CHA embarks upon an ambitious, workable plan

CHA embarks upon an ambitious, workable plan

First, a qualifying statement: The vast, vast, vast majority of public housing residents are decent, productive and constructive people. But there are a few who ...

Can the adverse, sometimes antagonistic habits of a near-lifetime be broken? Can people's negative behavior be changed? Can lower-income people live in harmony with their middle- and upper-income neighbors?

The answers are yes, yes and yes and the Chicago Housing Authority is betting that change can and will come to public housing in the Chicagoland area under its new "transformation" plan for residents.

We're confident, too, that those residents who want to "fit in" and/or improve their lives as the CHA seeks to alter the way most public housing residents live, work and even think, as sinister as that may sound to some -- can do it.

But therein, as they say, lies the rub. Many residents who need to change their ways, say they do not want to, no matter how negative and anti-social they may be. The CHA says those who refuse to go along with the program will be out, but out to where? That will be up to them, the CHA says.

For years, under lax management and rules, CHA residents were forced to endure all sorts of deleterious and negative things, ranging from loud music at all hours of the night and day to gangs, to rampant and open drug dealing.

The CHA says under its new mandate those and other modes of mischievous behavior, especially that bordering on or embracing the criminal, will be history.

That doesn't seem like a bad deal to us. Something must be done to change the adverse, many times there is an indifferent mindset in too many segments of the Black community.

The CHA plan sounds highly ambitious, even ominous to some, but if it works to the advantage of most concerned it will be called miraculous.

The Chicago Defender backs CHA Chief Terry Peterson and his staff, as well as residents who embrace the plan and are willing to give it a chance.

The new rules are being called strict by some -- no overly loud music, no messy housekeeping and no unruly children for instance -- but CHA residents must know and follow the rules of polite civilization, just as much as anyone else.

Best wishes to the agency, and residents, as they seek to bring about a better day for all.

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