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Public Affairs coverage from our award-winning staff |
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Social Tension Rises at Chicago Housing Authority Mixed-Income Development
Produced by Natalie Moore on Friday, June 05, 2009
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Westhaven Park Tower (WBEZ/Natalie Moore) |
There is a building called Westhaven Park Tower just a few blocks from the United Center on Chicago’s near West Side. The building is part of the Chicago Housing Authority’s billion-dollar mixed-income experiment. It was created to invent new neighborhoods with racial and class diversity. But an us-vs-them mentality is bubbling at Westhaven among condo owners and public housing residents.
Westhaven Park Tower is nine stories high. Of the 113 units, 79 belong to market-rate homeowners. CHA renters live in the rest.
Enter the lobby and the walls are colored in inviting chocolate and sage colors.
The elevators here work – unlike the ones in the now torn down public housing high rises. The market-rate homeowners have stainless steel in their units. And many other accoutrements. No one here is worried about amenities. But they are concerned about security.
SWOPE: It’s like a big echo chamber. Anything here, you can hear it perfectly.
Ian Swope stands on the balcony of his one-bedroom condo that he shares with his wife Nancy. He’s complaining about the late-night noise that emanates from the parking lot.
Swope and some other homeowners want CHA to continue giving $15,000 toward their security budget. And they want 24-hour security to stop loitering and unwanted guests out of the building.
Kathy Quickery is president of the Westhaven Tower condo association.
QUICKERY: I don’t think it’s our responsibility to go and confront the people having the problems.
HARRIS: We just don’t click in with them. They look at you up and down like you crazy and all that.
Renter David Harris admits there have been complaints about him for the heavy volume of people who come to visit. He says he loves living here; its much safer and cleaner than the CHA Henry Horner Homes – the former Westhaven site. But the tension with homeowners isn’t lost on him.
HARRIS: 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.
One of the cultural clashes at Westhaven stems from how people live. Condo owners say they are happy to simply come home and enjoy their units. Those who spent years living in public housing say they are used to an environment where everyone knows everyone.
At the entire Westhaven development, 100 percent of the CHA residents are African American. Every one of them had to go through a rigorous background check, rules orientation and training sessions to get in here. The housing agency doesn’t track race for homeowners but homeowner Ian Swope, who is white, says the issue isn’t about race anyway.
SWOPE: 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.
JOSEPH: Part of what’s really underneath this is a judgment about social scientists would refer to as the undeserving poor.
That’s Mark Joseph. Joseph is a professor at Case Western University who has studied mixed-income communities in Chicago.
JOSEPH: So here is being put in people’s face folk who are benefiting from public subsidies yet seemingly making much of the opportunity.
Joseph’s research has shown that sometimes condo owners have blamed building wrongdoings on CHA residents only to find out that a fellow homeowner put the trash in the wrong place.
And he likes to point out that Westhaven was built on federal land. Subsidies at Westhaven Park Tower also benefited homeowners, not just those paying rent. Joseph says what Westhaven needs are more opportunities for all residents to express grievances.
Crystal Palmer is the CHA tenant president for all of Westhaven. She says it’s not just condo owners who want CHA to keep its commitment of paying $15,000 toward the security budget.
PALMER: I understand them asking for $15,000 just say we have a certain amount of public housing units in the building because the residents feel the same way. They need security also.
Housing officials say they are reviewing whether to give the supplement or find other ways to improve security – and communication among all residents.
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Sue, Lakeview, Chicago // Friday, June 05, 2009 @ 11:14 AM
A standard lease sets out rules for noise, as do city ordinances. Someone has to be responsible for enforcement including not renewing leases or even as a last resort eviction of tenants who repeatedly violate the rules.
