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CHA’s Luxury Gap
Snapshots of homes being rented through the Chicago Housing Authority’s biggest program, called the housing choice voucher program, formerly known as Section 8. The CHA would not identify tenants....
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How housing choice aid program works
The Chicago Housing Authority provided housing aid for 140,192 people last year. Most of them — 107,411 — are in households that received housing choice vouchers, formerly known as Section 8 vouchers,...
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BGA: City Hall didn’t know of safety citations on city jobs
By Chuck Neubauer and Sandy Bergo The Emanuel administration gave 10 contracts worth as much as $43 million to a Chicago sewer and excavation company after federal inspectors cited the business twice...
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Chicago’s public housing divide, a Watchdogs / BGA special report
After buying a home in Barrington Hills, Chaoshan Lai and his wife couldn’t unload the 15-year-old townhouse that they’d bought for $935,000 in Central Station, a taxpayer-subsidized development in the...
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THE WATCHDOGS: You paid to build them, now you pay to lease them
Under Mayor Richard M. Daley, the city of Chicago chipped in $19 million to build Sky55, a 40-story apartment building that was part of City Hall’s plan to redevelop the South Loop neighborhood where...
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Shifting stories for Chicago cop in LeGrier, Jones shooting
The Chicago police officer who killed Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones offered different accounts of what happened in interviews with police detectives in the two days after the shootings, police...
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WATCHDOGS: CHA moves to strip aid from suspect in gym murder
The owner of a luxury high-rise apartment complex in the West Loop is suing to evict a wheelchair-bound tenant, subsidized by the Chicago Housing Authority, who allegedly shot and killed another tenant...
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WATCHDOGS: How rape suspect IDed by DNA stayed free for years
A rape suspect remained on the streets for years after being identified through DNA because a south suburban police department failed to act after being informed by the Illinois State Police there was...
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BGA wants all Koschman grand jury records released, Webb objects
A government watchdog group is urging a Cook County judge to make public all records that special prosecutor Dan K. Webb gathered in his investigation of David Koschman’s death, but Webb’s trying to...
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THE WATCHDOGS: UNO’s secret spending spree
Even as they ran a network of charter schools for thousands of students in low-income neighborhoods across Chicago, United Neighborhood Organization leader Juan Rangel and other UNO officials were...
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In surprise plea deal, Chicago businessman admits grant fraud
A Chicago businessman accused four years ago of “large-scale fraud” by the state executive inspector general’s office unexpectedly pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday, admitting he cajoled two...
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WATCHDOGS: 2 Koschman cops led training while under investigation
Sgt. Samuel Cirone is fighting a one-year suspension from the Chicago Police Department over his role in the creation of a bogus police report that shielded former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s nephew from...
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Ex-cop with ties to reputed wiseguys hires Garry McCarthy’s firm
Since Mayor Rahm Emanuel abruptly fired him four months ago, former police Supt. Garry McCarthy has pined for the glamorous top-cop job at Scotland Yard, telling the British press he’d “fix London’s...
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BGA: Suburban school system accuses ex-board member of nepotism
By Casey Toner When the Rich Township High School District 227 board was deciding in 2014 whether to award more than $140,000 in back pay and attorney’s fees to a former associate principal to resolve...
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WATCHDOGS: Undercover cops, Rahm aides kept tabs on protesters
As Mayor Rahm Emanuel faced growing criticism last fall over the city’s handling of police shootings, Chicago Police Department officials laid plans to have undercover officers spy on protest groups,...
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Judge: No to City Hall request to give Koschman records to BGA
A judge denied City Hall permission Wednesday to release subpoenas and other documents related to the grand jury investigation that led to a nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley pleading guilty to...
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THE WATCHDOGS: Insecurity at Soldier Field exposed risks — judge
Security was on heightened alert as 62,483 fans packed Soldier Field to see the Bears play the Denver Broncos last Nov. 22 — nine days after a series of deadly terrorist attacks in Paris claimed 130...
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Escalante cuts deal for detective suspended in Koschman scandal
Two months ago, then-interim Chicago police Supt. John Escalante handed down a one-year suspension to a detective involved in the botched investigation that cleared former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s...
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Emanuel blasts CHA voucher program as policy ‘gone awry’
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday condemned what he called a well-intentioned policy “gone awry” that has allowed the Chicago Housing Authority to rent luxury apartments at extravagant rents for some needy...
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Mihalopoulos: Preckwinkle has perception problem in bond deal
Less than a month after helping Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s top aide in the Democratic primary for state’s attorney, longtime political insider Victor Reyes got in line to get work...
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