Ever since the architectural pioneers of Chicago figured out a way to anchor buildings in sand, the city has had a love of building massive concrete towers straight up tall to pierce and penetrate the sky. Combine that love of tall hard buildings with the walling off of ethnic groups to keep the simmering of racial and ethnic tensions just below a boil---most of the time---and you have Cabrini Green and the story of public housing in Chicago. No one likely said out loud, “Here’s an idea. Let’s take poor people, predominantly African-American women and children and stack them on top of each other.” But that’s what happened.
There were many other towers of poverty in Chicago. Most gone now. And most of them were places were the flash of a knife or the pop of the gun could on any given day come quicker than at Cabrini Green. But what made Cabrini Green stand out was its proximity to the glitter and the gold prime real estate, the wealth of the surrounding neighborhood. Cabrini Green stood in the shadows of the downtown towers of Chicago. The skyline as seen from Lake Michigan where the power elite counted money, made deals and then went out to play. Cabrini Green stood, since it’s very inception, in a vise. Continually squeezed, as the surrounding real estate got more and more expensive. Chicago is a city where generations grew up knowing on an almost biological level, that there are certain streets you just don’t cross. And the streets around Cabrini got tighter and tighter.
Till now there is a lovely park. And a Starbucks. And Annie Ricks has moved out. So only the wind blows through her empty building. Annie got dumped into another project on the south side. A food desert. But Annie was on the streets for years before she and her seven children found a roof at Cabrini. Annie is very strong. Annie will survive.
The legacy of Public Housing, not just in Chicago, but also across the country, is a layered, complex, rich tapestry woven into the cultural soul of who we all are. In 2012, a National Public Housing Museum will open a permanent headquarters here in Chicago. The plans are in place. A temporary site exists today, filled with pictures. Each picture radiating a story worth telling. Because in some way or another, the story connects to all of us.
Like, for example, the story of The Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers. They sang at the churches in and around Cabrini. One of those Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers was a man named Curtis Mayfield. Another, also a Cabrini resident, was a man who was born in Sunflower Mississippi. Jerry Butler. Together, they formed a group called “The Impressions.” And from their music came stories, came the songs, and the message most important when you start asking questions like, “Cabrini Green is gone now. What does that mean? What did we learn here?”
That stacking people on top of each other isn’t a very good idea? That the land has all been grabbed?
Or maybe something even more important. One of those things that sounds so simple that you pass right by thinking “Yeah, so what. I already knew this.”
But then you here Jerry Butler sing it. From Sunflower Mississippi. Raised in Cabrini Green in Chicago. You hear him sing; “Only the Strong Survive.”
And suddenly, because you heard him sing it, you’re just a little bit stronger yourself.
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We are all connected here.
I lived in Rogers Park for 10 years, in one of those big old courtyard apartment buildings, around the corner from a scattered site building. Over the years, many Section 8 tenants moved in and out of my building. Most were decent neighbors, as were the majority of tenants in the 6-unit scattered site building.
When one of the high ride project buildings was closed at Cabrini or Robert Taylor Homes, our neighborhood would see an influx of new people who had obviously grown up in a long-term project family and knew no other way of life. Their habits were not always compatible with mainstream residents - late night loud parties, hanging out on the back porch having loud conversations at all hours with people down in the parking lot, being careless with their trash - to the point where we knew all too well from the trail of chicken bones and dirty diapers down the back stairs what they'd eaten for dinner, that the baby was sick, that there was a large unlicensed daycare operating in a one-bedroom apartment, and that our formerly clean building now had roaches and rats. The problem tenants were a small percentage of the Section 8 folks, but they became a very visible minority.
When there was enough preparation for a project closure and tenants would be going into the Section 8 voucher program, social workers spent time working with project tenants, preparing them to live in mainstream buildings among non-project people. Some of the closures have seemed rather rushed, and tenants didn't necessarily get preparation from social workers. Experiences like mine were the result.
