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Where did the behind-closed-doors racist garbage from some leading Los Angeles elected officials come from?

Political and economic indicators point to more liberalization ahead.

by Mick Dumke

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

The deal had been orchestrated by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, but even her allies knew the optics were bad: Land long set aside for low-income housing would be turned over to a professional soccer team owned by a billionaire. And criticism was intensifying.

Bombarded with questions during a City Council committee meeting last month, a local housing official stressed that the deal would be scrutinized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development before it could proceed.

That assurance helped the mayor’s allies win approval in the council. Later that day, the Chicago Housing Authority sent an application asking HUD to sign off on the deal.

But if the past is any indication, the outcome of the federal review is hardly in doubt. Over the last decade, HUD has never blocked a public housing land deal in Chicago, according to records from HUD and the Chicago Housing Authority.

With HUD’s consent, the CHA has essentially become a land piggy bank for other government agencies and the private sector. Through sales, leases and swaps, the agency has turned over land for two Target stores on the North Side, a privately owned tennis complex on the South Side, and infrastructure in gentrifying neighborhoods, such as a fire house and a police station on the Near West Side.

HUD ultimately approved more than a dozen land transactions while applying little pressure on the CHA to measure the benefits for residents or produce more affordable housing. In several cases, the agency agreed to accept far less than a property’s market value.

The approvals in Chicago are part of a larger pattern. ProPublica found that HUD routinely signs off on plans to get rid of property owned by public housing authorities across the country, including in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Milwaukee.

In Chicago, the CHA justified its actions by saying the deals would generate more money for housing. Yet the projected units have been delayed repeatedly, and some didn’t materialize at all.

This wasn’t what was promised. In 2000, HUD officials helped the CHA launch its Plan for Transformation, a citywide effort to dismantle and redevelop public housing sites. As the CHA leveled most of its apartment buildings, thousands of families had to find new places to live. Within a few years, the agency was sitting on blocks of open land. Officials committed to building new homes for families with a range of income levels.

Two decades later, some of the former public housing sites have been rebuilt and are thriving, but many parcels remain empty, and the agency still needs to build hundreds of units of housing to comply with court agreements.

The Near West Side deal that Lightfoot is pushing would let the Chicago Fire build a new practice facility on CHA-owned land that was long reserved for new housing. The team is owned by billionaire Joe Mansueto, a Lightfoot ally. Questions about the deal grew after ProPublica and WTTW-TV published a story about it in June.

In August, housing advocates sent a letter to HUD officials asking them to oppose the Fire agreement. The CHA’s failure to build promised new homes “must not serve as a basis to jettison an important supply of coveted, available public housing land in a gentrifying community,” they wrote.

These types of deals show how the CHA has drifted away from its mission to provide affordable housing, said Don Washington, one of the authors of the letter to HUD. Washington is executive director of the Chicago Housing Initiative, a coalition of community organizations.

“What it’s doing is getting the CHA and HUD out of the business of creating brick-and-mortar housing for low-income, mostly Black and brown children and families,” he said. “They’re instead building new facilities for new people.”

CHA officials say they want to develop their land with more than housing. “CHA’s investments in communities go beyond replacing the failed public housing model of the past,” an agency spokesperson wrote in a statement.

Agency officials say they have used a formal procurement process to select developers for many of their sites. But in other instances, they have accepted pitches from businesses, nonprofit organizations and other government entities on a case-by-case basis, without soliciting competitive bids.

CHA officials say the land deals fit into the agency’s strategy of “mixed-income, mixed-use” development that leads to “economic independence,” and some residents and community leaders have welcomed that approach.

“Housing is our middle name,” Ann McKenzie, the CHA’s chief development officer, said at a recent city planning meeting. But, she added, “we can use some of this space for other things people want and need in their lives.” That could include schools, parks, jobs, health care access and grocery stores, McKenzie and other CHA leaders say.

For their part, HUD officials say they have little control over the CHA’s land management strategies and are limited to reviewing proposals one at a time.

Those reviews are meant to ensure that housing authorities follow a “fair and open process” while “residents’ voices are heard,” according to a statement from HUD. It added that land deals can generate money for housing and other community needs.

