Cabrini-Green residents have turned to the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago (LAF) for legal help after they were served with 180-day relocation notices, and will be evicted from their current homes and relocated to some of the city's poorest, most segregated and highest crime neighborhoods with little chance of return, unless the court intervenes.  The residents, represented by LAF, have filed suit in federal court against the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) to prevent a blanket removal of all residents. If residents are uprooted and relocated during the process of demolishing their current buildings and building new mixed-income housing, they will lose connection with the community, the schools, and the businesses that they have come to rely on. Past history indicates that only a small percentage of those residents who are forced to relocate are able to return to their community.

"Cabrini-Green residents do not object to the demolition of the high-rises," said Richard Wheelock, LAF Supervisory Attorney and counsel to Cabrini-Green residents. "Rather, they are urging the CHA to implement a phased relocation and demolition program which will allow residents to stay on site and then move directly into the new units. Residents are fighting to remain in the community in which they live, work, and school their children while CHA's Plan for Transformation is being carried out. LAF is going to do everything that we can to protect the housing rights of Cabrini-Green residents."

To read the Chicago Tribune article, click here.

To read the New York Times article, click here.

To read the Chicago Sun-Times article, click here.

Submitted by: LAF (Legal Assistance Foundation) | More news from this organization
Posted: 06/08/2004