Rumor has it that Melquiades “Mel” Martinez, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, will be visiting Chicago to inspect the massive overhaul of public housing getting underway here.
That makes sense because virtually all the money for the Chicago Housing Authority’s 10-year Plan for Transformation–some $1.6 billion in all–will be coming from HUD.
At least that’s the plan. There is, of course, no ironclad guarantee that Martinez will honor every last commitment made by his predecessor, former HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo. Nor is it written in stone that Congress, which holds the purse strings, will approve funds for all the construction grants and rent vouchers that will be needed over the coming decade.
There are compelling reasons, however, for both Congress and the Bush administration to back this undertaking to the hilt.
For one thing, Chicago finally has a management team in place that’s capable of delivering. Mayor Richard M. Daley has installed some of his most experienced advisors on the CHA’s board and management team, while personally helping to negotiate not just the aforementioned agreements with HUD, but locally with understandably suspicious tenant and neighborhood groups.
Even so, skeptics have raised questions about the CHA’s plan. No doubt the new housing secretary has some of his own.
Will, for instance, the anticipated annual federal commitment of $139 million be enough to demolish 18,000 units and fund 25,000 rehabbed or new units? What about the permanent loss of more than 13,000 uninhabitable public housing units? Will all displaced residents who move into the private market get the federal rent vouchers they’ll need? Republicans, even conservative ones, will find much to like in what’s happening at CHA.
Transformation is built on a commitment to mixed-income communities, self-sufficiency, zero tolerance of criminal behavior and privatized services. Not a bad fit with the new administration’s core themes. Indeed, the plan borrows heavily from ideas first floated by Republican Congressman Rick Lazio of New York, back before his Senate run, when he chaired the House committee that oversees public housing.
In the year-and-a-half since the agency reverted from federal oversight to local control its bureaucracy has shrunk dramatically, from 3,000 employees to about 500 today. Moreover, every public housing development is now run by a professional property management firm under contract with CHA. The Chicago Police Department now patrols CHA developments, just like any other neighborhood. That’s one reason the authority’s $47 million deficit has been eliminated.
This would be a good time for the Bush administration to make a public gesture of support, given what’s planned by CHA in the months ahead. Transformation’s “Year 2” schedule calls for demolishing 2,811 units, rehabbing 500 senior apartments and constructing or rehabbing 500 low-rise family units. When Martinez makes his inevitable pilgrimage to Chicago, CHA managers and tenant leaders should show him the good and the bad. There’s no shortage of the latter. No other American city has experienced the public housing failure that we have. Rebuilding and reconnecting that public housing with the fabric of the rest of the city is a task no responsible leader, in Washington or Chicago, can morally evade.
Come see this historic work, Mr. Secretary. Seeing is believing . . . and Chicago needs to know you believe.
