REPORTER: Yalda Hakim
BARACK OBAMA, US PRESIDENT: It's been a long time coming, but tonight because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America. Thank you. God bless you and may god bless the United States of America.
When Barack Obama claimed victory in front of 200,000 supporters right here in Grant Park, his message of hope, change and jobs resonated across the nation. But four years on, have those promises been delivered?
Driving through Roseland on Chicago's notorious south side, the positive is obvious. Gang warfare, violence and crime have long been a fact of life here. In fact, it was working out of this church that a young Barack Obama cut his political teeth in the late '80s working as a community activist. But as President, his promises of change aren't being felt here.
DIANE LATTIKER, YOUTH WORKER, KIDS OFF THE BLOCK: We had a whole generation that never votes. We ain't employed. Nobody votes. They just think we are a bunch of thugs, criminals, gang bangers. We are a minority. Who is going to give us a job.
Diane Lattiker is angry about what this area has become.
DIANE LATTIKER: To the politicians you don't care - I care. You need to vote do.
Diane runs a community youth centre here. Her main focus is to keep young people like Jessica Morris away from gangs and the thriving drug trade on the streets outside. Jessica has been trying to turn her life around ever since her brother was killed in a shooting two years ago.
JESSICA MORRIS: I be there, like, there's a lot of things I don't care about no more. Like, from - I used to be fighting all the time, going back and forth to jail. Selling drugs. Shooting guns at people. All type of stuff. I been shot before myself.
Murders are so common here they know longer shock these young people. While we are talking, Jessica finds out yet another person she knows has died.
GIRL: Trey... Is he dead? Yes.
JESSICA MORRIS: He did? I ain't know he died.
GIRL: The funeral was last month.
DIANE LATTIKER: Last month. I went to it.
JESSICA MORRIS: A whole generation of people wiped out.
Across the road Diane has built a memorial. There are more than 300 headstones here. Children as young as seven have been caught in the crossfire. Dianne says the increase in violence is a result of the weak economy.
DIANE LATTIKER: If the economy is bad, then it makes me do things that I don't normally do, to survive - because I'm human.
REPORTER: Do they feel in many ways that they have been forgotten though?
DIANE LATTIKER: Yes, I feel that some time too.
Today another volunteer is at the centre, showing these young people how to apply for jobs online. With unemployment running at 9.4% in Chicago work is hard to find. But regardless, they still have faith in President Barack Obama.
DIANE LATTIKER: Yes, they do. They are angry with him. They wonder what he's doing sometimes. I guarantee you they will be on line on Election Day.
JESSICA MORRIS: Team Obama all the way.
It's not just young people on the fringes who are struggling. In downtown Chicago I meet Bonita Franks. She comes here every day to hand out her resume to commuters, and ask for donations.
BONITA FRANKS: For the first time in my life I worked 39.5 years. I'm zero balance right now.
Bonita has been unemployed for most of the last two years. Even so she still supports Obama, and thinks he should be given another term.
BONITA FRANKS: It wasn't going to be a quick fix, no matter what happened. Whoever got into the office wasn't going to be a quick fix. It will take time to straighten out things that have gone astray.
Fall-out from the housing bubble remains one of America's biggest problems. In this Chicago neighbourhood families have been evicted on nearly every street, leaving foreclosed homes to become havens for drug users and gangs. But now the community is fighting back.
MISTER D: Yes, there was shootings and everything - everything in here.
A local businessman, known as Mr D showed me around a foreclosed home that had been stripped by local hoods.
REPORTER: They ripped out the bathroom?
MISTER D: Yes, yes.
Mr D is paying to fix up the house out of his own pocket.
MISTER D: They were stripping the wood and everything, see all here.
The renovated home will then be given to a homeless family to occupy in defiance of the banks.
MISTER D: 100,000 of these in the city of Chicago.
The takeovers of abandoned homes are organised by JR Fleming. He heads a group called the Anti-Eviction Squad.
JR FLEMING, ANTI EVICTION SQUAD: We are trying to bring the churches and everyone together to show we the people can do it ourselves, and encourage the banks and government to assist.
Although JR is disappointed with the President, he doesn't consider the Republicans a better alternative.
JR FLEMING: We know that the Republicans are big banks, big business. No-one is looking at how to do this from the bottom up. I'm not giving the Democrats an easy pass. We see that things have gotten worse, they have not gotten better. Some sectors of the economy things have recovered and gotten better. When it comes to housing, things have gotten worse.
INTERVIEW WITH RACHEL RACUSEN:
YALDA HAKIM: With me now is Rachel Racusen, Deputy Communications Director for the Obama campaign. Thank you Rachel for joining us in the cold and so early, I suppose this is your first of many for the day.
RACHEL RACUSEN, DEMOCRATS DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: That's right. Thank you for having me.
YALDA HAKIM: Cheers. Rachel we saw in that story there some disenchanted people who lost their jobs and feel uncertain about the future. Why should they and what should inspire them to go out and vote for the President? Because they say they have been let down by the message of hope and change.
RACHEL RACUSEN: Well I think that during this campaign we a seen a very strong contrast between two candidates, between President Barack Obama, who while certainly does understand the challenges that have been facing especially middle class families, workers over the past four years in a still-recovering economy, and has been going out around the country listening to them, and both based on his life experience and also what he has done over the past four years, has a clear path forward to help them, to continue to build on the progress we have made.
That's in very stark contrast with Mitt Romney, who, I think as we have seen through the campaign trail, does not truly understand the challenges facing middle class families in this country. You saw that from the secret video that leaked out about the 47% - his remarks at a fund raiser. You have seen that throughout the campaign when he told a college student in Ohio, who asked about how to pay for college, that they should shop around and those were their options. So we have seen that contrast throughout the campaign. That is why voters will ultimately believe that President Barack Obama is the right choice for the next four years.
YALDA HAKIM: It's about getting the voters to the polls, isn’t it, because that's a weakness for the Democrats - getting people to the polls and actually getting them to vote.
RACHEL RACUSEN: Well actually, one of the things that has been so ground breaking about our campaign is that we really built the most sophisticated innovative grassroots campaign in our history we believe. We spent the last five years, since the last campaign, continuing to build on the incredible foundations that we laid in the battleground states and have been preparing for this day for five years, essentially. We are now up in nearly every battleground state in early voting, we actually have significant leads over Mitt Romney there. Over 32 million people in this country have already voted in this election. The election for them started in some places almost a month ago. We think we'll have a very strong voter turnout today. A very strong geo TV program and we are excited.
YALDA HAKIM: What would the President say though to some of those people in our story who are dignified people and are now on the streets begging for money, and are on their last dollar. What difference could the next four years make?
RACHEL RACUSEN: I think what he would say is’ let's continue to build on the progress that we have made’. We know in some cases the recovery has taken some time and not happened quite as quickly as people hoped. He would say "It's not the right time to turn back". Mitt Romney and the policies that he supports would take us back to the very same situation and policies that crashed our economies in the first place and punished the middle class. This is not the right time to go back to those policies.
YALDA HAKIM: We’ll have to leave it there, thank you so much for joining us Rachel. We'll get you out of the cold.
Reporter
YALDA HAKIM
Producer/Camera/Editor
AARON THOMAS
Chicago Fixers
LISA PRICE
BRAD FOX
Chicago Hair/Make-up
KAREN KOENIG
Original music composed by
VICKI HANSEN