Housing Choices for Blacks Has Fallen and Risen


Housing Choices for Blacks Has Fallen and Risen

BY WENDELL HUTSON

Contributing Writer

There used to be a time when blacks had to be careful where they lived in Chicago and the suburbs because segregation had divided people up based on their race and economic status.

To some degree, housing is still based largely on race and income even though The Fair Housing Act (Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968) outlawed such measures. Under this federal law, it is illegal to refuse to sell or rent a dwelling to any person because of religion, sex, familial status, race, color, disability, or national origin.

From 1910 to 1930, the “Great Migration” occurred and brought large numbers of blacks to Chicago from the South. In fact, from 1940 to 1960, blacks began coming to Chicago in droves (which historians said was around 60,000) hoping to find good, paying industrial jobs.

But Chicago’s housing market grew thus pushing blacks seeking housing to what was called the “Black Belt” located between 12th and 79th streets and Wentworth and Cottage Grove avenues. And such overcrowding resulted in poor housing conditions for blacks, which was the goal of whites, according to Timuel Black, a 100-year-old historian.

He said the game plan all along was to keep blacks out of good neighborhoods and lump blacks together in one concentrated area.

These days, a millennial wouldn’t know what a “kitchenette” is but Black said, “those of us old enough to remember can tell you it was not an ideal place to live.”

With supply not being able to keep up with demand, landlords opted to divide up apartments also known as kitchenettes and then charged ridiculous rents for units with no bathrooms.

Fast forwarding to nearly 30 years later, local housing choices for blacks improved after years of decline. The Chatham neighborhood on the South Side has historically been a middle-class area where blacks “with a little money” would move to once they “made it,” explained former U.S. Sen. Roland Burris, who has lived in Chatham since 1963.

“I remember as a young man I would drive through Chatham and look at all the beautiful homes and say to myself ‘one day I will live here.’ And wouldn’t you know it, I have been a Chatham resident now for almost 60 years,” Burris told the Citizen. “For as far as I can remember, Chatham has always been a predominately black neighborhood although I am beginning to see a few whites walking their dogs in the area, so I guess the neighborhood is diversifying and that’s good.”

According to census data, Chatham has a population of 32,844 whose residents are 97 percent black, 2 percent white and 1 percent Hispanic.

Burris, an 83-year-old husband, father and grandfather, lives in the same home he bought in 1972 from the late gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.

“I bought this home January 30, 1972 and Mahalia died Jan. 27, three days before the sale was to become final,” recalled Burris, who was a real estate attorney at the time. “Her family tried to stop the home from being sold but it was too late because a contract for the home was already in place. It is my desire to remain in this home forever.”

Jackson bought the 4,000-square-foot home in 1956 when it had three bedrooms and one bath only to add space to the home and expand it to a four bedroom and two and a half bath house with no basement but a large attic.

Chatham is unique though because traditionally, it has always been a black neighborhood. However, Bronzeville is a different South Side neighborhood and is quickly changing into a very diverse community thanks largely to the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation in 2000. The plan included demolishing high-rise buildings and replacing them with two to three story mixed-income, apartment buildings.

As a result, Bronzeville, which is 5.2 miles from Downtown, has attracted a drove of middle to upper class families including many whites. Gone is the former Ida B. Wells public housing complex at the corner of Pershing Road and Cottage Grove Avenue. The complex has been replaced with spacious apartments, townhomes and condominiums.

“Bronzeville is becoming the ‘new’ version of Hyde Park when you look at the housing available in the area,” contends Harriet Moore, 74, a Bronzeville resident since 1984. “I can tell you that blacks still dominate the population but whites are quickly discovering the neighborhood too.”

There are 24,014 residents in Bronzeville, according to census data, and the average household income is $50,157 and the median household income is $33,959.

“There’s not a lot of poor people living in Bronzeville anymore since public housing was redeveloped in Chicago,” she added. “That’s why I say Bronzeville is looking more and more like Hyde Park, and soon it may be too expensive for common folks like myself, a retired school teacher, to live here.”

Beyond historically black neighborhoods like Chatham and Bronzeville, housing has shifted in other areas like Auburn Gresham on the South Side based on race.

“Auburn Gresham used to be a predominately white community but then a shift began around 1980 when whites were moving further west, and the dividing line was Damen Avenue and today it’s Western Avenue,” said Burris. “You’re not going to find too many black families living pass 87th and Western where suburbs like Evergreen Park and Oak Lawn begin.”

Sheryl Gilmore, 49, said she grew up in Auburn Gresham but now lives in Evergreen Park, “and I love it.”

The human resource executive said while Evergreen Park is mostly white, there are “a lot of middle-class, black families living here and we all get along just fine regardless of race,” she added. “My church and my job are in Chicago but my heart is suburban life.”

Not far from Auburn Gresham is Beverly, which has historically been a mostly white neighborhood. Today, its population is 20,815 residents including 56 percent white, 35 percent black and 5 percent Hispanic, according to census data. There are very few apartment buildings in Beverly also, which could explain why blacks rarely relocate there, said Madison Carruthers, a Chicago real estate analyst.

“Research has shown that crime breeds mostly in neighborhoods saturated with rental units, and homeowners are more likely to report criminal activity and maintain their properties,” said Carruthers. “But renters (who are often minorities) often do not care about maintaining property they do not own and will not report crimes even if they are a victim themselves.”

Other south suburbs have also been transformed since the early 1980s when whites started moving back to Chicago neighborhoods from Markham, Country Club Hills and Flossmoor, which all previously had a majority white population, but is now mostly black, according to census data.

June Isaac, 81, a Markham resident since 1995 remembers when Markham was mostly white but looks at it now and sees dilapidated homes, run down apartment buildings, vacate lots, closed up businesses and crime running rampant. “I moved to the suburbs from Roseland to escape the gangs, bad public schools and corrupt politicians. And after running away from what I thought were problems behind me, I am now dealing with here in Markham. There’s no glory days here anymore and if I wasn’t old and stubborn, I would gather my things and move back to the city.”

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