1. What is the Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation?
The Plan for Transformation is a policy designed to reform the public housing model of the 1950s and 60s by replacing outdated and highrise projects with low-rise buildings in mixed-income communities. The plan is expected to cost $1.5 billion over 10 years, according to the CHA.
2. Why is the CHA doing this?
In 1998, Congress passed The Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act to address the need for public housing by empowering public housing agencies to development new models. The law based its provisions on the idea that the existing projects had failed to improve residents’ lives because they concentrated low-income residents in blighted areas, thereby facilitating crime and creating barriers to employment.
Under section 537 of the law, public housing agencies were required to identify “distressed” projects and rebuild them in accordance with HUD standards. According to the Urban Insitute, a non partisan research group in Washington, nearly 19,000 of Chicago’s public housing units failed viability inspection in 1998, requiring them to be demolished within five years.
3. How many units will be created under the plan?
The CHA plan involves the demolition of 51 high-rise buildings, including the Robert Taylor Homes and Stateway Gardens, and to redevelop or renovate a total of 25,000 units. As the Urban Institute has pointed out though, the result will be a net loss of 14,000 units. Not all CHA residents want to return to public housing, however, choosing instead to take a permanent housing choice voucher, which helps them afford rent in the private market.
4. Who does the plan affect?
The plan affects all 25,000 CHA lease holders, as well as an untold number of those who reside in CHA housing, but do not qualify for a lease due to eligibility requirements.
5. Where will the new developments be built?
Many new developments are being constructed on the sites of demolished buildings. Oakwood Shores, for example, is replacing the Madden-Wells Homes on 37th Street just as the Park Boulevard townhouses are replacing the former Stateway Gardens high-rises on 35th Street. Buildings such as the Ickes Homes on State Street and Altgeld-Murray Homes on 130th Street, on the other hand, will be renovated.
However, developments such as Mahalia Place, a Robert Taylor redevelopment on 43rd Street and Northtown Village, a Cabrini Green redevelopment between 1300 and 1400 N. Halsted Street have been constructed off-site.
6. Where are residents going?
Under law all CHA lease-holders were given the choice of either staying within public housing or leaving the system by taking a permanent housing choice voucher and finding subsidized housing in the private market. For those who chose to stay within the CHA, residents were given the option of either returning to their building or relocating to another development. In the meantime, some residents temporarily moved into rental housing in the private market or into an apartment within another CHA building.
For those who chose a permanent voucher, many were encouraged to choose so-called opportunity areas, where povery and crime are lower. Within the city of Chicago, many of these areas are in the northern and western neighborhoods, such as Edgewater, Rogers Park and Uptown. Because
vouchers empower residents to make their own decisions though, some have chosen communities in the South suburbs, which are sometimes not as ethnically diverse or as easily accessible by public transportation as other options.
The hardest group to track are those who live in CHA housing but are not CHA leaseholders. To qualify for public housing and to remain lease-compliant, CHA residents cannot have a felony record. This criteria is often prohibitive for many of those in need of affordable housing in these areas, leaving them few choices but to live -- illegally -- with family members. Under the plan for transformation, non-leaseholders will be connected to programs and services to prevent them from becoming homeless. Many non-leaseholders, however, will likely follow their families to where they choose to relocate.
A small number of CHA residents have left the system altogether and purchased their own homes.
7. Who is working with CHA to implement the plan?
CHA has partnered with developers to build the new housing stock and with management companies and non-profits to manage new properties, administer social services and ensure that clients remain lease-compliant. Some of these agencies include organizations with long-established relationships with the community, such as the Abraham Lincoln Centre and Housing Choice Partners (profiled on this website).
