Watchdog criticizes CHA plan - Chicago Housing Authority

A key component of the Chicago Housing Authority's effort to transform public housing "is doomed to continued failure" unless funding is drastically increased, the CHA's independent watchdog concluded in a January report.

Former U.S. Attorney Thomas P. Sullivan's judgment about the Service Connector program, which attempts to link residents with childcare, job training and other services, is one of the toughest statements in a wide-ranging study of last year's relocation of about a thousand families from high-rise buildings slated for demolition. Sullivan wrote a series of reports on his findings starting in July, but only his most recent has been made public.

The report cites The Chicago Reporter's previous investigations into the Service Connector and relocation, which are part of the agency's 10-year, $1.5 billion redevelopment plan, during which the CHA will move approximately 24,000 families. The Reporter quoted personnel from the private agencies hired to run the Service Connector's day-to-day operations saying the program was grossly underfunded and understaffed.

Sullivan also criticizes CHA Chief Executive Officer Terry Peterson and other top officials for a lack of "candor and honesty."

In recent months, he writes, they published glowing appraisals about the Service Connector that did not match the experiences of other staff who, in conversations with Sullivan, "made no bones about the fact that the program did not achieve its goals in [20021, largely because the funding was woefully inadequate."

Peterson's public stance, Sullivan writes, "inevitably call[s] into question the reliability of the CHA as to all its other claims of success for the Plan for Transformation."

Peterson would not comment for this article.

The CHA hired Sullivan last July after attorneys for public housing residents threatened to file a lawsuit over the agency's failure to allow an independent monitor to watch over the relocation, as called for in a 2000 contract.

His reports have already had repercussions. While the housing authority has shown a willingness to correct many of the problems highlighted by Sullivan, advocates for CHA residents charge that the changes don't go far enough. And tenants have sued the agency, charging that the relocation program is flawed.

The CHA is going to adopt "almost all" of Sullivan's 54 recommendations, said Meghan Harte, managing director of the agency's relocation effort. But detailed proposals will not be ready until at least mid-March, after CHA officials consult with resident leadership, she said.

The CHA has already begun allocating more time for relocation, according to Sullivan. Families using vouchers to subsidize rent in the private market will have more time to search for a new home.

And additional funding and staff will be devoted to the Service Connector, Harte said. Experts and CHA officials agree that an effective social services program should help displaced residents return to rebuilt, mixed-income communities.

While appreciative that the CHA is willing to make changes, some say it all sounds familiar. "The CHA's [method] is to say, 'Yes, these are mostly legitimate criticisms, but that was then, this is now, and we have a bunch of new programs,'" said Jamie Kalven, an advisor to the resident leadership council at the South Side's Stateway Gardens development.

And so far the agency has refused to commit to fundamentally changing the Service Connector. Most experts consider this model dysfunctional and say Sullivan's report confirmed it.

The monitor's work also appears to bolster a federal class-action lawsuit by current and former tenants, filed on Jan. 23, that alleges the CHA violated civil rights law by displacing families into depressed areas.

Although Sullivan did not directly influence the lawsuit, "he supported our conclusion that families are being resegregated and that [this] is not acceptable," said William P. Wilen, an attorney for the National Center on Poverty Law, one of the three nonprofits representing tenants.

Among other things, the plaintiffs are asking the CHA to negotiate changes to the Service Connector program.

Meanwhile, the agency plans to demolish 2,600 units this year, displacing 682 families who will move into private-market apartments and another 594 who will move to other public housing units.

New Year

Sullivan's report attributes many of last year's relocation problems to "last minute rush conditions" that forced hundreds of families to move in the final weeks before building closures. In the second week of September, 250 families were still living in high-rises originally set to close by the end of the month.

While many families were moved to decent public housing units, Sullivan notes, some apartments "had not been inhabited for years, with plumbing and electrical systems in poor, undependable condition."

And Sullivan determines that E.F. Ghoughan and Associates and Changing Patterns for Families, the two relocation counseling firms hired by the CHA, failed to help voucher families look for homes in low-poverty areas. Time constraints made this impossible, and the firms did little new outreach. Most units "were in financially depressed, racially segregated areas," the report states.

Philip Blackman, director of programs for E.F. Ghoughan, said the firm was required to show three units to families, and to suggest two others they could look at themselves. "We were able to do that in every necessary case," he said, adding that many families found their own apartments.

Blackman wondered how "realistic" it was to expect families to move directly from public housing to drastically different neighborhoods. "Someone is tearing down what they've been familiar with for years," he said. "What we need to do is do things in increments."

The CHA has responded by hiring counseling groups that will focus exclusively on helping relocated families move to low-poverty areas.

In an interview with the Reporter, Suillvan pointed out that Harte's office oversees the relocation process, but the relocation counselors report to another department. It is crucial that Harte's office oversee the counselors, Sullivan said.

The CHA will look at this recommendation closely, Harte said.

And Sullivan's report states that CHA officials are already following his recommendation to begin meeting with residents in the nine developments slated to have buildings emptied or demolished by autumn--which will stretch the relocation process longer than last year's six months.

