CHA Plan More Than Half Complete

Thelma Sardin |

The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) says its Plan for Transformation is 74 percent complete. The plan is an ongoing project to fully restore or replace 25,000 units of public housing.

The plan seeks to break the cycle of poverty and rebuild lives by offering residents an opportunity to share in Chicagos promise, according to a released statement.

CHA is also offering residents training in life skills, officials add, that will assist them as they move into mixed-income communities.

Today, all across the city, new mixed-income communities are close to good schools, jobs and shopping. Thousands of CHA residents have moved to better housing, found stable employment and nearly doubled their incomes. We have been successful in establishing Mayor Daleys Plan for Transformation, which is considered a model throughout the country, said Lewis Jordan, CEO of CHA in the release.

In all, 18,555 units of housing have been completed under the Plan for Transformation including:

  • 9,178 rehabilitated senior units (98% of goal)
  • 2,555 rehabilitated scattered site units (100% of goal)
  • 3,779 rehabilitated family units (76% of goal)
  • 3,043 public housing units in mixed income developments (39% of goal)

In 2009, Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI) released, The Third Side: A Mid -Course Report On Chicagos Transformation of Public Housing, which praised the CHAs efforts but also outlined the resulting effects of the Plan. In a press release announcing the report, BPIs Executive Director, Hoy McConnell described the benefits of the Plan and what it must do in the future to ensure equal housing opportunities for all Chicagoans.

Midway through the Plan for Transformation, we have a tale of two cities, said McConnell. CHA families in new mixed income communities now live in conditions indistinguishable from economically better-off neighbors. Thats a major achievement that would have been considered impossible 20 years ago. At the same time, far too many public housing families live in environments virtually identical to those that triggered the $1.6 billion overhaul of public housing. That must change if Chicago is to uphold its promise to rebuild the lives of all its public housing residents, he said.

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