WBEZ | Housing

Reporter's Notebook: Life in public housing vs. the fanciest downtown apartment

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:45:00 -0500

Curious City is a news-gathering experiment designed to satisfy the public's curiosity. People submit questions, vote for their favorites, and WBEZ reports out the winning questions in real time on Facebook, Twitter and the timeline above.

Curious Citizen Heather Radke asked about the relationship between where we live and our everyday lives, and she wants the answer to be based on real experience. If you have leads or a point for us to consider, please comment below, or hit us at any of the social media outlets listed above!

Advocates push Emanuel to protect renters in foreclosed units

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 18:19:00 -0500

Some Chicago tenant advocates are turning up the heat on Mayor Rahm Emanuel as they negotiate with his administration about protecting renters in foreclosed units.

The talks concern “Keep Chicago Renting,” a measure proposed last summer by Ald. Richard Mell (33rd) that would have banned post-foreclosure evictions except under narrow circumstances such as the tenant’s failure to pay rent.

The proposal stalled in the City Council’s Housing Committee, chaired by Ald. Ray Suárez (31st).

A statement from Emanuel’s office says his administration supports the principle of providing tenants “the protections they deserve during a foreclosure process.”

But the mayor’s office says it wants a “strong ordinance that can withstand any challenge from opponents.” Instead of an eviction ban, the city has been pushing to have banks pay evicted renters a “relocation-assistance fee.”

A coalition of tenant advocates behind the original measure says it could live with that substitute.

“The coalition believes that the city’s model, if done right, could meet the goals of the original ordinance — which are to keep renters in their homes and prevent more dangerous vacant buildings in our city,” Manolita Huber of the Albany Park Neighborhood Council said.

The negotiations have focused on the fee amount, among other details, and have dragged on for months.

“To the mayor, we say the people of Chicago cannot wait,” Flora Johnson of SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Indiana said Wednesday at a North Side rally organized by the coalition. “We must address this issue today. Keep Chicago renting!”

Mayor Emanuel’s office says an agreement is near. “We are in the final stages of drafting a substitute ordinance that can help ensure Chicago tenants will have the protections they deserve during a foreclosure process,” the office said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.

Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th), a supporter of the original ordinance who is is participating in the negotiations, on Wednesday called the talks “99 percent” done.

Burnett said the measure was on its way to the council floor this spring. “We’re right there,” he insisted. “It’s getting ready to happen.”

Nearly 17,000 Chicago apartment buildings, amounting to almost 52,000 units, went into foreclosure in 2009, 2010 and 2011, according to the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing, a backer of the original ordinance. Those buildings constituted about 9 percent of Chicago’s rental housing stock.

Last year, 2,279 multifamily buildings were auctioned in the city, according to the Woodstock Institute, another supporter of the original ordinance.

Chip Mitchell is WBEZ’s West Side bureau reporter. Follow him @ChipMitchell1 and connect with him through Facebook and LinkedIn.

10 Years since Iraq: The Changing Face of War

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:37:00 -0500

This program to mark the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003, includes a panel of speakers addressing the changing face of war. Abroad, the US' increased use of drones for "targeted killings" in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, has resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians. Here in the US, deadly cuts continue to be imposed on domestic programs in order to fund the Pentagon's excessive spending and line the pockets of wealthy corporations, such as Boeing. The fights for public education, housing, and healthcare are intricately tied to the fights against war and imperialism.

Peter Lems is a leader in the American Friends Service Committee anti-drone effort. Kait McIntyre of the Anti-War Committee speaks about the local campaign targeting Boeing. Vince Emanuele, of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, served two tours in Iraq.

Recorded live Wednesday, March 20, 2013 at Grace Place.

Report: CHA plan has improved residents’ lives

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 17:12:00 -0500

For residents who moved out of Chicago’s notorious public housing high rises in the last decade, life has improved. But many children in these families suffer from low school performance and growing up with chronic violence.