“HUD takes its obligation to enforce statutory requirements very seriously and will continue to do so,” Diane M. Shelley, the department’s Midwest regional administrator, wrote in a statement. She added that increasing the supply of affordable housing is “a high priority for the Biden-Harris administration.”

HUD’s Rubber Stamp Looking north from where the Ickes Homes once stood, the view includes another public housing development, skyscrapers downtown and new hotels in the growing South Loop neighborhood. (Jamie Davis for ProPublica)

By law, local housing authorities are not allowed to dispose of public housing property unless low-income residents will benefit or the property is no longer needed.

No public housing land deals advance without HUD’s support. Its Special Applications Center is responsible for making sure that the property transactions comply with the law, and that they have been discussed with residents and have support from local government leaders.

To examine the volume and outcomes of these applications, ProPublica submitted open records requests to HUD, the CHA and housing authorities in six other cities. Each agency tracks land dispositions differently, and in many cases the CHA and HUD didn’t provide the same documents for the same transactions, making it challenging to get precise counts of such deals. But taken together, the records offer a revealing portrait of how the process works.

Records show that since 2011, HUD greenlit every property disposition application — more than 100 — from housing authorities in Chicago; Atlanta; Baltimore; Memphis, Tennessee; Milwaukee; Philadelphia; and Pittsburgh, all of which have received large revitalization grants from the agency.

HUD authorized plans to raze old apartment buildings, transfer land for new housing and redevelopment projects, and sell properties to private investors. But only the CHA appears to have received approval for so many applications that didn’t involve building new housing, according to the records.

CHA officials said that’s because the agency has a larger footprint than the other housing authorities.

A land deal on Chicago’s Near West Side illustrates HUD’s tendency to go along with CHA plans. In 2019, HUD allowed the CHA to give an acre of land in the ABLA Homes area to a local nonprofit for much less than its market value. Though an appraisal concluded that the parcel was worth $2.7 million, the CHA agreed to lease it to SOS Children’s Villages Illinois for $1 a year over 99 years so the nonprofit could build a community center. In return, SOS promised to provide social services to CHA families.

Some residents opposed the land transfer because there was an existing community center just two blocks away. In addition, they pointed out, the CHA had only constructed a fraction of the housing units promised for the redevelopment of ABLA, where 3,600 families lived before much of the complex was razed. But HUD signed off on the deal, agreeing with the CHA that it was “in the best interest of the public housing residents.”

The SOS community center is two blocks from the 23-acre site the CHA wants to lease to the Chicago Fire soccer team so it can build a new training facility.

Records show that CHA officials encountered HUD speed bumps just twice, and both ended up being temporary. On one occasion, HUD held up the sale of a vacant two-unit building to a county agency that planned to have it rehabbed. HUD determined some paperwork was missing from the CHA’s application, but once that was provided, HUD backed the sale.

The other delay was prompted by deeper concerns. In 2013, the administration of then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel engineered a land swap between the CHA and the city. The CHA gave up a vacant block that was formerly part of the Ickes Homes, a Near South Side development where 1,000 families lived before the apartment buildings were demolished in the Plan for Transformation. The city used that Ickes block to build a running track and turf field for a public, selective-enrollment high school a mile and a half away.

In return, the CHA received almost 10 acres on the Near North Side, across the street from the site of the CHA’s former Cabrini-Green complex. The CHA made plans to use that land for housing and retail as part of its Cabrini redevelopment.

HUD approved the land swap. But the process hit a snag when the CHA sought permission to transfer almost half of the Near North Side property — including an existing baseball diamond — to the Chicago Park District.

Attorneys for the Cabrini-Green Local Advisory Council, the development’s elected residents’ group, opposed the move. They argued that the CHA should not get rid of land at Cabrini until the agency had delivered the 1,800 affordable housing units it had agreed to as part of a 2015 federal consent decree, which resulted from litigation to force the CHA to fulfill its promises. Then, as now, more than 30,000 people were waiting for housing assistance from the CHA.

