Getting Byrned

HUD stares, Chicago blinks

Late last month Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne was boasting that on the first anniversary of her ballyhooed three-week stay in the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green public housing project, "it has been turned around. It's not perfect, but it's better." But Her Honor's moment of glory was clouded. Since January she and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had been feuding over a HUD audit suggesting that the Chicago Housing Authority, the nation's second largest, with 142,000 tenants in 46,000 units, was among the worst managed. "It is almost as if the CHA exists for a purpose other than the management and maintenance of good quality public housing," the report charged. Its true purpose? "The acquisition of as many Federal Government dollars as possible for the creation of patronage jobs and financial opportunities."

Compared with New York City, which has 525,000 people in 170,000 units, Chicago had runaway deficits ($42 per unit per month, vs. $4 in New York) despite receiving more generous federal subsidies ($131 vs. $112). The study found that costs for heating, elevator repairs and garbage disposal were excessive, and that $50 million in modernization funds was sitting in local bank accounts earning low interest. HUD Under Secretary Donald Hovde demanded the resignation of all five CHA commissioners, including the chairman, powerful Realtor Charles Swibel, one of the mayor's closest allies. Swibel, 55, was appointed to the board in 1956 by Mayor Richard Daley. Chicago Political Analyst Don Rose describes him as "a do-fer. As in 'What can I do fer you?' "

When Byrne did not act, HUD froze $14.5 million in subsidies. The mayor retaliated by taking out $35,000 worth of newspaper ads describing HUD's charges as a smokescreen for "inadequate funding for public housing." Swibel held firm, refusing to resign at a raucous CHA meeting early last week. "I'm staying because I've done nothing wrong," he insisted shortly before being hospitalized with an apparent ulcer attack.

But late last week Byrne, who is up for re-election in 1983, announced that she would seek to expand the CHA board to seven members and make the chairman a full-time professional. She privately assured Hovde that Swibel would be out "within 90 days," and HUD then lifted the freeze on funds. Swibel's departure will bring no sudden changes in public housing. Still, editorialized the Chicago Sun-Times, "any scheme that would remove the inept Charles R. Swibel as chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority can't be all bad."

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