“It Was Love in All the Buildings They Tore Down”: How Caregiving Grandmothers Create and Experience a Sense of Community in Chicago Public Housing

Abstract

About 16,000 families residing in Chicago's public housing have been relocated over the last two decades through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE VI) redevelopment initiative. We situate this paper within a larger conversation about the presence and utilization of community ties within public housing despite the territorial stigmatization of traditional public housing. Utilizing in–depth interviews with 20 Black caregiving grandmothers relocated from Chicago public housing we explore how women charged with performing the lion's share of the kinwork needed to ensure family stability experienced and created a sense of community while living in public housing. We show that by providing (1) safety nets for multiple generations, (2) social support and connections to neighborhood institutions, as well as (3) opportunities for Black activist mothering, these women, often at the heart of vertical lineages, created a sense of community amidst the problems in their communities.