Chicago Housing Authority turns to rehabbing longtime vacant properties for families
CHICAGO (CBS) – With thousands of people waiting for the opportunity to have their own home, the Chicago Housing Authority is looking to renovate longtime vacant properties as a cheaper alternative to building new units.
Some have been stuck for years on a public housing waiting list for a place to call their own. The Chicago Housing Authority is working on one solution to the problem.
Like any mother, Shavon Nowell has a few shadows following her around.
"Can you sit over here please?" she told her daughter.
Nowell had to laugh when those shadows wouldn't leave her alone during an interview. CBS 2 had stopped by before school to hear about the ray of hope that she said saved her and her daughters.
"If we didn't get called for here, I was fearing that we was going to be homeless," Nowell said.
She feared they would be homeless, because Nowell's rent in the suburbs had gotten too high. Also, the Chicago Housing Authority property she had her sights set on was unavailable.
"I was on a waiting list for 25 years," she said. "And I knew I would never get that, and if I did, my kids would be all grown."
A relieved Nowell found a newly renovated CHA apartment in Little Village within five months of changing her location preferences.
"So that was a blessing," she said.
It was also the result of a new initiative from the Chicago Housing Authority called "Restore Home." The CHA has so far completed renovations of five apartment buildings and three single-family homes, according to CEO Tracey Scott.
Scott added that existing CHA money, about $50 million, will be used to fix up empty agency units. Some properties were vacant for a few months or years. For others, it's been decades.
"They were just sitting there," Scott said.
So why did it take so long to attend to those properties?
"I really can't speak to the past," Scott said. "All I can speak to is, we're here now."
The agency's goal was to get more than 200 homes back online by mid-2025. Some jobs are small, and others, not so much.
For one unit Scott showed CBS 2, "the outside looks great, but inside, it was pretty much a gut job." Still, rehabbing the building makes more financial sense than building from the ground up.
"Relatively speaking, it's less expensive and somewhat easier to say, 'Let's start with existing properties,'" she said.
All the commotion in the East Garfield Park neighborhood was attracting positive attention.
"I've been staring at the vacant building for about 10 years," said Katherine Robinson, a neighborhood resident. "It's exciting. It's exciting. We need new life in the neighborhood."
Tenants should be moving into the three-flat by the end of the summer.
As for the people on public housing standby, CHA counts 130,000 applicants in its system, hoping to be placed in public housing. Scott acknowledged that a couple hundred new housing options won't solve the problem, but "every step counts," she said. That's especially so, considering each step could be a family.
Nowell's building was one of the first "Restore Home" projects completed.
"The environment is good," she said. "It's nice and clean and they're happy."
The CHA said the plan for "Restore Home" is to improve every vacant property possible. The places that would be too costly to renovate might be sold.