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Rahm Emanuel’s Next Scandal? Chicago’s Public Housing
https://newrepublic.com/article/125056/rahm-emanuels-next-scandal-chicagos-public-housingThe Chicago Housing Authority, charged with managing more than 21,000 of units of public housing, could provide Donaldson with a place to live that is both safe and affordable, a place where her daughter could have her own room and where the facilities would be wheelchair-accessible. Public housing in Chicago suffers from stereotypes born of high-profile 90s-era social ills in projects like Cabrini-Green and the Robert Taylor homes, and many Chicagoans would rather turn their gaze away from the institution and those who rely on it. They shouldn’t. As the city looks elsewhere, the Chicago Housing Authority has been quietly and steadily perpetrating some of the most disturbing institutional mismanagement in a city where jaw-dropping corruption is a spectator sport....
Today, five years after the Plan was supposed to be completed, few low-income Chicagoans would say that salvation has been achieved. While over 18,000 units (88 percent of the city’s total public housing) were demolished within the first decade of the plan, the pace to rebuild or renovate has been slow—and particularly slow since Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office in 2011. Between 2007 and 2010, the CHA rebuilt between 700 and 900 units each year. In 2011, that number plummeted by about half, to 424. The following year, only 112 units were built. Only 49 new units were constructed last year. In a report submitted to HUD this August, the CHA promised that in the coming year it would “continue to make progress toward the 25,000 unit goal of the original Plan. CHA plans to deliver an additional 1,040 in FY2015, for an overall total of 23,141 housing units or 93% of the overall unit delivery goal.” In some cases, land set aside for public housing has instead been allocated to private developers; this summer, residents protested as construction workers broke ground for a Mariano’s grocery store on the land where the Ida B. Wells Homes once stood.
But the problem is not just that over a billion dollars later, public housing residents are still waiting for new homes that were promised 15 years ago. The CHA is also allowing units that become vacant through attrition or eviction to remain vacant, collecting federal dollars for the units without actually placing new residents to live there. J.L. Gross, a veteran with a disability who has lived in Lathrop Homes on the North Side of the city for 26 years, has seen this strategy in his own community. “As recently as a week ago, two people were evicted from Lathrop,” he said. “They (lived in) habitable apartments. They are now boarded up… It’s a comedy of errors.” Such boarded-up units are categorized by the CHA as being “offline,” or unavailable to rent for a variety of reasons such as “maintenance” or “pending redevelopment.” As of this summer, about 16% of CHA units—a total of almost 3,500 units—were uninhabited.
Gross believes that the decision to leave them empty is a strategic step to facilitate the eventual eradication of public housing. “Out of 925 apartments, you only have 128 units that are being used, and that was either through attrition or forced eviction,” he said. “But now that the numbers are so low and CHA is not filling those vacant apartments, you have a reason to close down Lathrop.” He compares this pattern with the process of public school closure in Chicago, where schools were shut down for being underutilized. “It’s the same thing. Public schools and public housing… I’m fighting for Lathrop. It’s my community and that means more to me than anything.”
Today, five years after the Plan was supposed to be completed, few low-income Chicagoans would say that salvation has been achieved. While over 18,000 units (88 percent of the city’s total public housing) were demolished within the first decade of the plan, the pace to rebuild or renovate has been slow—and particularly slow since Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office in 2011. Between 2007 and 2010, the CHA rebuilt between 700 and 900 units each year. In 2011, that number plummeted by about half, to 424. The following year, only 112 units were built. Only 49 new units were constructed last year. In a report submitted to HUD this August, the CHA promised that in the coming year it would “continue to make progress toward the 25,000 unit goal of the original Plan. CHA plans to deliver an additional 1,040 in FY2015, for an overall total of 23,141 housing units or 93% of the overall unit delivery goal.” In some cases, land set aside for public housing has instead been allocated to private developers; this summer, residents protested as construction workers broke ground for a Mariano’s grocery store on the land where the Ida B. Wells Homes once stood.
But the problem is not just that over a billion dollars later, public housing residents are still waiting for new homes that were promised 15 years ago. The CHA is also allowing units that become vacant through attrition or eviction to remain vacant, collecting federal dollars for the units without actually placing new residents to live there. J.L. Gross, a veteran with a disability who has lived in Lathrop Homes on the North Side of the city for 26 years, has seen this strategy in his own community. “As recently as a week ago, two people were evicted from Lathrop,” he said. “They (lived in) habitable apartments. They are now boarded up… It’s a comedy of errors.” Such boarded-up units are categorized by the CHA as being “offline,” or unavailable to rent for a variety of reasons such as “maintenance” or “pending redevelopment.” As of this summer, about 16% of CHA units—a total of almost 3,500 units—were uninhabited.
Gross believes that the decision to leave them empty is a strategic step to facilitate the eventual eradication of public housing. “Out of 925 apartments, you only have 128 units that are being used, and that was either through attrition or forced eviction,” he said. “But now that the numbers are so low and CHA is not filling those vacant apartments, you have a reason to close down Lathrop.” He compares this pattern with the process of public school closure in Chicago, where schools were shut down for being underutilized. “It’s the same thing. Public schools and public housing… I’m fighting for Lathrop. It’s my community and that means more to me than anything.”
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I lived in the 44th Ward years ago. 