Public housing that works
Not far from the ghetto of Cabrini Green, one of Chicago's wealthiest suburbs has shown that with careful planning and good management, low-income housing can win acceptance
Tell most suburbanites that you're visiting low-income housing complexes in Highland Park, and you can watch their faces register disbelief. Low-income housing in leafy, lakefront Highland Park, where home prices commonly hit seven figures? Where the public high school's student parking lot is jammed with new Jeep Cherokees, Mercedes-Benzes, and all makes of convertibles? Home of the tony Ravinia Festival, which lures world-class music acts and crowds of wine-and-brie-toting picnickers each summer? It's true. Sitting about 30 miles north of downtown Chicago, this upscale suburb is home to 153 units of subsidized housing. Many are apartments for low-income elderly residents. But Highland Park also has 23 units, mostly townhomes, for poor families — pretty rare in the upscale North Shore Chicago suburbs, and difficult to gain acceptance from middle-class residents almost everywhere. Few issues get homeowners so up in arms as a plan to build low-income housing in their neighborhood. Motivated by fear of crime, apprehension of declining property values or just plain prejudice, normally nice, neighborly middle-class people become quite inhospitable when new neighbors are poor, minority or both. Not so in Highland Park. In the early 1980s, the city's officials voted to take advantage of federal money available to build them. The intention, says Mayor Dan Pierce, was to offer the safety, security, quality schools and other amenities available in a place like Highland Park to some families that otherwise wouldn't have them. In the process. Highland Park proved something to itself and other communities: with careful planning, sound management, diligent screening and caring support, low-income people can be successfully integrated into even the wealthiest of communities. It's enough to make even the most unwelcoming of neighborhoods more neighborly. There was a time when social reformers and others believed that massive, high-rise apartment complexes were the answer to the problem of housing low-income people. Architects in the 1930s, for example, touted their value, saying tall buildings would leave land vacant for parks and recreational use. At the same time, white people weren't eager to welcome poor blacks into their middle-class neighborhoods; the high-rises kept them contained in impoverished minority communities. Yet, an unforeseen consequence of concentrating such large numbers of poor people in such small areas without many job opportunities was to turn many of these high-rises into violent, crime-infested pockets of fear and hopelessness. So by the late 1960s, thinking had shifted toward scattering low-income housing, moving residents from densely populated ghettos into areas with populations integrated ethnically and economically.
But, it turns out, these scattered sites aren't all that scattered. A 1994 study by the South Suburban Housing Center in Homewood found families in scattered-site low-income housing are disproportionately concentrated in some of Chicago's south suburbs, particularly in communities that already are poor and lacking job opportunities. And it's been hard to get many majority-white suburbs to accept this type of housing. "It's rare for a community to facilitate it," says Paul B. Fischer of Lake Forest College, who authored the housing center's report. So it's surprising that Highland Park would. It is 93 percent white. In 1990, the average household income there was nearly $120,000. The poverty rate was less than 3 percent; the unemployment rate was 2 percent. Their wealth notwithstanding. Highland Parkers insist the city has a history of economic integration, dating to the time when wealthy Chicagoans started building summer homes on the city's lakefront east side in the late 1800s and wanted affordable housing nearby so their servants wouldn't have to commute from the city. Other affluent Chicagoans made their way to the area after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, says Ellsworth Mills, associate director of the Highland Park Historical July 1994/Illinois Issues/13 Society and a lifelong resident. The need for various services — grocery stores, tailors and the like — grew with the population, setting the stage for an economic mix of service-industry wage earners and very wealthy in the community. Since then, a progressive attitude has prevailed, says Mayor Pierce. "Highland Park is a fairly expensive place to live, and the community made a decision we were supportive of affordable housing. We wanted a diverse population; we've always had one. We didn't want to be like Kenilworth" — a nearby suburb that is nearly all-white and all- upper-income, with a reputation for wanting to stay that way. Bob Buhai was mayor of Highland Park when subsidized housing first was built in the city. He says there was a small movement toward building low-income housing for elderly people, mainly widows, who had lived and raised families in the city but could no longer afford the skyrocketing property taxes. A piece of land close to the quaint downtown area was donated to the city by a wealthy resident, and the city housing commission took advantage of federal money available to build a 56-unit subsidized-rent building for low-income elderly. Buhai says that project led to the effort to build low-income family housing. "We showed that this kind of housing could be attractive; it didn't have to be bad," he says. Two dentists in the community leased more downtown property to the city, and a building for the elderly went up alongside six townhomes for families. "A few people considered it controversial, but it was accepted almost from the beginning," Buhai says. The remaining 17 family units were built within the next few years with little ado. "What often happens," says Charles Orlebeke, director of the University of Illinois at Chicago's school of urban planning and policy, "is elderly housing can be a foot in the door. Local residents don't need or can't afford the big house they lived in, so you'll see support for subsidized housing for old people. It's hard to feel threatened by old people. It's a way for a community to get used to subsidized housing on a small scale, and show that it can be attractive." This is nothing like public housing you'd think of in big cities like Chicago, where images of crowded, dirty,
