By cutting security detail for several top officials, new "Top Cop" McCarthy cut costs by $650,000 and likely pissed off Ald. Ed Burke. more ›

Chicago Housing Authority CEO Lewis B. Jordan, last seen waiting for a vote of confidence from Mayor Emanuel pending an audit of the department's credit card expenses, tendered his resignation today, effective June 30. more ›

Mayor Emanuel is holding off on giving Chicago Housing Authority CEO Lewis Jordan a vote of confidence until he sees the results of an audit on CHA's credit card use. more ›

Mayor Emanuel's order to stop using city-issued credit cards was prompted by the expenses racked up by high-ranking officials within the Chicago Housing Authority, including CEO Lewis Jordan. more ›

The Chicago Housing Authority is causing some controversy over their new plan to require drug testing for its current and future residents. The proposed policy would require any CHA resident over the age of 18 to be tested for drugs, and would effect 16,000 families currently living in CHA establishments. But this is not the only new policy that is raising some eyebrows. The new CHA proposal also calls to eliminate "innocent tenant defense," which the Sun-Times refers to "evictions initiated when a drug-related or violent crime has been committed by a relative or guest of the leaseholding tenant - but the tenant was not involved nor had knowledge of the crime." more ›

The Chicago Housing Authority released a report yesterday (PDF) that served to answer outstanding questions about the agency's "Plan for Transformation" that relocated families from now demolished high rise complexes such as Robert Taylor Homes and Cabrini Green. The report shows that most of the 17,000 families relocated as part of the plan moved to other parts of the city. 56 percent of those residents relocated either to other developments within CHA or are using housing vouchers to rent apartments in other areas of the city. more ›

An elderly man who suffered second and third degree burns and a person in their 20s who suffered minor smoke inhalation were both injured in a fire at the Patrick Sullivan Apartments, a Chicago Housing Authority senior citizens building, at 1633 W. Madison St. early Sunday morning. According to Fire Media Affairs Director Larry Langford via the Chicago Sun-Times, an EMS Plan I alarm and a still-and-box alarm were both called around 1 a.m., sending at least five ambulances to the building. The fire started in a mattress in an apartment containing the elderly man. Both he and the other injured individual were taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital. Firefighters were able to contain the fire to the room it was in, and the blaze was out by 1:30 a.m., Langford said. Authorities are still investigating and believe the fire may have been caused accidentally by smoking materials. more ›

Long after the last structure is demolished, Cabrini-Green will remain a potent symbol of 20th Century Chicago's complicated history of dealing with segregation and poverty. And long after the last resident moved out, Cabrini-Green will still be thought of as "home" by thousands of Chicagoans. Its complete story cannot yet be told, one local filmmaker is looking for help to put the latest chapter in the books. more ›

No heat with holes in the floors and bed bugs running rampant doesn’t affect Rev. Leon Finney Jr., only his tenants. For decades Finney has been a Daley political alley serving on the Chicago Plan Commission while simultaneously fronting as a man of God. It seems his chosen path was to take that government money (our taxpaying dollars) and not help his people. more ›

Yesterday we posted about a Sun-Times expose that looked at who in city, county and state government has a security detail, and the cost to taxpayers. The story listed the four city officials currently receiving bodyguard details as Mayor Daley, 14th Ward Alderman Edward Burke, City Treasurer Stephanie Neely, and a fourth official the Police Department refused to disclose. Today, the Sun-Times identified the fourth official. more ›

Annie Ricks has the distinction of being the final resident of Cabrini Green to leave the infamous housing projects. She and her family leave today to a new apartment at Wentworth Gardens, by U.S. Cellular Field. more ›

Citing crime and safety issues as a primary concern, the Chicago Housing Authority issued 30-day eviction notices to the 31 families still living in the Cabrini-Green building at 1230 N. Larrabee Street. The families aren't pleased with the notices that they felt came out of nowhere. According to the Sun-Times, residents thought a new mixed-income housing development was planned for the future and believed they secured an agreement to stay via a federal lawsuit. CHA’s Plan for Transformation calls for a standard 180-day notice and a federal judge was overseeing negotiations between CHA and tenants seeking to consolidate into one of the four Cabrini-Green properties while awaiting new housing. more ›

