Residents of Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood have been trying to preserve its Puerto Rican and working-class character for more than a decade. They hope an event this morning will take that struggle to another level. Here’s a report from our West Side bureau.

Humboldt Park has been the hub of the Chicago area’s 150,000 Puerto Ricans since the 1960s. But young white people are pouring in. Melissa Cintrón, 25, says that’s forced her family to move three times.

CINTRON: People are being pushed by rising rents, the property taxes — targeted because they’re elderly or they just have a nice gray stone that might look even better.  

Now Cintrón works for the Near Northwest Neighborhood Network. She’s helped organize the Humboldt Park Housing Summit, an effort to pool the resources of more than a hundred groups and formulate an action plan for affordable homes and cultural preservation. The summit begins this morning at 10:30 at the park’s field house.

In Humboldt Park, I’m Chip Mitchell, Chicago Public Radio.