When the new tenants were older people, the transition was usually better. For those in their 20s and 30s who knew only the projects, it was difficult for everyone. I didn't envy them, being turned out of the only world they'd ever known, but that didn't relieve my frustration at all the new problems in our building.
The legacy of the projects is a very mixed bag - talented musicians, writers and artists, students who worked hard in school and used their education to become doctors, lawyers, teachers, entrepreneurs; surviving in spite of the gangbangers and murderers in their midst.
There's a lot of vacant land where some of the high rises used to stand. The scars of promising lives lost to violence will remain as long as we remember, long after the footprints of the buildings are erased by new construction.
Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts, is one of many examples I've seen of successful people who grew up in the projects. He had a teacher who made a big difference in the direction of his life, and he grew up there when the Robert Taylor Homes were still fairly new.
At my last job, one long-time client was a woman who grew up in Cabrini and did well in school, thanks to dedicated teachers. She was successful in college and worked her way up the ladder at various jobs, going on to found her own manufacturing business on the south side. Thanks to corporate greed and the subsequent corporate bankruptcy of her biggest retail client, her company folded. She's still out there, working in management at another company, networking and building capital to give it another try.
In the last 20 years, the success stories have more often been rappers or athletes. Lupe Fiasco, who came out of the west side projects, has recorded songs with some very positive messages, and done charity fundraising work - a refreshing alternative to music with sexist or materialist messages.
Damon--I will check that book out. Here's to the Iceman!
Bike and Stella--You both make really good points about the support required for public housing. And Stella is absolutely right. The pure concept of "stacking" doesn't have to be bad---it's the lack of ongoing support that's the issue.
The privatizing of public housing really is more about the developers money than the person living in the housing.
I got interested in this last spring and early summer finishing the manuscript of an oral history in which one of my interviewees introduced me to the Lathrop Homes. A stunning contrast to Cabrini. At Lathrop, 37% of the property was green space. Designed by the landscape artist Jens Jensen. And this was public housing. So there are also lessons from what we did right.
But the bottom line is exactly what Stella said: this is complicated. It's where narrative winds its way through policy in a million different ways. And ANYONE who claims they know the full picture on this subject, is someone I would doubt. Because there are so many layers here. Personally, I think that's what makes it interesting. But the lack of easy power point answers like "It's the stacking" as a way to is what keeps it off of ANY front page anywhere.
No "Mama Grizzlies" here. Just poor people trying to find a home and doing the best they can. That and Jerry Butler singing.
owl--Sometimes ---especially in stories like this--I believe the music does a better job of telling the story than any words could.
FTM--I know people personally who have been on the waiting list here for years. As to "Where did all the people go?" There is no one answer to that---but many of the answers are not good.
Joel---I hear you.
Stim---Not as long as you can hear Butler and Mayfield.
Bike---Gov. Patrick is a success story. As is Howard Schultz who founded Starbuck, Bill Cosby, and (this is the one that surprised me when I learned it in the Public Housing Museum temporary location---Jimmy Carter!
Patton---Hah! It's not me. It's the fact of how those three things you named can legitimately be used in the same sentence!
"Stood in line down at the county hall
Heard a man say "We gonna build some apts for you all"
The same holds true for the psychiatric community as well. We decided that institutions were fundamentally bad, so now most of them are living on the streets homeless. I'm not sure why our society can't get that balance right- if we don't have enough money, or love, or specialists or what? Both sectors are a hot mess though. I dunno about people who specialize in working with the poor and getting them what they need, but if you say you want to work with the mentally ill you get such a look of pity. They and the poor are the untouchables of our society, because crazy is catching, poverty is catching :/ frustrating
It is ugly though. People living so close to the edge. It's not pretty or comfortable- and the rules are different. Maybe that's it? The people that can help just can't deal with the constant pain and ugliness, because in order to want to help you have to be sensitive. I dunno- babbling.
