Public Housing: Status of HUD's Takeover of the Chicago Housing Authority
(Testimony, 09/05/95, GAO/T-RCED-95-275).

GAO discussed the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD)
takeover of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), focusing on: (1)
whether HUD chose an appropriate method of staffing CHA; (2) obstacles
HUD will face in rebuilding CHA; and (3) HUD accomplishments in
revitalizing Chicago's public housing units. GAO noted that: (1) HUD
seemed to make the best decision possible in taking over CHA with its
own and borrowed staff, since key CHA staff resigned and Chicago's mayor
did not support receivership; (2) HUD will face several obstacles in
rebuilding CHA, such as the deteriorated condition of 40,000 CHA housing
units, the cumbersome organizational structure of CHA, residents'
distrust of proposed changes, major crime and security problems, federal
laws and regulations, and insufficient funding; (3) in the last 3
months, HUD has reorganized CHA management, privatized selected
functions, and developed short-term plans to improve maintenance and
security, rehabilitate its physical stock, and foster community
development; and (4) HUD still must hire key upper-level managers for
CHA and commit to a long-term plan to phase itself out of CHA in order
to gain the trust of residents, CHA staff, and the city.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-RCED-95-275
     TITLE:  Public Housing: Status of HUD's Takeover of the Chicago 
             Housing Authority
      DATE:  09/05/95
   SUBJECT:  Public housing
             Community development
             Federal aid for housing
             Urban planning
             Intergovernmental relations
             Human resources utilization
             Personnel management
             Strategic planning
             Low income housing
IDENTIFIER:  HUD Section 8 Housing Assistance Program
             HUD Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities Program
             Chicago (IL)
             
------------------------------------------------------------------------

We regret that electronic text of GAO Testimony is not available at 
this time. 

See the GAO FAQ - Section 2.0 for printed copy ordering information.
The FAQ is automatically retrieved with all WAIS search results or 
can be obtained by sending e-mail to: [email protected]