There have been numerous suits in the world of Chicago public housing. Some hang around like old suits in a thrift shop, and some new ones are tailor made just for the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) and the Chicago Police Department (CPD) by the residents of public housing.

The suits that I’m talking about are not clothes but lawsuits. But these suits are clinging to CHA all the same. Class action lawsuits are what I’m talking about – many of them are being hung out there to air dry, while some of them were considered form fitting.

In some cases, they were tailor made for the residents, and the residents won. Or did they?
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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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