The Chicago Housing Authority may be handed over to a private management firm because a top federal official said Monday he hadn’t yet found anyone capable of running the authority.
Joseph Shuldiner, the assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who has been in charge of CHA for the past four weeks, said that after interviewing several candidates he has not found an executive director to run the agency. As a result, he said he is strongly considering allowing management companies to bid on running it, a process that would take at least four months.
“We haven’t made a basic decision that we want an executive director,” Shuldiner said. “Having a private management company may make more sense. The purpose is to change the living environment of the residents. We don’t want to get caught up in the process.”
Shuldiner denied that HUD was having a problem attracting a candidate to take over the scandal-plagued agency known for its mismanagement. Shuldiner and HUD took over the agency four weeks ago, after its former chairman, Vincent Lane, and members of the board tendered their resignations.
At the time, HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros said he expected a new executive director to be named within a month or two. Kevin Marchman, a high-ranking HUD official, has been serving as acting executive director since then. For a time, HUD had its sights set on Claire Freeman, executive director of the Cleveland Housing Authority, although officials have said she has not been formally offered the job.
“There are people out there who want to do it,” Shuldiner said. “I haven’t found somebody I want to do it.
“We can be criticized no matter what we do. So we’re going to do what we think is right.”
In a separate interview, Marchman said the authority had operated as a “favor bank” for employees and certain tenant leaders at the expense of delivering basic services to other residents.
“You do some work with residents and out of it you get a trip, or you get” your apartment taken care of, he said. “CHA cannot be a favor bank . . . hostage to the special interests that often seek to serve themselves and not its residents.”
The problem isn’t limited to certain areas. “It seems like it’s the nature of the place,” said Marchman.
In seeking to change that culture, HUD’s overall goal will be to shift staff and services from the central administration to the developments themselves. It will also mean trimming jobs-a total of 15 percent.
However, Marchman said he wouldn’t reach that figure through a simple hiring freeze, but would add positions in needy areas, such as vacancy reduction and evictions, while cutting from other areas.
“Freezing jobs is the lazy way to make staff reductions,” he said. “It’s heavy lifting to identify those jobs that are unneeded or unwarranted.”
Marchman made it clear why HUD is focusing its efforts here. “The stakes are high and the country is now looking at HUD in Chicago,” he said. “To change public housing in America, you have to change it in Chicago.”
In his meeting at the Tribune, Shuldiner also discussed HUD’s plans to renovate and revitalize CHA housing at Cabrini-Green, Henry Horner Homes and the Lakefront properties along South Lake Shore Drive. Regarding those areas, he said:
– Two high-rises at the Henry Horner Homes Extension would be demolished within two weeks, and others may come down because a survey revealed that only 8.5 percent of Horner residents wanted to return to rehabbed buildings.
– Four high-rises at the Lakefront Properties, just south of the CHA’s mixed-income Lake Parc Place development in the 3900 block of South Lake ParkAvenue, will be demolished and replaced by low-rise housing. Shuldiner did not set a timetable for that effort.
– HUD will press Mayor Richard M. Daley to make available city-owned land outside the borders of Cabrini-Green on the Near North Side for housing that will replace apartments in high-rises that are to be demolished. The new apartments would house a mix of low- and very-low income residents, as well as residents who pay market rate rent. The percentages of each group are being negotiated.
Despite his previous reluctance to commit city-owned land to the Cabrini redevelopment, Shuldiner said he expected Daley to change his mind. Edwin Eisendrath, HUD’s Midwest representative and a former Chicago alderman, said the mayor is simply waiting for HUD to show that it can do the job before committing city land.
“If in fact city sites are necessary, I will go and ask for them,” said Shuldiner. “If he doesn’t give it to us, we will be out yelling it from the rooftops.”
Shuldiner’s suggestion that HUD may not hire a new executive director came as a surprise since Cisneros said finding a permanant leader for the agency was the top priority.
But Shuldiner said he was rethinking the need for an executive director because the CHA is not a classic housing authority as it requires both management and redevelopment skills.
He said a typical executive director may not have the necessary skills to run the CHA, while a private management company could serve as the executive director, the chief financial officer and the chief administrative officer rolled into one.
Turning a local housing authority over to private management would not be unprecedented. When HUD took over the East St. Louis Housing Authority, its day-to-day management was run by a private company. A private company also ran the agency in New Orleans.
Shuldiner also said a new five-member executive committee might not be appointed to the CHA, although the day before the HUD takeover, Cisneros promised elected officials that he and Daley would appoint such a panel to advise Shuldiner.
“Why is that necessary?” Shuldiner asked. “I would have veto power over anything they did, so why have them?”
However, Jeanne Crowley, a HUD spokesperson, later said that despite Shuldiner’s statement, an executive committee would be named within the next two weeks.
