Will it be Walter Burnett? Eugene Jones Jr.? A wildcard?
The Chicago Housing Authority has marked a year without a permanent CEO, and it’s still unclear who will run the nation’s third-largest public housing authority.
After former CEO Tracey Scott resigned Nov. 1, 2024, the housing authority launched a national search to find its next chief executive, saying it would appoint a new leader come summer 2025.
The future of the housing authority, which has a budget of over $1 billion, lingers in purgatory. Mayor Brandon Johnson and the embattled agency have found themselves in a clash with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development over the appointment of the mayor’s candidate of choice, retired Ald. Burnett, who is now unlikely to land the job.
Eight other high-ranking officials have left the agency in the past year, including three who were fired. Various positions sit vacant or are led by interim leaders.
Residents’ frustration drags on as they say property conditions remain dire. The CHA serves more than 65,000 households and is the largest single owner of rental housing in Chicago.
Jim Cunningham, who oversaw HUD’s Midwest region until his retirement in March, said the CHA is “floundering.”
“If there is no vision from an executive, you are just, kind of, treading water,” Cunningham said. “If you are treading water in troubled seas, it can lead to missed opportunities.”
For its part, the CHA launched a series of initiatives — dubbed the agency’s “year of renewal” — in February aimed at addressing “past challenges” around transparency and engagement with residents. The agency conducted a resident survey to help guide its future priorities.
It created a new division in April focused on environmental concerns, starting with lead-based paint hazards at its properties. The agency also set up a new department for internal audits, a task that had previously been handled by third parties. The property and asset management department was reorganized as well.
The CHA Board Chair and temporary Operating Chairman Matthew Brewer said he expects a permanent CEO to be appointed by the end of the year. The housing authority’s last scheduled board meeting for 2025 is Tuesday, but the agency could add a special board meeting to the calendar.
“We recognize that sitting and waiting with your fingers crossed is not a strategy,” Brewer said.
He also shared Cunningham’s sentiment saying, “treading water means moving backwards for us.”
The board can’t consider Burnett as CEO until the agency receives HUD-approved conflict waivers — a process that was derailed due to the government shutdown.
Burnett’s apparent conflicts of interest, according to the Chicago agency and HUD, lie with his 30-year record as alderman and long-time ownership of properties rented to housing voucher holders. Burnett and his wife have collected more than $260,000 since 2007 as the CHA voucher landlords.
The Chicago HUD office will review the waiver requests, make a recommendation to HUD officials in Washington, D.C., and send a formal response to the CHA.
Brewer said the board will consider other candidates and declined to comment on who is being considered.
Not so happy New Year
The CHA took a gut punch at the start of the year when a jury decided in January the agency must pay more than $24 million to two residents who sued over lead paint poisoning of their two children. The CHA is still contesting the ruling in court.
The property management companies The Habitat Co. and East Lake Management Group were also sued as part of the lawsuit, but they were found not liable for the children’s injuries. The companies settled with the plaintiffs for around $200,000 and $400,000, respectively.
Habitat then sued the CHA and two of the agency’s attorneys in February for breach of contract and legal malpractice over its handling of the lead poisoning lawsuit.
Meanwhile, a slew of housing authority executives departed in January and February, adding to a string of departures that started August 2024.
Ryan Ross, who worked as a senior director of asset management, was terminated in September 2024 for breaking agency procedures, including one that cost the CHA over $19,000 in “unnecessary expenses” for construction work.
Ann McKenzie and Dan Cruz, who were chief development officer and chief of staff, respectively, were terminated earlier this year. The CHA didn’t provide an explanation for their terminations, nor do public records show any history of disciplinary action.
Eric Garrett, the CHA’s chief operating officer, resigned Jan. 3. Ellen Harris, former general counsel, resigned in August 2024, after allegations from staff that she created a “toxic work culture.”
Interim executives have remained, Brewer said, as he anticipates the new CEO will want to build their own team. He said the interim leaders are still moving the agency forward, but the lack of permanent leaders makes it “tough.”
The property and asset management department, overseen by two interim executives, was restructured to ensure the agency has a good handle on its “financial management” and “better compliance and better controls in place,” Brewer said. It also includes the new division focused on environmental hazards.
The new internal audit department helps with the compliance work and will hopefully lead to “cost savings and less risk and better communication,” Brewer said.
Residents say needs remain unmet
Etta Davis, a 12-year resident at Dearborn Homes in Douglas, said “everything is on hold” at the community.
Residents at the 668-unit property across 16 buildings have been asking for increased security because the area has periodic shootings and non-residents frequent the buildings. Davis, who is vice president of the building’s advisory council, said the properties have not had security personnel inside the buildings for a couple years.
Additional funds for security will be allocated in the 2026 budget, said Brewer, who recently visited Dearborn and met with property managers and residents.
On top of the security issues, elevators at the buildings keep breaking.