“Displaced CHA residents and applicants on CHA’s waitlist have been waiting too many years for replacement housing in the revitalized Cabrini Green neighborhood, and disposing of four acres of valuable land before CHA can show its ability to replace the minimum 1,800 subsidized units without this land is unjustifiable,” wrote Richard Wheelock of the Legal Assistance Foundation, now known as Legal Aid Chicago, and Jeff Leslie from the University of Chicago Law School.

That’s when HUD took the unusual step of pausing the CHA’s land transfer. The federal agency cited the attorneys’ letter and questioned the CHA’s rationale for giving the land to the Park District for free when it was appraised at more than $17 million. HUD determined the CHA’s application for approval was “substantially incomplete.”

In the following months, the CHA submitted new documents stating that Cabrini residents wanted more park space. Agency officials noted that they had received twice as much land as they had given up in the original swap, arguing that they would still have plenty of property left for the housing they were obligated to build at Cabrini.

That was good enough for HUD, which approved the deal.

The Near North Side property now includes a park; when a ProPublica reporter visited on multiple occasions this summer and fall, it was largely used by white residents.

The parcel planned for Cabrini housing remains vacant and enclosed by fencing.

New Priorities Audrey Johnson points toward the south end of the Ickes Homes site where she grew up. After years of delays, the CHA is almost ready to open two new apartment buildings there. (Jamie Davis for ProPublica)

Over the last decade, the CHA has made no secret that it is open to land deals. The 2008 housing market collapse left it years behind in its commitments to build new homes, and in 2013 agency leaders appointed by Emanuel released a strategy statement, “Plan Forward.”

Its new goals included using vacant land for “long-term public and private investment” and “creative, community-building purposes” such as “performance or sports spaces.” HUD endorsed the plan.

CHA officials applied this new philosophy when leaders of XS Tennis, a nonprofit, approached the agency about acquiring 13.5 acres for a new athletic complex. The property, part of the former Robert Taylor Homes site on the South Side, was estimated to be worth $4 million, but the CHA agreed to sell it for half that when XS promised to provide free tennis lessons and tutoring to low-income youth.

HUD accepted the CHA’s justification for the XS Tennis deal in a 2015 letter, agreeing it was “in the best interest of the public housing residents.”

In a statement to ProPublica, the CHA said XS had followed through on the opportunities it had pledged to deliver, providing residents with access to the tennis center, academic tutoring and jobs.

The CHA plans to replace the Taylor homes with a new development, Legends South, that includes 2,400 total units, some integrated into the surrounding neighborhood. So far the agency has finished fewer than 500.

Despite its struggles to rebuild former public housing sites, CHA officials say they now serve more households than ever, largely by issuing 45,000 vouchers that can be used to subsidize rent in the private market.

But housing advocates say too many families still need help finding decent places to live amid a housing shortage and a spike in homelessness. More than 30,000 people are on the CHA’s waiting lists for public housing and for vouchers.

“The goals of the CHA need to return to providing public and affordable housing,” said Emily Coffey, senior counsel for the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.

“And HUD has an obligation to make sure that each and every disposition complies with civil rights laws and holds CHA to its commitment to replace lost public housing units.”

Another Disputed Deal Siblings Audrey and Andre Johnson stand together on a pathway that used to run between apartment buildings at the Ickes Homes complex. They moved into the development with their parents in 1970. (Jamie Davis for ProPublica)

In addition to the Chicago Fire agreement, it’s likely that the CHA will soon ask HUD to sign off on another hotly debated land deal that opponents believe will fuel more gentrification and displacement.

At a board meeting in July, CHA officials explained that the Chicago Public Schools had approached them about acquiring 1.7 acres of undeveloped property at the Ickes site on the near South Side. The school district wants to build a new high school there to serve the booming South Loop and Chinatown neighborhoods, as well as some South Side CHA developments.

In return for its property, the CHA would get a parcel a block away that McKenzie, the agency’s chief development officer, described as “pretty expensive.”

Tracey Scott, the CHA’s chief executive officer, argued that the agency would give up little for such a payoff. She acknowledged that the CHA had long planned to put new housing on its vacant Ickes land, but those plans would be changed. As a result of the land swap, the CHA would “increase the density” of the new housing and fit it into a smaller space near the school, Scott said.