dangerous Cabrini-Green and Robert Taylor Homes come to mind. It's not even like low-income housing in other suburbs and small cities like Robbins and Ford Heights, where such housing often exists in poor, segregated neighborhoods. Instead, it sits in a dream community. The grounds are clean and landscaped. The buildings, sitting on tree-lined streets, blend in with their affluent surroundings. There are Lake Michigan beaches and parks and wooded ravines nearby, not to mention what many people consider among the best schools in the state. It's an out-of-reach community for many middle- class families, let alone those in the underclass. "You can be the poorest of the poor and still live in Highland Park in a gorgeous building that people pay $900 [a month] and up for," says Serena Gordon, who manages the city's subsidized housing properties. Highland Park seems to have done a lot of things right when it comes to public housing. First, the community accepted it. "I can't say 100 percent of the people were behind it at first," says Pierce, a state representative at the time. "It was somewhat controversial; there was some fear of the unknown. But there were meetings and hearings and, in the end, it was approved." Second, there weren't many family units built — only 23 in three areas of this city of 30,575 — so there's no large clustering of poor families. Third, once they were built, the city hired a private management firm — people like Gordon, who know how to run apartment complexes — to tend the buildings. And a person was hired whose job is to link families with support services and work with schools to help smooth poor kids' adjustment to life in an affluent world. Finally, the city has made certain this housing stays clean, attractive and low-profile, making it inconspicuous amid the wealth surrounding it. One person who is surprised to find herself living in Highland Park is Sonia Iris Gonzalez-Nunez. Three years ago, she lived with an abusive husband and her five young children in a cramped apartment on Chicago's west side. The neighborhood was so dangerous, she says, she wouldn't let her kids outside to play. They never even learned to ride bicycles. 14/July 1994/Illinois Issues But when she found out there was low-income housing available in Highland Park, she got on the waiting list. Once accepted, she took her children, left her violent husband and moved into the four-bedroom townhouse she now lives in, half a block from homes that sell for a quarter-million dollars. "At first, my son and I were just looking around this place and we were in awe," she says. "We couldn't believe it; it was
amazing. Our old apartment was the size of our upper floor here alone. Where we'd been living, the owner was a slumlord. The roaches were this big," she says, holding her thumb and forefinger more than an inch apart. "It was very traumatic to move here at first because it was a total change ... a change of church community, school, our home. When I left my husband we had nothing — I left all our furniture. We slept on mattresses the first several months we were here, but we made do. I felt we could really make a better life here." She seems to have done so. Her kids are active at their schools and with friends, and Nunez is taking classes at the College of Lake County, where she's earned half the credits she needs for an associate's degree. She wants to go on to get her bachelor's so she can teach deaf children. But the family's transition hasn't been without trials. Nunez' old neighborhood was integrated, while Highland Park is more than 90 percent white, and her family has encountered prejudice on several fronts. When she first moved, she told a school official that her oldest daughter was considered gifted. "He told me, 'What Chicago calls gifted, we don't necessarily acknowledge as gifted.' I felt stepped on. I felt about as big as a bug. It really upset me. And it turned out after my daughter was tested by the new school she was considered advanced after all." Around the same time, Nunez took her kids shopping and her eight-year-old son was checking out the store's toy aisle. "A child came up to him, and my son was trying to make friends with him. This boy looks at him and says, 'You're Spanish, aren't you? I hate Spanish people.' My son came to me and said, 'Mommy, is it OK to be Spanish?' I had to sit him down and talk to him about people being different. It was a harsh lesson." But these affronts and petty prejudices have been outweighed by the benefits her kids now have. "Where we used to live was on a major street, and the kids couldn't go out and play," she says. "There was a shooting on the sidewalk near our house. They couldn't enjoy themselves. Now they go to their friends' houses, they walk to the library, the theater. And they have all kinds of friends, a mix of incomes. I went to pick one up and the family's entrance foyer was as big as our dining room. My kids have learned how to ride a bike, rollerblade ... this is a tremendous blessing for us." One person who is not surprised to hear this type of story in Highland Park is Serena Gordon, who works for a private firm hired to manage the city's low-income properties. That's because she sees how much effort goes into making things work for families like Nunez'. When a family moves to the top of the city's low-income housing waiting list — which she says can take six to seven years — Gordon screens them carefully. She runs credit checks on them. She inspects their current apartments, or hires someone to do so if the family lives in a dangerous or distant neighborhood. She investigates them with the zeal of someone on a mission because, in her words: "What you let in, you're stuck with." Although eviction is possible in extreme circumstances, Gordon operates on the assumption that