Chicago’s Plan for Transformation at Year 25: “Where Are They Now?”

The Voorhees Center is pleased to announce the release of its latest report examining how public housing reforms have reshaped neighborhoods, impacted resident outcomes, and influenced the use of public land.

This detailed report offers a review of the past 25 years of public housing reform in Chicago, the creation and implementation of the Plan for Transformation (PFT), its achievements and challenges, and implications for future housing policy. Drawing on census and spatial data combined with interviews with 75 stakeholders, the study investigates neighborhood change, resident outcomes, and the long-term use of public land beyond unit counts across three transformed sites. The report also includes an analysis of the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative’s execution in Woodlawn Park as a parallel and comparison to the efforts started with the PFT.

The report:

• Traces how urban divestment and complicated municipal politics contributed to the mismanagement and deterioration of Chicago’s public housing portfolio.
• Maps how public housing, Project-Based Section 8, and Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) units have been redistributed citywide, showing both a broader geographic spread and continued clustering in low-income communities of color.
• Analyzes changes in population, race, income, rent, and education in four community areas, highlighting rising rents, higher incomes and education levels, and declining Black populations in several sites.
• Finds that while housing quality and safety improved in many former high-rise areas, construction was delayed and uneven, one-for-one replacement was not realized, and many voucher holders moved to other high-poverty, segregated neighborhoods.
• Shows how land decisions and governance structures shaped better outcomes and secured more replacement units and better return pathways.

Why this study matters:

Chicago faces a persistent shortage of affordable housing, long waiting lists, and growing rental pressure across the city; the experience of the Plan for Transformation and Choice Neighborhoods offer crucial lessons in public housing reform and policy, highlighting the importance of:

• Centering racial equity, enforceable right-to-return, and anti-displacement strategies.
• Protecting public land for long-term affordability and public benefit.
• Treating housing as part of comprehensive neighborhood planning, not a stand-alone intervention.
• Building meaningful community power into planning, governance, and oversight across residents and stakeholders.