On Saturday afternoon inside the Bee Branch Library, across the street from Stateway, a small group listens to "The House of Pain," a radio documentary titled after the gang nickname for one of Stateway's ten-story buildings. The building's president, Andre "Dre" Williams, narrates the documentary, airing this week on WBEZ as part of the Chicago Matters: Inside Housing series.

Producers Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister are planning to make it a long-term series that will follow Stateway residents as they're moved out of their apartments while mixed-income housing is constructed--a key part of the CHA's big experiment to repair thirty years of mistakes, the Plan for Transformation. "The enormity of this and what it will mean in twenty, thirty, forty years," Collison says, "it's not as big as the New Deal, but it's as big a deal as the process that created these projects in the first place. And it's at ground level with people whose lives are affected."

"It may be 'the projects' to you... a bleak lookin' place you pass as you drive along the Dan Ryan expressway, or see from Comiskey Park," Williams says early in the documentary, which follows the struggles of numerous residents personal lives as they prepare for destruction of their homes. "But to me, these bricks are a real community. Some parts are pretty messed up, but it's still home."

By the end of the year most of these buildings will be gone, and what the documentary notes is that residents, who should know the most about their fate, actually know very little. The plan calls for Stateway's 1,600 units to be replaced by 1,300 others--a combination of low-rise apartments, townhomes and single family residences--with only one-third earmarked for public housing residents.

Catherine "Coco" Means is trying to decide whether to stay in one of the buildings on-site during construction, or to take a Section 8 voucher--if she can find a landlord to accept it--and try to find an apartment. "Say they fixin' to rebuild 'em and make 'em pretty and we can come back. We know that's bull crap... they not gonna let us come back."

Of course, someone will be coming back, but who and how aren't that simple, as residents have been told varying stories about how the choice will be made. But, Collison says, this time residents have a legally mandated voice. "It's about persistence," says Meister. "Nothing's going to be easy, the CHA isn't going to accept you without a fight--I think Francine [one of the residents] said it best, 'It's not a plan for transformation, it's a fight for transformation.'"

"The House of Pain" airs May 15, 6pm and May 21, 10:25am on WBEZ-FM 91.5.

Also by Elaine Richardson

AMERICAN ICONS
The truth is that Hollywood makes stars, but the public makes icons. But we can't tell you why. However, when two Chicago cultural institutions turned to the glamour days of Hollywood this month for material, we couldn't resist the chance to reflect on the question.
(2002-05-09)

LAST RIDE
A full twenty minutes before its final performance, a massive crowd has packed into the lobby of the Theatre Building, clutching the general admission tickets to the final ride of playwright Will Kern's nine-year-plus running play, "Hellcab."
(2002-05-09)

FASHION AVENUE
"There's a lot of things you can buy in Nordstrom's that you'll now be able to get in the neighborhood," Naimowicz says of the merchandise in her 9-month-old store. "And you don't have to pay fourteen dollars to park," Harwell dryly adds. And that's at least part of the reason why, as the population of Wicker Park and Bucktown grows, buoyed by a nice proximity to downtown and the artistic pull of the area, retail expansion has followed.
(2002-05-02)

TOTTERING TOWN
Like a bazaar gone wonderfully wrong, the grand ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Chicago bustles with activity as hundreds of people stroll from booth to booth, coming away not with trinkets, but with a nosing glass full of... whiskey.
(2002-04-25)

MEET AND GREET
(2002-04-18)

HOT AIR
(2002-04-11)

MR. BEAN
(2002-04-04)

STREET TEAM
(2002-03-21)

FEEDING FRENZY
(2002-03-21)

POLL POSITION
(2002-03-14)

AD BUSTERS
(2002-03-14)

BAD NEWS
(2002-02-28)