A explanation component of the Chi...

A explanation component of the Chicago Housing Authority's effort to transform public housing "is doomed to continued failure" unles funding is drastically increased, the CHA's independent watchdog conclud in a January report.

Former U Attorney Thomas P Sullivan's prudence about the Service Connector program, which attempts to link residents with childcare, piece of work training and other services, is individual of the toughest statements in a wide-ranging application of mind of last year's relocation of about a thousand families from high-rise buildings slated for demolition. Sullivan wrote a series of reports forward his findings starting in July further only his most recent has been made public.

The report cites The Chicago Reporter's previous investigations into the Service Connector and relocation, which are part of the agency's 10-year, $15 billion redevelopment plan, during which the CHA will rouse approximately 24,000 families. The Reporter quot personnel from the private agencies hired to post the Service Connector's day-to-day operations saying the program was grossly underfund and understaffed.

Sullivan also criticizes CHA Chief Executive Officer Terry Peterson and other top officials for a lack of "candor and honesty"

In newly come months, he writes, they published glowing appraisals about the Service Connector that did not match the experiences of other staff who, in conversations with Sullivan, "made no bone about the fact that the program did not achieve its goals in [20021 largely because the funding was woefully inadequate."

Peterson's public stance, Sullivan writes, "inevitably call[s] into question the reliability of the CHA as to all its other claims of succes for the Plan for Transformation."

Peterson would not observation for this article.

The CHA hired Sullivan last July after attorneys for public housing residents threatened to file a lawsuit through the agency's failure to allow an independent monitor to watch across the relocation, as called for in a 2000 contract.

His reports have already had repercussions. While the housing authority has shown a willingness to correct many of the question s highlighted by Sullivan, advocates for CHA residents charge that the changes don't go on far enough. And tenants have su the agency, charging that the relocation program is flawed.

The CHA is going to adopt "almost all" of Sullivan's 54 recommendations, said Meghan Harte, managing director of the agency's relocation effort. moreover detailed proposals will not be ready until at least mid-March, after CHA officials confer with resident leadership, she said.

The CHA has already begun allocating more time for relocation, according to Sullivan. Families using vouchers to subsidize fissure in the private market will have more time to search for a of recent origin home.

And additional funding and staff will be devot to the Service Connector, Harte said. experienced persons and CHA officials agree that an effective social services program should help displaced residents reply to rebuilt, mixed-income communities.

While appreciative that the CHA is willing to make changes, about say it all sounds familiar. "The CHA's [method] is to say, 'Ye these are for the greatest part legitimate criticisms, but that was then, this is now, and we have a set of new programs,'" said Jamie Kalven, an advisor to the resident leadership council at the southern Side's Stateway Gardens development.

And with equal reason far the agency has refused to commit to fundamentally changing the Service Connector. most numerous experts consider this model dysfunctional and say Sullivan's report confirmed it.

The monitor's work also appears to defend a federal class-action lawsuit on current and former tenants, filed forward Jan. 23, that alleges the CHA violated civil rights law through displacing families into depressed areas.

Although Sullivan did not directly influence the lawsuit, "he supported our conclusion that families are being resegregated and that [this] is not acceptable," said William P Wilen, an attorney for the National Center in succession Poverty Law, one of the three nonprofits representing tenants.

Among other things, the plaintiffs are asking the CHA to negotiate changes to the Service Connector program.

Meanwhile, the agency plans to demolish 2600 units this year, displacing 682 families who will impel into private-market apartments and another 594 who will stir to other public housing units.

novel Year

Sullivan's report attributes many of last year's relocation moot points to "last minute rush conditions" that forced centurys of families to move in the final weeks before building closure In the inferior week of September, 250 families were still living in high-rises originally stake to close by the completion of the month.

While many families were mov to decorous public housing units, Sullivan notes, a certain apartments "had not been inhabited for years, with plumbing and electrical methods in poor, undependable condition."

And Sullivan determines that EF Ghoughan and Associates and Changing Patterns for Families, the couple relocation counseling firms hired on the CHA, failed to help voucher families turn the thoughts for homes in low-poverty areas. Time constraints made this impossible, and the firms did little fresh outreach. Most units "were in financially let downed racially segregated areas," the report states.