Shatoya Currie is looking for a new home, just like many other former residents of the Cabrini-Green housing project. However, Currie is confined to a wheelchair and unable to see or speak because of a 1997 attack that took place in the housing project. Currie was referred to as "Girl X" during the trial, since she was just nine years old at the time of the attack. Patrick Sykes was sentenced to 120 years in prison for the attack. A Time magazine article in 1997 contrasted public reaction to this case to that of the Jon-Benet Ramsey case. She is 22 years old now and is no longer eligible to stay at the Illinois Center for Rehabilitation and Education, so she must find a new home. more ›

The shoddy condition of the gates at Cabrini-Green came to public light last June when one of the heavy gates fell on a 3-year-old boy, killing him. At the time residents were insisting that the gates were an accident waiting to happen for a long time, and now they have the proof to back it up. The Tribune has obtained inspection records from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development dating back to 2006 stating that the gates were in serious disrepair, and that the Chicago Housing Authority was notified of their condition. But because the gates weren't listed as "life threatening", the CHA wasn't required to act immediately to repair them so instead did -- who knows? more ›

The museum will also serve to tell stories behind the Chicago Housing Authority’s $1.6 billion Plan for Transformation, during which thousands of public housing residents have been displaced for reconstruction. Current and former public housing residents are being encouraged to contribute to the museum by sharing personal stories and donating artifacts and “memorabilia." more ›

The CTA will be spending $227 million in federal funds on improving itself and fixing slow zones. Doors open on the left at "finally." In other CTA news, the Yellow Line is going to start running on weekends. [S-T, Trib] more ›

You know how's it kinda gross and crappy out? You didn't know? Well, it is. Guess what's sexy to dolphins? Carrying stuff around in their mouths. At least, that's what some scientists think; other ones not sure; yet others, attempting to cure cancer. Mayor Daley announced his pick for CEO of the Chicago Housing Authority: Lewis A. Jordan. Jordan ran the Rockford and Cook County housing authorities, and spent 20 years in management at Allstate... more ›

Good news, Pace riders: The strike is over! Yes, it came and went in the blink of an eye, unless you were trying to ride this morning, in which case the blink was a long, frustrating, busless one. But it's done. Teamsters Local 731 walked off the job this morning, but have since agreed to federal mediation, and service should be back to normal by now. more ›

Back in the early ‘60s, a two-mile strip of low-income housing was completed on State between Pershing and 54th. That strip of 28 high-rises, dubbed the Robert Taylor Homes, would develop over the years into one of the most infamous housing projects of the city, if not the nation. Amid all the sensational stories of the violence, drug-dealing and poverty that surrounded the area, residents insisted the Taylor Homes were not the cesspool many believed... more ›

While Chicagoist was vacationing out west this long holiday weekend, our thoughts turned back briefly to our favorite obsession, politics. When we were hanging out around one of our favorite coffee shops west of the Mississippi, we picked up a copy of the local rag, and read up on all the important news facing readers of that other -Ist. But one story caught our eye, one that has both local and national significance. The Los... more ›

The big news yesterday was that Daley would run for relelection. Lined up at city hall with all the aldermanic candidates was none other than Terry Peterson, former Chicago Housing Authority CEO and Daley's campaign manager, carrying less than 25,000 signatures to put Hizzoner on the ballot. This is a far cry from past campaigns when Daley surrogates would arrive with nearly a quarter million signatures. While some have speculated that filing light like this... more ›

Now and then a Chicago newspaper runs an article detailing gynormous sums of money coursing through the bank account of a campaign fund connected to a powerful city official. The story is usually structured: "Big sum of money -> little-known ward organization -> powerful official connected to it -> city contractors contribute to fund". The implication, with no direct facts, is usually that the powerful official directs city contractors to their favored ward organization, and in return the contractor gets a job. more ›

Chicagoist often gazes through Brown Line windows at the ever-so-dismal remains of the Cabrini Green community, and has wondered time and time again just what went wrong with some of the Chicago Housing Authority’s (CHA) most ambitious, and notorious, housing projects. For that reason, Roosevelt University's The Promise of Public Housing, 1936-1983 is situated firmly atop our “Damn, This Exhibit Looks Cool” file. Compiling more than 80 photographs culled from the archives of the CHA... more ›

The new schools on the West and South Sides, most of which are to be housed in existing buildings, will be opened in connection with the Chicago Housing Authority's plan to transform those neighborhoods. more ›