53 Facts About Helen Shiller

Helen Shiller was born on 1947 and is a former Alderman of the 46th ward in Chicago, Illinois.

Helen Shiller served in the Chicago City Council for six four-year terms, from 1987 to 2011.

Helen Shiller was born in 1947 and raised on Long Island in New York, growing up in a middle-class family.

Helen Shiller's father, Morris Shiller, was a self-employed chemist who emigrated to the United States from Latvia.

Helen Shiller's mother was Sara, Sara was born and raised in Belarus, where she lived through various occupations, including by the Germans, Polish, Russians, and Soviet Union.

Helen Shiller became a nurse and married Morris, in 1936.

Helen Shiller died at the age of 96 in the summer of 2011.

Helen Shiller earned her high school diploma in 1965 from Woodstock County School in Vermont, the same progressive boarding school that Pete Seeger's children attended.

In 2005, Helen Shiller graduated from DePaul University's School for New Learning Master's Program, where her focus was public policy.

Helen Shiller moved to Chicago's Uptown neighborhood in 1972 with her husband Marc Zalkin and her infant son, Brendan, and lived on N Malden Street in Uptown.

Helen Shiller drove a cab, worked as a waitress and freelance photographer, and got involved in radical politics.

Helen Shiller helped open an extension of Shimer College at 4833 N Broadway in the Fall of 1978.

Helen Shiller took on Illinois' dentists when in 1978 the Uptown Peoples Community Services Center joined consumers groups in a federal lawsuit which attempted to break up dentists' monopoly on fitting dentures.

From 1981 to 1987, Helen Shiller was president and CEO of Justice Graphics, Inc a print shop, a small business of which Helen Shiller and Coleman were two of five owners.

At the time, Helen Shiller was 30 years old and the editor of Keep Strong, a leftist magazine.

Helen Shiller picked up much of the support that Young Lords founder and leader Jose Cha Cha Jimenez had in Jimenez' unsuccessful challenge to Cohen in the 1975 elections.

Helen Shiller was running primarily as a defence against the FBI's CointelPro repressive program and to expose the displacement of Latino and lower income areas from the lakefront and near downtown by the Richard J Daley machine.

Helen Shiller campaigned pledging to work to keep the disadvantaged of Uptown from being displaced by gentrification.

Helen Shiller charged that the regular Democratic organization used unfair campaign practices against her, challenging about 100 of the 400 new voters she helped register, stealing her campaign posters, and pressuring store owners to remove her signs.

Helen Shiller bested Axelrod, but, as no candidate received a majority of the vote in the three-way race, a run-off was forced.

In Harold Washington's successful first campaign for Mayor of Chicago in the 1983 municipal elections, Helen Shiller was employed as the campaign organizer for the 46th Ward.

Helen Shiller charged that Orbach catered to developers, displacing people in the wake of rehabilitation that priced housing out of the reach of many, and said she wanted community zoning boards, with their decisions binding on the alderman.

Helen Shiller charged that most of Orbach's campaign war chest was from developers and regular Democrats outside the ward.

Helen Shiller's forces called Orbach a racist, although a large number of blacks backed Orbach in his early campaigns.

We decided that Helen Shiller would do the most to prevent displacement.

On Tuesday, April 7,1987, Helen Shiller defeated Orbach by 498 votes, 9,751 to 9,253, and contributed to a narrow, pro-Washington, reform-minded majority in the City Council which helped draw the Council Wars era to close.

In January, 1988, Helen Shiller was named one of "88 People to Watch" by Chicago Tribune staff.

In 1989, Helen Shiller sponsored a resolution creating a sub-committee on Domestic Violence.

On Friday, October 14,1989, Helen Shiller was among five arrested when police, called by the owner, evicted about 100 protesters from the lot.

Helen Shiller was charged with trespassing and spent "about two minutes" in jail before charges were dropped.

Helen Shiller requested that the committee deny the UCC its grant.

Helen Shiller accused the UCC of helping developers displace low-income Uptown residents.

Helen Shiller said restoring the grant to the UCC would affect only the 48th Ward, not her ward.

On October 28,1987, Helen Shiller urged the Tax Delinquency Subcommittee of the Cook County Board to accept a no-cash bid from the city for the 19 tax-delinquent parcels in Uptown.

Helen Shiller hired a publicist to really go after me.

In 1991, Shiller supported Danny K Davis in Davis' unsuccessful primary challenge to Daley.

Helen Shiller added a budget amendment to triple the city's AIDS budget in 1992.

Helen Shiller was one of nine alderman voting against Daley's 1993 budget, which included a $28.7 million property tax increase.

Helen Shiller was absent for the 1994 budget vote, and was one of four aldermen dissenting on Daley's 1995 budget.

Helen Shiller supported US Representative Bobby Rush in his unsuccessful challenge to Daley in 1999.

Helen Shiller was the lone dissenting vote on Daley's 1996,1997 and 1998 budgets.

Helen Shiller objected to the tax increase in a period of several years of budget surpluses.

Helen Shiller attended every hearing on Daley's 1997 budget armed with policy questions that she said went unanswered.

Helen Shiller was often the only alderman present at budget hearings.

Helen Shiller was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame as a Friend of the Community in 2000.

On November 17,1999, Helen Shiller joined in unanimous support for Daley's 2000 budget, her first affirmative vote on a Daley budget and only her second affirmative vote on a City budget.

Helen Shiller again joined in unanimous support for Daley's 2001,2002, and 2003 budgets.

Helen Shiller cited Daley's commitment to affordable housing, and in particular his Planning Department's work on the Wilson Yard project.

Helen Shiller again joined in unanimous support for Daley's 2004 budget.

Helen Shiller was the only alderman who did not cast a vote on the passage of the Big Box Ordinance, which required large retailers to pay a living wage.

Some critics charged that Helen Shiller was frustrating developers while using the Wilson Yard project to maintain her political base.

In October, 2007, Helen Shiller became chair of the City Council's Human Relations Committee.

One of Helen Shiller's granddaughters is the published poet Britteney Black Rose Kapri.