8. What is the status of the plan?
The status of the plan depends on the development. While some former Robert Taylor residents are settled into their lives at developments such as Mahalia Place on 43rd Street, others are just now moving into mixed-income communities such as Lake Park Crescent on 42nd Street or the renovated Hilliard Homes on Cermak Road. Still others, are still waiting to be relocated into temporary housing while their units are renovated. You can check out the status of all CHA development on their website: http://www.thecha.org/housingdev/family_sites.html
9. How are residents doing in their new lives?
The Urban Institute's ongoing nationwide tracking study of the Hope VI program, a housing policy similar to the Plan for Transformation, provides excellent insight into how residents are doing, including the challenges they routinely face in adjusting to their new environments. As with those profiled on this website, one of the biggest problems is handling the variable costs of utilities, which are often higher than residents expect. In 2005, almost half of those living in the private market reported having trouble paying utilities, forcing voucher holders to make trade-offs with other household expenses, such as food.
Residents also face problems with landlords who fail to keep their properties up to code, forcing voucher holders to find a new apartment and start all over again. According to a June 2007 report by the Urban Institute, 32 percent of voucher holders lived in at least two different locations between 2003 and 2005, often due to problems with their landlords, such as lack of heat and unsanitary living conditions.
Additionally, maintaining their eligibility for mixed-income communities or housing choice vouchers can also prove difficult as low-skilled workers are usually the first to be laid off during economic downturns.
Some were nostalgic about their lives in the projects, where family ties and community networks gave them a sense of security and created a buffer from the crime that often plagued their buildings. Indeed, life on the outside sometimes seemed tenuous and some felt ignored in their appeals for support.
Despite the difficulties they face in relocating, all of those I spoke with were glad to be out of the projects and wanted to improve the quality of their lives by working hard and living in a crime-free neighborhood. Their ability to achieve this goal varied depending on their education, skill set, experience, ambition and family structure, but it seemed that most were grateful for the chance to make a better life for themselves.
The experiences of the women profiled here seems to align with what researchers at the Urban Institute found in a long term tracking study of voucher holders: most tended to be better off than they were in public housing by relocating to better quality housing in lower-poverty, lower-crime areas.
10. Where can I learn more about this subject?
Please refer to the below sources for more information about the Plan for Transformation and the history of public housing in Chicago:
- CHAC Inc. is a private company that manages the Chicago Housing Choice Voucher Program (formerly known as Section 8). Since CHA residents started moving into the private market in 1999, CHAC has overseen more than 4,800 relocations, according to the company's website. To learn more about its responsibilities or eligibility requirements for the voucher program, consult its website at: http://www.chacinc.com/index.asp
- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was founded under the U.S. Housing Act of 1937. Its mission is to increase homeownership, support community development and to improve access to affordable housing. The agency administers programs to alleviate housing discrimination, homelessness and to prevent foreclosures. You can learn more about their programs on their website: http://www.hud.gov/
- The Urban Institute is a non partisan economic policy and social research think tank located in Washington, D.C. Since 1999, the Insitute has tracked CHA residents going through the plan via regular surveys and in-home interviews. You can see their June 2007 reports on the Hope VI programs, a housing policy similar to the Plan for Transformation, by clicking on the below link from their website: http://www.urban.org/toolkit/policybriefs/subjectbriefs.cfm?documenttypeid=122. Another good source for research on the success of relocation procedures is available in their 2002 final report, entitled “CHA Relocation Counseling Assessment” available at: http://www.urban.org/publications/410549.html
- Dr. Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh is a professor of sociology at Columbia University, who has done extensive research into the life in the Robert Taylor Homes and the Plan for Transformation. You can learn more about his work in his books:
American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto (2000)
Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Poor, Harvard University Press (2006)
Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets, Penguin Press (2008)
- Residents’ Journal is a Chicago-based non-profit publication, written by CHA residents about issues in their communities. Check out the latest edition at: http://www.wethepeoplemedia.org/
- Alex Kotlowitz is a Chicago-based journalist whose book, There Are No Children Here, Anchor Books (1991) offers an intimate portrait of two young brothers growing up amid the violence of Chicago’s Henry Horner Homes.
- Nicolas Lemann, dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism examined the roots of Chicago’s African-American culture, as well as its ghettos in The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America, Vintage Books (1991).