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Phil, Chicago // Friday, June 05, 2009 @ 11:16 AM
To think that one can simply "mix" races, classes and the like is indeed an "experiement". The whole idea is premised on the notion that you can indeed take the "country out of the boy". The reality is that we are all a sum of our experiences and to make this experiment succeed, individuals will have to acknowledge their individual biases and WANT to overcome them. Per your article, CHA residents are used to the complex being a neighborhood while a homeowner was quoted as simply wanting a refuge whithin his/her unit. It will be hard to mesh these disparate perspectives without a desire on the parties to change or otherwise accept the differences amicably and devoid of personal attachment.
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Anon., Westhaven Park // Friday, June 05, 2009 @ 1:46 PM
Let's not make this a black/white issue. The condo owners at Westhaven are a diverse mix of races and cultures: white, black, Hispanic, Indian, Asian... Every owner--as well as most of the CHA renters--want to live in a peaceful neighborhood. And we don't frown upon CHA renters because of the "heavy volume of people who come to visit." It's the quality of the people who come to visit, like those who handcuff a renter to the bar in the elevator or kick in someone's door.
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mike, who's having more fun // Friday, June 05, 2009 @ 3:22 PM
it sounds like the freeloaders are having more fun than the payers. And you know what, props to the homies for enjoying their lives, someone has to. Playing it straight, by the rules, only brings misery. Look at the huge empty burbs. How can people there possibly be happy? Even back in the day of the projects the homies always had something going on, little parties, meet-ups barbecues, it's just more fun to be ghetto! And this is coming from someone miserable and white in the suburbs.
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Kathy, North Lawndale // Friday, June 05, 2009 @ 4:47 PM
I would agree that the tensions are probably more social than racial. I live in an area of the city in which real estate development brought in middle class residents. The recent economic down turn, however, has slowed these changes.
And it is clear that there are different social rules here than I,and many of the new residents, are used to. That can cause some serious clashes.
There are different social norms in different enclaves. And when you put such groups together without any expectations or coaching on the changes to expect, instead of people meeting on common ground, you end up with culture clash.
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Genevieve, Chicago Born and Raised // Monday, June 08, 2009 @ 4:03 PM
To Mike: Who's really having more fun? I'm not surprised you're a self-proclaimed miserable white person from the suburbs who is unhappy being privileged enough to pay rent. The suburbs are not empty, and were formed to keep people of color out of your white, affluent communities. There is nothing fun about the ghetto or living in poverty. Why don't you go live in the 'hood in poverty, and see how well you survive with the "homies" (which is highly offensive, as is calling poor Chicagoans "freeloaders" btw). Stop watching so much MTV and glamorizing the ghetto. And stop trying to adopt the vernacular of the urban and the poor. You lack authenticity and your comment lets your ignorance shine.
(I also agree with Kathy, that there are major cultural and social differences between those from Chicago and those who are moving into the city's gentrifying areas. Being from Chicago, I see the proof everyday whether its on the CTA or on the sidewalk.)
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Ryan Flynn, Cabrini-Green // Tuesday, June 09, 2009 @ 9:19 PM
I live in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood. I moved in almost four years ago with no misconceptions about where I was planting myself. From my perspective our community is going very well and has relatively small problems compared to most neighborhoods in the city, and I love where I live.
I do recognize that some people are still a bit wary of each other, as the two cultures do have different social habits, but I don't think most people in these mixed income neighborhoods have unreasonable expectations of how their new neighbors should act. They just want respect and to feel safe and comfortable.
An asshole is an asshole, no matter what race they are. If I am littering and ruining my property, screaming obscenities in public, throwing huge parties and letting my children run around unsupervised, you are not going to want to live next to me. I think that is what it boils down to. I don't believe that race is an excuse to be destructive, and I don't believe race should be something people should use against each other. Disrespect and irresponsibility should not be a part of anyone's culture.
The 'market rate' neighbors with their 'shut in' habits need to make an effort to change as well, realizing that being social and going outside of their comfort zone will help them feel more invested in the community. Just knowing someone's name immediately makes it harder to dismiss them. I think both sides can learn to open up to each other and adapt, and that is the point of this big 'experiment'. To find the good parts in each other and create strong new communities. That will create the dual incentives of making the neighborhoods great places to live, and raising property values.
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