A new report released Monday by the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, paints a largely positive picture of the Chicago Housing Authority efforts. The study comes while the CHA is retooling its Plan for Transformation, an ambitious multi-year effort begun in 1999 that broke up concentrated high-rise developments.

The Urban Institute’s Sue Popkin has studied CHA for the past 25 years. At the beginning of that period, she recalled, one could observe high rises with backed-up incinerators, dank hallways, gang wars and faulty elevators.

“I didn’t expect to be in a place 10 years later where I would say this is basically a housing intervention and it’s worked okay. For the most part people are living in better housing in safer neighborhoods,” Popkin said.

CHA’s controversial $1 billion Plan for Transformation tore down high rises and replaced them with mixed-income communities. The Robert Taylor Homes and Cabrini-Green were synonymous with Chicago’s skyline and had the worst housing reputation in the country. Since the Plan began, CHA has moved almost 16,000 family households from derelict buildings. The agency has rehabilitated or built 19,000 public housing units, which includes 3,200 in mixed income.

Several years ago the Urban Institute told CHA that moving families wasn’t simply a construction issue; to succeed, residents needed services. Popkin said that steep learning curve for CHA has paid off after the housing agency implemented a strong resident service program in 2007.

Researchers say that vulnerable residents need intensive wraparound services to address mental health, low literacy and lack of job skills. The report suggests that residents who’ve received intensive case management have fared better. The services cost about $2,900 annually per household but can increase family stability and reduce depression. CHA families have grappled with the trauma of poverty: physical health problems, anxiety, high mortality rates.

But Popkin said it’s not all a pretty picture. Emphasis on adults has meant that improvements have not always trickled down to children. Relocation has been especially hard on them and causes disruption in school and socially.

“I worry a lot about the kids,” Popkin said. “The services that helped the adults do better don’t seem to have helped the kids. It’s an urgent issue. These are kids who have grown up in families who’ve lived in chronic disadvantage for generations and it’s going to take more than just moving to slightly safer places to help get them on a better trajectory.”

Some young people have struggled academically and have had a tough time adapting to new neighborhoods where they are perceived as outsiders. And they continue to live amid violence. The Urban Institute is currently working on CHA incorporating a dual generation approach at Altgeld Gardens, a public housing development on the southern edge of the city.

“Frankly, at this point it’s going to be a matter of money,” Popkin said. “This is obviously not CHA’s fault. But the sequester and everything else that’s going on, I worry about the threat to human services at a point where we really need it to make a difference.”

Mary Howard leads resident services for CHA said the agency is looking at how to provide services to children whose families participate in the housing voucher program. There are 38,000 Chicago households that use vouchers to rent in the private market.

“One of the things that we’re looking at is how to open up some of our opportunities that have traditionally been available for public housing families to the house choice voucher population,” Howard said. For example, making sure discounted park district programs reach these youth.

Resident leaders say they want CHA to listen to their suggestions about what’s working and what’s not.

“Let us help you out. Work with us,” Francine Washington told housing officials Monday.

CHA’s Plan for Transformation is the largest of its kind in the country. Researchers say the housing agency’s mistakes and triumphs can inform federal policy. The Plan is expected to be completed by 2015.

The slow disappearing act of the Chicago SRO

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:03:00 -0600

This weekend, residents of the Chateau Hotel on Chicago’s North Side hope to learn the fate of their building. Many of them received notices in late January, notifying them that their leases would be terminated in 30 days, but they haven’t received information about what will happen after that. Some of the building’s tenants fear the building will go the way of other North Side single-room occupancy hotels (SROs) in recent years: Namely, its new owner will renovate it for a higher market-rate clientele.

“All I know is this: There’s too many different stories I’m hearing,” said Tiffany Myers, a resident of the Chateau Hotel since August. “Some say they’re going to remodel it, that the new manager is supposed to be closing it down, remodeling it,” she recounted, sitting in the small studio that she shares with her fiance. “That this new owner has a habit of buying SRO buildings, low-income buildings, and then making it expensive for people who can’t afford to move in. Only for ritzy people.”

