Joseph Shuldiner’s rapport with many Chicago Housing Authority residents may partly explain why he wants to keep leading the agency after the city regains control of it from the federal government.
Not many chief executives preside over a major debacle–in Shuldiner’s case, a massive emergency relocation of hundreds of CHA families whose heat failed during January’s blizzard–to be greeted with applause at the next board meeting.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Mary Baldwin, president of the Rockwell Gardens residents advisory council, told Shuldiner at last month’s CHA executive advisory committee meeting.
“That was there already when you came,” said Baldwin, referring to the poor heating system and building design in the Robert Taylor Homes and Henry Horner Homes, where a total of 885 families were evacuated. ” . . . Congratulations on a job well done.”
Shuldiner grinned from ear to ear. The scene was a far cry from what ensued when Shuldiner took on the job 3 1/2 years ago.
At Shuldiner’s early executive advisory committee meetings, residents routinely yelled at him. They berated him for being no better than the revolving door of executive directors who had come before him.
But despite Shuldiner’s desire to stay, it remains to be seen whether he will follow his predecessors out the door.
Mayor Richard Daley said last week that he has not decided who will head the new city-run CHA. Daley is expected to ride herd on the housing agency in much the same way he pushed reforms in other troubled city bureaucracies, namely the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Park District.
Rumors are rife about who will get the job, but Daley discounted the notion that the post would go to his former campaign manager, Avis LaVelle. “I haven’t talked to anyone (about the job),” Daley said at a news conference last week.
He also was noncommittal about Shuldiner’s prospects. “There’s a lot of good people over there,” Daley said, referring to the CHA.
Shuldiner, however, is gung-ho.
“I’m really excited about the transition to the city–the way the mayor has taken it on,” Shuldiner said. “It’s going to be as with the schools, almost a personal responsibility on the part of the mayor. It would indicate that we are going to have a lot of priority in being able to finish the things we need to get done.
“I’d really like to stay a little longer and just get it started,” he said, as he tapped on a new Art Deco-style light fixture during an inspection of a rehabbed apartment in the Robert Taylor Homes complex.
Shuldiner arrived in Chicago from Washington, D.C., where he was head of public and Indian housing for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Shuldiner got the CHA job after HUD decided federal intervention was required to fix the authority, which had been on its troubled list for two decades.
But last August, HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo said the CHA had improved enough under Shuldiner to revert to city control. The takeover will be final this year.
Working with residents, Shuldiner has spearheaded the CHA’s long-term restructuring plan, which calls for the demolition of more than 10,000 units and the relocation of thousands of families.
Recently, the CHA suffered a setback when HUD officials refused to allow the agency 15 years to execute the plan, saying federal law required completion within 10 years. HUD still has not formally approved the plan.
The demolition includes 24 buildings at the Robert Taylor Homes. Three were evacuated and closed permanently during the storm.
This month, Shuldiner announced that 10 poorly maintained buildings in the Robert Taylor Homes–and more than 1,100 families–would be moved before October and the onset of winter.
Most residents likely will request scattered-site vouchers, while the remainder will be temporarily housed in rehabbed buildings, complete with new appliances. The buildings are to be encircled by an eight-foot-high black wrought-iron fence containing a playground.
Shuldiner, 54, has other reasons he’d like to stay on the job. His wife and two children, with whom he lives in a Hyde Park high-rise, want to end the itinerant lifestyle resulting from Shuldiner taking jobs all over the country, including their native New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and now Chicago.
“I came here for the challenge,” Shuldiner said. “I came here because this is what I do. I came here because we were asking residents to make a commitment. I felt I had to show a commitment. And I came here because I felt from the beginning the mayor wanted to get this stuff done and he has been extremely supportive.
As Shuldiner toured the Robert Taylor Homes, he routinely was greeted with a “hi” and a “how ya doing?” from residents.
“In many respects, it’s a thankless job,” Shuldiner said. “It’s very hard. But on the other hand, somebody has to do it. And I do think that it would be better that it be done by somebody such as myself, who has experience, who has the rapport with the residents and who can help get it done well.”
