Judge Gives Cabrini Residents 10 Days To Move
CHICAGO (CBS) - A federal judge told the two families still living in the last remaining Cabrini-Green public housing development high-rise to move out within 10 days.
U.S. District Judge William Hibbler said Wednesday it is more dangerous to keep the 134-unit building at 1230 N. Burling St. open for two families than it is to relocate them.
The Chicago Housing Authority filed an emergency motion Tuesday seeking the closure after two families refused to move out.
One of the residents, Annie Ricks, said she is not satisfied with the alternative housing the CHA is offering. She is seeking more time to give her and her four children more time to pack and find a better place.
Tuesday had been the deadline for residents to move out of the building. Originally, the CHA had not planned to close the building until Jan. 4, but officials moved the date back on the grounds that the building is no longer safe because of its low occupancy.
But Ricks told reporters Tuesday that she would not leave the building.
"They're going to have to do what they're going to have to do," she said. "They're going to have to have the police take me out."
While most residents moved out Tuesday, others also resisted. Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich reported that a resident sent out a news release reading, "Residents demand the right to spend their holidays in their community, according to the terms of CHA's own relocation agreement."
Cabrini-Green once sprawled from Evergreen Avenue on the north to Chicago Avenue on the south, and from the Brown-Purple Line 'L' tracks on the east to Halsted Street on the west.
Now the only part of Cabrini-Green that will remain with the closure of the Burling Street building will be the original row houses in the southwestern part of the development. They date from 1942.
