“The biggest thing is that they tore down these projects, but they didn’t really rebuild,” says filmmaker Phil James. He’s the co-director of They Don’t Give a Damn: The Story of the Failed Chicago Projects, a new documentary focusing on the rise, fall, and repercussions of public housing projects in the city of Chicago. Based on the book Where Will They Go?: Transforming Public Housing by Dr. Dorothy Appiah, They Don’t Give a Damn offers a blunt introduction to Chicago’s housing projects and draws a connection between the displacement of thousands of former housing project residents and the city’s rising crime rates. Specifically, James and his co-director, Kenny Young, argue that systemic and generational poverty, hyper-segregation, and the neglect of local government all fuel the current violent crime epidemic in the city.
First built in the 1940s and 50s, Chicago’s housing projects weren’t always synonymous with neglect. Community-building and educational programs like public schools, on-site social services, tutoring programs, and medical facilities were offered as an incentive to its occupants. Because project buildings were capable of housing thousands of people in a small area, it was easier to neglect their growing problems, such as gang infiltration, gun and sexual violence, and dilapidated living conditions. Some projects, like the Cabrini-Green housing project, gained national attention for their violence and neglect from the city.
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Dr. Appiah originally contacted James and Young to create a film accompaniment to her book. In the book, Dr. Appiah examines the city of Chicago’s 1999 “Plan for Transformation,” a redevelopment initiative that aims to rebuild or construct 25,000 public housing units. She speaks with current and former public housing residents as well as employees of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), the governmental body responsible for the city’s public housing.
James and Young felt the project aligned with their interests. The two are both from Chicago and were familiar with the reputation of the projects. “I didn’t grow up in the projects, but I grew up terrified of the projects,” Young told me. They no longer lived in the city by the time the “Plan for Transformation” was implemented and the high-rise projects were torn down, but they were intimately connected to the ongoing changes as a result of the displacement of public housing residents. Young’s cousin was killed in an incident related to the removal of the high-rise projects. James’s family lives in a neighborhood that saw an increase in residents from public housing.
The two spent a year-and-a-half working on the documentary, which is currently streaming on Urban Movie Channel. Obtaining access to interview subjects proved difficult for the filmmakers. The CHA would no longer offer a comment about the new redevelopment plan. Likewise, the women interviewed for Dr. Appiah’s book were fearful of losing their new homes if they spoke to the filmmakers.
To work around this issue, James and Young expanded the scope of the film. The two looked at the different communities affected by the displacement. “We decided to tell the story from a lot of different perspectives, not just people who had been moved out of their homes,” Young said. “We included people who lived in the neighborhoods where these people were forced to move.” CHA workers were interviewed in anonymity. In total, more than 50 people were interviewed for the documentary.
Throughout the documentary, interview subjects cite a lack of organizational foresight and decades-long neglect from the CHA as determining factors in the disarray of the projects and the subsequent environmental problems that arose as residents were displaced. Rather than introduce public housing residents to the numerous other neighborhoods on the North and West Sides of the city, most people from the projects were settled in stable black neighborhoods and suburbs on the South Side.
“There [were] thousands of people who had nowhere to go,” James said. “They just went everywhere. They went to neighborhoods that were built up already, and now the neighborhoods are being torn apart.” Unfamiliar with the expectations of their new homes (subjects in the documentary cite problems such as home upkeep and respect of public places), the neighborhoods’ new occupants returned to the day-to-day routine of their former projects. Residents of these neighborhoods were unfamiliar with the crime, poverty, and gangs associated with the projects, leading to increased levels of tension and eventually, cyclical violence between the differing populations. In 2016 alone, Chicago faced its highest number of gun-related deaths in 20 years, with violence increasingly found in once-stable communities.
Building a new Chicago
According to the filmmakers, the CHA neglected to implement a healthier transition process for housing project occupants. Many were unable to sign up for and receive Section 8 housing vouchers, which allow people to live in neighborhoods more or less of their choice. Instead, they were subject to inadequate housing conditions from slumlords who were more interested in obtaining consistent government dollars than providing a safe home for their new tenants.
With the destruction of the projects came the fracturing of once centrally organized gangs across numerous unfamiliar neighborhoods. Rather than dissolve, these gangs grew. By thrusting different gangs together into different neighborhoods, the city unleashed a new wave of crime stemming from warring factions. Previous renters and homeowners in these new neighborhoods as well as new public housing residents have been caught in the conflict.
And although many new low-rise buildings currently stand on the site of former high-rise projects, most former occupants haven’t. The criteria for entering the new low-rise buildings eliminate numerous applicants. For example, tenants must not have been charged with a felony and must have a job. “I think they personally—from our interviews and research—never had any real intention for those people to move back,” added Young. James agrees. “Do you know how many low rises you would have to build to compensate all those people? Oh my God,” he said. “There’s no way.”
Despite the dire economic and social conditions of the dispersed population from the projects, Young and James remain optimistic, if not a little naïve, and simple in their solutions. “I think it starts at home. Every individual person has to start to raise their personal standards,” Young said. He also believes longtime residents of newly occupied neighborhoods should work to connect with the new residents of their neighborhoods. “A lot of us complain, but we’re not willing to take that extra step,” he said. “We’re not willing to go meet that neighbor or start a block club. Little things that make a difference.”
But in the end, the ongoing problems will never truly dissipate so long as systemic governmental structures and generational poverty remain consistent among the occupants of public housing and throughout the city. Rather than offer solutions to leave the cycle of poverty, the city of Chicago facilitated its growth within the projects. And rather than integrate the differing people of the city, authorities let occupants fend for themselves. In order for change to be real and permanent, it will take the efforts of many, not just a few, to create the vision of the city most Chicagoans want.
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