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CAC Prepares for Battle

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The Chicago Housing Authority resident council is preparing for the many challenges that public housing residents under redevelopment will face.

The first thing on the resident council’s agenda will be to get the federal government to recognize resident leadership after relocation. The next thing on their agenda will be to come to an understanding with the aldermen in public housing areas to secure public housing sites for relocatees from CHA property redevelopment.
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Squatters Worry About Homelessness

by  Assistant Editor

Many residents of public housing are asking the public, what would you do if you had no money, no job and no place to call home? How low would you go? Would you become a squatter?

I’m running into many squatters as I continue to do my research with professor Sudhir Venkatesh from Columbia University, author of American Project.

Take, for instance, a young man who’s squatting in one of the vacant units in a Chicago Housing Authority development, a young man known to the other building residents as “Larry.” I asked him how he got to be a squatter? Read more »

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Girl X Reveals Tragic History

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“Girl X Settles With CHA for $3 million.” That’s the way the headlines appeared in the April 18 daily newspapers and how the story was announced on several television and radio news stations.

The settlement was the result of a lawsuit filed on behalf of 15-year-old Toya Currie. Currie was given the title ‘Girl X’ after her attack at 1121 N Larrabee in CHA’s Cabrini-Green public housing development in January 1997. Currie was nine years old at the time of the attack.

Another, possibly unauthorized Cabrini-Green resident, Patrick Sykes, was convicted of the assault and sentenced to 120 years in prison this past July. Read more »

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Ickes’ Homes New Managers

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The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), the new managers of the Harold Ickes Homes, is struggling to do a good job of managing the regular management-resident connections. Take, for instance, the monthly rent statements. I have regularly received mine five to ten days past the first of the month. I wait and hold on to my money order but it doesn’t come. I pay my rent and get a receipt without the rent statement to attach to my money order. I think, “Oh well. Maybe next month.”

In March, I got a statement with two months unpaid rent showing. Well, I know I paid February’s rent but I got nervous because if they made such a glaring mistake, how safe are your funds? By April 11, 2002 no rent statement yet. However, when I paid on the sixth of the month, TWO issued me a 14-day notice. Why? I wasn’t behind in paying rent. “Don’t worry,” the clerk said. “You’ve paid your rent. “It’s in your lease that after five days, without paying, you’re due a 14 day notice.” Read more »
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Shocking Electric Bills

by  Assistant Editor

Many Robert Taylor residents are suddenly finding themselves facing extremely high electric bills, bills in the $10,000 range and higher that can make them non-lease compliant and ineligible for replacement housing.

CHA is going through a $1.6 billion Plan for Transformation that states if a resident is found non-lease compliant, they may not be relocated to another development, a scattered site unit or the same development or receive a Housing Choice Voucher (formerly known as Section 8).

A tenant can be found non-lease compliant if a tenant’s utilities are not paid up. One young single mother of three, Lithia Henderson, said, “My electric bills are sky high. How do they expect for me to pay this $11,000 light bill?” Read more »

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A ‘One Strike’ Battle Planned

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As law-abiding public housing residents across the country continue to walk on pins and needles wondering if they will be evicted for a drug-related crime perpetrated by a family member or a guest, a battle is being planned by Chicago public housing resident leaders and housing activists to get the “One Strike” public housing eviction law amended.

On March 26, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to uphold the One Strike law in the case of the Department of Housing and Urban Development v. Pearlie Rucker, and Oakland Housing Authority v. Pearlie Rucker.

The Rucker case involved four senior residents of the OHA who faced eviction for drug-related activities committed on and off OHA premises by family members and a home-care provider in late 1997 and early 1998. Read more »

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Drug War Diagnosis

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Those who think the war on drugs is working had better visit the front lines.

The relocation of public housing residents has contributed to making Chicago’s murder rate the highest in the nation, according to a professor who has spent years working on the city’s policing programs.

Art Lurigio, a psychologist who is chairman of DePaul University’s Criminal Justice Department, said that the way the CHA is relocating residents is raising the murder rate in the city. Read more »

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