she is approving not temporary tenants but permanent residents. "When you hear horror stories about public housing property, it's because the [housing] authority is falling down on the job," she says. "The same laws prevailing at Cabrini-Green prevail here, but the Chicago Housing Authority can't handle the job. It's too big, too complicated." Private housing complexes generally hire property managers like Gordon to run them. But complexes funded with public money often are run by government agencies. "When I go into a place and I see a lady has filthy carpet," Gordon says, "I tell her to get it shampooed. Immediately. Most of my families are the neediest of the needy, but I hold them to standards." Gordon is especially stringent about inspections, which usually are scheduled once a year to make sure the property is maintained, both inside and out, and that the correct number of people are living there. But if she sees a problem, such as poor housekeeping, Gordon will make sure inspections are done more often. For example, Nunez says she was inspected every three months to make sure she was keeping her townhouse clean. A "housekeeping instructor" was sent over to give her tips. "With five kids it's practically impossible to keep clean," Nunez says, surveying her dining room strewn with toys and cereal boxes. "But if that's what I have to do to live here, I don't mind." Not every family responds so well, Gordon points out. A minority of the low-income residents can't make the transition to life in Highland Park. To help them, the city hired Sharon Harris, a community health nurse with a background in counseling. Harris says she's available to help residents find services they need — from linking them with school counselors to helping them figure out what happened to their food stamps. "We don't just plop you into Highland Park housing," says Gordon. "We have someone to work with you." July 1994/Illinois Issues/15 Even so, there are some families that just don't make it in Highland Park. "They do not assimilate or adapt easily," she says. "So they go back to 63rd and Stony Island [on Chicago's south side] to have a social life. That happened with one woman who lived here. She was never around — always out with her boyfriend. The kids were alone. The school would call and say the kids need tutoring, but she was never around to follow up. So the kids would get on a train and go back to Chicago where they felt more comfortable, and their lives went down the tubes. That's the bad side, but that's the exception." So what's the secret? Why has low- income family housing worked in Highland Park when so many communities have resisted and rejected it? In part, it's because Highland Park has worked so hard at making it work: The city implemented strict management of the units, avoided clumping too many units together in one place, screened tenants scrupulously and made available needed social services. Orlebeke of the U of I in Chicago says strict management — whether through a private agency or a housing authority — and tenant screening are key. "There is a trend toward using private management, and the CHA is experimenting with it," he says. "But some housing authorities actually do an excellent job of managing property. It depends on the particular managers. Research suggests that the firmness of management can make a lot of difference. Tenants should have a clear understanding of what's expected of them, and know that if they don't meet those obligations, they'll be asked to leave." And actually scattering scattered-site housing helps, too. Lt. Ernest Castelli, who's been with the Highland Park police force 24 years, says there's no pattern of higher crime rates near the city's projects or involving the projects' residents. In the dozen or so years since the townhomes were built, he says, he doesn't recall any increase in crime. "There is evidence that if you disperse [low-income residents] in stable and positive living situations, they'll do better," Orlebeke says. "But you also get the chicken-and-egg question then: Do they do well because they had the desire to do well or because they have these advantages? Could a problem family do as well?" Another important feature of Highland Park's program is Harris, the residential services administrator, who is available to link residents with needed social services. "I tell [parents] the kids are going to have a very, very hard time here," Gordon says. "Highland Park is 90 percent white. I tell them to take advantage of everything the schools have to offer. You've got to follow through with those kids. If they're willing to take (Harris') help, they'll do fine. If you're going to build scattered-site housing in the suburbs, then you better have a lot of services. You can't take a palm tree and put it in the north woods of Wisconsin and expect it to grow."
"It certainly is a unique approach," says Prof. Len Heumann of the University of Illinois at Urbana's department of urban and regional planning. "Most very rich communities fight letting [low-income tenants] in, and then don't reach out once they are in. This is progressive, certainly." All these measures have proved vital. But equally important to Highland Park's success is that the city has tried hard to keep its low-income housing pretty low-profile. Heumann says the greatest barrier to building low-income housing in middle- class or affluent communities is the pervasive and persistent stereotypes of low-income residents. When low-income residents blend in — because they don't stand out — those stereotypes crumble. "If they're going to have public housing up there in Highland Park, they want it to disappear [from view]," says Heumann. "It makes the wealthy residents less restless." After a decade with low-income residents in their midst, the people of Highland Park apparently have lost their restlessness over subsidized housing. Mayor Pierce says the city plans to look into building more low-income housing, though he's not sure what mix of elderly people and families would be involved. "It could be a model for others," he says, "and it should be." 16/July 1994/Illinois Issues
|
|||||||||||||||
