

He was appointed to the Chicago Plan Commission in 1979, a city post he held until shortly after Emanuel became mayor in 2011.

Byrne appointed Finney to the board of the Chicago Housing Authority, where he was vice chairman for a time.

Over the years, his nonprofit community development corporation was given contracts to develop and manage new buildings for the housing authority. Through a string of nonprofits, he managed one-quarter of all public housing under the umbrella of the CHA and dozens of other properties on the South Side.

Sun-Times files

Dick Simpson, a former alderman who’s a professor of politics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said Finney has had a “major effect on the development of Woodlawn” through apartments and commercial space he helped bring to the South Side neighborhood.

“He was seen as someone who represented the South Side of Chicago and represented the community and sometimes business interests, though mainly the community,” Simpson said. “He had wide experience, and so he was seen as a good appointment to make sure the South Side got due recognition.”

Simpson said it’s hard to miss Finney’s impact on Woodlawn and other South Side neighborhoods.

Early on, through his involvement with The Woodlawn Organization, Finney’s projects got “major federal grants to build or manage projects,” Simpson said.

Brian Jackson / Sun-Times

“I think he’ll be seen as one of the important forces in building up Woodlawn and the South Side because of developments that physically went in and the mobilizing of the community that went back to his community organizing days,” Simpson said.

The pastor also was chairman of Chicago State University’s board, where his decision to hire former City Colleges of Chicago Chancellor Wayne Watson as CSU president drew criticism.

After fighting against slumlords in the 1960s with Alinsky and Brazier, Finney was accused by residents at some of his properties of being no better than the landlords he railed against.

Rich Hein / Sun-Times

Residents at Finney-managed buildings in Woodlawn — including 6141 S. Kimbark Ave., 6245 S. Kimbark Ave. and the Judge Slater senior housing complex in Kenwood, among others — said his Woodlawn Redevelopment Corporation had let building maintenance slip, allowing rats, roaches, mold and leaky roofs to overrun the buildings.

Finney’s assistant at the time, Gina Wright, acknowledged that the redevelopment corporation didn’t have the money to renovate the Kimbark buildings and others cited by protesters in 2010. The corporation was in the process of selling them, Wright said then.

Residents of the two Kimbark Avenue buildings called for then-Mayor Richard M. Daley to dump Finney from the plan commission. Daley didn’t, instead ordering an inspection of Finney’s properties. That didn’t keep Finney or his Woodlawn corporation from developing in the area.

Doss said she lived in a building managed by the Woodlawn corporation for about three years, moving there in 2015 and moving out last November. She said the “substandard” studio at 4930 S. Langley Ave. wasn’t rehabbed — the cabinets, which she was told were new, were falling off the hinges and the sink was so small she “could barely fit a pot inside of it.”

In the bathroom, a walk-in shower had a faulty door that would sometimes get stuck, leaving Doss to shower with the door open.

“They took their time repairing it, and I suffered an injury to my right arm,” Doss said. “Water got underneath the floor tiles in the bathroom — the floors were old. The unit they gave me was dilapidated — there was no upgrading, they just threw me into a unit.”

The heat went out one winter, according to Doss, who said she was given one heater though she needed two. She complained to the city but said nothing happened, and Finney’s team retaliated against her, she said.

When she complained about hearing a strange noise, Doss said a property manager told her she’s “the one with the problem,” that “no one else was hearing it” and that this went on for months and affected her blood pressure.

“CHA has to think about the well-being of people just like myself — I’m a senior with a disability,” she said. “I’m living with heart failure . . . I or anyone should have the utmost pleasure of a beautiful home, of having good living conditions with no added stress or anxiety that would further impact what they’re being faced with.”

A Woodlawn activist who has worked with tenants in Finney-owned buildings said working opposite Finney in his landlord role proved difficult because he “hasn’t been the most responsive to tenants’ concerns, it’s been difficult to hold him accountable for repair issues, and he’s also intimidated tenants who were trying to organize.”

“He’s had a lot of control over jobs — he has a patronage organization and has used that to kind of discourage organizing,” said the activist, who spoke on the condition of not being named.