* The Chicago Tribune on Chicago mayoral candidate Amara Enyia’s personal finances…

Enyia did not report to the IRS $21,000 paid to her by Chris Kennedy’s governor campaign, where she worked as a consultant for several months. […]

Enyia acknowledged she has underpaid her taxes in the past. In March 2017, the IRS placed a $9,668 lien against her for unpaid taxes between 2011 and 2015, according to public records. The tax lien filed with the Cook County recorder of deeds lists unpaid tax balances associated with Enyia’s Form 1040 tax return filings for four years — $3,311 in 2011, $1,288 in 2012, $350 in 2013 and $4,718 in 2015. […]

Also in August 2017, one of Enyia’s student lenders filed a lawsuit against her in Cook County Circuit Court for $17,800 in what it said were unpaid loans from the 2005 school year, when she was an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. […]

The fines from her first mayoral campaign were not Enyia’s only financial difficulty from 2015. She also faced an eviction lawsuit from the landlord of her Garfield Park apartment in 2015, alleging she had failed to pay her rent. The landlord later dropped the legal action and now says filing the suit was “his error.” […]

Enyia also lists Blue1647 on her resume, stating she has been a “senior advisor” to the organization since 2013, and served as its president in 2017.

The Tribune asked Cambry if Enyia has had a role or title with his organization. “No,” he said.

*** UPDATE *** Response…

At a time when the next mayor of Chicago will face a $1 billion spike in pension payments, those personal financial troubles might seem disqualifying.

But Enyia argued otherwise. She wears those struggles as a badge of honor — not because getting through it was easy, but because her “lived experience informs the values” of equity and justice she brings to a campaign that aims to change the direction of a City Hall she claims is “disconnected from the lived reality” of everyday Chicagoans.

“I’m standing here as a candidate for mayor — not because I’m well off or have lived a perfect life. I’m standing here as a real person who understands financial hardship because I have lived through it myself. I’ve gone to bed having to make decisions about paying a bill or getting a vehicle or paying a ticket or putting food on the table,” she said, surrounded by cheering and finger-snapping supporters.

“When I talk about policies that create generational wealth, it’s because I don’t want generations of Chicagoans to have to experience what I experienced trying to make their way in this city. When I talk about punitive fines and fees and banning the boot, it’s because I know how an unjust government punishes people because they are poor.”