The Chicago Housing Authority 10
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the ,~ i J. Popkin,Victoria E. Gwiasda,Lynn M. Olson,[_) inis P. Rosenbaum,and LarryBuron FOREWORD BY REBECCA M. BLANK J The Hidden War 1£4/-7~ The Hidden War Crime and the Tragedy of Public Housing in Chicago SUSAN J. POPKIN VICTORIA E. GWIASDA LYNN M. OLSON DENNIS P. ROSENBAUM LARRY BURON .-- IPF~QRERYY ©f~ ~ation~l @iminal Justics Roi~o~c~ 8onii@ (t~¢jR8) Box 6000 Rockville, ~E) 20849o6000 RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The hidden war : crime and the tragedy of public housing in Chicago / Susan J. Popkin... let al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8135-2832-1 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 0-8135-2833-X (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Chicago Housing Authority. 2. Housing authorities--Illinois-- Chicago. 3. Public housing--Illinois--Chicago. I. Popkin, Susan J. HD7288.78.U52 C44 2000 363.5'85'0977311--dc21 99-056789 British Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2000 by Susan J. Popkin All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8099. The only exception to this prohibition is "fair use" as defined by U.S. copyright law. Manufactured in the United States of America - Contents LIST OF PHOTOS, FIGURES, AND TABLES VII FOREWORD BY REBECCA M. BLANK IX ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XI 1 Introduction 1 2 The Chicago Housing Authority 10 3 Fighting Crime in Public Housing 24 4 Rockwell Gardens 39 s Henry Hornet Homes 85 6 Harold Ickes Homes 138 7 No Simple Solutions 174 APPENDIX: RESEARCH METHODS 191 NOTES 199 BIBLIOGRAPHY 217 INDEX 225 List of Photos, Figures, and Tables Photos 1 Jackson Street Building, Rockwell Gardens 47 2 "Playground" at Rockwell Gardens 48 3 Graffiti--Rockwell Gardens 49 4 Graffiti in First Floor Hallway, Hermitage Street Building, Henry Homer Homes 95 5 Rear Entrance, Washington Boulevard Building, Henry Horner Homes 96 6 Lake Street Building, Henry Horner Homes 99 7 Redevelopment of Henry Horner Homes: New Townhomes at Corner of Leavitt and Lake Streets with View of Henry Horner Homes 132 8 Harold Ickes Homes with View of Hilliard Homes 144 9 Stairwell, Harold Ickes Homes 145 10 Landscaping at the Harold Ickes Homes, 1998 172 Figures 3.1 Anti-Drug Initiative Programs 33 4.1 Rockwell Residents' Perceptions of Crime, 1994-1997 70 4.2 Crime in the Monroe Street Building Compared to Other Rockwell Buildings 71 vii viii LIST OF PHOTOS, FIGURES, AND TABLES 5.1 Horner ReSidents' Percel~tions of Crime. 1994-1997 122 6.1 Ickes Residents' Perceptions of Crime, 1994-1997 164 Tables A.1 Scale Characteristics 194 A.2 Residents Reporting "Big Problem" with Any Scale Items 198 Foreword Although the title of this book indicates that it's about fighting crime, in reality the book is about much more. This book represents the cul- mination of a remarkable project, in which the authors talked with and surveyed residents and observed life in three Chicago housing projects over a period of four years. The results provide a portrait of life in some of the worst neighborhoods in the United States; they give a feel for what life is like when lived amid bullets, graffiti, and broken plumbing. The stories are outrageous; they evoke deep anger that such conditions exist and even deeper despair as repeated efforts to improve these projects prove inadequate. The stories depict an environment in which no one should live, but where some of America's poorest citizens have become mired and from which there is no easy escape. The book sends a humbling message to policymakers and prognos- ticators who claim to know the right way to "solve poverty." Here is the story of how policies undertaken with largely good intentionsmurban renewal of slum housing and the provision of modern high-rises for poor families---can end up failing miserably. The public housing projects de- scribed here have become synonyms for lost lives. They display the re- sult of a series of disastrous policy decisions, from high-rise construction, to the racial politics that determined their siting, to the decades of poor management and underfunding that led to today's crumbling and crime- ridden projects. The efforts to improve the maintenance and the safety of these buildings fail again and again, as the stories here indicate. But these efforts are typically short-term, poorly funded, and often ill-suited ix x FOREWORD to the nature of ~he problem they~are facing.No onebel£eves that there are easy ways to "fix" America's high-rise public housing projects. But this book is a testimony to how ill-designed efforts can often make things worse. This is also a book about the complexity of the lives that women live in these