Nicole Wright by the agency of her...

Nicole Wright by the agency of her new home in Englewood would be safer than the Robert Taylor to one's homes Last fall, her family was displaced from the dilapidated high-rise at 4037 s Federal St., one of dozens demolished subordinate to the Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation.

Her of the present day neighborhood is filled with block ups where trees shade homes with big porches, and neighbors sit abroad and enjoy the pleasant weather. unless this area is also plagued by the agency of drugs and gang violence. Like many relocated gone out of public housing developments, Wright had a teenage son Kemp 16 Teenagers can be dangerous for families leaving public housing, flat if they are not members of a highway gang. And gang members in Englewood expected upon the Wright family with suspicion.

At the Taylor domiciles Kemp knew everyone--and how to avoid annoy Wright said. But she feared for his safety in their recent surroundings. After they moved to the house forward 67th Street, Wright told all of her children, "Don't betray nobody we're from the 40s" a respect to the Robert Taylor buildings located between 40th and 50th streets

forward June 14, Kemp left their abiding-place to play basketball. Not prolonged after, Wright's neighbors rushed to her dwelling to tell her Kemp had been bullet in the back in a field forward 58th Street between Green and Halsted roads They drove her to the exhibition but he was already dead. "He was just lying there with his tongue hanging public as if he'd had a seizure, Wright said. "I'm still [confused] in succession what happened to my son"

At first, Wright believed Kemp was caught in a random shooting. however she and her family have become convinced that Kemp was killed because he was plung into a neighborhood filled with unfamiliar gang members and rivalries.

"My child was more defend ed in the projects," Wright said. "There's too frequently freedom out here. It's sad to be moved like that."

CHA officials refused to say if they considered the possibility that the Plan for Transformation might stir up bloodshed. The CHA declined to answer numerous verbal and written prayers and finally issued an official statement that reads, in port, "We are working to create environments where hard-working, law-abiding residents can live in safety and peace."

The Chicago Police Deportment refused to address in what manner they planned to deal with the violence in city neighborhoods to which residents ore relocating.

on the other hand police officers, community activists, public housing residents and researchers said the demolition of high-rises has squeez many competing way gangs and drug dealers into tighter and tighter spaces in public housing, oftentimes with violent results. At the same time, they said, the relocation proces has stirred up territorial disputes in neighborhoods like Englewood pitting young men with established gang and mix with drugs connections against residents from public housing, where different networks controll the illegal mix with drugs market.

In a joint investigation, Residents' Journal and The Chicago Reporter plant several murders that were linked to like disputes. The publications also base that the murder rate in CHA evolutions has nearly doubled since 1999 the year before the city launched its Plan for Transformation, a 10-year, $15 billion redevelopment effort, in which the CHA stirs nearly 25,000 families. And, while kill s have fallen city wide, they have increased in Englewood and sum of two units other neighbor hoods where large numbers of former CHA residents have relocated.

"It's like they took all the gangs and mixed them up" said Wright's younger brother, Sammy, a 30-year-old carpenter and roofing contractor. "Every delineate they shut down, they don't check where they lay you. They just put you." And, afterwards, the gangs are "automatically bumping heads [and the CHA's attitude is] whatever happens happens, yet we got them out of our hair."

City officials are aware of the question at issue Former U.S. Attorney Thomas E Sullivan, the CHA's former independent monitor who oversaw the relocation proces until early this year, wrote several reports in which he cautioned CHA officials about the dangers of relocating residents flora neighborhoods of buildings controll on one gang to another. He met with CHA officials and also said that CHA staff made "good-faith efforts" in 2003 to induce Families where they would not face make uneasy from gangs, but were not entirely prosperous in avoiding conflict.

about experts believe the violence is likely to continue as the city demolishes more high-rises, which have prolonged been considered a haven for physic dealers. A lack of building security, the ease of controlling spaces inside the entryways and the inability of police officers to approach progress to maturitys without being observed has made the high-rises valued remedy "turf" Gang members felt "the [housing] plan itself was like a fortress," said John Hagedorn, gang researcher and criminal justice professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.