Chicago Housing Authority

Chicago Housing Authority (CHA)
CHANGE.
Agency overview
Formed	1937
Jurisdiction	Chicago
Headquarters	60 E. Van Buren St. Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Agency executive	Charles Woodyard
Website
http://www.thecha.org/

The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) is a municipal corporation established by the State of Illinois in 1937 with jurisdiction for the administrative oversight of public housing within the City of Chicago. The agency's mission is guided by a Board of Commissioners appointed by the city's mayor, and has a budget independent from that of the City of Chicago. CHA is the largest rental landlord in Chicago, with more than 50,000 households. CHA owns over 21,000 apartments (9,200 units reserved for seniors and over 11,400 units in family and other housing types). It also oversees the administration of 37,000 Section 8 vouchersThe current CEO of the Chicago Housing Authority is Mr. Charles Woodyard. Woodyard is the former CEO of Charlotte Housing Authority. .

History

The Chicago Housing Authority has built a number of public housing projects over the years. The Lathrop Homes were built in 1939. The Francis Cabrini and William Green Homes was started in 1942, ABLA is a complex of buildings started in 1943, Stateway Gardens was started in 1955, and Robert Taylor Homes was started in 1962. In 1966 Dorothy Gautreaux and other CHA residents brought a suit against the CHA, in Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority. It was a long-running case that in 1996 resulted in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) taking over the CHA and the Gautreaux Project in which public housing families were relocated to the suburbs. Between 1950 and 1969, the housing authority built 11 high rise projects for public housing, which isolated the extreme poor in "superblocks" that were not easily patrolled by police vehicles. Most of the households were headed by females, and the developments were almost entirely African American. Cabrini–Green, Henry Horner, Harold Ickes were just some of the developments. The Robert Taylor Homes, constructed in 1962, was the largest public housing project in the United States, claiming more than 4,000 units. On average, a Chicago public housing development is 69% Black, 27% Latino, and 4% White and other.

Developments

North Side

• Cabrini-Green Homes, (Near-North Side) ; William Green Homes and Cabrini Extensions (demolished). Francis Cabrini Row-houses (renovated).
• Lathrop Homes, (bordered between Bucktown and Roscoe Village)

South Side

• Robert Taylor Homes, (Bronzeville) ; demolished, Replaced with a Mixed-income housing development Legends South.
• Wentworth Gardens, (Bronzeville/Fuller Park)
• Ida B. Wells Homes, (Bronzeville) ; demolished, Replaced with Oakwood Shores.
• Stateway Gardens, (Bronzeville) ; demolished, replaced with Mixed-income housing development Park Boulevard.
• Dearborn Homes, (Bronzeville)
• Prairie Courts, (South Commons) ; demolished between 2000-2001.
• Washington Park Homes, (Bronzeville) ; demolished.
• Madden Park Homes, (Bronzeville) ; demolished, Replaced with Oakwood Shores.
• Harold Ickes Homes, (Bronzeville) ; demolished.
• Lake Parc Place, (Bronzeville)
• Clarence Darrow Homes, (Bronzeville) ; demolished, Replaced with Oakwood Shores.

Far-South Side

• Trumbull Park Homes, (South Deering)
• Altgeld Gardens, (located on the borderline of Chicago and Riverdale, Illinois.)

South-West Side

• Lawndale Gardens, (Little Village)
• Racine Courts, (Washington Heights)
• Lowden Homes, (West Chesterfield)
• Bridgeport Homes, (Bridgeport)

West Side

• Jane Addams Homes, (University Village) ; demolished, replaced with townhouses and condominiums under the name Roosevelt Square.
• Rockwell Gardens, (East Garfield Park), demolished, replaced with West End development.
• Robert Brooks Homes/Extensions, (University Village), demolished.
• Loomis Courts, (University Village) ; demolished.
• Harrison Courts, (East Garfield Park)
• Grace Abbott Homes, (University Village) ; demolished.
• LeClaire Courts, (Archer Heights) ; demolished.
• Henry Horner Homes, (West Town) ; demolished.

Plan For Transformation

In 2000, the CHA began its Plan For Transformation, which called for the demolition of all of its gallery high-rise buildings because they failed HUD's viability test and proposed a renovated housing portfolio totaling 25,000 units.

See also

• Hills v. Gautreaux, a 1976 Supreme Court case
• Chicago Housing Authority Police Department
• Marshall Field Garden Apartments
• Blueprint for Disaster (2009), a book by D. Bradford Hunt
• "Understanding Chicago's High-Rise Public Housing Disaster", in Chicago Architecture: Histories, Revisions, and Alternatives, edited by Charles Waldheim and Katerina Reudi Ray (University of Chicago Press, 2005).
• "How Did Public Housing Survive the 1950s?", Journal of Policy History, 17:2, Spring 2005, 193–216.

References

• "Chicago Housing Authority". Encyclopedia of Chicago. 
• "Gautreaux". Business and Professional People for the Public Interest. 
• "Latest Decision on Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority". National Housing Law Project. 

Further reading

• Dizikes, Peter, "Chicago hope: Ambitious attempt to help the city’s poor by moving them out of troubled housing projects is having mixed results, MIT study finds", MIT News, MIT News Office, March 3, 2011

External links

• Chicago Housing Authority official site