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It’s like a big echo chamber. Anything here, you can hear it perfectly.
I don’t really look at other people’s class or their racial background. I expect everybody to live in the building like I live in the building.
- Ian Swope, owner of a one-bedroom condo at the Westhaven Park Tower on the Near West Side.
I don’t think it’s our responsibility to go and confront the people having the problems.
- Kathy Quickery, president of the Westhaven Park Tower condo association.
We just don’t click in with them. They look at you up and down like you crazy and all that.
I feel that that the homeowners are racist toward the CHA residents because some of them paying their rent and some CHA residents not paying no rent. And they’ll speak and I won’t speak back because I’m kind of racist toward the white people.
- David Harris, a renter living in one of Westhaven Park Tower’s 34 homes designated for CHA public housing.
Some residents at Westhaven Park’s nine-story tower are demanding the CHA continue to pay $15,000 to fund 24-hour security that will stop loitering and keep out unwanted guests, according to a story from Chicago Public Radio’s City Room. The story suggests an “us-vs-them mentality is bubbling” at the development, due in part to the lack of a community sentiment between condo owners and CHA renters. ” Condo owners say they are happy to simply come home and enjoy their units,” the story says. “Those who spent years living in public housing say they are used to an environment where everyone knows everyone.”
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“I feel that that the homeowners are racist toward the CHA residents because some of them paying their rent and some CHA residents not paying no rent. And they’ll speak and I won’t speak back because I’m kind of racist toward the white people.”
Ahh, we’ve come a long way.
The CHA residents are living on the condo owners dime they have every right to make demands. It can be expected there will be resentment and tension building between the groups. The CHA should have done a better job of assimilating the residents before placing them with the general public.
A couple of comments -
As a Black man, I am sorry to hear about the CHA resident’s resentment against whites. His attitude is not reflective of most Black people and his comment should be seen as an exception rather than the rule. I would think that he would rather get along with his new neighbors instead of alienate them. After all, I’m sure he had a choice to take a Section 8 voucher and move to another neighborhood which would have been less desirable.
“The CHA should have done a better job of assimilating the residents before placing them with the general public.” Sounds like futuredoc believes that CHA residents are prison inmates who need socialization before being released into society. That’s a pretty racist statement. Perhaps some of the white residents of the building feel the same way and are letting those feelings be reflected in their daily interaction with their neighbors?
These types of racial and class issues sound like what has occurred over in the Cabrini redevelopment. Not going to be solved in one day but folks need to keep trying. I’m also sure that some of the homeowners think that this living situation is only temporary and the CHA residents will leave one day. Given the state of public housing and the economy, it’s not going to happen.
For this kind of thing to work, a lot more supervision is going to be needed than the authorities appear to willing to apply. There has to be very careful selection of ALL the people who are allowed to live in these facilities. Not only do low income people with records of crime, drug abuse, and gang membership have to be kept out, but, in the market rate apartments, people with prejudices against minorities and the poor also have to be kept out. And BOTH groups are going to have to be socialized to understand each other and their cultures. Othewise you are going to be running into severe conflicts that will cause the attempt to achieve mixed income housing fail. IF it can be made to succeed, it will make an important step toward breaking up Chicago’s segregated housing pattern.
CaptainVideo,
I believe the CHA already screens for criminal records, drug abuse, and gang membership.
As to screening for bigotry against the poor and minorities, I doubt it would be constitutional. Even if it were, who would make that determination, and based on what standards? I note you didn’t mention black-on-white bigotry. In any event, there’s doubtless some self-selection going on. It’s unlikely that prejudiced market rate buyers will opt for mixed projects.
These units are too few and too far between to have any significant impact on Chicago’s segregated housing pattern, no matter how well they succeed.
Architect Pat FitzGerald has worked on a number of the CHA mixed-income projects. Watch his take on the “CHA’s daring experiment.”
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