Mulling a shift at the Superblock

Few specifics on future of public housing units

12/09/2009 10:00 PM

By MEGAN COTTRELL
Contributing Reporter

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The Superblock is located in an around the 2000 and 2100 blocks of W. Randolph and W. Maypole.
MICAH MAIDENBERG/Staff

When the Villages of Westhaven was built in the late 1990s, the large block of public housing units was seen as a victory for the former residents of the Henry Horner mid-rises, allowing many of them to continue calling the Near West Side their home.

Years later, some community residents think that putting up concentrated public housing was a mistake, bringing instability to a neighborhood struggling to revitalize, and the Chicago Housing Authority is now considering changes.

CHA has not announced its intentions for the Villages, an area often called “the Superblock” that contains 200 contiguous units of public housing in and around the 2000 and 2100 blocks of W. Randolph and W. Maypole.

But the discussions have residents like Florence Wright, one of the Horner residents who moved into the Superblock, worried she’ll be forced to leave her unit.

“When I moved here in 1997, my understanding was that I would be here,” Wright said. “But a lot of the people who are in the condos over there don’t like us being here.”

In phase one of the Horner redevelopment, 461 public housing units were built — 200 in the Superblock, and 261 in the mixed-income community of Westhaven Park and in the scattered-site buildings — roughly between Ashland, Western, Lake and the Eisenhower.

The area drew new homeowners to Westhaven Park townhomes and old graystones alike, and some of those residents are frustrated with what they see as the negative aspects of concentrated public housing.

Tracy Haak, a resident of Westhaven Park, walks through the Superblock every day, taking her kids to school at Suder Montessori. While she said she’s never been in danger, she doesn’t always feel completely comfortable.

“I’m not a fragile flower. Do I ever feel threatened? No. Do I sometimes wish people would go away? Yeah,” Haak said.

Haak thinks part of the problem is perceptions of the police. A lot of public housing residents, she said, feel that the officers won’t respond to their calls about illegal activity, which means much of the crime within the Superblock goes unreported.

Mike Cunningham and his wife, Jewel Ware, moved into their graystone on W. Washington Boulevard 14 years ago. The Horner high-rises loomed blocks away.

“At the time, people really thought we were crazy to move over here,” Ware said. “But in my mind, it couldn’t go anywhere but up.”

After the high-rises came down, 14 scattered-site units were built on their block. Most of those CHA families, they said, are quiet, law-abiding citizens, but a few have brought with them drug-dealing, loitering and noise.

With the number of scattered-site units on their street and the Superblock nearby, they said public housing is still too concentrated in the neighborhood.

Cunningham and Ware said the critique of the Superblock isn’t one only market-rate buyers in the neighborhood are making — many of their neighbors living in public housing, both said, are just as frustrated as they are with the nightly problems that occur.

CHA spokeswoman Kellie O’Connell-Miller acknowledged the housing authority is considering a new approach in the area. She declined to discuss specifics.

“CHA and community stakeholders are engaged in a working group process,” she said, referring to the panels convened to discuss public housing redevelopment. “The working group is currently meeting to determine if there is a better idea for the Superblock.”

To change the Horner plan, CHA would need to make a legal argument that the Superblock has had an adverse effect on the area’s mixed-income housing, said Bill Wilen, the longtime lawyer for the Horner residents. A federal consent decree CHA and the Horner Mother’s Guild agreed to in 1995 governs the Horner redevelopment process.

Wilen predicted housing authority would be hard pressed to make a case for wholesale changes to the development.

“Horner has one of the lowest crime rates in the city,” he said.

But Haak believes more mixed-income housing would accelerate the neighborhood’s revival.

“I believe in mixed-income housing. I don’t believe in segregating poor people regardless of race,” she said. “I don’t think there’s very much good that comes out of that pockets of poverty.”

Wright, the Superblock resident, is afraid of what those changes could mean for her and for her community.

“You finally get something that’s decent and looks better, and then you try to take it away? That’s disrespectful,” Wright said. “Eleven or 12 years and all of the sudden you have to pack up and move? Everybody is under the impression that this is our permanent housing.”

Whatever happens, Wright is committed to her home and fighting for the other former Horner residents.

“I am not going anywhere,” she said. “No, I’m not leaving.”


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