The problem with writing about the Chicago Housing Authority is the danger of considering oneself an expert. I do not have any intention of staking myself out as one of the many Chicago experts who have various solutions for the myriad problems of the CHA.
But I hope my year as a CHA commissioner, combined with my experience 30 years ago in managing Trumbull Park and Rockwell Gardens public housing projects, as well as my experience since then in managing, developing or financing many millions of dollars` worth of low- and moderate-income housing qualify me to have some possibly useful reflections.
Is the CHA manageable?
I would like to say yes, or even maybe. The answer I must give is, I don`t know. These considerations I do know:
First, being a resident of a CHA development is like living in a room that has every wall covered with mirrors. All the residents can see is an endless reflection of themselves in neighbors who suffer from the same economic and social disabilities.
Second, ”female head of household” describes the vast majority of CHA families. Male role models are often gang members. The males with money are often the drug dealers. Enough has been said about schools without my adding more here. Institutional strength is lacking. Commercial enterprises are minimal. Welfare, unemployment and crime are the prevailing experiences.
Third, the high-rise buildings contain 10 or more children per floor. Throughout the CHA there are probably more than 120,000 children of various ages. Supervision of children in middle-class suburban communities is a problem; supervision problems in CHA high-rises obviously are compounded.
I could go on, but let`s return to management.
Traditionally, management means the operation of assets to meet the objectives of an owner or owners. Because of the subsidies it provides, the federal government considers itself, if not an owner, at least a major player. The objective of the government is to spend as little money as possible. The city considers itself the owner. More often than not, the objective of the city administration is to use the available jobs and contracts for political and patronage purposes. Then there is the bureaucracy, most of whose members feel they will survive through many federal and city administrations and all the changes of CHA commissioners and executive directors.
The confusion about who is the owner, who should control, leads to confusion about who are the consumers and how they are served. Every CHA board and every new executive director starts by stating that the CHA is a business and that it should be run like one. Each starts by hiring consultants or obtaining free studies and consultation from local businesses. Each focuses quickly on the mounting vacancy problem. Somehow, how to provide the best and most efficient housing services to the residents is lost.
The Chicago Housing Authority has been studied to an extent that would make researchers in exotic diseases envious. Almost all the studies, including the most recent one by Arthur Anderson, reached the same conclusion: The CHA should be organized to provide the maximum in resources and services for the use of the local housing managers. They are ones on the firing line; they have the immediate responsibility of carrying out policy and directives. They are the only ones who can efficiently provide services to residents. And, most important, the local manager is the only one who can provide the environment and leadership needed to give residents the feeling of being part of a community.
Currently, the CHA executive director deals directly with three regional directors of management, as well as all the special housing directors, the tenant services deputy director, the legal department and the technical services departments. Whatever coordination occurs, occurs at the executive director level. This is neither good organization nor good management.
There should be a deputy director of housing management. Community and tenant services, tenant selection and the regional housing management people should be directly under this deputy`s supervision.
The present failure of organization is best exemplified by the status of the regional directors of management. Each has a separate office located in the area supervised, a separate warehouse, craftsmen attached to the regional office rather than to a local public housing development, and a staff. Although these individuals may be experienced, dedicated and competent, they are being misused. They should be moved back to the central office, the warehouses disbanded and the items in them allocated to the developments or sold, and the craftsmen assigned directly to the local developments.
The function of the regional directors should be one of coordination as well as supervision and communication. Half of each working day should be spent in the central office coordinating technical, purchasing and legal services so that contracts, work in progress and needed vendor items for developments in their area are moved forward with dispatch. The other half of the day should be spent in the development, assisting in, supervising and evaluating its operation.
The failure and misuse of the regional managers in both coordination and supervision is probably best shown by the frustration that caused new CHA Chairman and Executive Director Vince Lane to make the recent blanket statement that housing managers were involved with or ignored gangs and drug dealers.
Lane has correctly identified two of the central problems that cause today`s CHA to differ from the CHA he remembers when he grew to adulthood on the South Side, or from the CHA I remember when I managed Rockwell Gardens:
lack of local management direction and supervision and lack of resident involvement to further community goals. This has undoubtedly led, if not directly to involvement with gangs and drug dealers, at least to an accommodation with them or to their being ignored by the local housing managers.
Another important element to consider in the organization of the CHA is the resident advisory groups, the Central Advisory Council and the Local Advisory Councils. These have existed for well over a decade with little evidencee that they have improved services to tenants or aided residents in developing a sense of community. The councils for the most part have evolved into pressure groups to preserve their own power, prestige and pay. The CHA commissioners must courageously explore whether the half-million dollars the councils receive each year could not be better spent providing additional janitors and craftsmen.
The city and its citizens can no longer afford to ignore the CHA. Apart from humanitarian reasons, the cost to the city in terms of crime, fire protection, health and welfare is large and growing. There are no quick and easy solutions. Some actions to ameliorate the problems can be instituted immediately. Some of those actions, I believe, are outlined above.
But the really important actions will require years of change and a concerned community rather than indifference; a political climate that will consider the welfare of the city rather than votes; and leadership from the businesses, churches, citywide planning institutions and community
organizations that will persevere.
In a nation that quite rightly takes pride in the fact that people of almost all the world`s ethnic groups, races and religious backgrounds live in peace and proudly call themselves Americans, it is incumbent upon us to prevent another generation of children from growing up in black, high-rise ghettos. If we fail, the cost ultimately will be greater than any cost of success.
