Recently workers mistakenly knocked down an old shed that was to be ceremoniously demolished as part of a ground breaking for townhouses being developed for the Chicago Housing Authority.
Not to worry. CHA officials ordered a new brick wall built so VIPs would have something to whack with sledgehammers while TV news cameras recorded the event.
Depending on one’s point of view, building that wall was either a brilliant bit of press agentry or just another waste of money by an agency that has elevated the waste of money to an art form.
More likely it was a bit of both, which illustrates why it is so hard to gauge what’s going on inside the big agency that houses 86,000 of Chicago’s poorest citizens.
On one hand there is the stunning vision of Vince Lane, the authority’s chairman, who wants to tear down the worst of the CHA’s inhumane high rises and replace them with mixed-income townhouses of the kind begun on Clybourn Avenue north of Cabrini-Green. The new housing would be privately developed and managed for the CHA, a trend that would eventually allow the agency to pare its 4,500-member staff of bureaucrats and clock-watchers to an efficient cadre of 300 contract administrators.
At least that’s the vision.
There is also the reality of John Lauer, investment manager for the authority’s employee pension fund, who allegedly has bilked that fund of $17.2 million, some of which may have helped him buy a million-dollar mansion in Lake Forest. Recently it was learned that Lauer also may have pocketed commissions on the purchase of CHA accident insurance.
The widening federal probe of the CHA’s front office continues, but even more worrisome is the steady deterioration of the agency’s housing stock. Hardly a day goes by without a horror story involving a fatal fire, elevator accident or shooting. Despite the expenditure last year of $68 million just for security and even more for modernization and repair, despairing families continue to walk away from buildings which, at last count, contained 7,000 empty apartments.
Can the CHA ever transcend its reality to become Vince Lane’s shining vision?
Perhaps, but only if it receives adequate financial support from the federal government and, more important, moves quickly to put its own house in order.
Chairman Lane has worked hard to convince Congress and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to begin funding replacement of the high rises. Much rides on the success of the pilot project, called Orchard Park Townhomes, on Clybourn Avenue.
Internally, Lane has recruited Graham Grady, one of the most capable department heads in Mayor Richard Daley’s Cabinet, to take over as the CHA’s chief operating officer.
Lane always had the vision. In Graham Grady he may now have an operating executive capable of dealing with the reality.
The CHA’s future rides on whether they can close the gap between the two.
