History of Public Housing in
Chicago
By: Ray Hess
In The Beginning
• The initial goal of public housing:
Provide decent housing for poor and low
income households.
• Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) founded
in 1937.
• Responsible for all public housing in
Chicago.
First Public Housing Projects
• Made possible by the Public Works
Administration & then the federal Housing
Act of 1937
• Prior to World War II, there were four
projects.
Projects Opened in 1938
• Jane Addams Houses
– Near West Side
– Comprised of 32 buildings
– 1,027 families
Projects Opened in 1938
• Julia C. Lathrop Homes
– North Side
– 925 Families
• Trumbull Park Homes
– Far South Side
– 426 Families
The Other Project
• Ida B. Wells Homes
– Built for black families
– Far larger than other projects
– Housed 1,662 families
– Met with much opposition
Racial Segregation
• The Neighborhood Composition Rule
• Managers were selective in choosing
tenants from applicants
• Had to be one employed breadwinner in
the family
• Tenants had to behave according to
prescribed rules
World War II
• CHA was redirected to create housing for
workers in the war industry
• Altgeld Gardens
– Built in Riverdale
– 1,500 units
– Black War Workers
Post World War II
• CHA provides several thousand units of
temporary housing for Veterans
• Neighborhood composition rule was
abandoned
– Short-lived policy of racial integration was
introduced
– A series of violent white/black confrontations
resulted
Housing Act of 1949
• Provided substantial funding for public
housing
• CHA was ready with a map of proposed
sites
• City council rejected this map altogether
1950’s & 1960’s
• High-rise projects took one basic form
• Larger than earlier developments
• Averaging about 1,027 apartments
• Most were built in superblocks
• Many projects reached 15-19 stories in
height
• In style, they were modern, but plain
1950’s & 1960’s
• Cabrini-Green
– Began with 586 units
in 1942
– Extension was built in
1958
– William Green homes
built on adjacent site
in 1962
The State Street Corridor
• Narrow zone of
•
•
public housing
More than 4 miles
long
The Corridor
included:
– Stateway Gardens
(1958)
– Robert Taylor Homes
(1962)
CHA Building Stats
• By 1968, CHA built
•
168 high rise
buildings
Approximately 19,700
apartments for
families
Gautreaux v. CHA
• 1966 - Tenants sue CHA
• Agency was continuing racial segregation
by building projects in the ghetto
• Federal judge banned CHA from building
additional family housing in black
residential areas
• Agency was ordered to build housing
elsewhere in the city
CHA after Gautreaux
• Almost all housing built by CHA was for
elderly tenants
• Housing that could be built in white
sections of the city
• Between 1959 & 1976, 46 developments,
totaling 9,607, units were built.
1990’s
• HUD takes control of the CHA
– Mismanagement and poor performance were two
main reasons
• HUD introduces radical change of policy
• Between ’96 & ’97, several high rise buildings
•
•
were demolished
CHA eventually gained control of the federal
government
CHA undertook continued demolition and
redevelopment plans
Cabrini-Green Today
Cabrini-Green Today
Cabrini-Green Today