Chicago Housing Authority

History

The CHA was created in 1937 to own and operate housing built by the federal government's Public Works Administration. In addition to providing affordable housing for low-income families and combating blight, it also provided housing for industry workers during World War II and returning veterans after the war. By 1960, it was the largest landlord in Chicago. In 1965, a group of residents sued the CHA for racial discrimination. After the landmark court decision Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority (see below), the CHA was placed in receivership, which would last for more than 20 years. Things continued to deteriorate for the agency and its residents, and by the 1980s, the high concentrations of poverty and neglected infrastructure were severe.

The Chicago Housing Authority Police Department was created in 1989 to provide dedicated policing for what had become one of the most impoverished and crime-ridden housing developments in the country, and was dissolved only ten years later. The situation was so dire that the entire CHA board of commissioners resigned in 1995, effectively handing over control of the agency to Housing and Urban Development. After an extensive overhaul, management of the CHA was returned to a new board of commissioners, including three residents appointed by resident groups, in 1999. The previously ordered receivership ended in 2010.

Chief Executive Officers (1937–present)

Redevelopment

Plan for Transformation (2000)

In 2000, the CHA began its "Plan For Transformation", which called for the demolition of all of its gallery high-rise buildings and proposed a renovated housing portfolio totaling 25,000 units. While demolition began almost immediately, CHA was slow to develop mixed-income housing or provide Section 8 vouchers as planned.

Plan Forward (2013)

In April 2013, CHA created "Plan Forward"the next phase of redeveloping public housing in Chicago. The plan includes the rehabilitation of other scattered-site, senior, and lower-density properties; construction of mixed-income housing; increasing economic sales around CHA developments; and providing educational and job training to residents with Section 8 vouchers.

In 2015, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development criticized the Chicago Housing Authority for accumulating a cash reserve of $440 million at a time when more than a quarter million people were on the agency's waiting list for affordable housing, and a large number of units (16%) remained vacant. By March 2017, only 8% of the 17,000 demolished households had been replaced with mixed-income units. Many lots remain vacant decades after demolition, and the CHA has been selling, leasing, or trading land in gentrifying neighborhoods to other government agencies and the private sector for less than market value. Land owned by the CHA has been used to build two Target stores, a private tennis complex, and government facilities at a time when over 30,000 people are awaiting mixed-income housing assistance from the CHA. One notable resident, Chicago alderwoman Jeanette Taylor, revealed that she applied for assistance as a single mother in 1993 and received an approval letter almost thirty years later in May 2022.

More than 20 years after the initial plan was announced, then-Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot announced in June 2021 that finishing the redevelopment of Cabrini-Green alone will take at least another 12 years and could total upwards of $1 billion.

As of late 2024, the agency is still struggling to keep up with its pledges to rehab vacant homes and maintain their units. Reports of rodents, mold, water leaks, and broken equipment go unresolved for months or years, even after privatization of property management. Only a few dozen homes have been refurbished. The CHA has acknowledged they need to do better and has said their 2025 budget includes money for "investments in occupied public housing units, including updates to fixtures, flooring, appliances, hot water tanks, furnaces and appliances where replacements are required.”

Demographics

From its beginning until the late-1950s, most families that lived in Chicago housing projects were Italian immigrants. By the mid-1970s, 65% of the agency's housing projects were made up of African Americans. In 1975, a study showed that traditional mother and father families in CHA housing projects were almost non-existent and 93% of the households were headed by single females. In 2010, the head of households demographics were 88% African American and 12% White. The population of children in CHA decreased from 50% in 2000 to 35% by 2010. Today on average, a Chicago public housing development is made up of: 69% African-American, 27% Latino, and 4% White and Other.

Lawsuits

''Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority''

In 1966, Dorothy Gautreaux and other CHA residents brought a suit against the CHA in Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority. The suit charged racial discrimination by the housing authority for concentrating 10,000 public housing units in isolated Black neighborhoods. It claimed that the CHA and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had violated the U.S. Constitution and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It was a long-running case that in 1987 resulted in HUD taking over the CHA for over 20 years and the formation of the Gautreaux Project in which public housing families were relocated to the suburbs. The lawsuit was noted as the nation's first major public housing desegregation lawsuit.

On July 31, 2024 U.S. District Judge Marvin Aspen approved a jointly-proposed Amendment to the 2019 Settlement Agreement between the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) and Impact for Equity (IFE) in the landmark 1966 Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority federal lawsuit. With this joint Amendment, CHA and IFE have agreed and acknowledged that CHA has completed nearly all commitments from the 2019 Settlement Agreement.

The amendment outlines the remaining requirements at six CHA developments: Altgeld Gardens, Lakefront Properties, Madden/Wells, Rockwell Gardens, Stateway Gardens, and Robert Taylor Homes. At each of the six sites, certain terms of the 2019 Settlement Agreement will remain in place up to three additional years, or less time if the parties agree that CHA has completed the requirements sooner. All other terms expired on July 31, 2024.

Other lawsuits

In May 2013, The Cabrini–Green Local Advisory Council and former residents of the Cabrini–Green Homes sued the housing authority for reneging on promises for the residents to return the neighborhood after redevelopment. The suit claimed that the housing authority at the time had only renovated a quarter of the remaining row-houses, making only a small percentage of them public housing.

In September 2015, four residents sued the housing authority over utility allowances. Residents claimed the CHA overcharged them for rent and didn't credit them for utility costs.

In June 2023, Several groups including the Chicago Housing Initiative and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center sued CHA of illegally planning to lease public housing land at the former ABLA Homes to Joe Mansueto, one of then-Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot's campaign donors to build a training complex for his professional soccer team Chicago Fire.

CEO Salary Increase and Land Lease Controversy

In the summer of 2023, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) board approved a significant salary increase for its CEO, Tracey Scott, raising her annual compensation to $300,000. This raise, supported by the CHA board, notably exceeds the federal salary cap for public housing authority executives, which is set at $176,300 according to the 2022 Appropriations Act. Lori Lightfoot, who had appointed Scott to the CEO position, was also involved in the decision. The approval of this substantial salary boost attracted considerable scrutiny due to its deviation from federal guidelines designed to regulate executive compensation within public agencies.

The controversy surrounding the raise was compounded by a related issue involving the Chicago Fire FC's lease of 23 acres on the Near West Side. The land, long reserved for housing by federal regulations, was leased to the Fire, which is owned by billionaire business leader and Lightfoot campaign donor Joe Mansueto, for at least 40 years to build a new soccer training facility. Federal law mandates that any such lease or sale must serve the "best interest" of low-income residents, raising questions about whether the deal aligned with this requirement and fueling broader criticism of the CHA's decisions and priorities.

Developments

Housing projects

Other housing

In addition to the traditional housing projects, CHA has 51 senior housing developments, 61 scattered site housing and 15 mixed-income housing developments.

Notable residents

• R. Kelly – Ida B. Wells Homes
• Mr. T – Robert Taylor Homes
• Maurice Cheeks – Robert Taylor Homes
• Curtis Mayfield – Cabrini–Green Homes
• Eric Monte – Cabrini–Green Homes
• Jerry Butler – Cabrini–Green Homes
• Kirby Puckett – Robert Taylor Homes
• Deval Patrick – Robert Taylor Homes
• Marvin Smith – Robert Taylor Homes
• Lou Rawls – Ida B. Wells Homes

References

References

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