CHA Residents and the Plan for Transformation

Abstract

This series of policy briefs presents findings from more than a decade of research on the people who lived in Chicago Housing Authority properties when the agency launched its Plan for Transformation in October 1999. The ongoing, multiyear effort sought to improve resident well-being by renovating or demolishing decaying public housing properties and replacing them with new, mixed-income developments.

Improving the Lives of Public Housing's Most Vulnerable Families

“…Our ten-year study of CHA families shows that most residents are better off overall as a result of the Plan for Transformation; they live in higher-quality housing in neighborhoods that are generally safer and offer a better quality of life for them and their children (Popkin et al 2013;Buron, Hayes, and Hailey 2013). However, incorporating intensive supportive services for the most vulnerable public housing residents produces additional gains.…”

“It Was Love in All the Buildings They Tore Down”: How Caregiving Grandmothers Create and Experience a Sense of Community in Chicago Public Housing

“…high rises, gangs, and garbage" (Bennett 2000, p. 272); and (c) in "spectacular decline" (Goetz 2011, p. 270) and characterized by "horrific living conditions" (August 2014(August , p. 1319. Popkin et al (2013) note that CHA families "endured considerable upheaval as the agency redeveloped its housing" (p. 2), a circumstance that has been examined across a number of populations, programs, locations, and outcomes (see Goetz 2013; Chaskin and Joseph 2015 for reviews). Research examining the outcomes of relocated CHA families has revealed a compelling contradiction: On the one hand, many residents are now living in better housing in safer, less impoverished (but not low-poverty) neighborhoods (Buron and Hayes 2013).…”

Poor Families Need Real Choices, Not Another Policy Debate: Response to David Imbroscio’s “Urban Policy as Meritocracy: A Critique”

“…Through listening to the voices of the people who are the intended beneficiaries of both mobility and community development strategies, I have heard over and over how much feeling safer matters to them. Although there are certainly real social and psychic costs when families have to relocate because of public housing demolition, there is no question that most report that the change has meant a substantially better quality of life for themselves and their children (Briggs et al., ; Popkin, ; Popkin, Levy, & Buron, ; Popkin et al., ; Theodos, Popkin, Parilla, & Getsinger, ). Imbroscio's critique—and proposed solution—misses the key point that poor families, like any others, want real choices .…”

“…Bad as these places were, they were home for a very long time. Further, some relocated families experience material hardship, that is, problems affording rent and utilities, after they move, and the most vulnerable families need intensive services and supports in order to make successful transitions (Popkin, ; Popkin et al., ; Popkin et al., ; Popkin & McDaniel, ).…”