Neighborhood Early Warning System (NEWS)

Neighborhood Early Warning System (NEWS) enables community organizations, city and county agencies to monitor real estate trends and to more effectively counteract housing abandonment, commercial decline and financial disinvestment in Chicago's inner city communities. "Problem indicators" from several city and county agencies are combined with the Department of Planning's Harris Files into a single, computerized database. The indicators are code violations, housing court cases, and fire records. Once merged, the information is made available to the community over the Internet.