Stereotype Busters

STEREOTYPE: People with Housing Choice Vouchers have large households.

FACT: At 2.81 people, the average size of a household in the Chicago Housing Authority’s Housing Choice Voucher Program was only slightly larger than the average size of 2.65 people for all Chicago households in 2006.

STEREOTYPE: People with Housing Choice Vouchers are inundating many Chicago neighborhoods.

FACT: As of June 2007, the highest percentage of rental units occupied by relocated families with Housing Choice Vouchers was 3% in the Washington Park neighborhood.

STEREOTYPE: Relocated CHA residents lead to higher levels of crime in their new neighborhoods.

FACT: From 1999 to 2005, none of the 10 community areas with the highest percentages of relocated CHA residents using Housing Choice Vouchers saw an increase in the numbers of aggravated assault and battery, arson or robbery, according to data from the Chicago Police Department. One community area saw a jump in criminal sexual assaults; another saw an increase in thefts. Murders increased in two of the community areas. Three community areas experienced an increase in burglaries.

Sources: Chicago Housing Authority Moving to Work FY2006 Annual Report, U.S. Census Bureau; analyzed by The Chicago Reporter.