RJ recently learned about a $19 million H.O.P.E. VI grant our neighbors to the south at the Gary Indiana Housing Authority received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1999. The housing authority is using the grant to replace the Duneland Village public housing development with a new mixed income community.

So one day in late January, we drove over the slushy, potholed streets of Chicago to Gary, in hot pursuit of a story about housing being built that might be beneficial to the poor.
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Bill Wilen thinks he’s found a “smoking gun” in his current legal battle with the Chicago Housing Authority.

Wilen, an attorney with the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law who has been an advocate for residents for decades, recently received a package of documents related to the ongoing redevelopment of the Henry Horner Homes on the Near West Side. Among those documents was one that appeared strange.

The paper in question has a header that indicates it is the goals for the “Supportive Services for CHA Horner/West Haven Residents.” To translate from CHA terminology, Supportive Services, also known as “Service Connectors,” refers specifically to those private contractors whose job it is to connect residents with programs including jobs training and drug treatment.
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Public housing agencies nationwide risk losing their federal funding for redevelopment projects if their projects are not on schedule, according to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department recently.

I‘d like to inform the readers of an organization that states that it helps seniors, people with disabilities and others find part-time work and training in many Chicago locations, with some offices a few blocks away from CHA developments.

Many times when a person thinks of residents of public housing communities, they think of them as down trodden, hopeless and uneducated, people who have no plans, opinions, or ideals as to how they want to live as individuals or families. The stereotypes are that residents are isolated from society.

Many times when a person thinks of residents of public housing communities, they think of them as down trodden, hopeless and uneducated, people who have no plans, opinions, or ideals as to how they want to live as individuals or families. The stereotypes are that residents are isolated from society.

The ABLA Local Advisory Council (LAC), along with its president, Deverra Beverly, other concerned residents of ABLA and various city agencies are working hard to erase these negative stereotypes.

Various meetings have been held to keep the residents informed. At these meetings, residents have been allowed to make major input and educated choices as to things that will make the future of the ABLA community a viable one. These things are needed as the transformation of public housing takes place in the years to come. Read more »

I don’t know about you, but I feel as if I’m looking down the barrel of a loaded summer. In addition to the usual challenges that we face as public housing residents, it is apparent this summer, more than ever before, that we face a new challenge: the redevelopment of public housing.

This redevelopment process started over eight years ago under then-CHA Chairman Vincent Lane, with a federal program titled Hope VI, suggesting the arrival of hope for the hopeless residents of public housing. Today, the process has simply become the redevelopment of public housing and is moving at a much faster pace, offering little hope for too few residents.
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Some 2,000 families of the Chicago Housing Authoritys Stateway Gardens, Rockwell Gardens and Robert Taylor Homes may have to wait for the funds for new housing at their developments, according to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) officials.

ABLA Homes residents recently received word that their development has received some $24 million from a federal HOPE VI grant. In this article, ABLA LAC President Deverra Beverly examines some of the steps that led to that success.

ABLA instituted a front line feeding program in 1990. This program feeds over 1200 people weekly, 144,000 yearly.

This program is being relocated for vendors. The ABLA community is very concerned regarding when the vendors will arrive. When and if this takes place, the Food Program should be located at the same address, 1254 S. Loomis, and takes place between the hours of 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., and not in the evening at 8 p.m. If the weather is adverse or unsuitable, the person or persons can eat inside. 8 p.m. is too late for children to come to the food site to eat. Read more »