What is the history of the Chicago Housing Authority?

Answer 1

The history of (CHA)is poverty. It was a terrible idea to put all of those low-income people into big buldings, in apartments one on top of the other. Public housing was nice until Mayor Daley begging using to segregate the city's rapidly growing blacks.

African Americans in Chicago lived in an area called the Black Belt. The real estate people and banks had a covenant amongst each other to try and discourage African Americans from moving out of that area. Since they were confined to this one area, it began to overpopulate. Houses were being filled with too many people which created even worse living conditions than what already existed. So this is where the CHA came in. They built these high rises in the area so there wouldn't be over crowded homes, but to also keep them in the black neighborhood. This is why the majority of the former Robert Taylor homes were all along State Street from about 35th street to 55th. That area was the black belt.