by Anthony DiMaggio
In Chicago, as in most cities, the term “urban renewal” is effectively a lie – a scheme to “make room for more affluent white families.” The resulting harms to Black and poor people are premeditated, since “there was never any intention of relocating the vast majority of the former public housing residents in the new, more affluent ‘mixed income’ sites” of the Hope VI program.
The Dark Underbelly of American Public Housing: What Lessons can we Learn from the Case of Chicago?
by Anthony DiMaggio
“The Housing Authority never intended to deal with the root causes of poverty in public housing communities in Chicago.
The Urban Institute (UI for short) has released an assessment of Chicago’s ten year-long urban renewal projects, and despite some sugar coating, the results aren’t very pretty. The reports shed light on a long term panel study done by UI of the HOPE VI federally funded urban development project, which was introduced to the city and implemented by the Chicago Housing Authority in 1999 in order to destroy the city’s public housing stock and force residents into the private market. This plan was merely one aspect of the neoliberal revolution in the United States, which sought to minimize the government role in promoting social welfare for the disadvantaged.
The HOPE VI urban renewal program has been an issue of major importance for me over the last five years. As a lifelong Chicago resident, I’ve closely followed the city’s urban renewal in the news and on the ground on the city’s north, west, and south sides. I lived near the Cabrini Green neighborhood on the north side and used to drive through the redevelopment site every day, and documented the change on the ground through photos and by talking with local residents. It was very clear from my experiences there that the city was seeking to gentrify the area and expel the areas’ poorest black residents so as to make room for more affluent white families in this potentially lucrative real estate just outside the downtown area. By 2010, the city had largely succeeded in its goal.
The UI reports are notable in that they examine the after effects of the demolishment of public housing on the northern tip of Chicago’s south side, adjacent to downtown, and just off of Lake Michigan. UI specifically examined the former Madden and Wells public housing complexes, which now represent prime real estate in light of their proximity to the White Sox U.S. Cellular Field, downtown, and the lake. While the city’s urban renewal program began in 1999, the project’s Madden/Wells subcomponent was complete by 2009, with all the former residents being relocated either to “mixed income” or private market housing stocks throughout the city.
“The city was seeking to gentrify the area and expel the areas’ poorest black residents so as to make room for more affluent white families.”
To be fair, I should say outright that the terms “urban renewal” and “urban development” – consistently used by the CHA – were always code words for slum clearance. There was never any intention of relocating the vast majority of the former public housing residents (the overwhelming majority of which are poor and black) in the new, more affluent “mixed income” sites that took the place of the former public housing buildings. The Urban Institute has put its own positive spin on the CHA redevelopments as well. It reminds readers of the “terrible conditions in CHA’s family developments.” Since “many tenants who had better options had left long ago,” the developments left “behind a population dominated by extremely vulnerable families.” In pushing tens of thousands of families formerly in public housing to relocate, the CHA is congratulated by UI for moving poor slum dwellers into newer, safer neighborhoods through a process referred to as “poverty deconcentration” (more properly characterized as slum clearance and gentrification). At Madden/Wells specifically, approximately 3,000 units were demolished to make way for “mixed income” housing in a new planned community known as “Oakwood Shores.” The relocation of those formerly living in public housing at those sites was completed by August of 2008.
The UI reports that “a main goal of the HOPE VI program was to improve public housing by replacing failed developments with healthy and safe communities that offer a better quality of life for residents.” Citing evidence of the improved living conditions of former CHA public housing residents, UI summarizes that “the vast majority” (81 percent) of those included in its Madden/Wells sample “reported that their new housing (in the private market or in mixed income housing) was better than where they lived before they moved. The respondents who relocated to new mixed-income housing (just five percent) reported very good living conditions” and a safer all around environment.
Of course, the vast majority of residents (4 of 5 in the UI sample) never had the chance to move into the new “mixed income” sites, since a requirement for residency there was holding a job for at least 30 hours per week (unemployment was historically a major problem for those living in Chicago’s public housing). Costs for “mixed income” housing – in areas like the former Cabrini Green (on the city’s north side) were also prohibitive when it came to former public housing residents. The vast majority of these homes cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and were clearly beyond the affordability of those living in meager public housing units and suffering from chronic drug abuse and unemployment problems. Instead, most former public housing residents at Madden/Wells (54 percent) ended up using federally funded housing vouchers to enter into the private housing market. The remaining residents either ended up in segregated public housing units again, while a select minority was able to enter “mixed income” units.
Regardless of whether residents entered “mixed income” developments, entered the private market, or moved to other public housing units, the vast majority relocated to new neighborhoods that were economically and racially segregated. In short, their new neighborhoods are still overwhelmingly black and poor.
“The vast majority relocated to new neighborhoods that were economically and racially segregated.”
