Last Cabrini Green Resident Leaving Today

By Chuck Sudo in News on Dec 9, 2010 3:00PM

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.

According to Ricks, the Chicago Housing Authority didn't leave her with much of a choice:

“They’d first wanted to move me to 408 W. 57th Place, but couldn’t even tell me where that was, then to 875 Cambridge in the row houses, a drug house closed in September and still boarded up with broken windows,” Ricks said. “Then they said Lawndale Gardens, and I’m not moving to the West Side. They offered Wentworth Gardens Tuesday, and said, ‘Pack up, ‘cause this building’s closing Friday.’”

Ricks and her family approach the move out south with some trepidation, noting that Wentworth Gardens is in a "food desert." Ricks and the other remaining residents of Cabrini Green's 1230 N. Burling high-rise were given a 60-day notice Nov. 4, but CHA moved up the timetable as the others moved out with a quickness. Ricks and Antoine Pittford, the second-to-last tenant, were ordered by a federal judge to vacate the building by today.