Chicago's Cabrini-Green public housing project to be reborn

CHICAGO (Reuters) -- Chicago's Cabrini-Green public housing project, long viewed as a gang-ridden pocket of poverty and mayhem, will be remade under an agreement signed Tuesday, housing officials said.

As part of a 10-year plan to downsize and transform the city's moribund public housing projects for its 130,000 residents with $1.5 billion in federal funds, the Chicago Housing Authority reached agreement with tenants groups to transform the decades-old Cabrini-Green complex.

"This historic opportunity allows us to not only rebuild, but to chart a new future for an entire Chicago community," said Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) Chairman Terry Peterson.

Within the next two months, the CHA will tear down three vacant, boarded-up high-rises where residents pictured behind caged walkways came to represent the city's -- and the country's -- often disastrous effort to house the urban poor.

The CHA, under the management of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, plans to whittle down the number of people living in public housing and create communities with a range of incomes.

The policy angered many public housing residents, who felt the city was engaged in a land grab that would leave them out in the cold.

It was Daley's father, long-time mayor Richard J. Daley, who was accused of segregating poor blacks in the monolithic high-rises that became a symbol of urban blight.

Construction has already begun on what the CHA officials said will be a balanced, mixed-income Cabrini-Green community, with fewer poor residents than before. The rest will receive housing vouchers to move into private apartments elsewhere.

Half the development will have homes costing $300,000 or more, 30 percent will be public housing units for the poor, and 20 percent homes will be mid-priced at around $150,000 each.

"At the end of the day, we're going to have enough housing for 25,000 lease-compliant residents. These are the people on the books in October, 1999, when we reached agreement with the federal government" to advance $1.5 billion in federal funding to finance the plan, CHA spokesman Francisco Arcuate said.

When construction first began on Cabrini-Green in the early 1940s, it was designed for as temporary housing for poor residents. But as the years passed, the poorly maintained buildings, urban blight, and mismanagement created havens for drug-dealing gangs who used the high-rises as sniper nests.

Several older residents, including jazz artist Ramsey Lewis, have recalled fond memories of what was once a friendly, mixed-race community. Curtis Mayfield, the late R&B music star, was another of the famous names to grow up in Cabrini-Green.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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