Early "interviews should go a long way to begin a timely and orderly relocation process," he writes.

Wilen said he welcomes the new initIatives, "but they're still relying on the Service Connector, which Sullivan found abysmal."

Harte said the CHA will boost this year's Service Connector funding from $5.9 million to $7.1 million to hire an additional 20 staff, who will work directly with residents. But staff of the private agencies running the Service Connector told Sullivan this still wouldn't be enough money.

Federal grants used by the CHA to demolish and rebuild housing also include funds for social services, Harte said. "The question is, 'How do we coordinate the dollars that are available?'"

Experts say the problem lies in answering that question.

Currently, families are moved by the CHA but connected to social services by four private agencies that answer to the Chicago Department of Human Services.

"Last time I counted, there were 19 entities providing counseling," said Susan Popkin, a research associate with the Washington D.C.-based Urban Institute who has been consulted by both tenant advocates and government officials.

She added: "Somebody needs to ensure that there is some consistency."

No Settlement

While they are willing to adjust moving schedules and kick-start bureaucratic procedures, top CHA and city officials show little inclination to rethink their original strategy for relocating thousands of families.

As Sullivan investigated, the National Center on Poverty Law and two other firms were considering a lawsuit charging the CHA with relocating residents to segregated communities and depriving some of the opportunity to return to revitalized developments. They began consulting experts to design a new relocation plan.

"They came to us and said, 'If you were going to do this right, what would it look like?'" said Joseph Antolin, executive officer of Chicago Connections/Heartland Alliance. The human rights organization ran a two-year initiative that helped nearly 100 low-income families, many from CHA, move to stable housing.

Antolin's plan called for one big agency that would replace the city's Human Services Department and coordinate both relocation and the Service Connector.

On Jan. 14, the attorneys met with Harte and presented their ideas.

The attorneys were encouraged. "It seemed like things were moving toward a settlement," said Wilen.

So they were surprised to receive a Jan. 17 letter from Gail Niemann, the CHA's general counsel, accusing them of a "take-it-or-leave-it proposal" that would benefit "well-paid social service agencies" of their choosing.

Niemann offered to discuss a "pilot program." She wrote that city officials, resident leaders and national experts would be brainstorming on how to improve the Service Connector during a two-day conference in Chicago on Jan. 16 and 17.

Popkin, who attended, was disappointed it did not include distribution of the Sullivan report. Officials seemed "totally locked into the model that exists," she said.

She also thought they seemed preoccupied with the threatened lawsuit. After Niemann mailed her letter, "cell phones were flying, and half the people were gone," Popkin said.

City and CHA officials had a different take. B.J. Walker, the city's chief of human infrastructure, said the memo she wrote inviting participants to the conference did not mention Sullivan. The reports offer "one perspective on what happened over the past year," Walker said.

She added that the lawsuit didn't distract her during the conference. "We weren't talking about it."

The lawsuit was filed the next week. On Jan. 30, U.S. District Court Judge Ruben Castillo entered an order instructing the parties to begin settlement negotiations, and one meeting was held the last week of February.

The CHA has hired Christina M. Tchen, a noted corporate attorney from the Chicago firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Horn, to fight the lawsuit.

"We've seen no indication to date that the CHA intends to settle," said Wilen. "But we've always said, 'Here are our proposals. You don't need to accept them all, but sit down and negotiate in good faith.'"

In 2004, the CHA hopes to have "one or a couple" agencies to work with relocated residents, and the same number to work with those returning to the new mixed-income developments, Harte told the Reporter in late February. The authority will also expand services to recently moved families, but Harte couldn't say how much money would be spent.

Sullivan's term ends in April, and he says he's willing to serve again. Harte said the agency is consulting with resident leadership and would not make any decisions about the next monitor until at least mid-March.

Bad Press

Sullivan's work generated controversy even before it was made public.

The CHA started receiving reports from Sullivan in July, almost as soon as he and two colleagues began visiting residents' counseling sessions and questioning staff. So far, he has released five reports.

As they were written last summer and fall, copies were given to Mary Wiggins, the head of the citywide resident leadership council, and to its attorneys with the Legal Assistance Foundation. But they "extended a courtesy to the CHA" and did not release the reports, said Richard Wheelock, an attorney with the foundation.

Many publications, public housing tenants, advocates, researchers and attorneys asked CHA officials to release the information. They refused.

"It was something too important to hide," said Carol Steele, president of the resident council at the Cabrini-Green development.

The Illinois Freedom of Information Act states that the CHA must make public "each report ... prepared by independent contractors."

But Kathryn Greenberg, the CHA's spokeswoman, told the Reporter in December that the CHA was turning down all requests, claiming it did not have to produce "interim reports" and would "look into" releasing Sullivan's more comprehensive January report.

Meanwhile, the CHA had approved its annual, and public, Plan for Transformation, which paints a picture of model efficiency. "Counselors working with this system provide information, interagency referrals, service coordination and case management for all residents," it states. "Progress is monitored and intensive follow-up is provided to ensure CHA families are getting the targeted help they require."