“We felt this opportunity was available that would benefit the residents,” Scott said.

McKenzie also noted that two new apartment buildings, including 68 units reserved for public housing residents, are almost ready to open at Ickes. The agency still has to build additional units for the Ickes site, including another 176 for CHA families.

The school plan won the backing of the local alderman and some parents. But many CHA residents and Black community leaders have blasted it. The school district should invest in existing high schools, they say, and the CHA should build the replacement homes it committed to after forcing out hundreds of families who once lived at Ickes.

Audrey Johnson, whose family has deep roots at Ickes, has watched those promises get broken as the land grows more valuable.

Her grandfather and his 10 children were among the first residents at Ickes in 1955, and Johnson’s family — her parents and three brothers — moved there in 1970, when she was 1. Her mother worked for a railroad and then the post office; her dad was a janitor at Ickes for 30 years. The family lived at the south end of Ickes, land where the new school would be built.

While she now lives several miles away, Johnson has worked for 20 years as a lunchroom supervisor and student aide at the National Teachers Academy, a public elementary school that was built on the Ickes site even before the public housing buildings were torn down. In recent years, two of her adult children also started working at the school.

“I’ve been here all my life,” she said.

Johnson said she’s all in favor of quality schools — that’s why she works in one. But she said Black residents are tired of seeing public facilities in their communities closed or destroyed, then replaced with new infrastructure when the neighborhoods begin to gentrify.

“I think they’re trying to push us out,” Johnson said. “They’re trying to push the Black and the brown to the suburbs. And eventually they will if we allow them to.”

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MOHELA, a servicer involved in the case that heard oral arguments on Wednesday, could be liable under California law if it interferes with a borrower’s right to debt forgiveness.

Spire said one of the biggest reasons is natural gas infrastructure.

STLduJour(nal) ⏳ – MMXXII:286-AM JW Thu, 10/13/2022 - 07:31 STL: Thursday, October 13, 2022 Events 📆

• Cleanup is underway at Dome lot downtown – FOX 2
• Where to celebrate Halloween with your teen in St. Louis – St. Louis Magazine
• Schlafly’s Full Moon Festival to Return in November – RFT

BuySTL 👜

• Spire gas company holds first public rate hike hearing in St. Louis – KSDK
• Report: Peabody in talks with Australian coal mining company – stltoday.com
• St. Louis entrepreneur to appear on ‘Shark Tank’ – St. Louis Magazine
• Former St. Louis TV journalist is now creating a drone that fits in a backpack – St. Louis Business Journal
• City Foundry STL’s delayed movie theater, Alamo Drafthouse, to open in November – stltoday.com
• Alamo Drafthouse scheduled to open at City Foundry STL in November – St. Louis Magazine
• Alamo Drafthouse Coming to St. Louis Next Month – RFT
• Austin-based cinema-eatery opening at City Foundry STL this November – KSDK

Restaurants 🍲

• From Baton Rouge To Alton – Family Owned Gumbo 2 Geaux Now Open For Business – RiverBender
• Venice Café – feastmagazine.com

STLfood ⚜️

• Sugaree closing retail business – r/StLouis
• Meal prep service to take over former Copper Pig restaurant on Macklind – KSDK

STL100 💯

• New report reveals strengths, shortfalls in St. Louis tech employment – stltoday.com
• Great Rivers Greenways looks at the Meramec, Dardenne, and Deer Creek Greenways – FOX 2
• Two SLPS schools named ‘all-stars’ – FOX 2
• Transit Center transformation at North Hanley stop – FOX 2
• Rescuing architecture: a visit to the National Building Arts Center just across the river – r/StLouis

STL99 😱

• St. Louis says Shell station is nuisance, but doesn’t produce records to prove it – stltoday.com
• Holleman: St. Louis again ranks as least-safe city. The mayor blames state lawmakers. – stltoday.com
• “Trash everywhere, it’s a never ending cycle” concerns grow over road safety after driver is killed by piece of metal – FOX 2
• St. Louis finishes last in ‘safest US cities’ study – FOX 2
• St. Louis finishes last in ‘safest US cities’ study – r/StLouis
• River City HBCU Classic canceled 4 days before the event – KSDK
• Haine Seeks Forfeiture Of 287 Catalytic Converters Seized From Premises Of Business – RiverBender

