Homelessness in Chicago

Although there is no way to draw a definitive correlation between the destruction of public housing and the increasing rate of homelessness, the trend is suspicious. According to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, family homelessness in the city has increased by 18 percent in just the last year. Additionally, in the last six months of 2008, 71 percent of homeless shelters reported serving more people, some as many as 10 percent or more.29 Because there has been no official process for transitioning individuals from public housing into replacement homes and tracking their resettlement, many former public housing residents have fallen through the cracks.

Homelessness in Chicago has been exacerbated by the city's refusal to provide funding to its own 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, which began seven years ago. This compelled advocates for the homeless to turn to the state of Illinois for funding. But with recent state cutbacks-including a 12 percent cut to homeless youth services and an 80 percent cut to homeless prevention services-the scarce resources that were supporting the city's homeless population were sliced. Now many shelters are burdened not only with providing care for those who are currently in their shelters, but also attempting to provide assistance to those who they cannot place into housing. "The shelter providers can't find anywhere to put people," said Dworkin. Many of those who were once homeless in Chicago are now being moved out of the city to places where resources do exist, like Danville, IL, Iowa, Indiana, or Wisconsin.

While the city neglects its 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, it is moving ahead with its 10 Year Plan for [Economic] TransformationA recent city plan regarding federal stimulus money called for a portion of it to be used to demolish 568 units in the Harold Ickes Homes even though new housing units-including the market rate units that were supposed to support the construction and development of additional affordable and public housing stock-have yet to come into existence.30 In late July 2009, the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Affairs approved the demolition of three Ickes Buildings, despite the fact that 79 families continue to live there. The demolition is set to cost $3.1 million.

Families and individuals still within the city have increasingly turned to churches and family members to find aid; some families are also being compelled to open up their homes to boarders in order to receive monetary assistance.31 The Latino population has been especially hard hit and seen the most dramatic need for help outside of the current system. As a result of fear surrounding their legal status, however, it is difficult to ascertain a direct or accurate count of those who are homeless or transitioning between housing situations.

If the city is neglecting to pay attention to the homeless, it is paying increasing attention to those seeking to own their own home. In fall of 2008, the City of Chicago announced plans to assist first-time homebuyers with the introduction of the Find Your Place in Chicago Program New homebuyers are offered cash incentives and income tax credits to purchase homes from private banks seized in areas of the city where the CHA Plan for Transformation was in effect. On Sept. 28-three weeks after the city announced the Find Your Place Program-the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development reported that it had allocated $55,238,017 to the City of Chicago as part of the 2008 Housing and Economic Recovery Act A provision of the law known as the Neighborhood Stabilization Program enables the city to use this money to purchase "vacant and foreclosed" homes and rehabilitate and resell them as part of the city-sponsored campaigns. The MacArthur Foundation has also committed $50 million to help finance this program in conjunction with the Local Initiative Support Corporation, Inc., another sponsor of the New Communities Program One of the LISC's affiliates is the National Equity Fund. The NEF was one of the numerous investor syndicates that were involved in the original Plan for Transformation financing plans.

The city contracted Mercy Housing, Inc.- the same organization that took over the city's Single Room Occupancy (SRO) providers - to serve as program manager for these dealings. Mercy Housing, Inc. was also slated to manage the CHA Plan for Transformation. Since Mercy Housing, Inc. has been enlisted in the proceeding, CHA has undergone several changes that have disadvantaged CHA residents. Some of the most notable changes that were implemented starting in the spring of 2008 include: -Implementing work requirements for residents of public housing, including parents of children under 6 years old, which is in violation of Illinois' Wrongs to Children Act; the CHA stipulation only exempts parents with children under 1-year-old.32 -Abolishing the Tenant's Councils that served as the community voice of the residents in addressing grievances with CHA, and replacing them with agency ombudsmen.33