If you live in public housing, you’re twice as likely to be shot as if you live in another poor community.
This is reality for hundreds of families living in Chicago’s high-rise developments, a reality that researchers Susan Popkins, Lynn Olson and Victoria Gwiasda brought to Northwestern in a lecture sponsored by the Institute for Policy Research Monday.
The three researchers, all NU alumnae, recently finished a book called “The Hidden War: Crime and the Tragedy of Public Housing in Chicago,” which details the daily lives of residents in three of Chicago’s poorest high rises — Rockwell Gardens, Henry Horner Homes and Harold Ickes Homes — as well as the Chicago Housing Authority’s various attempts and failures to improve conditions.
According to the researchers, Chicago’s public housing developments are isolated from surrounding areas and basically constitute their own world — one of drugs, gang violence and worsening living conditions.
Vince Lane, former executive director of CHA, called Rockwell Gardens “the worst, most dangerous place in the country.”
Olson agreed, characterizing life in public housing as “equivalent to growing up in a war zone.”
In addition to the buildings’ physical condition, including bullet-riddled hallways without lights, broken elevators, rats and cockroaches, families living there must contend with the presence of gangs, who conduct drug operations, recruit children and frequently provoke dangerous street wars, the researchers said.
At Henry Horner, 40 percent of residents had bullets shot into their homes in the past year.
“Gunfire is just common,” Gwiasda said. “People learn to live around it.”
Popkins said the CHA has tried many different programs in its attempts to improve public housing, but they have failed because of ineffective law enforcement, the inability of residents to band together and mismanagement by a succession of directors.
“When (the residents) talk about improvement, it’s not what we would call a good situation,” Popkins said. “It’s ‘there was no shooting today.'”
Emphasis has switched from security within public housing to the elimination of many crime-ridden neighborhoods. The CHA plans to demolish 25,000 housing units in the next five years.
“It’s definitely going to lead to better neighborhoods and better housing,” Popkins said.
But the initial consequences for residents are dire, she added.
The near-abandonment of the housing structures by the CHA has frightened away many residents and the vacancy rate has soared. For those who remain, the future is unclear.
One woman living in the Harold Ickes Homes, who has tried to improve conditions, said in the book that she worries about her own future and the future of public housing.
“You tell me why is it we can’t get nothing done, we can’t get hallways cleaned, can’t get the lights on, everybody living in fear … You’re on your own, you know. That’s the purpose of letting us suffer. ‘Well if we let them suffer enough, we don’t have to make them move. They all will move on their own.’ And you know what? They’re just about right.”