Many residents are older adults and rely on the elevators to reach their apartments. Some residents started leaving, or have requested to leave the property, as a result. The property’s occupancy rate is 88.7%, as of Sept. 30, a drop from 95.1% last year, agency data shows.
William Rowland moved out of Dearborn Homes a couple years ago because the elevators were too unreliable, sometimes leaving him stranded and unable to go to doctor’s appointments or the grocery store. Rowland lived on the sixth floor and uses a wheelchair.
He now lives at the CHA’s Thomas Flannery Apartments in the Near North Side. There are two elevators in his building, and his living conditions are “100% better,” he said.
Lillian Ocasio has been waiting three years to be transferred from Dearborn to another housing authority property.She said her apartment has been packed up while the CHA plays “hot potato” with her request to move to the Northwest Side, where her siblings live.
After a stroke in 2021, the 11-year resident relies exclusively on the elevator to reach her fourth-floor apartment.Last year, she said the elevator was broken for at least a month and a half. She depends on her in-home aids, neighbors and the Chicago Fire Department when the elevator doesn’t work.There have been many times when she gets ready for church only to find the elevator out of service.
“I would cry, and I couldn’t make it [to church],” Ocasio said. “I feel like a prisoner.”
Each Dearborn building has one elevator, but the CHA plans to add an elevator to each building, with construction expected to start in 2027, Brewer said. The agency estimates the cost to be $40 million. Elevator maintenance will remain a priority, Brewer said.
Residents at Henry Horner Homes in the Near West Side are also frustrated.
Willie Wright has lived at Horner since 1999.
Wright said for years, the agency has been providing “a lot of lip service” without actually meeting the needs of residents. Wright serves as a board member on her property’s resident council and on the Horner Residents’ Committee.
The committee grew out of a 1995 consent decree that CHA entered into with Horner residents after they sued over building conditions.
The property recently went through an emergency change in management — from Hispanic Housing Development Corp. to Manage Chicago — after years of complaints from residents and failed HUD inspections. An August building inspection showed a score of 26 out of 100, according to records obtained by the Sun-Times.
Under the consent decree, the housing authority is required to consult with the residents before hiring new property managers. Wright said the interim chief property officer and Hurlock chose Manage Chicago before meeting with residents, who invoked the consent decree.
“We are out here advocating for the residents, and we are screaming at the top of our lungs, and [they] can’t hear anything we are saying,” Wright said.
Due to the ongoing litigation around ending the consent decree, Brewer said he’s limited in what he can say. He said the housing authority did work with residents to find a replacement property manager with a “strong track record.”
Overall, Brewer believes the CHA’s engagement with residents has improved.
“Building trust doesn’t happen overnight,” said Brewer, who became a board member in 2013. “We have been proactive, especially over the last year.”
The agency will be digging into the resident survey results in an effort to address their concerns, Brewer said. The housing authority received over 4,000 responses, and the results will be released this fall.
The CHA recently scrapped a request for proposals for new property managers for thousands of units. Brewer cited President Donald Trump’s funding priorities — to slash HUD’s budget — and “some emerging needs” at properties as the reason for canceling the request until early next year. It will allow the agency to save some money next year, Brewer said.
In the meantime, the housing authority extended the contracts of three property managers — East Lake Management, Manage Chicago and Hispanic Housing Development Corp. — for another year on Sept. 1., records show. The contracts began in 2021 and have already received one of two possible year-long extensions.
Future unsettled
Brewer understands the importance of the organization he is temporarily leading, which serves about 5% of Chicago’s population.
He remembers getting out of school every day at 1:30 p.m. as a safety precaution — it was located in the middle of the crime-ridden, since-demolished Robert Taylor Homes. The memory serves as an example of “public housing gone wrong,” he said, as he continues his work to improve the CHA.
Brewer is a full-time attorney, but said he’s in the CHA office most days. He’s had to navigate the housing authority’s latest challenge: submitting a budget that follows Trump’s executive orders such as those against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which Brewer said directly conflicts with the Fair Housing Act. The housing authority sued HUD last month over the issue.
While the CHA lost its lawsuit, Brewer said HUD granted the housing authority a 30-day extension on Oct. 21 to hash out the details.
The latest hurdle aside, Brewer said a “silver lining” for the CHA this year has been its ability to assess its strengths and weaknesses in a way that wouldn’t have been possible if the agency had been focused on getting a new CEO up to speed.
“It allowed us to really take a step back and look at the organization with an eye toward building a more sustainable foundation,” Brewer said.
Davis, of Dearborn Homes, said she wants the next CEO to be “transparent and approachable.”
“I pray they will get a CEO soon and one who is for the people and wants to know about what the residents are going through in CHA,” Davis said.
Wright, of Henry Horner Homes, said she’s looking for a CEO who’s ready to enact change, instead of continuing with the status quo.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result,” Wright said. “They are not taking our safety seriously … CHA needs to not just be in the business of housing but in the business of humans.”
Contributing: Dan Mihalopoulos
