------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Sell a Home with Ease! http://us.click.yahoo.com/SrPZMC/kTmEAA/jd3IAA/tOsolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: CPPH_Info-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There are 3 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest: 1. Robert Taylor Homes Relocation Study From: Grant 2. New Freedom bus tour From: Grant 3. Moving day at Cabrini Green (Chicago) From: Grant ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 1 Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 11:24:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Grant Subject: Robert Taylor Homes Relocation Study THE ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES RELOCATION STUDY A Research Report from the Center for Urban Research and Policy -- Columbia University in the City of New York -- September 2002 [From the editor: the following are some excerpts from the 14 page summary report of this study. You may obtain the entire summary report in pdf format by going to the website listed below. WS] The Robert Taylor Homes Relocation Study Table of Contents Introduction 2 Part I - Who Lives in the Robert Taylor Homes? 3 Part II - Who Has Not Relocated from the Robert Taylor Homes? 4 Part III - Who Has Relocated from the Robert Taylor Homes? 7 Conclusion 12 Appendix -- Research Techniques 14 For more information, please contact: Professor Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh Center for Urban Research and Policy, Columbia University International Affairs Building 420 West 188th Street, Room 813, Mail Code 3355 New York, New York 10027 212/854.2072 For electronic copies of report: http://www.sociology.columbia.edu/downloads/other/sv185/robert_taylor.pdf This project is supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Introduction This report presents findings from an ongoing study of public housing transformation in Chicago, Illinois. The focus of the study is the relocation experiences of households in the Robert Taylor Homes (RTH, hereafter) public housing development. The report describes the experiences of tenants participating in the Chicago Housing Authority's (CHA) "Plan for Transformation." This summary briefing offers findings based on approximately 18 months of observation, from January 2001 until July 2002. The report begins with a brief description of the sample and the current state of relocation. Subsequent sections focus on (1) the sub-sample of families who have still not relocated from the RTH and the factors preventing relocation and (2) the sub-sample of families who have left the RTH during the last 18 months with a special emphasis on the issues they face during their exit and relocation into new communities. Findings are presented in abbreviated form in order to facilitate timely dissemination. For additional information, please contact the authors. KEY FINDINGS o 89% of the families have not relocated with only one month remaining before building closure. o Non-leaseholders comprise over 40% of the total population residing in the RTH. o 39% of the relocated families report their primary service providers to be in/around the RTH, not in their new community. o 29% of heads-of-households report either the return of an inmate from jail/prison or the expected return of an inmate in the next 9 months. o 67% of the heads-of-households report suffering continued domestic abuse and harassment from partners with whom they once lived. o Tenants have limited ties to the outside world: 83% of the "close friends and relatives" of the RTH tenants live in public housing. o 90% of the families in the sample have at least one attribute that define them as non-lease compliant, hence are potentially eligible for removal from the public housing program. o Tenants continue to have difficulties receiving timely, accurate information on relocation and service provision. o 13% of the relocating families have made a successful transition to a new community. KEY RECOMMENDATIONS o When school is in session, relocation should occur minimally, and only when the process poses minimal burdens for the family. o Families should be given sufficient time to search for new units without undue pressure or harassment from administrative agencies, which includes property managers and relocation counselors. o Trained tenants and advocacy agencies with experience in service delivery should play the lead role in service provision and information dissemination. o On-site offices should be maintained where tenants can collect information. Such offices must be open during evening hours. o Information dissemination must be centralized and coordinated to avoid persistent miscommunication and transmission of discordant information. o Long term research and planning must occur to anticipate future stages of the relocation process. One pressing issue will be to coordinate housing policy with criminal justice policy. o Current techniques designed to estimate