The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced on June 29 that it will award $30 million dollars to HIV/AIDS housing programs across the nation – to continue support of stable housing for the next three years – to organizations serving more than a thousand extremely low-income individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS who are at risk for homelessness.

The funding is offered through HUD’s Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS Program (HOPWA) and will renew HUD’s support of 29 local programs in 19 states.

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For over two years, Residents’ Journal has been reporting how the Harold Ickes Homes Chicago public housing site was supposed to be rehabbed along with Dearborn Homes, Cabrini Green Rowhouses and the Altgeld Gardens far South Side public housing complex, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) April 2008 Moving to Work Agreement with the Chicago Housing Authority.

In the interim, CHA closed down and demolished most of all the buildings at Ickes, and gave residents the choice to relocate to another CHA-rehabbed property or use a Housing Choice ( Section 8 ) Voucher to rent housing in the private market.

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With a deadline fast approaching, organizers of the National Public Housing Museum and Education Center are working hard to raise funds and generate support to make the museum a reality. But if one open house held earlier this spring is an indication, the museum already has the support of former and current residents of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA).

Museum officials held the event at 1322-24 W. Taylor St., the last building standing that was built in the 1930s as part of the now-demolished Jane Adams Homes, part of the ABLA Homes complex. Through a series of audio and visual installations in the vacant three-story building to be transformed into the museum, the many spectators went from room to room on the first and second floors to get a glimpse of how life was then and now for public housing residents.
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The new administration of President Barack Obama is apparently not very interested in sharing its plans for low-income people. Little has been announced publicly about what the administration will do for the poor in these hard economic times, and Residents’ Journal’s calls to the White House over a three-week period failed to get a comment by press time.

A lot of information is available on the White House web site, however. Here is a partial list: To tackle concentrated poverty, the Obama administration promises to create and establish 20 “Promise Neighborhoods in areas that have high levels of poverty and crime and low levels of student academic achievement in cities across the nation.” The program will be modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone, which provides an entire neighborhood with services for young people at every age, including early childhood education, youth violence prevention efforts and after-school activities, according to the White House.
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The Harold Ickes public housing development is one of the last to go through change under the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation, now in its 10th year. All around the city, renovation and rehabilitation has brightened up the city’s neighborhoods. New architecture both outside and inside has replaced decades-old buildings with outdated floor plans and replacement housing for residents of CHA who are eligible for the Right to Return. As a long-time resident of Ickes, the most often question I am asked is, “What are ‘they’ going to do with Ickes?” And further, “Are ‘they’ going to tear down, rehabilitate or redevelop?” My answer is, “I don’t know.” I have inquired of persons in high places, and so far, the latest answer has been, “Nothing has been determined yet.” That was from Matthew Aguilar, CHA spokesperson. Aguilar did promise to inquire further and get back to me. I wait patiently.

I tried to check with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD published that “Harold Ickes was not subject to demolition.” But I was unable to speak directly to anyone. Even after many referrals from one individual to another, I still couldn’t get an answer. I wait patiently. As I continued to wait, I was drawn to CHA document FY2009, Moving to Work Annual Plan for Transformation Year 10. In it, on page 55, I found that Harold Ickes comes under the “Properties to be Redeveloped or Rehabilitated” section:
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A Residents’ Journal investigation has found that renovation of three public housing buildings for senior citizens is years overdue, despite previous proclamations from the Chicago Housing Authority that all of its senior buildings have been rehabbed.

Elderly public housing residents who were relocated from the CHA senior buildings are eagerly waiting to return to their former homes.
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U.S. Representatives Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) want the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to “immediately cease approval of all demolition and disposition applications” currently pending from all public housing authorities across the nation.

“We believe that the loss of public housing units has now reached epic proportions and further loss of units must be averted immediately for the sake of the nation’s low-income families,” they proclaimed in a joint letter to HUD Secretary Steven Preston dated Aug. 13.
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Section 8 tenants from around the city rallied downtown recently to protest what they described as “deliberate miscalculations” by the federal government which are threatening the housing of thousands of families and seniors in communities across Illinois.

Led by the Lakeview Action Coalition (LAC), the protestors alleged mismanagement of Project Based Voucher Program by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development at a press conference and briefing outside HUD’s local headquarters in downtown Chicago on October 6, 2008 – International Housing Rights Day.
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Residents of the Lathrop Homes public housing community and their advocates marched through their community recently to get the Chicago Housing Authority to open up the large number of vacant units in the development to people in need of affordable housing.

“Keeping these units empty, in the midst of a housing crisis, is a terrible waste,” declared Cynthia Scott, a member of the Lathrop Leadership Team, during the press conference that followed the Oct. 23 march and rally.
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To most people, the Hole was the worst part of America’s toughest neighborhood – the Robert Taylor Homes public housing development. Around the world, Robert Taylor’s 16-story high rises were infamous for their gangs, drugs, broken elevators, single mothers and general desperation. For a generation, those 28 high rises lined a 99-acre stretch of the South Side. “The Hole” was the nickname given to three of the buildings which stood in a u shape at the south end of the development, at the intersection of 53rd and Federal streets.

“They called it ‘The Hole’ because once you got in, you couldn’t get out,” quipped Residents’ Journal’s Assistant Editor Beauty Turner, who lived in Robert Taylor for 16 years.
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