projects. The book does not flinch from recognizing that at least some of the blame for this environment must fall to its residents. The women and their children are victims of the violence around them, but they are also closely connected to its perpetrators. The racial segre- gation and social isolation of these projects' residents creates a bind from which too few can escape: Suspicious of the outside world of seemingly inaccessible (if not actively hostile) authority, people cling to the com- munity they know, however inadequate and dangerous it may be. Finally, as the title promises, this is also a book about crime and crime fighting. More specifically, this book chronicles a series of efforts to control crime in these public housing projects and describes why these efforts ultimately failed. The welfare reform discussion of the past decade has focused heavily on the need to help single mothers move into employment and toward greater economic self-sufficiency. We should rightfully celebrate the progress we have made toward that goal for many public assistance recipients. But this book indicates the complexity that such programs face among at least that portion of the population living in these areas of intense poverty and crime. Finding and holding a stable job for these women requires much more than job training. It requires organizing a stable work life in the midst of a chaotic and dangerous environment, a challenge that would tax persons with far greater skills and support. This book underscores the necessity to think in much more complex terms about how welfare-to-work programs should operate in highly disadvan- taged communities. As the story this book records ends in the late 1990s, a number of these high-rise projects are undergoing demolition and renovation. Low- rise and scattered-site housing units are replacing the crumbling tow- ers. Whether this policy change alleviates any of the multiple problems faced by these neighborhoods and their inhabitants remains to be seen. Unfortunately, the evidence in this book leaves one skeptical. Rebecca M. Blank Dean of the School of Public Policy, University of Michigan and former member of the President's Council of Economic Advisors September 1999 Acknowledgments When Victoria Gwiasda, Lynn Olson, and I first conceived of this project in 1992, we never imagined it would grow from a small evaluation of the Chicago Housing Authority's (CHA) Drug Elimination program into a multiyear study that would eventually result in us writing this book. Audrey Chambers of Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Re- search had passed us the RFP and thought it would fit our interests in crime in public housing. As the project grew, Dennis and Larry joined the team, and many others made important contributions to our work; without their help, this project could not have been completed. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the U.S. Department of Hous- ing and Urban Development (HUD), and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation provided financial support for this research. The first phase of the project was funded under NIJ grants number 93-IJ-CX- and ~X-o0!l. In 1995, HUD provided funding to add two addi- tional waves of surveys under contract number DU100C000018374, Task Order 6. Finally, support for the follow-up assessment of the Henry Homer Homes was funded under HUD contract number DU100C000018374, Task Order 8, and by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. We wish to thank our Project Officers, Rosemary Murphy of NIJ, Robert Dalzell and Harold Holzman of HUD, and Susan Lloyd of the MacArthur Foundation for their enthusiastic support. Of course, the conclusions reported here are those of the authors and may not neces- sarily reflect the opinions of these agencies. We wish to extend a special thanks to the many current and former w xi xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS CHA staff who provided information and assistance over the years, par- ticularly Theresa Lipo, DePriest McCary, and Sharon Elliot. The espe- cially helpful staffs of the CADRE centers in Rockwell Gardens, Henry Homer Homes, and Harold Ickes Homes graciously offered their space to us so we could conduct interviews. Many colleagues made important contributions to this project. Wendell Johnson served as the project's ethnographer, providing us with keen insights into life in CHA housing. Judie Feins, Jean Amendolia, Cristopher Price, and Satyendra Patrabansh of Abt Associates all made substantive contributions to the data collection and analysis; Jean took most of the photographs that illustrate this volume and created an enor- mous database of Chicago Tribune coverage of the CHA that greatly en- hanced this research.