Public Housing Residents to Present Complaints to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Families living in the Cabrini-Green development of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) are among the groups invited to present their complaints to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights at a hearing on March 4 in Washington, D.C. Together these groups claim that the United States is illegally demolishing low-income housing, thus violating their human rights.

Carol Steele, president of Chicago’s Coalition to Protect Public Housing, will represent CHA residents at the hearing and challenge the public housing demolition caused by the CHA’s “Plan for Transformation.” The plan will demolish over 21,000 housing units and replace them with just over 6,000 units in mixed-income developments. The coalition alleges that the net loss of units is a prime example of the nation’s diminishing commitment to human rights generally, and especially the government’s obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill the right to adequate housing, as established by the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man, the Charter of the Organization of American States, and the American Convention on Human Rights.

In requesting the hearing, the coalition joined with numerous other antipoverty and human rights advocates, including the National Center on Homelessness and Poverty, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, and the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. The March 4 hearing is the first time that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has granted a U.S.-based organization a hearing on the issue of housing.

For more information, contact Deidre Brewster of the Coalition to Protect Public Housing at 312.280.2298.