As summer turns to fall and the leaves change from a garden green to a burnt pumpkin orange to a dark chocolate brown and a lemon sunny yellow, some South Suburban mayors are seeing red when it comes to Chicago Housing Authority residents relocating to their suburban areas.

Robert Taylor Homes residents aren’t the only ones getting charged about their high electric bills. As RJ has reported over recent months, many of the residents in Robert Taylor Homes have electric bills in the amounts of $500 to $22,000, and in some cases more. These unpaid bills are a problem for those residents who are being relocated under the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation.

Friday, Oct. 4, was the last day for the residents of 4525 S. Federal St. in the Robert Taylor Homes to be neighbors. The building was being closed in preparation for demolition. The Chicago Housing Authority closed a number of buildings in Robert Taylor this fall to make way for a new mixed-income community they have promised to build in its place.

The surest evidence cialis soft tabs of our national housing crisis can be found under the city’s viaducts, or in the city’s emergency shelters, or in the nooks and crannies of the newly rehabbed Lower Wacker Drive, where the encampments of homeless men and women have become semi-permanent. Evidence of the national housing crisis can even be found, however, in well-off suburbs like Highland Park, an upscale community of luxurious, expansive homes and manicured lawns located on Lake Michigan’s North Shore.

The situation in places like Highland Park, moreover, can help explain why the Chicago Housing Authority seems to be having so much trouble relocating its tenants under the agency’s “Plan for Transformation.” Public housing tenants, low- and middle-income families are all being forced to compete over a shrinking supply of affordable housing. Like a game of musical chairs, those who are not quick enough will end up without a home of their own. Read more »