The Chateau is among the city’s shrinking pool of single-room occupancy hotels (map below), which offer an important housing option for people with low- and fixed-incomes. SROs also serve clients with troubled credit or criminal histories. The North Side has long been an SRO hub, but in recent years many such buildings have been purchased by developers and closed, only to reopen as more expensive housing — often beyond the means of prior tenants. Some SRO residents and community organizers worry the Chateau Hotel might be the next building in this trend.

“To me it’s kind of unfair because not too many of us can get an apartment right now,” Myers explained. Myers said she and her fiance had no choice but to live at the Chateau Hotel after they were evicted from their last apartment. When they moved into their first unit — a small, one-room place without a kitchen, typical of the building — they paid $575 a month. Later, they upgraded to another of the building's units: a studio apartment with a kitchen.

While playing the slideshow, push "X" for full screen. "Show info" displays captions.

Myers relies on a monthly disability check so, like many other SRO tenants, she is on a fixed income. Her fiance was laid off several months ago and has not been able to find steady work since. She said even if he found a job and could afford a higher-priced apartment elsewhere, they would still have a tough time finding a building that would accept them.

“Some of us have really nasty backgrounds. Some of us can’t pass the credit check,” she said. “Now, I’m not saying I’m going to live in this rat shack forever, but at least until I’m able to get myself on my feet. And if they do put us out, at least help us out with somewhere to go.”

Myers rattled off the problems with the building, echoing violations documented by city inspectors: mice, bedbugs, waterbugs, rotting window frames, peeling wall plaster and a broken smoke detector. The city has slapped the Chateau Hotel with 137 code violations, and is pursuing compliance in an ongoing buildings court case.

“They’ve not been living in safe housing, and those conditions were deplorable,” said Chicago Alderman James Cappleman (46th), “and that should never have been allowed.” Cappleman, a former social worker, said the city should have intervened earlier with the Chateau and other SROs before they got to this point. But he said he feels the conditions there are dangerous enough that the building should be vacated for renovations.

The 46th Ward had 14 licensed SROs in 2012 — at least twice as many as any other ward. About one quarter of the city’s SROs have been in four of the North Side lakefront wards alone: (wards 44, 46, 48, and 49). But on the whole, the number of SROs in Chicago has declined noticeably in the last five years. In 2008 there were 106 licensed SROs. Today, there are 81.

Carmelo Vargas, former Chicago Commissioner of Human Services, says he’s concerned about SROs disappearing citywide, but especially on the North Side. That’s because many of the support services like food pantries, soup kitchens, and medical clinics for the populations that live in SROs are located near those buildings. “If you’re not building affordable housing two blocks away and you’re closing this one down, we have a problem,” Vargas said, referring to the Chateau Hotel.

Still, Vargas has worked on — and sees — both sides of the issue; he’s helped the homeless find rooms in SROs, but at the same time he was also involved in closing many SROs. “Most of the closings that we did were related to fire issues, safety issues, living condition issues,” he said, “not because somebody wanted to buy the building.”

Vargas says the SRO disappearing act can be explained by two things: First, they sit on prime real estate near the lake; and second, many SRO owners let the buildings fall almost beyond salvaging. Together, these create the perfect opportunity for a well-funded developer to swoop in and make a kill.

The new owner of the Chateau Hotel is still shrouded by some mystery. Cappleman’s office announced that a land trust called 3838 N Broadway LLC bought the property in January, but the alderman has declined to name the individuals behind it. An attorney for the land trust also declined to comment.

Cappleman says the new owner has assured him the building will still contain affordable SRO units, but that the rent will go up to $800 a month, putting it out of range for many current tenants. Still, Cappleman feels the era of SROs on the North Side has not passed. “Is it more difficult to find on the North Side? It’s more difficult,” he conceded, “but it is there.”

