Abstract
The Chicago Family Case Management Demonstration was an innovative effort to improve the circumstances and life chances of CHA’s most vulnerable families, with the goal of ensuring stable housing in better conditions. This brief explores relocation outcomes for Demonstration participants, including their experiences with relocation services. Generally, participants live in much better housing in neighborhoods where they feel safer. However, most still live in public housing, and their new neighborhoods are still poor, racially segregated, and crime ridden. To better serve vulnerable families, relocation counseling needs to be intensive, long term, and integrated with other services.
The text below is an excerpt from the complete document. Read the entire brief in PDF format.
Introduction
Not surprisingly, the CHA struggled
with relocation. The process
was initially very contentious; two
lawsuits were filed against the
agency, and a court-appointed independent
monitor oversaw relocation (Popkin 2006).
The Relocation Rights Contract, negotiated
in 2000, formally spelled out the CHA’s
obligations to leaseholders during the housing
transformation. The contract defined the
terms for lease compliance and the steps residents
could take to “cure” lease violations
and remain eligible to move into the new
mixed-income developments. The contract
also specified the services to be offered to
residents while they waited for permanent
housing; by mid-decade, the CHA had
developed a comprehensive relocation and
case management system (Popkin 2010).
When the Plan for Transformation began,
the CHA’s family public housing developments
were among the poorest, most troubled
communities in the nation. As extensive
social science literature has shown, living in
communities with concentrated poverty
undermines residents’ safety and mental
health, and it seriously limits access to
employment, social networks, quality schools,
and adequate health care (Cutler and Glaeser
1997; Ellen and Turner 1997; Massey and
Denton 1993; Roman and Knight 2010; Wilson
1987). CHA’s public housing is now dramatically
better, thanks to improved management
and new construction and design ideas (Business and Professional People for the
Public Interest 2009).
The CHA’s transformation efforts have
undoubtedly changed the face of public
housing in Chicago; the notorious developments
are gone and are gradually being
replaced with new, mixed-income housing.
Evidence about how the original residents
have fared is mixed but generally more positive
than many originally expected (Vale and
Graves 2010). The CHA Panel Study, which
tracked a sample of residents from the
Madden / Wells development from 2001 to
2009, shows that, eight years after the Plan’s
inception, most of these residents are living
in better housing in substantially safer neighborhoods
(Popkin et al. 2010). Still, even
with these gains, most former Madden/ Wells
residents are living in moderately poor, predominantly
minority communities that offer
little opportunity for them and their families
(Buron and Popkin 2010).
In addition, the Plan has not been able to
help CHA’s most vulnerable families — those
“hard to house” families with multiple, complex
problems such as serious mental and
physical ailments, addiction, domestic violence,
and histories of lease violations. These
problems often make them ineligible for
mixed-income housing or unable to negotiate
the private market with a Housing Choice
Voucher. These families risk being left behind
in CHA’s remaining traditional public housing
developments, barely better off than
before the Plan for Transformation began.
The Chicago Family Case Management
Demonstration was an innovative effort to
improve the circumstances and life chances of
CHA’s most vulnerable families, with the goal
of ensuring that participants were stably
housed in better conditions. The Demonstration—
a partnership of the Urban Institute,
the CHA, Heartland Human Care Services
(Heartland), and Housing Choice Partners
(HCP)—provided households from the
CHA’s Dearborn Homes and Madden / Wells
developments with intensive case management
services to test the feasibility of providing
wraparound supportive services in public
and assisted housing, Transitional Jobs,
financial literacy training, and relocation
counseling and support (Popkin et al. 2008).
The Urban Institute conducted a rigorous
evaluation, including a baseline and followup
survey, administrative interviews, focus
groups with service providers and program
administrators, in-depth resident interviews,
and analysis of program and administrative
data.
Initially, the CHA planned to relocate
only some of the residents in Madden / Wells
and none of the families in Dearborn (Popkin
et al. 2008). But as conditions in Madden /
Wells deteriorated, the CHA accelerated its
plans and closed the development in summer
2008. At the same time, the agency received
additional federal funds to comprehensively
rehabilitate Dearborn. As a result, nearly all
Demonstration participants had to move.
Generally, participants now live in much
better housing in neighborhoods where they
feel safer. However, most still live in public
housing, and their new neighborhoods are
still poor and racially segregated. This brief
explores relocation outcomes for Demonstration
participants, including their experiences
with relocation services and their housing and
neighborhood outcomes.
(End of excerpt. The entire brief is available in PDF format.)
This brief is part of the Supporting Vulnerable Public Housing Families: An Evaluation of the Chicago Family Case Management Demonstration series.
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