The Chicago Housing Authority has paid out nearly $2 billion over the past five years to help pay rent for nearly 37,000 low-income families in Chicago. But much of that taxpayer money has gone to pay for substandard apartments and units that repeatedly fail inspections, according to an analysis by The Chicago Reporter and NBC5 Investigates. And in many cases, it appears that while taxpayers are paying, and tenants are suffering in poor housing, the middlemen -- the landlords -- are reaping the profits.
This spring, Joletta Jordan and her seven-year-old daughter decided to rent an apartment in Chicago, as participants in the CHA's Housing Voucher Program, which used to be known as Section Eight housing. The program is designed to get residents out of housing projects and into better apartments in safer neighborhoods.
It works like this: A resident finds a voucher-approved private apartment, the resident pays whatever he or she can afford, and the CHA picks up the rest of each month's rent. The units are supposed to be well-kept, and they're subject to regular inspections. But for residents like Jordan, that is not always happening.
Jordan arranged to rent a CHA-subsidized apartment on the city's southwest side. She moved in last April, and immediately made a list of several items she wanted her landlord to fix.
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