Pope Leo XIV's hometown approves the purchase of his childhood home in hopes of reviving the village
Since white smoke billowed in May from the Sistine Chapel and Pope Leo XIV was elected Pope Francis' successor, the new pope's childhood home — a small, two-story house in Dolton, Illinois, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Chicago — has drawn visitors from across the country with many treating it as a pilgrimage site.
Cardinal Robert Prevost made history by becoming the first pope from the United States — a stunning decision that Chicagoans celebrated by flocking to churches and sharing memes .
Prevost was born in 1955 in the South Side Chicago neighborhood of Bronzeville and grew up in suburban Dolton, near St. Mary of the Assumption , where he attended Mass and elementary school. He later studied theology at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago in the Hyde Park neighborhood and taught in local Catholic schools, including at St. Rita High School.
Dolton Mayor Jason House called purchasing the pope's childhood home a 'once-in-a-lifetime opportunity' during a Tuesday meeting of the Dolton Village Board. The childhood homes of other popes have often been turned into museums or pilgrimage sites.
'This is a proud moment for our village and an opportunity, and we want to make sure that we're doing it justice,' he said.
Yet several residents at Tuesday's meeting were skeptical about any benefit to taxpayers, questioning whether the financially strained village could afford to purchase the home and maintain the streets surrounding it.
The board hired former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to probe the village's finances last year, and she found Dolton's bank accounts had been depleted. The village was $3.65 million in debt and had unpaid bills piling up.
Dolton gained national attention amid allegations of its former Mayor Tiffany Henyard's financial mismanagement, corruption and failure to follow state transparency laws by turning over spending and other records.
'Purchasing the pope's residence is admirable.' Dolton resident Mary Avent told the board on Tuesday. 'But with the state we're in right now, I guess my concern is, do we have the money?'
House said he is committed to repairing the streets surrounding Prevost's childhood home and assured residents he understood their concerns. Still, he said the sale will likely close within two weeks.
The house's listed owner did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
'We can either seize this moment going forward or we can let that moment go to an investor,' House said. 'I would like our community to get the benefit of this opportunity.'
Other board members echoed the mayor's excitement over the purchase, as some spoke of how the childhood homes of Michael Jackson and Martin Luther King Jr. offered economic opportunity to their communities. A recent post on the village's Facebook account showed workers repairing the house's roof and celebrated the home for 'bringing new energy and attention to our village.'
Gino Ferrari, president of Windy City Construction Group, said he offered the full roof replacement for free to the current owner, saying he 'wanted to make sure this roof lasts a long time.' In front of the home, the company put up a sign with an image of Pope Leo XIV and the words 'Pope Leo's childhood home' and 'A roof for the pope's roots.'
As crews worked on the roof Tuesday, they chatted with neighbors who offered them water and bike riders who traveled along the lakefront from Chicago to see the house.
'Dolton has been through a lot in the last few years, so this is such a great, positive moment for Dolton,' Ferrari said. 'The community seems pretty excited.'
