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Housing Mon Jul 02 2012
"The CHA is trying to get out of the public housing business"
At least 20% of Chicago's public housing units are empty, according to an investigation by the evergood Chicago Reporter. It's a shocking number given the lack of affordable housing in the city--but should not be surprising. Over the last two decades, public housing has been the subject of a controlled hunt, with "mixed-income" housing, often resulting in gentrification, an important agent of neoliberalization.
Nearly one in five of the CHA's 21,204 units is unoccupied, the bulk for planning purposes, and that puts the agency at odds with written federal rules, The Chicago Reporter found.CHA officials justify keeping a majority of the units "offline" because they've fallen into disrepair and could end up in litigation if they're leased out. The officials maintain that they're eligible to continue collecting millions in operating subsidies even though the units are vacant.
But some housing advocates point out that the disrepair is the result of the CHA's own doing. "The issue is not just vacancies," said Carol Steele, a tenant leader representing residents from the North Side's Frances Cabrini Rowhouses, where the occupancy rate slid to 21 percent this year. "The issue is that the CHA is trying to get out of the public housing business."