Cappleman has vowed to tenants that none will be left homeless or in a shelter, and he said Catholic Charities and Department of Family Support Services will work individually with tenants of the Chateau Hotel to find alternative arrangements. But Cappleman said he can’t guarantee that everyone will find on the North Side.

“Can everyone live exactly where they want to live? No, no one can,” he said. “You can’t and I can’t. But there is enough housing available to ensure that they don’t have to live on the streets."

(Chrome users: If you see no map, click the shield button at the top-right of your address bar)

This map used the Searchable Map Template by Derek Eder.

Notes on the data

Data on single-room occupancy licenses were obtained from the City of Chicago. Figures from the 2008, 2010, and 2012 reporting periods represent licenses in operation during portions of those years. 2013 figures are current as of March 1.

MPC Roundtable - Two Anchor Institutions, One Story of Revitalization through Housing Investment

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:13:00 -0600

One is an academic institution in the heart of the city of Chicago; the other is a manufacturing company located 40 miles northwest in suburban Carpentersville, Ill., population 38,062. Though it may seem unlikely, University of Chicago and OTTO Engineering have some things in common: Both of these large employers are anchoring community redevelopment by investing in their local housing markets.

At this MPC Roundtable, University of Chicago's Derek Douglas, Vice President for Civic Engagement; and OTTO Engineering President Tom Roeser will compare and contrast how their unique housing reinvestment strategies support the local economy. UofC has offered an employer-assisted housing program for nearly 10 years, providing housing counseling and downpayment assistance to employees who chose to move near campus. Through OTTO Homes, OTTO Engineering buys, rehabs and sells homes in Carpentersville, giving preference and incentives to local employees who want to become homeowners.

Recorded live Wednesday, February 27, 2013 at the MPC Conference Center.

CHA, HUD pen agreement on program

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:36:00 -0600

The Chicago Housing Authority has entered into an agreement with the federal government that aims to provide more jobs and contracts to public housing and low-income residents.

The program, known as Section 3, started in 1968. Last year the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found Chicago noncompliant with Section 3. Residents have also filed lawsuits related to the program.

Now the local and federal housing agencies are embarking on a five-year deal. The end goal is for at least 10 percent of the total dollar amount of all contracts covered by Section 3 go to Section 3 hires.

“CHA’s excited about this new partnership with HUD,” said Charles Woodyard, CEO of CHA. “Together we will ensure that goals of this new initiative are met so that Section 3 residents and other low-income Chicagoans are provided opportunities to advance their business and their careers.”

CHA’s track record on Section 3 is a mixed bag. A 2011 WBEZ report found that several years ago, 30 percent of new hires were designated Section 3 – the federal minimum. But in 2008 and 2009, for example, more than 70 percent of CHA new hires were Section 3. Still, in those two years, hundreds of millions of dollars were awarded in contracts, yet none of those involved Section 3-owned businesses. Other public housing agencies around the country have had much worse track records.

Four residents from the Altgeld Gardens development have filed a lawsuit under Section 3. A judge has ruled that one of those lawsuits can go forward. The resident involved in that case alleges that she hasn’t been hired under the program.

This new Section 3 agreement with HUD states CHA will require building trade contractors to submit payroll and hiring reports on a weekly basis. HUD will monitor progress. When it is infeasible for CHA to meet the numerical goals for employment, the housing agency must show HUD other economic opportunities that it provides to its resident and the community. Those opportunities may be educational, recreational, or youth-oriented. They can also involve learning enrichment, after-school programs, child care, senior services, and job preparation programs, as well as other economic opportunities. Noncompliance could cost CHA competitive grant funding.

Residents and stakeholders are skeptical about the agreement.

“Seems like a decision has been [made] and we haven’t be included in it. Once again we’ve been left behind,” said Dennis Hood, a CHA resident and owner of a contracting business.

Robert Whitfield is the attorney for the umbrella CHA tenants’ group. He said he’s not sure whether the voluntary agreement will turn the dime of resident hiring. The issue is bigger than CHA.