WW99 😱

• Ukrainian City Removes Elon Musk’s Face from Celebratory Billboard – VICE US
• Taiwan Official Explains With Extreme Calm Why the U.S. Doesn’t Need to Blow Up TSMC if China Invades – Gizmodo
• French Parliament Wants To Make People Pay A License Fee To Use Public Domain Works – Techdirt

Pox Populi™ 🦠

• Nearly half of Covid patients haven’t fully recovered months later, study finds – Hacker News
• China’s ‘Zero COVID’ Policy Is Going to Last a Whole Lot Longer – VICE US

Police 🚓

• St. Louis-area police say Missouri’s juvenile crime point system needs update – FOX 2

CityGov 🏛

• What the mayor says about St. Louis being labeled the ‘least safe’ city in the country – KSDK
• New 14-member health bureau to address St. Louis’ overdose deaths – stltoday.com
• City of St. Louis announce new bureau to tackle drug abuse and mental health – FOX 2
• City of St. Louis Department of Health Announced Launch of New Behavioral Health Bureau – City of St. Louis – News
• BB 103 – Four-Way Stop Site at the Intersection of St. Louis Avenue and Bishop PL Scott Avenue – Board Bills
• BB 102 – Airport Revenue Bonds – Board Bills

LocalGov 🏛

• A St. Louis County Mayor Went Big for Bitcoin, Now He’s Fighting to Stay in Office – RFT
• APA Adoption Center to Operate Pet Adoption Services for St. Louis County – APA Adoption Center
• Animal Protective Adoption Center slated to operate pet adoption services for St. Louis County – KSDK
• St. Louis County Failed to Fully Sedate Dogs Before Euthanasia, Staffer Says – RFT

MoGov 🏛

• Messenger: Ethics complaint targets Eric Schmitt’s legal role in the Big Lie – stltoday.com
• Eric Schmitt deletes pro-Kanye West tweet amid backlash over rapper’s anti-Semitic remarks – KSDK
• Six states cite ‘harms’ over Biden’s student loan plan in St. Louis hearing – FOX 2
• Eric Schmitt Picks Unusual Time to Become a Kanye West Fan – RFT

FedGov 🏛

• Student loan lawsuit hearing at Federal Court Building today – FOX 2
• Federal judge in St. Louis weighs effort to halt student loan forgiveness – KSDK
• Missouri judge hears lawsuit challenging Biden student debt relief plan – Missouri Independent
• US Federal Courts Agree To Refund Fees They Overcharged People For Access To PACER – Techdirt
• Biden’s Executive Order On Surveillance Doesn’t Do Nearly Enough To Protect Privacy; Playing Word Games Doesn’t Actually Limit NSA Surveillance – Techdirt

Jobs 📄

• 2023 – 2024 Type 1 Ambulance/Medic – City of St. Louis
• Labor Supervisor (Forestry Division) – Jobs
• Attorney II (Transactions) – Jobs

Sustainability ♻️

• The Mississippi River is Our Greatest Force for Building Land – Environmental Defense
• Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier – Hacker News
• An Australian startup is “growing” water for drought-parched California – Hacker News

Infrastructure 🚽

• Mike Kehoe to announce high-speed internet expansion in Pike County Wednesday morning – FOX 2
• Intel fires up internal foundry model to make its own chips – The Register
• GM races after Tesla with battery pack tech and solar deal – The Register
• High-density EV battery puts 10-minute charge times on the table – New Atlas

Ecology 🦤

• America’s Birds Are in Big Trouble – Gizmodo
• Antarctic Researchers Report a ‘Dramatic Decline’ in Adélie Penguin – Gizmodo
• New Study Maps Over 50,000 Sites In the U.S. That Are Likely Contaminated With ‘Forever Chemicals’ – Gizmodo

