A Prophet Is Heard In Chicago

Diane Latiker with Bethany Mauger, Kids Off the Block: the Inspiring True Story of One Woman's Quest to Protect Chicago's Most Vulnerable Youth

Diane Latiker, ex-construction worker, ex-hairdresser, didn’t go to college to study community organizing or teen outreach. She didn’t have burnished credentials or experience working with at-risk teens. She simply felt a calling, one day, to invite some teenagers into her house from the crime-stricken streets of Roseland, Chicago. When they started telling their life stories, she listened. That’s when she felt her life beginning to change.

Latiker’s memoir of her program for Chicago’s most precarious tenagers reads like a combination of inspirational devotion and political thriller. What started as an informal gathering of kids playing tag and doing their homework, soon became something more. Her house became a gathering place for kids who never knew safety or stability at home. Soon, the kids she gathered, some from violent backgrounds, started talking like they had a future.

In a neighborhood almost synonymous with gangs, Latiker, called “Miss Diane” by her kids, provided a guaranteed peaceful space to simply be young. More than schools, intervention, or closely designed curricula, peace proved to be what her kids needed. Freed from the fear of poverty and violence, Miss Diane’s kids started doing homework, writing songs, and playing three-on-three basketball. Some even started talking about college.

This transition faced impediments. Latiker’s husband and kids resisted first. Having dozens of neighborhood kids, some known gang members, passing through their house at all hours created tension with her family. They couldn’t see what she saw, that these kids were, underneath their learned street swagger, still kids. Her marriage, and her relationship with her kids and grandkids, went through an extreme rocky patch.

Then Latiker encountered problems when she went looking for financial help for her kids’ growing needs. Philanthropists and churches offered moral support, but when they discovered she didn’t require kids to renounce gang membership to receive her mentorship, they turned squeamish. Nobody would support her unless she cut gang-bangers loose. That is, they demanded she stop helping those kids who most needed help, before they’d support her.

Miss Diane remained faithful to her vision, though. And “faithful” is definitely the word: her narrative is explicitly Christian. She believes God called her to support these children, and God’s plan guides her successes. She doesn’t offer a portable checklist of tools community organizers can use to resist gang violence; Kids Off the Block is her unique Christian vocation, and when she heeds God’s call, things go well. Thick or thin, events happen on God’s schedule.

Diane Latiker

Though Latiker describes Kids Off the Block as a “program,” it initially lacked structure. She simply offered ten kids a surrogate home, free from judgement and shame. Kids started inviting their similarly at-risk friends, though. Soon, the Latiker household became the neighborhood’s home. Her husband, an auto mechanic and amateur builder, turned the spare bedroom into a recording studio. Together, they turned a vacant lot into a basketball court.

Guided by trust in Christian providence, Latiker’s movement gained momentum. Kids found the love their parents were unable to provide, and that gangs promised but never delivered. Kids began thinking long-term, saving money, getting jobs. And outsiders took notice. First local venues, like the Chicago Tribune, began showing Latiker’s movement respect. Soon, she found herself featured, in glowing terms, on CNN and BET, venues that mean something in Roseland.

Nevertheless, Latiker reminds us, not everything ended well. This isn’t a moral parable, it’s a memoir. She admits forcing herself to accept that she couldn’t save kids who didn’t want saving. And as the mostly Black kids passing through her door started behaving like a community, she describes drawing hostile attention from the neighboring Hispanic neighborhood. She struggles to accept her losses alongside her victories.

Throughout, Latiker reminds readers of her two Christian principles: listen to God’s calling, even when it sounds odd, and don’t judge others. Non-judgement, to Latiker, doesn’t mean not telling others they’re doing wrong. She describes frequently scolding her proteges, and occasionally calling the police when kids can’t leave gang affiliations at the door. Rather, non-judgement means meeting kids where they are, even when it makes our adult sensibilities uncomfortable.

Latiker’s memoir isn’t a progress from triumph to triumph. Though she sees improvement among her kids, and eyes lighting up and seeing the future for the first time, she can’t make others’ hurts and traumas go away. In an environment defined by generational poverty and street violence, Latiker simply followed Christ’s injunction to open her door to “the least of these.” I hope, someday, to live up to her example.