“I would like to see [CHA] use a lot more of their procurement power to force the union to get more residents into the unions as apprentices,” Whitfield said. “Until that happens they [HUD, CHA] can sign all the agreements they want but it’ll run into a dead end when contractors say they aren’t in the union.”

That’s a huge concern for Thomas Harris, secretary-treasurer of the American Allied Workers International Union. He said organized labor dictates the contracts. He said he’s trying to get his union to represent CHA residents so they aren’t shut out.

“Labor dictates what’s going to happen with the contracts and who the workers are going to be. They’ve been closed out of workplace because they’ve never been at the table to be represented in terms of their trades,” Harris said.

Follow Natalie on Twitter.

Senior citizens blast prominent community leader as a 'slumlord'

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:24:00 -0600

A group of senior citizens held a protest Tuesday over what they call “deplorable conditions” in public housing in the Kenwood-Oakland neighborhood. The four senior homes in question are managed by the Woodlawn Community Development Corporation (WCDC), a project of Reverend Leon Finney.

Finney rose to prominence fighting slumlords in the 1960s and 1970s, but has since become the subject of scrutiny, a lawsuit, and a federal probe related to allegations of mismanaging funds provided to WCDC and The Woodlawn Organization. Finney began working in property management in the 1970s. WCDC manages 4,000 private and public units that house 10,000 people in the Chicago area.

On Monday, the Sun-Times reported on a visit to the Judge Slater Senior Housing Complex at 42nd and Cottage Grove in Chicago. Columnist Mary Mitchell described evidence of vermin and roaches, and related residents’ accusations of abuse and neglect on the part of management.

“How can he be against slumlords if he’s a slumlord?” said Aryah Benyahuda, who lives in Judge Slater. “What has up there is a facade, it’s camouflage.”

Benyahuda joined four other public housing residents and about 20 people from the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO) in front of the CHA’s downtown offices. KOCO helped the seniors organize a demonstration after a group of residents came to them for help. Residents said they believed others had been intimidated by WCDC not to speak out.

Inside, at the CHA board meeting, other residents of WCDC buildings did speak out – against protestors.

“When we need something, they are there,” said Shirley Jean Lee, a resident of another WCDC-managed building.

Two senior homes residents who spoke out in favor of WCDC at the meeting hung up when contacted for this story. Others said their buildings do have bed bugs, roaches and mice. But they didn’t blame the managers.

“You know why that’s a problem,” said John Williams, also a resident of Judge Slater. “Because people won’t clean up.”

Williams accused the protestors of intentionally causing trouble.

A spokesperson for the CHA says they have addressed bed bugs in the senior homes, and had not heard about problems with mice or roaches.

“We regularly have meetings with our residents to address any concerns,” said Wendy Parks, a spokesperson for CHA. “We have had our CHA staff out at Judge Slater on a continuing basis.”

The protesting residents have received a response from Finney’s real estate manager, Sandra Harris, agreeing to meet with them. But Shannon Bennett of KOCO said seniors aren’t satisfied.

“We asked to meet with Finney in our letter,” Bennett said. “That’s not what they’re offering.”

Finney is a high-profile target for a campaign – but his connections also make him a likely one. He’s been on the board of the Chicago Planning Commission, served as Vice Chair of the Chicago Housing Authority, and served as a trustee at Chicago State University. He’s a pastor and a professor, and his real estate investments through WCDC number in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s also not the first time he’s been called a slumlord. But KOCO says their actions are not about targeting Finney.

“It could be the man on the moon who’s managing their property,” Bennett said. “Seniors who are already marginalized do not deserve to be intimidated for speaking up.”

Follow Lewis Wallace on Twitter.

Illinois foreclosure activity jumps

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 09:06:00 -0600

A jump in the number of January foreclosure auctions moved Illinois up one place to rank as having the third highest foreclosures activity in the country, RealtyTrac said today in its monthly data report on distressed properties.

