CHA Plan for ABLA Homes Violates Federal Fair Housing Law and Perpetuates Racial Segregation

The Chicago Housing Authority’s (CHA) redevelopment plan for the ABLA public housing development would increase racial segregation and create a wealthy, mostly white enclave on Chicago’s Near West Side, according to a federal class action suit filed in May. Former and current ABLA residents seek to revise the plan to include a greater number of homes designated as public housing or affordable. They also want the CHA to distribute fully these homes among the market-rate ones. The current plan clusters public housing south of Roosevelt Road and away from the proposed market-rate homes north of the road.

Co-counsel for the plaintiffs are the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, LLP.

“Under the CHA’s proposal, less than 11 percent of the homes planned for this community will be affordable to current and former ABLA families,” says Katherine Walz, an attorney with the Shriver Center. “Our alternative is a plan that adheres to federal law by including more public housing that is not placed south of Roosevelt Road—and that does not separate poor African American families from rich white ones.”

Most of the ABLA homes, a cluster of public housing developments (Adams, Brooks, Loomis, and Abbott) surrounded by Little Italy, University Village and the Illinois Medical district, have been demolished to make way for development of a mixed-income community. What remains today is a series of vacant city blocks. Construction at the site is to begin this spring.

Ferrell Freeman, an officer of an ABLA resident group and a named plaintiff in the suit, lived for twenty-five years at 1328 W. Taylor.  She fears that most residents will never be allowed to return to a mixed-income, racially diverse community as promised.

“The housing authority’s current plan is clear. Replace pubic housing with luxury homes and build just enough new public housing in order to avoid public criticism, and make sure its separate and distinct from the homes of wealthier people,” says Freeman. “Simply put, our suit is about forcing the CHA to honor its own stated and legal mandate to truly build a racially diverse, mixed-income community.” 

To support their claims, plaintiffs in the case have released findings from four leading researchers. Their findings combine to rebut the CHA’s claim that its plan includes the maximum amount of public housing and will result in a successful mixed-income community.

The researchers in separate studies conclude that the current plan would create a fragmented community made of mostly wealthy and white families with a pocket of isolated, poor African American families. They’ve found that the plan would foster gentrification, hinder integration, and cause intra-community segregation.  Since 1990, the neighborhood’s poverty rate dropped to 31 percent from 51 percent, number of families decreased by 26 percent and black population declined by 39 percent.  In addition, according to U.S. Census data, 38 percent of owner-occupied housing in the area was worth $300,000 or more. However, the area immediately south of Roosevelt Road—where the CHA intends to build most of the replacement public housing—still lags behind in terms of economic prosperity and racial integration.

“Why in a booming neighborhood is the CHA creating more housing for the affluent? The CHA stubbornly refuses to take advantage of the market opportunity to rebuild for the less well off. Shame on them,” says Harold Hirshman, a partner at the Sonnenschein law firm. “Our goal is to ensure that a fair and equitable plan is developed, one that benefits all community residents and the City as a whole.”

For more information, contact Kate Walz, 312.263.3830 ext. 232.