CHA plan needs more working-class housing
By Proco Joe Moreno September 30, 2013 5:06PM
The Julia C. Lathrop Homes in 1937.
Updated: September 30, 2013 5:37PM
Since the year 2000, the Chicago Housing Authority has worked to implement its Plan for Transformation, an ambitious effort to rehabilitate or redevelop the city’s entire stock of public housing. Several notorious high-rise housing developments, such as Cabrini Green and the Robert Taylor Homes, have long since been demolished and replaced with newer, low-rise, mixed-income developments.
Now, after years of starts and stops, the CHA finally has unveiled a master redevelopment plan for the jewel of its property portfolio, the Julia C. Lathrop Homes.
It is a thoughtful plan, but more can be done to provide more affordable housing for working-class families.
Located on 35.5 acres of land bounded by Clybourn Avenue, Damen Avenue, Leavitt Street and the Chicago River, the Lathrop Homes originally provided 925 units of affordable housing. During the past decades, the number of occupied units has steadily shriveled, with only 157 families remaining on-site.
The proposed master plan has some admirable physical features, namely the restoration and rehabilitation of a significant percentage of the existing building stock, the generous amount of public open spaces provided and the creation of on-site retail offerings to Lathrop and community residents. However, on the social side, the plan falls short by not providing sufficient affordable housing opportunities, including rent-to-own housing units.
Firstly, the Chicago Housing Authority must guarantee that all of the 925 public housing units previously available at Lathrop Homes will be re-established, either at Lathrop Homes or in other parts of the City’s north side. The master plan does call for 400 (40.7 percent) public housing units to be brought back on-site, as well as 504 (41.8 percent) market rate units and 212 (17.5 percent) affordable units, for an overall total of 1,116 rehabbed or new-construction housing units.
In this master plan, the CHA defines affordable as incomes up to 60 percent of area median income (AMI). The mixed-income component of the master plan can be vastly improved by increasing the number of affordable units made available to working-class residents, meaning units for families who earn up to 80 percent of AMI ($58,900 for a family of four). The proposed master plan provides zero such units.
According to data published by the CHA, as of Dec. 31, 2010, only 5.8 percent of all its occupied family housing units in its citywide portfolio were allocated to families within the 51-80 percent AMI band. The CHA can and should do better than this, especially at Lathrop Homes.
In its recently unveiled strategic plan, named Plan Forward: Communities that Work, the CHA declared that it is committed to “build new units in mixed-income, mixed-use communities using every available federal, state and local resource.” By using creative financing and other already-accessible financial resources at its disposal, the CHA can make scores of additional, affordable units available at Lathrop to working-class families, who also are in dire need of affordable rental and homeownership opportunities.
One of the historic strengths of Lathrop Homes has been the demographic diversity of its residents. Going forward, I believe that an equally important key to ensuring the long-term success of the future Lathrop Homes community is to also enhance its socio-economic diversity.
Lastly, the overall redevelopment plan must also incorporate intensive, wrap-around social services that address any health, educational and job skill deficits of future Lathrop residents, both adults and children. The CHA Plan Forward also declares as its goal to “expand services to more residents, targeted to their
needs, and at critical milestones in their lives.” This indeed must take place at Lathrop, and future funding for these services must be ensured and institutionalized.
If the CHA does provide more affordable, working-class units, along with comprehensive, supportive wraparound social services, at Lathrop, I strongly believe that this redevelopment can become a national model of a successful and sustainable mixed-income and mixed-use public housing development. The current and future residents of Lathrop deserve nothing less. Therefore, I stand ready to work with the CHA, Lathrop’s current residents and other community stakeholders to make this vision a reality.
Proco Joe Moreno is alderman of Chicago’s First Ward.