tenants' utility bills should be modified in order to ensure proper determination of household usage and realistic schedules of payment. o Law enforcement agencies should not be primary agency for squatter and on-leaseholder eviction; tenant leaders and advocates must lead the effective, human resettlement of the non-leaseholder population. PART I - WHO LIVES IN THE ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES? The population in public housing includes leaseholding and non-leaseholding residents, and squatters. In any particular household in the RTH, there is likely to be leaseholders and non-leaseholders in residence. o Leaseholders: occupants recognized by the property manager and the CHA as legal dwellers of the RTH. o Non-leaseholders: (a) sub-leasing family units composed of (at least) one parent and (at least) one child or (b) individual boarders. o Squatters: persons occupying units that either have been recently vacated or been officially designated by the CHA or the property manager as "vacant." The following table summarizes the demographic characteristics of the residents in the study sample (August 2002). The sample is based on three buildings in the RTH currently participating in the CHA's transformation plan. Leaseholders 56% Men 2% Women 26% Children 72% Sub-lessees and individual boarders 27% Adults 63% Children 37% Squatters 16% Adults 74% Children 26% PART II -- WHO HAS NOT RELOCATED FROM THE ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES? The three buildings in this study were scheduled for closure September 2002. However, only a small percentage of families have successfully relocated. o 89% of the residents continue to live in the RTH. o 11% of the residents have moved out of the RTH. Administration The CHA has made efforts to improve its communication with families. However, households in the RTH continue to face obstacles receiving information about the relocation process. o Over 50% of the families have not received timely notification regarding the status of their Housing Choice Voucher application, the times and dates of meetings, the availability of services, etc. o Mailboxes are out of order for weeks at a time. Undelivered mail is discarded in lobbies, trash receptacles, and hallways. o Agencies enlisted to help tenants find private market units often cite their relations with landlords as a strength. However, agency staff often deny applicants their first (and second) neighborhood preference, redirecting them instead to landlords with whom they already have made arrangements. Given that residents are relocating primarily into impoverished areas, there must be better arrangements in place so that families make efficacious choices and are not reliant on the interests of counseling agencies. Recommendations o Reliance on mail delivery or phone service will not be sufficient given the current state of affairs in RTH. Since many families lack telephone service, there must be in place multiple-communications strategies, including posting of flyers, the use of part-time tenant consultants as "communication workers" who can disseminate information to households, and the removal of all dissemination responsibilities from the property manager. o Relocation agencies must be monitored to ensure that they are respecting tenant's neighborhood preferences, instead of prioritizing landlords of their own choosing. o There is a dearth of resident advocates involved in the process whom families trust to act on their behalf. Incorporating such agents immediately would both ease the burden for CHA and property manager staff and improve the communication between administrative agencies and the residential population. ****** ROBERT TAYLOR HOMES RELOCATION STUDY Project Staff Professor Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh Columbia University, New York, New York Ms. Isil Celimli Columbia University, New York, New York Ms. Beauty Turner Residents' Journal, Chicago IL __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More http://faith.yahoo.com [This message contained attachments] ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 2 Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 13:14:22 -0700 (PDT) From: Grant Subject: New Freedom bus tour New Freedom bus tour Cheri Honkala and the Poor people’s economic human rights campaign is coming to Chicago Tues, Nov. 12. In Chicago they will monitor and document human rights violations in -- something they are doing throughout the United States on this tour. There will be a celebration for the campaign, Tues, Nov. 12 from 5 pm to 10 pm at 3450 W Jackson. There will be food, entertainment and a short documentary film on economic human rights. Free, but please try to bring a donation. Sponsored by the Coalition to Protect Public Housing __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More http://faith.yahoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 3 Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 