Stringent Screening Criteria May Block ABLA Residents' Return

Proposed screening criteria, released in March by the Chicago Housing Authority, have heightened fears among former residents of the ABLA development that they will not be allowed to return to their community once the historic neighborhood is redeveloped. The CHA’ screening standards would determine if displaced families, who have a contractual right to return, will be readmitted to the ABLA development.

When the CHA launched in 1999 its “Plan for Transformation,” the agency’s ten-year plan to revamp public housing citywide, it promised displaced residents the right to return to the rebuilt housing, to the extent sufficient units were available. This promise is part of a contract CHA negotiated with the Central Advisory Council, a citywide public housing tenant advisory board.  The “right-to-return” provision was required as part of waivers the agency received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and, according to advocates, part of an effort to appease skeptics of the Plan for Transformation.

The relocation rights contract does allow CHA to require that returning families meet screening criteria before they can return. However, initial drafts of these criteria offer a nearly insurmountable standard.

The CHA’s screening proposal for the first phase of the ABLA development would require families to prove their ability to pay rent and utility bills on time. In addition, it would require a review of their credit history, debt obligations, prior rental history, bankruptcies, and criminal background. Prospective tenants must work at least thirty hours a week and demonstrate an ability to provide adequate child care.

Current and former ABLA residents who attended a public hearing on the proposal expressed frustration with the criteria.  Advocates, including those with the Shriver Center, have urged CHA officials to reconsider the ABLA tenant-screening plan, questioning whether such criteria are relevant indicators of which families would be dependable tenants and positive members of the community.

Unlike tenant selection plans previously released, the ABLA plan gives private property managers discretion to weigh mitigating circumstances should tenants fail to meet the requirements.  Property managers would also determine whether families who are working to meet the criteria should be conditionally allowed return, pursuant to the Relocation Rights Contract.

Advocates still fear that private property managers are neither equipped nor induced to apply such discretion in a manner that would allow displaced families the opportunity to return to the new mixed-income communities.  The also place little hope in the formal grievance process, which would be conducted by the City of Chicago’s administrative hearing officers.  Traditionally, private property managers and general administrative hearing officers are not qualified to evaluate compliance with the screening criteria; as a licensed social worker might.  The Shriver Center has suggested that the CHA include a resident on the panel that hears screening related grievances. Such is the case in the grievance policy—authored by the Shriver Center—at the Henry Horner Phase II development.

Advocates have long been concerned about limited number of public housing units scheduled as part of the Plan for Transformation.  Many now worry that even these units may not be available to families who have been displaced by redevelopment.

For more information, contact Raj Nayak, 312.263.3830 ext. 243, or rajnayak@povertylaw.org.