Values Statement: Why we fight for the 'Keeping the Promise' Ordinance
We believe that the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) is a key public institution in Chicago, which has an extremely meaningful role to play in advancing racial and economic equity and inclusion in our divided and unequal city.
We believe that having a safe and stable home is a basic cornerstone upon which we all build our lives.
We believe it is unacceptable from both a human rights and good government standpoint for thousands of families to struggle and go homeless unnecessarily when the Chicago Housing Authority has hundreds of millions in surplus resources to help them.
In short, we believe that:
The lives of public housing tenants and families on the waiting list matter.
We ask the Mayor and the Chicago City Council to help us become the city we aspire to be, and use the CHA as a vehicle for transforming Chicago's deeply rooted structural racism and deepening class division.
We take action...
(1) ...To confront and transform the underlying racism and classism on the part of the Emanuel Administration that have enabled the CHA to operate negligently with such impunity for so long;
(2) ...To take leadership in our own communities and citywide to ensure that race and class prejudice are not allowed to define neighborhood access and community development in Chicago; and
(3)... To hold the CHA to the highest standards of accountability, transparency, performance, and public service that all Chicago citizens deserve, and to ensure CHA operates by the same standards that public institutions serving richer and whiter citizens are held to.