Yet that is "very far from an accurate portrayal of the facts as I learned them," Sullivan writes.

He also criticizes an Oct. 18 letter Peterson sent to the Reporter, published in its December issue. "The fact that Service Connectors directly placed more than 1,200 CHA residents in jobs ... provides compelling proof that Service Connectors is working," Peterson writes.

Such "glowing but inaccurate and misleading descriptions" diminish the agency's credibility, Sullivan writes. "No program ... works without glitches, and there should be no shame attached to admissions that shortcomings were discovered requiring corrective action."

But this winter, Davis Jenkins, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said he completed a "confidential" study for the CHA of how residents fared after being placed in jobs by the Service Connector during 2002.

The CHA instructed Jenkins not to discuss the results, he said. The agency has refused to release his report.

And some suspect the CHA was merely attempting damage control when It finally made Sullivan's January report public.

On Jan. 13, the Chicago sun-Times published a story about Sullivan's work, claiming to have "obtained" the "confidential" report he submitted the previous week.

But Greenberg said the CHA gave the report to the Sun-Times on Jan. 10, and allowed the newspaper to attend a meeting that day with Sullivan and Peterson.

"This has been a strange process from the beginning," said Kalven, the Stateway Gardens advisor. "The CHA's hope is that they put the best possible face on it and get through one news cycle."

RELATED ARTICLE: Segregated Neighborhoods

Since 1995, 3,272 families have been displaced by Chicago Housing Authority building demolitions and given housing vouchers for private-market apartments. The vast majority moved into Chicago census tracts at least 90 percent African American. The trend forms the basis of a federal class action lawsuit that charges the CHA with perpetuating segregation.

Racial makeup of areas where families lived

                     Before moving  After moving

Other                      3%            6%
Majority black             3%           11%
Predominantly black       94%           82%

Note: "Predominantly black" neighborhoods have populations at least 90
percent African American; "Majority black" neighborhoods have
populations between 50 and 89 percent African American. Data represent
the first sites displaced families moved to. Subsequent moves did not
substantially change the racial characteristics.

Sources: "Where Are the Public Housing Families Going? An Update," by
Paul Fischer of Lake Forest College; CHAC, Inc.; U.S. Census Bureau.

Note: Table made from pie chart

Relocation Leaves Some Residents Struggling

To resident advocates, Lisa Taylor is an example of how the Chicago Housing Authority's relocation plan has failed over the last seven years.

In 1997, Taylor said, she needed to get out of public housing. A resident of the West Side's Addams-Brooks-Loomis-Abbott development, she suffered from diabetes and sickle cell anemia, and the housing conditions, her doctor warned, were making them worse.

For three months she couldn't shut off the hot water coming out of her apartment's kitchen tap. Mold started to spread, and paint peeled off the wall. Taylor had been working as a home health care aid, but had to quit after having several toes amputated. She started receiving Social Security Disability benefits.

A CHA official "asked me if I wanted to get up out of the projects, and I told him, 'Yes.'" She was given a voucher to subsidize her rent.

But her new home, a three-flat apartment in the South Side's New City neighborhood, was in an area where drug dealing is rampant. Altogether, more than 500 displaced families have settled in the New City and nearby Englewood and West Englewood community areas, records show.

The building was broken down, but Taylor's landlord was scared to come and do the repairs, she said. And, when she asked her 14-year-old son to take out the garbage, "he said, 'Momma, come with me.'"

Under the CHA's current plan, only residents who were relocated after October 1, 1999, have the right to return to rehabilitated developments. But Taylor recently joined a federal class-action lawsuit, filed on Jan. 23, asking that the CHA allow her and about 2,000 other families displaced before the cutoff date to have a chance to return.

The lawsuit also asks that the Service Connector, the CHA's program to link residents with social services, be remade to better serve current residents who may be displaced.

Families leaving public housing now receive more social service assistance from the CHA than Taylor has, but many still seem to encounter problems.

Lorraine Fleming, 44, lives on the South Side in a Stateway Gardens high-rise, where she cares for her mother and two children. She has been displaced from public housing before. She once used a voucher for an apartment, but had a dispute with her landlord over how much he was being reimbursed to cover her rent, she said. In March 2000, she ended up back at Stateway.

Fleming was set to move again this January with a new voucher after finding an apartment at 2212 E. 79th St. in the South Shore neighborhood.

But the owner was "just a slum landlord," she said. The place had no refrigerator, and underneath new tiles, the wood was rotten. Fleming never moved in. She has started a new search.

"A lot of landlords are just doing cosmetic surgery," said Francine Washington, State way's resident leader. Residents are vulnerable because relocation "is a forced move. You don't know what you're doing; you just start looking, and if you find something for the right family size, you'll go for it."

Meghan Harte, managing director of the CHA's resident services, which oversees relocation, said CHAC Inc., the private firm that administers the voucher program, does 70,000 pre-rental inspections a year and uses "minimal [federal] inspection standards."

But "that's not something we're planning to look at," Harte said. "We haven't had so many complaints that would cause drastic change."

COPYRIGHT 2003 Community Renewal Society
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group