Between December and January, the number of foreclosure filings in Illinois increased 22.6 percent - that basically equates to one out of every 375 homes in Illinois. Compared to the same time last year, the number of filings decreased 1.8 percent.

Nationally, foreclosures are down 28 percent from the year before.

Illinois is preceded only by Florida and California for foreclosure activity. A change in California law commonly called the Homeowner's Bill of Rights drastically impacted foreclosure filings there, RealtyTrac said.

“For the first time since January 2007 California did not have the most properties with foreclosure filings of any state," RealtyTrac's Darem Blomquist said in the report. "Instead that dubious distinction went to Florida, where January foreclosure activity increased on an annual basis for the 11th time in the last 13 months.”

You can check out more results here.

Kenwood Blues Part II

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:31:00 -0600

After my article Wednesday about Kenwood, we ran a second piece about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s response to Hadiya Pendleon’s murder which included a chart that showed crime in the neighborhood in the last 10 years or so.

It said: “The neighborhood has seen modest decreases in theft, car thefts and robberies. But what few shootings and homicides the neighborhood saw over the past 10 years has stayed relatively consistent in the single digit range.”

That is true. In fact, on paper Kenwood often looks better than many northside neighborhoods. I remember when I moved here in 2000, I had friends in Lincoln Park who were horrified and I got a heckuva kick showing them how their groovy area actually had greater incidences of robbery and assaults than Kenwood. (My friend’s response? “That’s because there’s nothing to steal in Kenwood.”)

But here’s what the stats don’t show:

1. Crime that used to be concentrated west on Drexel Boulevard and north of 40th on Lake Park has now spread and east and south. Crime is now ubiquitous. (When I first moved down here, there were highrise CHA buildings on Cottage Grove, which have since been torn down. There’s still plenty of public housing: Three senior buildings on and around Lake Park -- two are pretty well-managed and one hosts a lot of “visiting” grandkids -- and one regular CHA midrise. It’s precisely in that corridor where the two new 450 unit mixed income highrises are going up.)

2. Crime didn’t happen quite as often in the middle of the day. One of the great shocks of the Lakefront Outlook’s crime blotter is seeing that you can get your butt kicked at noon walking down 47th Street. Or killed at Harsh Park at 2:21 p.m. in the afternoon.

3. The drug dealing is more widespread and brasher. The Muddy Waters house across the street from me, for example, is between a school (Jacky Robinson Elementary is half a block away) and Kennicott Park, which has a busy Park District fieldhouse (half a block in the other direction, where there's a cop stationed daily from early morning to late evening). There’s a stream of kids that pass that house every day going to and from both places. Right now, there’s not only a dude sitting out on the sidewalk but the basement door is open, visible from the street, half blocked only by a slab of wood and tempting every one of those kids walking home alone to explore what has been designated an unsafe structure, red X ablaze on its facade. I need to stress that when we call, the cops come. Every time. Police response is very good-- but as soon as the cops leave, the dealers are back.

4. The number of empty units -- not necessarily buildings -- is breathtaking. On the the two block stretch of Oakenwald where Pendleton was killed, there are three whole empty buildings and who knows how many empty units. As I said yesterday, on my block there are twelve I know for a fact, and possibly as many as twenty. These are incredibly tempting propositions for all sorts of folks: for the homeless, yes, but also for kids, for gangs, for drug dealers. We’ve had at least one squatter in my building (one of the other residents took him in and we hired him to do some work around the building) but we know there are many more in the neighborhood.

And there's at least one other unmeasurable difference: Once, not that long ago, it felt like things were happening in the neighborhood, that things were on the up. But now it feels like we're barely running in place. There are a least two ugly unfunished construction projects alone in the two blocks from my house to the 47th Street bus stop that remind us every day of hope lost.

Listen, I love my neighborhood. It’s precisely because I love my neighborhood that I worry about conditions here becoming more and more troublesome -- not explosive just yet, but not unlike sitting on a powder keg.