The Hidden War: Crime and the Tragedy of Public Housing in Chicago / Edition 1

by Susan J. Popkin, Victoria E. Gwiasda, Lynn M. Olson, Dennis P. Rosenbaum, Larry Buron

Overview

Since the late 1970s, the high-rise developments of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) have been dominated by gang violence and drugs, creating a sense of hopelessness among residents. Despite a lengthy war on crime, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, the CHA has been unable to reduce the violence that makes life intolerable. Focusing on three developments—Rockwell Gardens, Henry Horner Homes, and Harold Ickes Homes—Sue Popkin and her co-authors interview residents, community leaders, and CHA staff. The Hidden War chronicles the many failed efforts of the CHA to combat crime and improve its developments, offering a vivid portrait of what life is like when lived among bullets, graffiti, and broken plumbing.

Most families living in these developments are headed by African American single mothers. The authors reveal the dilemmas facing women and children who are often victims or witnesses of violent crime, and yet are dependent on the perpetrators and their drug-dominant economy. The CHA—plagued by financial scandals, managerial incompetence, and inconsistent funding—is no match for thegang-dominated social order. Even well-intentioned initiatives such as the recent effort to demolish and “revitalize” the worst developments seem to be ineffective at combating crime, while the drastic changes leave many vulnerable families facing an uncertain future. The Hidden War sends a humbling message to policy makers and prognosticators who claim to know the right way to “solve poverty.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813528335
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	06/01/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	254
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Susan J. Popkin is senior research associate at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. Victoria E. Gwiasda is deputy director of the Illinois Violence Prevention Authority.

Table of Contents

List of Photos, Figures, and Tables
Foreword by Rebecca M. Blank
Acknowledgments

1. Introduction
2. The Chicago Housing Authority
3. Fighting Crime in Public Housing
4. Rockwell Gardens
5. Henry Horner Homes
6. Harold Ickes Homes
7. No Simple Solutions

Appendix: Research Methods
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Interviews residents, community leaders, and Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) staff to paint a portrait of what life is like among the gunfire and dangerous housing conditions at three CHA housing projects. Reveals dilemmas facing women and children who are often victims or witnesses of violent crime, and yet are dependent on the perpetrators and their drug-based economy, and demonstrates that the CHA is no match for the gang-dominated social order. Includes b&w photos of conditions at projects. Popkin is senior research associate at The Urban Institute. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

In autumn 1955, barely half a year after Richard J. Daley's election as mayor and little more than twice that since the onset of urban renewal, black civil rights attorney Pauli Murray voiced his outrage over the racial segregation then characteristic of national public housing policy. Comparing such discrimination to that practiced in South Africa, he warned that "(I)t would be better for the Federal Government to get out of housing altogether than be the instrument of such barbarism." Certainly the state of Chicago's public housing in the 1990s-as described in The Hidden War: Crime and the Tragedy of Public Housing in Chicago-enhances Murray's stature as a prophet. Authors Susan J. Popkin, Victoria E. Gwiasda, Lynn M. Olson, Dennis P. Rosenbaum and Larry Buron examine the 'humanitarian disaster" that has unfolded under the watch of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA). The authors seem particularly concerned with the CHA's youngest charges, asserting that the plight of the children caught in such "urban war zones," a phrase used to describe particular projects and their surrounding neighborhoods, would, under different circumstances, attract international attention. . .

The evolution of public policy is handled concisely and comprehensibly in the book. . . . Focusing on the last decade, the authors present three case studies . . . that make extensive use of survey data, oral histories, press accounts, ethnographic observations and a burgeoning secondary literature. . . . The Hidden War brings the CHA story up to date and delivers more nuanced complexity than readers might expect from its somber tone and grimly pessimistic conclusions.

Two points emerge with clarity. First, despite crushing environmental burdens, there is no monolithic "culture of poverty" dictating inevitable outcomes. . . . Second, public policy matters. The devotion of scarce resources to revitalization instead of security worked to the advantage of some in Horner, while it devastated Ickes. The cultivation of a stable core of older residents and their insulation from adverse conditions also seemed to offer promise in both developments, but could not be sustained given the pressures of demolition, relocation and the less-than-stringent screening of applicants. And, germane to both points, individuals such as Rockwell Gardens organizer Wardell Yotaghan made a positive difference. In short, human agency counts. . . .

Something needs to be done, but what? The authors . . . view action as a moral imperative. The CHA, HUD and city government, they conclude, "owe CHA residents, especially the thousands of children who still live in the terrible high-rises, a serious effort to try to help them improve their lives." The claim is indisputable, but moral exhortation provides a slender reed upon which to place the weight of necessarily costly and sustained public interventions. Nor does the placement of market-value housing on CHA sites address the issues. As Pauli Murray understood, those with power are rarely driven by such mandates.

Chicago Tribune