07:30:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Grant Subject: Moving day at Cabrini Green (Chicago) CAUTIONARY NOTE: While the city continues to insist that the Community of Cabrini Green is not long for this world, the community itself remains strong and in good fighting spirit. Still, this article gives a sense of the pressures put on different elements of the Carbrini Community as CHA, in violation of agreements, continues to work to force people from their homes. --- Wayne Sherwood wrote: On moving day, past gets packed away at Cabrini Mary Schmich Chicago Tribune October 13, 2002 Miss Parker is the last tenant on the last day of the occupied life of 1121 N. Larrabee St., Cabrini-Green, Chicago. It's Friday morning and, though she's been ordered to be out by nightfall, she cannot pack one more gadget or romance novel into one more box until she's squirted Dove into the kitchen sink and washed those unused dishes. No way is she moving into a new place with plates stained by cockroaches. The last few residents of the building known as "eleven twenty-one"--mostly non-leaseholders, more commonly called squatters--left earlier in the day. So did two other unauthorized tenants discovered in abandoned apartments. One was a pit bull, the other an iguana. Now there's just Miss Parker, who doesn't use a first name and doesn't give her age. "A woman who will tell her age," she says, "will tell anything." She's probably in her 40s. She wears jeans, a white head scarf, a cross around her neck and a whiff of exhaustion a lot older than this morning. "They rushing me," Miss Parker says of the Chicago Housing Authority team that's stopped by to say they'll lug boxes down the stairs so she can be out by dark. Miss Parker feels rushed, but almost everyone in Cabrini has known that moving day was coming. Chicago's most famous public housing complex is morphing into a mixed-income mecca, and Cabrini's former residents are being moved to places near and far. Miss Parker's building is just the latest to be emptied. "What am I going to do with my plants?" She points to a makeshift mantelpiece of boards and plastic milk cartons under a portrait of Elvis. On top sit several plants with vines so entwined they need surgical separation. For almost a dozen years, Miss Parker, who grew up on the West Side, has lived in Apartment 406 of this seven-story red-brick building. Surrounded by gangs, guns and drugs, she's mostly kept to herself, except to deliver 1121's mail, which is distributed door to door since there are no mailboxes. Life has gotten both better and worse as her neighbors moved away. "Not so many people hollering and cursing," she says. "It's quieter. But more strangers come up." The strangers are half the reason a dozen shopping carts barricade the corner outside her front door, near the bottomless milk cartons wired to a wall as basketball hoops. While 1121's tenants have vanished, strangers have turned the abandoned halls into playgrounds, primarily for sex and drugs. The carts, says Miss Parker, keep both trades away from her door. The shopping carts are also where she stows the recycled items she collects and sells as her only source of income. She receives no welfare, she says, and gets food from a pantry. She used to do some child care, but now, she says, "Recyclin's my hustle." When Friday started, Miss Parker still didn't know where she'd be moving, but in the late morning, the CHA team tells her she's landed a coveted spot in a nearby Cabrini rowhouse. She often has trouble walking and is glad she'll no longer have to fight the stairs. As the day ticks away, Miss Parker doubts more and more that she'll be done on time. All these clothes, cans and toys. The books, Reader's Digests, Pottery Barn catalogs. Two bicycles she fantasizes she'll learn to ride. "I'm going to miss it," she says, surveying the cinder-block walls and peeling ceiling of her overstuffed apartment. "But life is change." And now, she says, excusing herself, she really has to pack. And wash those dishes. Outside Miss Parker's place, bulldozers beep in the rubble of a nearby Cabrini high-rise. On the floors below, evacuated apartments are still filled with the refuse of the people for whom 1121 was home. One apartment is clogged with dozens of old bicycles, countless filthy window fans and a TV talking to nobody. In another, lights beam from a bedraggled plastic Christmas tree. Scavengers have stripped some rooms of their window casings, sinks and toilets. In one apartment lie stacks of self-help pamphlets, including "The World's Most Powerful Money Management." And out front, in the overgrown remains of what used to be one of the nicest yards in Cabrini, a few orange zinnias struggle in the October sun, the last survivors of 1121. __________________________________________________ Yahoo! - We Remember 9-11: A tribute to the more than 3,000 lives lost http://dir.remember.yahoo.com/tribute ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/