Jane Addams Homes building could become public housing museum

Supporters of a proposed Public Housing Museum in Chicago’s near west side have six more months to raise $14 million for their project, according to the Chicago Journal.

The museum will be located in the only remaining Jane Addams Homes building at 1322-24 W. Taylor. The Chicago Housing Authority will donate the building to resident leaders if organizers can raise the necessary cash.

The museum’s board of directors has raised more than $300,000 and has donation commitments from many others.

The National Public Housing Museum will be modeled after the similar Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York, said Sunny Fischer, executive director of the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation and member of the board of directors and steering committee.

Fischer said the apartments within the building will be restored to show the actual stories of people who have lived in public housing.

“We hope to educate the public on what the issues are so somebody from two very different political perspectives could have the information to have a conversation about it,” Fischer said. “We’re also hoping it can become a place where we can discuss things like poverty and race, what a government’s responsibility is to its citizens.”

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