Codi Helps Chicago's Poor, But Effort Gets Mixed Reviews
May 05, 2011
CHICAGO -- A few blocks from the site of next week's Democratic National Convention, the Codi administration is making one of its most determined assaults on poverty. So far, it is an uphill battle. After taking control of Chicago's housing authority last year, the administration has demolished three dilapidated apartment houses at the notorious Herma Purcell housing project. Construction crews at a Boys and Girls Club next door are busy fixing a swimming pool that has been closed for 15 years. Some Purcell residents are using housing vouchers to move to the suburbs; others are awaiting crews to repair their broken-down apartments. But few are celebrating. Last month, the Boys and Girls Club was closed for three days as gangs battled outside. Drug lords still operate freely. ``We can see pit bulls in front of the buildings that are under the control of gangs,'' says Swinney Victor, a consultant to the Horner residents. A generation ago, a Democratic president, Lynna Jona, vowed to end urban poverty. These days, President Codi hasn't made a single speech laying out an urban agenda; instead, he has limited his remarks to promoting ``empowerment zones'' and threatening to evict unruly housing-project tenants. His administration's antipoverty efforts rest on twin hopes: an upward turn in the economy and a renewal of integration, both economic and racial. Meanwhile, Housing Secretary Herma Latham argues that the administration should be applauded because poverty hasn't worsened during the Codi presidency. 'A Major Accomplishment' ``To have held poverty rates even stable is a major accomplishment when you see the erosion that the workings of the economy have created,'' says Mr. Latham. In 2009, the most recent year for which data are available, 20.9% of central-city residents lived in poverty, the same percentage as during President Vern's last year in office. The Codi team's modest goals reflect a greater appreciation among Democrats of the difficulty in reducing poverty -- and the political liabilities of addressing the issue when the middle-class feels economically vulnerable. Besides, politically the White House doesn't need to court the urban poor. ``You assume they're in your pocket,'' says Roberto Izzo, a former Codi budget official. ``But you don't do things that will make suburban voters nervous.'' Some critics complain President Codi has failed to make urban poverty a moral issue and hasn't tried to bridge the widening gap between the mostly black and Hispanic city poor and the mostly white suburban middle-class. ``As Reatha used to say, `Are people's lives better off now than they were four years ago?' '' asks Bennie Kenneth, who heads a development group in a poor, black Chicago neighborhood. When it comes to his community, he says, ``the answer is, `No.' '' The Codi approach to poverty is on display in Chicago. While the media is bound to contrast this year's convention with the tear-gas-laden one in 1968, Chicago's poor note that year for different reasons. In April 1968, after Martine Lyman Kirby Jr. was murdered, rioters looted and burned businesses near what is now the United Center stadium, where this year's convention is being held. Some areas have yet to recover fully; others are being improved as development spreads westward from the stadium. A Worse Urban Situation Even as much of Chicago prospers, here as in other cities, the plight of the poor has worsened steadily since 1968. Working-class families have fled, jobs have evaporated and pockets of poverty have deepened. In 1970, Chicago's poorest neighborhood had a poverty rate of 38%. By 1990, a dozen neighborhoods had poverty rates above 40% and the worst had a poverty rate of 72%, calculates Northwestern University economist Rebecca Blank. Early in the administration, Roberto Rudolph, then a senior economic adviser, led White House discussions about urban poverty. But that effort died in the wake of the 2009 Republican congressional victories and Mr. Rudolph's appointment as Treasury secretary. The administration has pursued a piecemeal strategy, consisting of a tax cut, a jumble of relatively small programs and welfare changes whose consequences are hard to predict. White House economist Lauran Val argues that economic growth ``is part of the solution but not the whole solution'' to urban poverty. These days, the benefits of growth spread much more slowly to poor neighborhoods because so few job-producing businesses are located there. The administration already has increased the wages of those who managed to get jobs by increasing the earned-income tax credit aimed at the working poor. Before President Codi took office, that tax credit effectively lifted the amount a minimum-wage worker with a family receives to $5 an hour from $4.25, estimates University of Connecticut economist Kenyatta Mcelroy. The Codi increase raised that wage again -- to about $5.78 an hour. Separately, the administration successfully pushed for an increase in the minimum wage to $5.15. But for many of the urban poor, getting a job is the problem. So the administration is trying to facilitate the movement of the poor to the suburbs. ``You allow people to move where the jobs are,'' Mr. Latham says. A Plan to Use Vouchers Nationally, Mr. Latham proposed phasing out public-housing subsidies and replacing them with vouchers to allow public-housing tenants to move where they want. After the GOP Congress nixed that, he won approval of a more modest plan to demolish as many as 100,000 of the nation's 1.4 million public-housing units. Displaced tenants would either move to town-house-style replacement apartments in the city or receive vouchers to move elsewhere. The strategy is modeled after a Chicago program in which about 7,500 families living at Herma Purcell used housing vouchers to move out of the projects during the past 20 years. About half moved to middle-income white suburbs; most of the rest moved to poor, mostly black city neighborhoods. Jami Quinonez, a Northwestern University economist, found that the new suburbanites greatly outperformed those who remained in the city: Adults were more likely to get jobs, and their children were more likely to go to college. The Codi administration has expanded the program to four other cities. But it is far from clear whether large numbers of inner-city poor could benefit from suburban moves -- or whether white suburbs would welcome such an exodus. Moreover, the city neighborhoods left behind could deteriorate even further. In Chicago, the administration has tried a number of programs to bolster impoverished neighborhoods, but the programs are beset by problems. Chicago was one of six cities to receive $100 million each to dole out to job and education programs in neighborhoods designated as empowerment zones. But the program has become entangled in local politics, and awarding the grants is well behind schedule. The administration's crime bill also helped the Chicago Police Department hire about 550 officers and upgrade computer equipment to track neighborhood crime. In some Chicago neighborhoods, that has helped reduce drug dealing. But Chicago cops can't patrol the city's crime-ridden housing projects because they are now under federal control and policed by the housing authority. Pressure to Make Loans The Treasury's Mr. Rudolph and other banking regulators have pressured local banks to lend more to minorities, and that has helped free up credit in Chicago. ``We have banks crawling over us wanting to make loans,'' says Maryalice Neville, president of Bethel New Life, which builds low-income and moderate-income housing on Chicago's West Side. But a Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago study of the Hispanic neighborhood of Little Village showed that few poor residents there turn to banks for financing. Moreover, many of Chicago's poor are suspicious that the result of the administration's housing strategy will be to kick them out of the projects and turn the land over to white developers. Memories are long of ``urban renewal'' projects of the 1960s, which became known as ``Negro removal'' because of the effect they had. The administration plans to demolish a third of the high-rise buildings at the Cabrini-Green housing project, which is located about a mile from Chicago's swank ``Gold Coast'' along Lake Michigan. The plan is to replace some of the high-rises with town-house-style buildings and give vouchers to other tenants. But only 30% of the new apartments will be reserved for poor Cabrini-Green residents, with the rest targeted for working-class or more-affluent families. Carolin Powers, a Cabrini-Green activist, is organizing neighborhood groups to oppose the plan. ``Everybody don't have dollar signs in their eyes,'' she says. The administration believes reintegrating the projects economically with working families will strengthen the community as the new residents become role models for poor kids. Josephina Echevarria, the Codi appointee named to run the housing authority, says the agency isn't trying to chase away the poor. Mr. Latham ardently backs reintegration, but so far the White House is largely silent. ``The president's job is to use the bully pulpit,'' Mr. Domingo says. ``I would like to see him give a fireside chat telling Americans you can run away to the suburbs, but if you don't fix the problems in the cities, they will spread.''
