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Image courtesy of Landon Bone Baker Architects.
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The latest architectural rendering of the future National Public Housing Museum on the corner of Taylor and Ada Street!
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"As a displaced and former resident of the Robert Taylor housing projects, and now residing in Englewood on the south side of Chicago, I hope with this research opportunity I will develop a unique understanding of the anthology of gender, labor, citizenship and lives of African Americans from reconstruction to the Civil Rights era, that illuminates the pattern of their vulnerability to state control."
- Troy Gaston
Thanks to a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services in support of the Oral History Archive and Corps, and a partnership with Laura Nussbaum-Barberena at the Roosevelt University Policy Research Collaborative (PRC), the Museum has hired another group of paid interns. PRC interns include Troy Gaston, Sophia Gallo, and Juanairis Castaneda as well as graduate assistant Victoria Limón, who is participating for the second time. While their areas of study range from clinical psychology to sustainability studies, the team’s steadfast commitment to social justice has brought them together to learn how oral histories can be used to create innovative public policy solutions.
The team will be working with Artist As Instigator Tonika Lewis Johnson, using oral history methodologies to engage Chicago's Greater Englewood residents around the history and current impact of racist housing policies and practices such as Land Sale Contracts, as a part of Inequity for Sale.
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"Stop Killing" by Dr. Cranston Knight.
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The NPHM is proud to present Silent Voices Among Us: A Montage of Chicago’s West Side, a photojournalistic series taken by Dr. Cranston Knight, a former resident of Chicago’s Henry Horner Homes. The images, taken between June and July of 2020 in the Austin and Garfield Park neighborhoods, document decades of systemic inequities caused by unfair housing practices, which in turn affect education quality, healthcare access, economic stability, and more. These issues have been intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic, within these communities, which have been disproportionately affected by the virus.
In addition to Knight’s work, you can listen to a collection of stories from the Museum’s Oral History Archive throughout the exhibition, as well as in our most recent episode of Out of the Archives, which both amplify the voices of residents and bring to life the history of the Henry Horner Homes. Like anyone’s story, it is important to hear the full range of experiences, from joy to sorrow, deep frustrations, as well as our triumphs, and the communities that hold us together. We believe you will hear this range from our storytellers, which include Patricia Boyd Smith, Sharon Janette Leggitt, Maria Moon, Crystal Palmer, John Pettiford, and Marina Pullom.
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Out of the Archives!
Episode 11: Silent Voices Among Us: Stories from Chicago's Henry Horner Homes
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 In tandem with the Silent Voices exhibition, you can listen to the most recent episode of our audio listening series Out of the Archives now! The episode shares stories from residents of the Henry Horner Homes, known to many of its residents as the Hornets, and includes narrators Crystal Palmer, Marina Pullom, Patricia Smith, John Pettiford, Sharon Leggitt, and Maria Moon. Visit our SoundCloud page and website for more stories.
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Donor Profile: Simone Gonzalez
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 Simone Gonzalez is a native Chicagoan who grew up on the Northwest Side of the city. She currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and works full-time as a union organizer. Simone first encountered the Museum on the way to a favorite eatery on Taylor Street.
“As a 2009 graduate of Whitney Young High School, many years ago I developed a fondness for the nearby Sweet Maple Cafe,” she said. One day in the summer of 2017, Simone was on her way to Sweet Maple when she passed the sidewalk installation at the Museum’s future site. It caught her attention. “In bold lettering on a red background the statements ‘Housing is a human right’ and ‘Nothing about us without us!’ were written for passersby to see, and these sentiments deeply resonated with me and sparked an interest in the museum that continues to this day.”
Simone said she supports the National Public Housing museum because it “shines a light on so many stories that are vital for us to hold in our collective consciousness as Americans. I can think of no better location for the museum than Chicago, which, as Nelson Algren writes, is ‘the most native ... [and] most radical of all American cities’.”
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As a museum we adapt and change in these challenging times. We persevere—and we thrive because of you, and with you.
NPHM draws on the power of place and memory to preserve, promote and propel the right of all people to have a place to call home.
You can help sustain our work by making a donation today to support our programs and exhibits that educate, inspire, and spur people to action to create a more just future.
Thank you!
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The renovated exterior of the Tour Bois-le-Prêtre housing project in Paris provides more natural light to residents.
