The Robert Taylor Homes

The poverty is the result of broken families, gang wars, drug abuse

The biggest and most ambitious endeavor to provide for public housing, the largest public housing project in the world

The Taylor homes incorparate all that the man whose name they commemorate wanted to avoid. Robert Taylor was a founding member of the Chicago Housing Authority and became its first African American chairman in 1943; he was an ardent spokeman of the ideas that had led to the foundation of CHA in 1937, when its program declared that it wanted to build subsidized apartments for low-income families that cannot afford decent, safe, and clean housing.

By the 1920, the South Side, which had once been middle class, was fast becoming a slum area, the last resort of poor African American migrants flocking in in large numbers from the rural South. In the 1930s, the area deteriorated dramatically; in fact, the city council declared the South Side was a threat to the whole city—a health hazard, a hotbed of crime, and, worst of all, a danger to the real-estate market in surrounding areas.

The municipal government realized that providing subsidized, affordable housing was imperative. But no agreement could be had as to where such housing ought to be built. The CHA and influential white members of the city council quarreled. While the CHA wanted those projects to be integrated in their various neighborhoods, the city council members feared that this plan would ruin the real estate markets in those neighborhoods, and they insisted that the new public housing be built on the site of the old slums. African Americans should remain where they were—far away from white prosperity, white schools and hospitals. Taylor lost the struggle and resigned; the city council members had their say; the old slums were replaced by new ghettos.

The entire project, begun, in the late 50s, was completed by 1963. At first, the cool functionality of the 28 buildings was fairly attractive: there were playgrounds, lawns, walkways closed to motorized traffic. Many of the families moving in were envied, for the apartments were spacious, equipped with central heating and warm water.

It all changed when in 1969 Congress in Washington passed a new law which had terrible consequences for subsidized housing. Instead of paying a fixed rent, inhabitants had to pay a rent that depended on their income; those who worked, had to pay more, while those who did not, still paid very little. Many felt punished, abused, and moved out; those who could afford to leave the Robert Taylor Homes, did so. Those who moved out were often those who had been the most active in communal matters; they were the social backbone of the neighborhood. Those who moved in instead often were not families but single mothers, often teenagers, with their children.

As a result, the money from rents, which was also the money available for repairs, declined. Living conditions deteriorated, but the tenants did not have the strength to counter the development; for the worse the situation, the weaker the tenants newly moving in. As more and more single mothers