Article | Winter 2004-2005
Bringing Down the House: Documenting the Transformation of Public Housing
The inception of public housing in the United States began in the 1920s with the governmental effort to provide affordable housing for poor and working families. These early developments were small and largely composed of mixed-income residents. After the Second World War, both the principles of mass production and public/private partnerships were utilized to design, finance, and build affordable housing on a large scale for the poor. From the beginning, public housing was intended to serve as a stepping-stone for the poor. However, due to failing public policies and limited resources, public housing has become a generational source of low-income housing for many families and has subsequently evolved into physically and socially impoverished, isolated ghettos. In an effort to combat this depressed state, recent governmental initiatives have financed the demolition of some of the nation's worst public housing, replacing them with mixed-income developments, and thereby changing the face of public housing and future means of housing the poor.
For fifteen years, Sudhir Venkatesh, Director of the Center for Urban Research and Policy and Associate Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies, has studied public housing. In the early 1990s, Venkatesh lived with several families in the notorious Robert Taylor Homes on the Southside of Chicago. The fieldwork resulted in his first book, American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto (Harvard University Press, 2000). With support from the MacArthur, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations, Venkatesh's most recent work on the Robert Taylor Homes has turned to the genre of film in order to capture the experiences of a community undergoing a profound transition.
Beginning in 1996, the city of Chicago became witness to the demolition of its public housing under the Chicago Housing Authority's "Plan for Transformation." At its core, this transformation involves the relocation of tens of thousands of families from impoverished, blighted housing developments into new homes in new neighborhoods. These low-income and predominantly African-American residents are currently leaving the central city projects for homes in healthier communities. Many will be moving to areas that are themselves being transformed by large-scale economic and social changes, such as the redevelopment of Chicago's industrial and manufacturing sectors and new patterns of ethnic migration. Under the plan, sites upon which public housing projects once sat are being redeveloped into mixed-income developments. For public housing families, whose household income averages $10,000 (for a family of four), leaving these isolated projects represents a period of great social, psychological, and emotional change.
The first stage in the transformation process is the relocation of tenants into new neighborhoods. In February 2002, families living in Robert Taylor were given a 180-day notice of eviction. In six months, the community that had been their home for generations would be demolished. Venkatesh's documentary film, DisLocation, chronicles the lives of families about to relocate from one of the high-rises, 4525 South Federal. Offering an in-depth view of tenants as they prepare themselves for a period of change, it is an attempt to understand how tenants cope with the loss of their home (and their collective identity) and start their lives anew in new residential communities. As Venkatesh explains, "I was trying to make a film from the standpoint of the community. The perspective of the film is looking outward, literally, from the building."
DisLocation documents this transition process through the lives of Charles "Chuck" Wilson and Lee-Lee Henderson. Chuck is a 29-year old tenant who has spent his entire life in Robert Taylor. He has physical disabilities and mental health problems that have made moving out difficult. Lee-Lee is a single mother on welfare who has also struggled to find a new home. Both have moved from building to building in Robert Taylor because the Housing Authority has been unable to find them homes in other Chicago neighborhoods. Unlike their neighbors who have been moving out of the development since 1996—the year that demolition began—Chuck and Lee-Lee represent some of the poorest residents in the development. They also represent the last families left in the community.
While they are similar in predicament, they vary in terms of their attitude and sense of hope about the impending relocation. Chuck has "faith" in the process and believes that the social workers, Housing Authority, and other agencies administering the process will help him. Lee-Lee conceives of herself as a "fighter" and is not optimistic that she will find a new home or that the bureaucracies will attend to her needs. Through these characters, Venkatesh conveys the mixed feelings involved in the relocation process. He emphasizes that "residents spoke of this as an abrupt separation, even though many were in favor of it. They experienced it as a tearing away from their roots." Both Chuck and Lee-Lee fear that they will be moved to another housing "project" instead of a new apartment in the private market—a fate deeply worrisome to public housing residents because of gang boundaries and other safety issues. Above all, DisLocation is a story of the ways in which individuals respond to a period of change. It is a tale of courage, hope, and survival.
Venkatesh's film reveals the close relationship that documentaries have had with social science research and public policy. The earliest of such films were produced either by social scientists or by journalists and independent artists working in collaboration with university faculty. The trauma of the Great Depression, the lifestyles of pre-modern civilizations, and the effects of European immigration on American cities were some of the earliest themes of documentary filmmaking that eventually shaped public awareness of our changing world, and in doing so, affected the design and implementation of programs and policies to improve the lives of individuals, families, and communities. In spirit and substance, this project falls in line with this style of information dissemination in its use of the visual medium to improve collective understanding of our present-day urban social conditions.
Currently, Venkatesh is in the final editing stages of the filmmaking process. The intended audience of DisLocation is PBS, private broadcasting, and film festivals. For more information about the film, visit the DisLocation website.
See Also
- DisLocation film
- Center for Urban Research and Policy
- Press release: First Screening of DisLocation, Sudhir Venkatesh's New Film on Chicago Public Housing