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The Pritzer Prize in architecture was awarded to French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal earlier this month. The winners of the most prestigious award in architecture are proponents of adaptive reuse. Their projects demonstrate how creative design can reduce costs and architectural waste while providing social benefit. For instance, in upgrading the 1960s housing project Tour Bois-le-Prêtre near Paris, they extended the floors to increase the size of rooms, adding balconies and space for indoor gardens.
"Buildings are beautiful when people feel well in them," said Lacaton in a 2017 lecture. In Jacobin magazine’s recent article “Workers Deserve Beautiful, Renovated, Even Luxurious Public Housing,” Owen Hatherly writes how the world can learn how to make mass public housing work from Lacaton and Vassal: “Their aim has been to prove that it can be renovated, expanded, and made more pleasurable to live in while serving exactly the same social purpose it was built for.”
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Democratic candidates running for mayor of New York City shared their housing policy proposals in a recent forum. According to this report: “The discussion had a particular focus on the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, which has added a new layer of concern regarding homelessness, evictions, rent and mortgage debt, housing segregation, affordable and permanent housing.”
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Metropolis Magazine rounds up an assortment of online talks that focus on increasing equity in housing and new affordable housing models.
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Florida resident Bathsheba Collingwood shares her story about how the housing crisis is affecting her family and why her state lawmakers must pass a renters bill of rights package. Collingwood writes: “Safe, affordable housing is a human right.”
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The American Rescue Plan Act – $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill – passed in the Senate. Nearly $50 billion of that relief package will support housing and homelessness assistance.
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The Urban Institute, founded by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, produced a housing policy brief outlining the “results of a scan of housing policy platforms from organizations that represent a range of ideological perspectives for federal policy proposals to improve housing stability, affordability, and choice.”
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 Novelist George R.R. Martin, the creator of Game of Thrones, grew up in LaTourette Gardens in Bayonne, New Jersey. George, who has written more than 15 speculative fiction novels, described the view from the living room window of the Kill Van Kull, a polluted tidal strait that was the main route for ships, where he spent many hours looking and “dreaming of distant lands and far horizons.” He was obsessed with books, storytelling, and comic books, and starting writing monster stories that he sold to his playmates in the projects for five cents.
After graduating from high school in 1966, George attended Northwestern University and studied journalism. He arrived to college by Greyhound bus carrying “three brand new suitcases (a graduation present) and an old typewriter.” During a walking tour of his old neighborhood in 2014, he told a local newspaper that talent and luck alone isn’t enough to be successful: “...you need a hell of a lot of persistence, the ability to handle rejection and push on through, and some sort of belief in yourself that no matter how people say you can’t do it, you say, ‘Well, forget you, yes I can.’”
If you are a present or former resident of public housing and you want to share your story, contact us at info@NPHM.org or leave a message at (773) 245-1621.
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 The last standing Phyllis Wheatley Home on the south side of Chicago is facing demolition, but a group of citizens and preservationists have been organizing to save it.
The home was purchased in 1915 by the Phyllis Wheatley Club, named for the first published Black poet in the United States in the 18th century, and created to offer shelter and resources to young Black women moving north during the Great Migration.
Preservation Chicago notes: “Chicago has an unfortunate record of demolishing settlement house buildings. Even the Hull-House, the most renowned settlement house in the city, suffered this fate—during the 1960s, all but two of its thirteen buildings were destroyed to make way for the University of Illinois at Chicago campus. As few sites of Black social settlements remain in Chicago or across the nation, preserving the Phyllis Wheatley Home is essential. Preservation advocates and the City of Chicago should prioritize elevating this history as we strive to embrace diversity, equity and inclusion in everything we do.”
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Our story starts with a simple truth: That all people have the right to a place in which they can live an prosper - a place to call home.
The Power of Place Capital Campaign will redevelop the last remaining building of the former Jane Addams Homes on Chicago’s Near West Side into a world-class civic and cultural institution. Visitors will encounter exhibits and historically significant objects, and engage with the provocative ideas of internationally renowned contemporary artists. The Museum will also be an African American Historic Site, and will be committed to telling an inclusive and diverse history. Join us and be a catalyst for change. You can invest in the future of NPHM by making your contribution today!
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