WWwx 🌦

• Climate Change Is Causing Wetter, Heavier Rainfall, New Study Shows – Gizmodo

WWW99 🕸

• How to keep getting local news as Facebook changes – FOX 2
• TikTok’s Allegedly Pocketing Up to 70% of Donations Raised by Desperate, Begging Syrian Refugees – Gizmodo
• Employees Reveal Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Vision Is A Clunky, Boring, Ego-Driven Mess – Techdirt
• Microsoft and Meta promise facehugger PCs piping cloud desktops into VR headsets – The Register
• Microsoft’s new AI graphic design app is built on DALL-E – Engadget
• Hyundai wants all of its vehicles to support over-the-air updates by 2025 – Engadget

Space 🚀

• Bigger, Better, Cheaper: How India Is Building a Private Empire in Space – VICE US
• Astronomers can’t explain a black hole "burp" years after it ate a star – New Atlas
• Starlight interstellar probe – Hacker News
• James Webb Telescope captures unique dust rings surrounding two stars – Engadget
• NASA is now targeting November 14th for the Artemis 1 launch – Engadget

DIY 🪓

• Users Are Building Their Own AI-Powered Alternatives to Amazon’s Ring Cameras – VICE US
• How a smart home can be a safer home – Arduino Blog
• Barilla and Arduino: This is not your grandma’s pasta! – Arduino Blog

Captain’s Blog 🏴‍☠️

• Yu-Gi-Oh! creator Kazuki Takahashi died while attempting to save the lives of people drowning – Boing Boing
• Animated Googly Eyes Could Make Autonomous Cars Safer For Pedestrians – Gizmodo
• Connecticut Jury Orders Alex Jones and Infowars to Pay $965 Million to Sandy Hook Families – VICE US
• Scientists got lab-grown human brain cells to play ‘Pong’ – Engadget
• Dutch hospital ZGT achieves digital sovereignty with Nextcloud – Hacker News
• Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon) – Hacker News

Tags STLduJournal ⏳

Mike Huckabee explained to Sean Hannity on Wednesday why polls are underestimating the MAGA vote: Right now if you’re pro-life, if you’re Christian, if you’re a conservative, if you are a MAGA Republican, which means you just think that America’s a great country and we ought to preserve it and protect it and pass it ...continue reading "Do MAGA Republicans live in a state of constant fear?"

Carl Brown of Park Hills, IL joined the Real Rock Army today

Source

LGBTQIA+ communities have been contributing to St. Louis’s history for centuries. Now the Gateway to Pride virtual exhibit will begin to uncover the rarely-shared or

The post Gateway to Pride Exhibit appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

Who says the Dodgers lost tonight? I mean, some of the Dodgers lost, but the concession workers had a pretty good day: The wages for almost every one of the more than 1,500 workers covered under the contract will increase at least $10 per hour over the next two years, said Susan Minato, co-president of ...continue reading "Dodgers win!"

The St. Louis region accounts for half of overdose deaths statewide, driving a racial disparity in death rates, the data also shows. Black people are now more than three times as likely as white people to die from an overdose.

Missouri juvenile courts use a point system to determine whether a juvenile gets locked up for a crime. Many felony crimes do not reach that level.

A transformation is underway at the Dome at America's Center after FOX 2 reported about the jungle of weeds overtaking the parking lots.

A former Catholic priest admitted Wednesday to possessing thousands of images of child pornography.

The Little Bit Foundation lost all of its school supplies in July during the historic flooding, and it now needs help.

We’re still closer to Halloween than Christmas, but retailers are already looking to hire for the holidays. 

Concerns about road safety have grown following the death of a driver on Interstate 64 on Tuesday afternoon who was struck by debris.

St. Louis County Police have identified the victim of a deadly hit-and-run on St. Charles Rock Road Tuesday morning. 

Friday was a planned off-day for the school district, so classes will resume Monday.

Buckle in, because there are essentially two ways to write this post but both of them start off the same way. Regular readers here will be familiar with Nintendo’s now years-long war on emulation. The whole thing is ultimately quite stupid, because there is no indication that emulator and ROM sites ever really had a […]