The 198 families tracked by the Urban Institute from 2001 through 2009 continue to suffer under major hardships. This is to be expected when one reflects on the extremely limited reforms pushed through by the CHA. The CHA never intended to deal with the root causes of poverty in public housing communities in Chicago. It merely sought to export the poor from the worst slum areas in the city into adjacent areas that were still segregated along color and class lines. In light of this plan, it’s no surprise that newly relocated residents continue to have the same problems they had when living in public housing.
UI finds that relocated residents continue to suffer from major health problems and long term employment issues. The organization finds that, of those in its sample, “respondents’ health has continued to deteriorate rapidly; the level of reported health problems in 2009 are stunning, and the mortality rate is shockingly high.” UI’s reports find that, as of 2005, 41 percent of former Madden/Wells residents classified their health as either “fair” or “poor.” “Not only did respondents report high rates of disease, they were also clearly debilitated by their illnesses: one in four respondents reported having such difficulty with physical mobility that they could not walk three city blocks, climb 10 steps without resting, or stand on their feet for two hours.” The conditions described above worsened as the UI panel study went on. As the organization explained in light of its 2009 findings: “the urgency has only increased. The need for strong and effective action is now even more critical.”
Former CHA residents at Madden/Wells also report major problems with long term employment. As UI reports, “employment rates have proved intransigent, holding steady from the baseline study in 2001 through the third round of data collection in 2005. The overall employment rate masks considerable cycling, as people move into and out of jobs.” UI finds that unemployment is far worse among former public housing residents than in the general public. Whereas national unemployment stands at near 10 percent, unemployment among former Madden/Wells residents stood at 55 percent.
UI lists a number of reasons for these residents’ continued problems with unemployment. One relates to health problems. Nearly half of those who lived at Madden/Wells suffered from either physical or mental health problems that prohibited them from holding jobs over the long term. Other problems that prohibited long term employment included historically poor educational opportunities and a poor economic climate. As I can attest from personal experiences, another major source of unemployment problems is the lack of job availability among many of these poor neighborhoods. Public housing sites like Cabrini Green (on the near north side) were notorious for their lack of a job base, as thousands of residents were packed into a few block area with little chance of finding a job nearby.
“Unemployment is far worse among former public housing residents than in the general public.“
Any serious analysis of slum clearance in Chicago has to be honest about some of the positive effects of the CHA’s ten-year experiment. The public housing in the city was always an eyesore (rightly so) and a deep embarrassment. It was a throwback to an era when segregation was openly flaunted and celebrated, rather than quietly promoted through the use of propaganda buzzwords such as “poverty deconcentration,” “urban development,” and “urban renewal.”
Most of the city’s public housing was intentionally concentrated in mid and high rises on the west and south side – outside the downtown “loop” by Mayor Daley Sr. as a way of segregating the city’s black residents and keeping them away from white populations. Daley shrewdly appropriated federal funds to build these prison-like housing units, of which Madden/Wells were only a few. The city was even found guilty in federal court in the 1970s of illegally segregating black residents within concentration camp style ghettos and public housing, and ordered to take steps to rectify this injustice. In light of this terrible history, the city was right to begin its dismantling of the deteriorating, rat infested public housing units on the south and west side.
And yet, simply demolishing these eyesores will do little to solve the underlying health, educational, drug-related, and unemployment problems of the city’s poor. Simply moving these residents “out of sight, out of mind” into other neighborhoods (or other cities and towns) that are also poor and segregated does nothing to address larger structural causes of poverty that are handed down from generation to generation. While the Urban Institute is right to point out that former Madden/Wells residents are now living in higher quality housing and safer neighborhoods, these “revelations,” in and of themselves, don’t tell us very much. Comparing the public housing neighborhoods in the city of Chicago to surrounding neighborhoods (themselves plagued by crime, drugs, and poverty) is setting the bar so low that the result is predetermined to make the CHA look like a savior. In short, it’s no sign of humanitarianism on the part of the CHA that those living in the worst conditions imaginable are being encouraged to move to new neighborhoods with long histories of poverty and segregation.
What is really needed at this point is a serious city, state, and national commitment to addressing the root causes of poverty. A sustained, well funded effort is needed to provide adequate funding for Chicago schools, rather than cutting school funding, as has been the city’s plan of action in recent months. Real job training programs and drug treatment counseling is needed to ensure that former public housing residents can enter the job market, and stay in it, in a meaningful way. Finally, a national universal health care system is needed nationwide in order to ensure that the poorest of the poor are able to meet their basic health care needs. Until these issues are dealt with in an effective manner, little will change in terms of the city of Chicago’s enduring problems with poverty and segregation.
Anthony DiMaggio is the editor of media-ocracy (www.media-ocracy.com), a daily online magazine devoted to the study of media, public opinion, and current events. He has taught U.S. and Global Politics at Illinois State University and North Central College, and is the author of When Media Goes to War (2010) and Mass Media, Mass Propaganda (2008). He can be reached at: [email protected]