High Rise Stories

Voices from Chicago Public Housing

Audrey Petty

• Publisher: Haymarket Books
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781642595475
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: City Planning & Urban Development
• Index: Social Sciences

In the gripping first-person accounts of High Rise Stories, former residents of Chicago's iconic public housing projects describe life in the now-demolished high-rises. These stories of community, displacement, and poverty in the wake of gentrification give voice to those who have long been ignored, but whose hopes and struggles exist firmly at the heart of our national identity.

Download the corresponding lesson plans on the Voice of Witness website.

APPENDICES

I. TIMELINE OF HOUSING AND CIVIL RIGHTS IN CHICAGO

1865—Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolishes slavery in the United States.

1865—The Illinois Negro Code, which made it a misdemeanor for African-Americans to move to Illinois, is repealed.

1868—Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law to all citizens.

1874—Illinois state law forbids segregation in education.

1885–1911—A series of statutes forbids public accommodation segregation in Illinois. However, African-American Chicagoans continue to face discrimination.

1890–1908—Ten of eleven southern states rewrite their constitution to restrict African-American voting rights.

1910—The start of the Great Migration. Due to the collapse of the cotton economy, the oppressive Jim Crow system in the South, and the North’s need for labor, especially during the World Wars, approximately seven million African-Americans migrate from the South to the urban North. More than 500,000 of these migrants move to Chicago.

1914–1918—World War I. As the U.S. enters World War I in 1916, cities in the North and Midwest face labor shortages due to the enlisting of 5 million men and the U.S. government’s decision to halt immigration from Europe. Many African-Americans are enticed to leave the South by the opportunity to work in Northern cities.

1917—The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Buchanan v. Warley against publically enacted racial zoning ordinances. The decision creates a rise in privately established racially restrictive covenants to hinder African-Americans from settling in white neighborhoods.

1919—Chicago Riot of 1919. Ethnic tension runs high due to economic competition amongst different immigrant groups after World War I. After African-American youth Eugene Williams is struck with a stone by white men and drowns at a segregated beach, a riot breaks out that results in the deaths of dozens and the injuring of hundreds of Chicagoans, most of them African-Americans.

1927—The Chicago Real Estate Board (CREB) drafts a standard restrictive housing covenant to ban African-Americans from renting or purchasing housing. The first clause of the covenant is an agreement that “no part of said premises shall in any manner be used or occupied directly or indirectly by any negro or negroes, provided that this restriction shall not prevent the occupation, during the period of their employment, of janitors’ or chauffeurs’ quarters in the basement or in a barn or garage in the rear, or of servants’ quarters by negro janitors, chauffeurs or house servants, respectively, actually employed as such for service in and about the premises by the rightful owner or occupant of said premises.” Approximately 85 percent of Chicago property falls under covenant restrictions, limiting African-Americans to a handful of neighborhoods.

1929—The Great Depression begins with the stock market crash of October 29. The consequences of massive unemployment and homelessness spur Federal and municipal agencies to innovate new forms of public housing and other forms of economic assistance.

1933—Illinois state statute bans employment discrimination on account of race in work for public buildings and public works.

1934—Intellectual and housing activist Catherine Bauer publishes Modern Housing, a call to replace urban slums with planned housing modeled after European urban reconstruction following World War I. Bauer’s writing shapes plans for public housing for decades.

—Congress passes the National Housing Act. In response to widespread foreclosures and evictions at the height of the Great Depression, the National Housing Act launches the Federal Housing Administration and puts programs in place to make housing more affordable.

1937—Congress passes the Housing Act of 1937, also known as the Wagner-Steagall Act. The law grants funds to municipal housing agencies to provide housing assistance to low-income citizens.

—The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) is founded to provide housing for low-income households. The CHA’s first director is Elizabeth Wood, a visionary housing advocate and friend of Catherine Bauer.

1938—The first three CHA public housing developments—Jane Addams Houses, Julia C. Lathrop Homes, and Trumbull Park Homes—are constructed.

1939–1945—World War II. The expansion of industry during the war induces many Southern African-Americans to move to Chicago. During the war, the CHA is redirected to build housing for workers in the war industry and returning veterans. This includes a housing development built for African-American war workers—Altgeld Gardens.

