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Housing Tue Jun 08 2010
CHA Rescinds 30-Day Evacuation Notices, Merely Nudges Tenants Out the Door
Cabrini-Green housing project residents won't be left out on the streets just yet. The Chicago Housing Authority just announced its retraction of a 30-day eviction notice originally posted to residents of some of the last remaining Cabrini-Green buildings in May. The evictions, which were originally deemed "emergency evictions" because of the high crime rate and low residency in the building, were nullified in response to pressure from District Court Judge William Hibbler, reports True/Slant's Megan Cottrell.
The eviction would have left residents like Dirreatha Smith, a mother of four with too much income to qualify for new housing projects but too little to find an apartment in an equally good neighborhood, in housing limbo in just four days.
But the CHA's emergency eviction notices were issued in bad faith. Initially, the CHA had issued mandatory 180-day eviction notices to the residents of the building, but upon pressure from the community, it allowed for residents to move voluntarily. As a natural response to the CHA's request for voluntary relocations, the population in the building began to dwindle to, currently, only 30 families. The diminished residency in the building allowed for the CHA to issue those emergency evictions, and some believe the entire process was planned from the start.
Regardless of the motivation behind the CHA's initial evictions, they are now allowing residents to live in the building without a set end, while merely suggesting they move--though the organization has warned its tenants that the building is likely to close in the near future.