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'This is essential for me.' During the spring legislative session, which wrapped up at the end of May, the Teamsters hoped to win language that would have limited the use of rideshares for paratransit within transit reform legislation mostly focused on averting the fiscal cliff and restructuring the Chicago area's regional transit governing body. But the parties failed to come to an agreement relating to paratransit. And though legislators introduced two different transit reform bills, lawmakers failed to pass either into law. 'My goal was always to try and find some middle point,' said state Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado, a Chicago Democrat who helped lead transit reform negotiations in the House. 'Unfortunately, that just wasn't something that we could get done by the end of session.' With transit reform still an open issue, the Teamsters say they see an opportunity to renegotiate. And the union has threatened that its support for the transit reform and funding legislation — which lawmakers will need to pass if they want to avoid catastrophic 40% cuts to transit service next year, including cuts to paratransit service — is not to be taken for granted. 'We really are only inclined to want to support a bill that has teeth in limiting the rapid growth of Pace's use of rideshare to outsource its work,' said Pasquale Gianni, the Illinois Teamsters' director of government affairs. Laura Saltzman, transportation policy analyst for Access Living, a disability rights organization, said the group was opposed to any language that would remove access to same day, on-demand paratransit service. Organized labor's demands would have made it functionally impossible for Pace to offer that service, Saltzman said. (The Teamsters dispute this.) 'My community is disabled people, so we need the service to be provided,' Saltzman said. 'I would welcome the service to be provided by labor.' 'I believe in people being paid fairly,' said O'Brien, who is a former employee of Access Living. 'But there has to be a way to accomplish that without cutting a needed service.' When she picks up riders from their dialysis appointments, paratransit driver Enterna Williams turns the heat on or the fan off. Dialysis can make people cold, and Williams wants to make sure the ride back is comfortable for her clients. Sometimes, when clients arrive home, there isn't anyone to help them in, so Williams does. Williams, 36, drives for SCR Medical Transportation, one of Pace's traditional paratransit subcontractors. She's been on the job for a decade. Pace contracts with four companies to provide traditional paratransit service: SCR Medical, MV Transportation, Cook DuPage Transportation and TransDev. Teamsters Local 727 represents drivers at all four companies, including Williams. Another share of paratransit drivers are represented by Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1028. A small portion are Pace employees, according to the organization's executive director, Melinda Metzger. After years as a driver, Williams helped organize a union with the Teamsters, she said, because of concerns over pay and drivers' at-will employment status. Drivers at SCR voted to unionize last year and ratified their first contract after a three-week strike. Williams was making just over $20 an hour before drivers ratified their first contract with SCR last year, she said. Now she makes $24.50, a 20% increase in pay. Like other drivers, Williams went through training to become a paratransit driver. She's subject to random drug tests. She doesn't think that Uber drivers have the same level of training and experience that she and her colleagues have. 'We deserve our clients,' she said. But representatives for the Teamsters said that they are down about 200 jobs at SCR since the summer of 2024, which they attribute to the increased use of Uber for paratransit. SCR did not respond to requests for comment. Metzger, Pace's executive director, said in an interview about the rideshare program that the agency was trying to make the most of limited resources. 'We operate in many different ways because we have a limited budget, and we're trying to do the best we can for both our riders and the taxpayers,' she said. The rideshare program was born in part, Metzger said, because paratransit riders came back to the transit system faster than other riders did after the peak of the pandemic. At the time, Pace didn't have enough paratransit drivers. Offering the rideshare program, she said, freed up space on traditional paratransit. The program was modeled after an existing program in which riders could call taxis as paratransit, which was available only within the city of Chicago. 'This is another choice for our riders,' Metzger said. 'We are very, very supportive of all of our unionized personnel also.' Metzger noted that the costs of the rideshare program represent only a fraction of the agency's total paratransit costs, which were budgeted at nearly $250 million last year. In a statement, Uber spokesperson Josh Gold said the program 'represents a significant step toward improving accessible transportation options for riders with disabilities through greater flexibility and on-demand convenience.' State Sen. Ram Villivalam, a Chicago Democrat and one of the leaders of the transit reform effort in Springfield, said he was 'worried about the sustainability' of the rideshare program. 'We need to ensure that folks with disabilities have access to public transit to get to their job, their doctor, their school,' he told the Tribune after a transit reform rally last month. 'We also need to ensure that there is a sustainable path forward.' 'There were a lot of discussions related to how we maintain the level of service for the community,' Delgado said. Wherever discussions end up, Delgado said, it is important that 'the services that are available to people with disabilities … do not diminish in any way.' But with the transit fiscal cliff fast approaching, paratransit is facing an existential threat. Paratransit is offered, as is legally mandated, in parallel with regular transit service. That means that if Pace or the CTA cut bus service, for instance, paratransit service — including the rideshare program — will be cut too. Pace, along with the CTA and Metra, are in the midst of planning for the possibility of those catastrophic cuts next year. Transit advocates have urged lawmakers to return to Springfield for a special session this summer to pass transit funding before pink slips go out in the fall. So far, legislators have been mum on whether they will.