1940—The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Hansberry v. Lee that a housing covenant barring Carl Hansberry and his family from living in the Washington Park neighborhood of Chicago is illegal. Hansberry’s daughter Lorraine would later draw from the experience in penning her play A Raisin in the Sun.

1941—Construction is completed on the Ida B. Wells Homes, the first CHA public housing development for African-Americans. It houses 1,662 families. The complex is named after the iconic journalist and activist who helped form the NAACP.

1942–1962—Beginning with the Frances Cabrini row houses and extending through the William Green high rises, the Cabrini-Green housing development is constructed over a twenty-year period.

1946—Airport Homes riot. The Airport Homes are a public housing development designed as transitional housing for returning veterans. White veteran residents riot when African-American vets and their families try to move into the housing development.

—Future Mayor Richard J. Daley runs for Cook County Sheriff as a progressive, anti-covenant reformer.

1947—Fernwood Park Homes Riot. White veterans in transitional housing again riot when African-American war veterans and their families try to move into the housing development.

1948—In Shelley v. Kraemer, the United States Supreme Court rules that all racially restrictive housing covenants are unconstitutional.

1949—U.S. Congress passes the Housing Act of 1949, providing additional funding for public housing. The CHA proposes housing developments to be built all over the city, but white alderman in the city council reject plans for public housing in their wards. For decades, CHA policy is to build housing developments only in mostly African-American residential areas or adjacent to existing public housing developments.

1949–1950—Dearborn Homes constructed. It is the first CHA building to have elevators.

1951—The Chicago City Council approves the Duffy-Lancaster Compromise to build eight public housing sites in overpopulated African-American neighborhoods, and an additional seven public housing sites on vacant land outside those neighborhoods.

—Cicero Race Riot. A mob of thousands of white residents of the Cicero neighborhood attack an apartment building that houses Harvey E. Clark, Jr., an African-American war veteran, and his family.

—Ogden Courts and Loomis Courts constructed.

1953–1954—Trumbull Park Homes Riots. The first African-American family to move into Trumbull Park is attacked by a mob. For weeks after, crowds throw stones at the family’s apartment. More African-American families moving into the housing development is followed by more violence.

1954—In Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court disallows state sponsored school segregation.

—The CHA board strips Elizabeth Wood of her powers after she battles the Chicago City Council over her plans to integrate public housing. She later resigns.

1954–1955—Harold Ickes Homes constructed.

1955—Richard J. Daley becomes mayor of Chicago.

—Grace Abbott Homes constructed.

1955–1958—Stateway Gardens constructed.

1956–1958—U.S. Commission on Civil Rights reports 256 cases of racial violence in this period, including a race riot in Calumet Park in July 1957. A majority of incidents take place in Park Manor and Englewood, while more than a dozen incidents occur near Trumbull Park.

1957–1969—Henry Horner homes constructed.

1961—Rockwell Gardens and Robert Brooks Extension constructed.

1962—The CHA completes construction on Robert Taylor Homes, a 4,321-unit public housing development on the South Side at the edge of Bronzeville, Chicago’s historic African-American neighborhood. At the time, Robert Taylor is the world’s largest public housing development.

1963–1966—Raymond Hilliard Homes constructed, containing two towers for elderly housing and two towers for low-income family housing. The complex includes lawns, playgrounds, and an open-air theater.

1964—Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, ending legalized segregation of schools, workplaces, and public facilities.

1965—Congress passes the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act, establishing the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). A cornerstone of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program, HUD is designed to reform and administer federal housing and urban development programs. The distribution of Section 8 housing vouchers is one of HUD’s earliest functions.

1965–1967—The Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago Open Housing Movement draws together Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Chicago. Mayor Daley and King have a summit meeting. The CHA promises to build public housing with limited height requirements, and the Mortgage Bankers Association agrees to make mortgages available regardless of race. Daley promises to lobby for more open housing legislation and build housing developments all over the city. After the meeting, Daley declares the agreement an unenforceable “gentleman’s agreement.” King’s aide Ralph Abernathy later writes that Daley is “a fox, too smart for us.”

1966—CHA resident and housing activist Dorothy Gautreaux becomes the lead respondent in a lawsuit against the CHA that claims that Chicago public housing violated the equal protection clause and the recently passed Civil Rights Act. Litigation following the suit would last for three decades and result in landmark public housing reforms.