On the second point---does a person have to be sensitive to serve someone who needs a hand. The research from the company that pre-dated Gallup (and grew into Strengthsfinder 2.0) looked at the natural talents---the stuff one is born with ---like sensitivity or "Empathy." And then looked at people who were the very best at what they did. Teachers and nurses were the first groups. (Along with pub owners but that's amuck longer story!) And it turned out that empathy was NOT something most often found in the very best nurses. Now that is NOT an absolute. It's research. Not holy doctrine. There are exceptions. But it's very good research.
So I think there are a LOT of the 34 talent themes that would be applicable to helping professions. Empathy is not a job requirement or even necessarily a positive thing.
What I know for sure is that as the social safety net gets weaker and weaker---all we need to have a lot more conversations (sometimes even non-virtual ones to figure out what's next.
aperfectptroast---Thanks for checking it out. I realize most people don't. Which is too bad because it's really the best part.
AHP--I just read your comment out loud to my wife saying "He listen to this! He got what I was trying to do with the contrast between the beginning to the end!"
Cordle--I sent this to Mr. Butler. So if he reads it, I'm sure he'll appreciate that. And BB is singing write now as I type this.
Highly rated, my friend.
Paul Haider, Chicago
I lived in the westburbs mostly when I lived with my parents.
When I was in H.S., one of the guys had family who lived on Sacramento somewhere south of Madison St.
This was when Madison was skid row.
I learned a lot about other people when we visited that guy's relatives on Sacramento.
Later on, I lived on State St a block souith of Chicago Ave.
I learned a lot more then.
I had one connection who lived near Sox park.
I remember watching the fear in people's eyes when I was in that neighborhood.
Whether they were gangbangers or not, almost everyone I ever saw in those neighborhoods had that fear in their eyes.
For anyone who never came in contact with this life, you can't possibly know why these people do drugs, etc.
It's spelled E-S-C-A-P-E
It took me a while to understand what I was looking at.
Mixed with that fear was lonliness, anger, frustration and entrapment.
Even though I was a white guy, I came to understand it, even though at the time, I didn't realize that just the color of my skin gave me an out.
Looking back, I have to say that I honestly didn't truly experience and/or understand it.
Why? Because I was a white guy.
Being a white guy, even though I'm "fly"(lol) doesn't make mne better.
I does make me fortunate.
A lot of other white people don't realize that.
Maybe that's why I'm still alive after all the places I've been and the things I've done.
How many of you realize how fortunate you are?
Damn, ChiGuy, you always do this to me~~bringin' me back home.
And your point about the fear is very well taken. It prompted the thought---you know what's REALLY terrifying? It's when you do NOT see the fear in the eyes. It's when you only see the emptiness.
(Isn't it ironic how, all too often, to be poor living in some other country is better somehow in the eyes of those with money here than to be a poor person really in need of help here?)
Also, here in CO there is a lovely spot called The Mother Cabrini Shrine. Is there a connection? Her first name was Frances.
Rated
I've been filming at Cabrini Green for over 15-years. My first film Voices of Cabrini: Remaking Chicago's Public Housing (1999), explored the impact of the demolitions from the perspective of residents and small business owners.
I'm currently creating a follow-up film, Cabrini Green: Mixing it Up. This documentary tells the story of how these demolitions have impacted the Cabrini community, from the razing of the first building in 1995, to the poignant moment when the final remaining family, Mrs. Annie Ricks and her children, were forced out on December 9th, 2010.
We look at how many of the cities’ promises are actually being kept and what is happening to the displaced Cabrini residents? Who is really benefiting from moving residents from the most valuable land in the city? Are lives improving, or is this just another reshuffling of Chicago's urban poor?
The film is being produced by myself, Brenda Schumacher, and former Cabrini resident Mark Pratt.
We are currently in the middle of a fundraising campaign. I invite you to check out the campaign and watch the trailer:
http://kck.st/eenlDf
I'm interested in your feedback.