Mayor Brandon Johnson said Tuesday he is seriously considering City Council dean Walter Burnett (27th) to take over a Chicago Housing Authority that has fallen short on delivering on promises of the “Plan for Transformation” made after CHA high-rises were demolished.
After 30 years in the Council, Burnett, who turns 62 next month, said he has maxed out on his city pension and plans to resign his 27th Ward seat — whether or not he gets the CHA job.
He hopes that will pave the way for the mayor to appoint his 29-year-old son and namesake, Walter R. Burnett, to fill his seat, continuing a time-honored tradition of Chicago politicians taking care of their kids.
Although he has several lucrative offers from private sector firms, Burnett described the CHA as his dream job, one that would allow his career in Chicago politics to come full circle.
And it’s a job the mayor sounds inclined to give him.
Johnson said Burnett — who took over as Zoning Committee chair after the City Council rejected the mayor’s first choice, progressive firebrand Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) — has been an “incredible asset to the people of Chicago” and would do the same at the CHA.
“His lived experience around public housing is just — it’s the type of experience that is rare,” Johnson told reporters at his weekly City Hall news conference. “You very rarely find someone who has that type of compassion and understanding around the value of building more affordable housing, particularly public housing. … He is someone that I am seriously considering, along with two other potential candidates.”
The CHA board is slated to meet later this month, when a decision on the agency’s new CEO could be announced. If Burnett leaves the City Council, Johnson will have three jobs to fill: 27th Ward alderperson; vice mayor and Zoning Committee chair.
“Whoever the vice mayor is, that’s the person that I trust in the event I’m not able to serve. That’s the person who would fill in,” Johnson said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
Burnett talked about what it would mean to him to return to his CHA roots. He was born in his grandmother’s apartment at Rockwell Gardens. He and his young parents then moved to Cabrini-Green, where they lived in four different buildings until Burnett was 17.
“Even thinking about this stuff is emotional for me. It’s just unbelievable how gracious and merciful God is. I never dreamed that something like this could happen for me,” said Burnett, who was convicted of armed robbery when he was 17 but pardoned in 1998.
“Whether I go to CHA or not, I’m grateful. I’m grateful to be the vice mayor of Chicago with the journey that I’ve been through. To be the longest-serving African American alderman in history. I’m just grateful for all of those things this journey has taken me to, and grateful I’ve got people knocking on my door telling me that, if I don’t do this, I can come with them.”
After presiding over the 27th Ward’s transformation, Burnett believes he is uniquely qualified to use his development expertise to deliver for Chicago’s neediest residents.
“If I can turn the West Loop from Skid Row to the hottest area in the country — and all of that comes with a lot grit, a lot of hard work, a lot of consistency, a lot of relationships — I want to give all of that and more to this agency and see if I can help to turn it around,” Burnett said.
The CHA has undergone a revolving door of top executives at a time when federal support for public housing is being slashed. But Burnett said he has a “way of attracting good people to do things.”
“I want to push home ownership. I want to encourage folks to try to become self-sufficient. Move up, move out and do better,” he said. “I have a lot of contemporaries I grew up with at CHA who have been successful. I’d like to reach out to a lot of those people to see if they can help me to help mentor folks from public housing.”
If Burnett gets the CHA job, it would serve as a career capstone — and an opportunity to deliver on the promise he made to local residents when the Cabrini complex was torn down.
“I made a commitment to try to help them get jobs and try to help them come back. Here we are 20 years later and we haven’t been able to help all of them to come back. We haven’t been able to replace all of the housing,” Burnett said. “That’s one of the reasons I want to do this.”