1968—Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. Violence begins that night in cities across the U.S. In Chicago, riots affect neighborhoods predominately on the West Side, with some violence on the South Side and Near North Side as well. More than eleven people are killed, hundreds injured, two thousand arrested, and entire city blocks are destroyed by arson and looting. In high rises such as Cabrini-Green, snipers begin shooting indiscriminately from upper stories, a practice that continues sporadically for decades. Many business districts and services decimated by the riots never recover.

1969—The Supreme Court rules in Gautreaux et al. v. CHA that Chicago public housing is substandard and in violation of the equal protection clause and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The CHA is barred from building additional high rises and from segregating public housing developments in predominately African-American neighborhoods. The ruling begins the decades-long dismantling of Chicago’s high rises.

1970—Chicago police officers James Severin and Anthony Rizzato are shot and killed while on patrol in the Cabrini-Green housing development by two snipers from a nearby high rise. The incident increases tension between police and high rise residents throughout the city.

1976—The Supreme Court rules in Gautreaux v. Hills that HUD bears some responsibility for the CHA’s discriminatory housing policies. The decision results in the disbursement of thousands of Section 8 vouchers to CHA residents and movement of many high rise residents away from areas of concentrated poverty. Many residents, however, choose to stay in public housing. The ruling leads to similar changes in metropolitan areas across the country.

1981—Mayor Jane Byrne moves into Cabrini-Green to draw attention to the high crime rate. Police presence is increased during her stay and she leaves after just three weeks.

1988—Operation Clean Sweep. CHA guards and Chicago police raid housing developments searching for guns and drugs. The American Civil Liberties Union later files a suit on behalf of residents that allege civil liberties violations related to warantless searches.

1992—Seven-year-old Dantrell Davis is on his way to school when he’s killed by a gang member’s stray gunshot.

1993–2000—In an attempt to de-concentrate poverty, newly appointed HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros takes up an ambitious plan to replace high density public housing throughout the U.S. with mixed-income housing and Section 8 vouchers. The HOPE VI program developed in Congress provides grants to modernize public housing and demolish distressed public housing.

1995—Declaring that “public housing is on trial in Chicago,” Henry Cisneros and HUD begin procedures to take control of the administration of the CHA. Fourteen thousand of nearly 40,000 housing units are condemned, and the city begins to formulate what will soon be called the Plan for Transformation.

1995–2011—Cabrini-Green high rises demolished.

1997–2000—Robert Brooks high rises demolished. Some Robert Brooks row-houses reconstructed and renovated.

2000—The CHA officially launches its Plan for Transformation. By the end of the ten year plan 25,000 units of housing are to be renovated or built new, and the CHA administrative staff is to be reduced significantly. The plan focuses on a shift to lower-density mixed-income communities and housing vouchers to replace the bulk of public housing units. The 25,000 households in good standing with the CHA as of October 1, 1999 are granted “right of return” to their former neighborhoods when reconstruction is complete or offered Housing Choice Vouchers (formerly Section 8 vouchers) instead.

2001–2008—Henry Horner Homes demolished.

2001—Phase I of redevelopment at Henry Horner Homes site is completed. The new community is a mixed-income development known as Villages of Westhaven.

2002–2003—Ida B. Wells Homes demolished.

2003–2006—Rockwell Gardens demolished.

2007—The last of the ABLA high rises, Robert Taylor Homes, and Stateway Gardens demolished.

2009—Some of the Frances Cabrini row houses redeveloped.

—Initial renovations completed on Dearborn Homes.

2009–2010—Harold Ickes Homes demolished.

2010—After ten years, approximately 80 percent of the 25,000 units budgete...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Contents
• FOREWORD: Vital Neighborhoods by Alex Kotlowitz
• INTRODUCTION: On Plans and Transformations by Audrey Petty
• EXECUTIVE EDITOR’S NOTE by mimi lok
• DOLORES WILSON
• DAWN KNIGHT
• DONNELL FURLOW
• YUSUFU MOSLEY
• EDDIE LEMAN
• SABRINA NIXON
• PAULA HAWKINS
• SONOVIA MARIE PETTY
• ASHLEY CORTLAND
• CHANDRA BELL
• TIFFANY TUCKER
• LLOYD “PETER” HAYWOOD
• APPENDICES
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ABOUT THE EDITOR