Business and Professional People for the Public Interest
The Third Side: A Mid-Course Report on Chicago’s Transformation of Public Housing, published by Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI), is a comprehensive, objective analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of first ten years of experience in the nation’s largest public housing transformation effort.
“Given our historic commitment to the welfare of Chicago’s public housing residents, we urgently want the Plan for Transformation to succeed,” said Alex Polikoff, Director of BPI’s Public Housing Program. “That’s why we have always supported the Plan, and why we wrote this report. The ultimate success of the Plan will be determined by the joint ability of the City, CHA and advocates such as ourselves to study and learn from both the successes and failures of the Plan’s initial ten years. We believe the current leadership of CHA shares this view, and we hope our report will be helpful in that quest.”
- Full Report (pdf)
- Executive Summary (pdf)
A hard copy is available, without charge, from BPI. Contact: mmanos@bpichicago.org or call 312/641-5570.
The Henry Horner/Westhaven Park Story
The Local Initiative Support Corporation of Chicago, the Multi-Family Executive Magazine, and others, have praised the Horner model. Unlike the other housing developments in Chicago’s Plan For Transformation, Horner residents were not forced out, re-segregated, and then required to meet unreasonable screening criteria to get back in.
View the video on this page and read the essay below by William P. Wilen, Director of Housing Litigation, Sargent Shriver National Center On Poverty Law
http://tellingourstory.org/flash/henry.flv
excerpt from “The Horner Model: Successfully Redeveloping Public Housing,” by William P. Wilen
When transforming and revitalizing its public housing units, Chicago opted for immediate demolition of the high-rises and mid-rises, and immediate relocation of the residents. This decision has resulted in the re-segregation of most relocated public housing residents into the poorest black areas of the south and west sides of Chicago. Chicago has also opted for stringent and arbitrary screening, less resident participation, and less effective social services to and representation of individual residents.
The Horner Model shows that neither demolition nor relocation needed to be immediate for the redevelopment to be both successful and beneficial for both the public housing residents and the surrounding community. With real resident participation and representation, the Horner residents themselves determined their fates, whether to go or whether to stay, and when.
They were not forced out, re-segregated, and then required to meet unreasonable screening criteria to get back in. Thus, the Horner Model offers policy makers, developers and advocates alike a critical lesson: If demolition has been phased, if reasonable screening procedures are in place, if there is effective resident participation in the redevelopment process, if there are enforceable procedures to protect residents’ interests, and if there are adequate social services and representation for all of the residents, then public housing redevelopment will have a much better chance for success.
Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy
- “No Simple Solutions: Housing CHA’s Most Vulnerable Families,” by Susan J. Popkin
- “The Horner Model: Successfully Redeveloping Public Housing,” by William P. Wilen
A Conversation With Paul Fischer, PhD
http://tellingourstory.org/flash/fischer.flvPaul Fischer is a Professor of Political Science at Lake Forest College, Illinois. Fischer has conducted research and published numerous reports on the Plan For Transformation for the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago, among others.
Dr. Fisher’s research report, Racial Concentration and the CHA Relocation Program, Spring 2002, was the basis for the class-action lawsuit known as the Wallace Case, which asserted that CHA’s relocation policies resulted in an overwhelming concentration of public housing residents into very low-income predominately African-American neighborhoods. CHA’s response to the lawsuit led to improvements in providing relocation services to its residents.