Under Chicago’s Plan for Transformation, public housing is being demolished faster than it is being constructed. As a result, thousands of families have been and will be relocated permanently or temporarily. From the first announcement of the Plan, BPI insisted that “compassionate relocation must drive CHA's Plan and its time-line.” (Statement of Gautreaux Plaintiffs on CHA Draft Transformation Plan.) The CHA plan is not only about bricks and mortar; it is also an unfolding story about the families who live in the buildings being closed.
For eligible families there are essentially two routes to relocation — moving into other CHA buildings (either existing ones or those to be rehabilitated or newly built), or moving into private dwellings subsidized with a Housing Choice Voucher (formerly “Section 8”). At the time the Plan was announced, however, a "white paper" prepared by Catholic Charities at the request of Cardinal Francis George showed that 245,000 low-income renters in the Chicago area competed for less than half that number of affordable housing units. Other studies indicated that Chicago's supply of rent subsidy units in low poverty, unsegregated neighborhoods was exceedingly slim, and that some communities were suffering "Section 8 ghettoization".
RELOCATION AND SOCIAL SERVICES
In this difficult environment for low income renters, and with the particularly difficult challenges facing most CHA residents, compassionate relocation could not be achieved without adequate arrangements to provide relocation and social services for families. As CHA began the process of relocating hundreds of families occupying the first buildings scheduled for demolition, it became apparent that residents were receiving inadequate, often confusing information about their options and were being given insufficient time to make decisions with enormous long-term consequences.
To remedy these shortcomings, BPI, working with elected resident representatives, persuaded CHA to appoint an independent monitor to collect information and compare the relocation process in practice with what is intended to happen. At the close of 2002, the monitor submitted the results of his first investigation, offering 54 detailed recommendations to improve the relocation process. The report focused on many issues of concern to BPI: the quality of information shared with residents, the quality of counseling and social services, and the lack of time given residents to make life-changing decisions. Since that time, CHA has made numerous changes to its relocation process and services delivery system. BPI continues to monitor these efforts and advocate for continued improvement and oversight.
In recent years the pace of physical development has picked up, and BPI began shifting its focus from issues concerning families moving out of public housing to those relating to families moving back to mixed income developments. As public housing units were finished and ready for occupancy in the new mixed-income communities, a surprising problem surfaced: despite an acute shortage of affordable housing, many new public housing units remained unoccupied for months, some for even a year or more. Why? Strict screening and work requirements coupled with inadequate social services to help residents meet them were at the root of this problem. In addition, with most families relocated off-site from where new developments were being located, social services and marketing outreach was extremely difficult. BPI brought this issue to the Gautreaux court at the end of 2004. As a result, BPI met with CHA, the developers agreed to fashion development-specific plans and timelines, and BPI now reviews monthly "lease-up reports." So far, the results are promising, but BPI oversight continues as the faster pace of redevelopment will make more units available more quickly in the next few years.
MOBILITY COUNSELING
By the end of the Transformation Plan, CHA expects roughly 6,000 public housing families will move into private market housing using Housing Choice Vouchers. Some have chosen to move permanently; most have been required to move temporarily while new housing is constructed. Studies show that many voucher holders live in communities nearly as poor and isolated as their former public housing developments. Virtually all have stayed within the City of Chicago, the vast majority in highly racially segregated communities, and most are in neighborhoods with high (although lower than public housing) poverty rates.
With BPI's support, CHA revived a modified version of the very successful Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program, a Section 8 rent subsidy program administered by the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities from 1976 to 1998 under the Gautreaux settlement with HUD. This new Gautreaux program helped hundreds of voluntary participants to move from CHA developments to neighborhoods of low poverty and low minority concentration throughout the Chicago metropolitan region. It provides participants with intensive one-on-one mobility counseling and post-move supportive social services. While this new Gautreaux program is now complete, its concepts have been incorporated into CHA’s own relocation program so that some portion of CHA relocatees are today getting the benefit of Gautreaux-style mobility counseling, coupled with social services.
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
Most recently, CHA has acknowledged that lack of employment is one of the greatest challenges facing CHA residents. (Nearly 50% of working age CHA residents and relocatees are unemployed.) A major new workforce development initiative was announced in 2006, with significant financial support from the City of Chicago, State of Illinois, HUD and the philanthropic community. Still a work in progress, some pieces of the new program have already had to undergo significant program changes to address residents' basic needs and motivations. Thus, half way through the Transformation Plan, and long after many residents have already been relocated, CHA is still working to develop an adequate services program.
In addition, in recent years, BPI has grown increasingly concerned about the families who will be "left behind" — those who won't have the opportunity to live in the new mixed-income communities or move to private homes in better neighborhoods. In fact, many of CHA's most troubled, hard to house families will be moved to highly segregated developments with 100 percent public housing residents, e.g. Altgeld Gardens, Dearborn Homes, and Ickes Homes. BPI has argued — and the Gautreaux judge has agreed — that housing in the new mixed-income communities constitutes relief for members of the Gautreaux plaintiff class. However, housing in rehabilitated developments in racially segregated, exclusively very low-income neighborhoods does not. Therefore, BPI has supported a new initiative for these "hard to house" families that would provide intensive services and mobility counseling for families in Dearborn Homes, as well as families who so far have been unable to move from CHA's Ida B. Wells development. This new pilot program could help establish a model to be implemented across CHA for families in "traditional" public housing developments.
More information on Chicago's Public Housing Transformation:
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