It is also overseen by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the source of much of its funding. While the CHA is a separate agency that is not formally part of city government, its CEO and board members are picked by - and often answer to - the mayor. And the city’s housing commissioner has said Chicago needs at least 120,000 more affordable units to house everyone in need. More than 30,000 people are currently on the CHA’s waiting lists for a public housing apartment or a voucher to help them rent in the private market. ![]() Lightfoot and the CHA are pushing the Fire deal as Chicago, like many other cities, faces an affordable housing crisis. “It seems that the CHA wants to get out of the business of providing quality housing for families.” “We have an agency, the Chicago Housing Authority, that is supposed to provide housing for the most vulnerable, and instead of building housing they want to give that land to a soccer team,” said Rod Wilson, executive director of the Lugenia Burns Hope Center, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing and equitable community development. Federal officials have signed off on the land transactions. It has sold or leased property for a nonprofit tennis academy, a charter school, a police station, medical facilities, movie production space and a supermarket, according to agency records. To housing advocates and those desperate for affordable homes, the deal is the latest in a series of betrayals by Chicago mayors and the CHA.Īs its rebuilding efforts have lagged over the last 15 years, the CHA has repeatedly let its land be developed for purposes other than housing. The Fire are owned by Joe Mansueto, founder of the investment research firm Morningstar and one of Chicago’s most influential business leaders. Under the deal, the CHA would lease about 26 acres to the Chicago Fire Football Club, which would construct a practice facility consisting of six soccer fields and a building for training and business offices. Instead, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago Housing Authority are planning to lease the land for decades to a professional sports team owned by a local billionaire. Now, after building less than a third of the promised new units, officials are moving with unusual urgency to redevelop the largest plot of empty land at ABLA - but not for housing. The pledge was part of a 10-year plan to “transform” public housing citywide and offer a model to other cities. But, officials said, thousands of new homes for both poor and more affluent families would be built to replace them. Most of the residential buildings at ABLA would be demolished. NEAR WEST SIDE - When thousands of families were forced to move out of the ABLA Homes public housing complex two decades ago, Chicago and federal leaders promised they would be able to come back to new housing and a revitalized community on the city’s Near West Side. ![]() Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. This story was originally published by ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.
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