In the late 1990s, public housing resident leaders initiated discussions with the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) about a Museum to preserve their collective memories and share with the broad public Chicago's special role in a national story about public housing and the urban experience in America. No cultural institution in the country is devoted to telling the story of public housing ? a far-reaching policy that has had a profound impact on millions of Americans throughout the 20th century. Leaders of the Local Advisory Councils for CHA developments signed the following resolution in December 2006 to recognize the importance of creating such an institution in Chicago: "Whereas, we the representatives of the residents of public housing in Chicago recognize that we have a legacy to preserve and that through the establishment of a museum our legacy will continue through generations." That resolution also identifies the historically significant Jane Addams site located on Chicago's near West Side as the most appropriate site to preserve and transform into a Public Housing Museum. In 2007, the Museum established its Board of Directors, Executive Committee and other leadership groups, which it continues to expand. Our Advisory Committee includes many distinguished leaders from Chicago?s corporate, civic, and arts community as well as State Senator Mattie Hunter, an alumni of Chicago public housing, and Ruth Abrams, the founder of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City. The Museum is incorporated in the State of Illinois and gained approval for its nonprofit 501c3 status in December, 2007.

The Museum is the nation's first cultural and academic institution dedicated to interpreting the American experience in public housing. It draws on the power of place and memory to illuminate the resilience of poor and working class families of every race and ethnicity who struggled to realize the promise of America. To be housed in a historic public housing building and modeled after the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the Museum encourages social reflection, public dialogue and education.

While the National Public Housing Museum is currently in the planning and fundraising stage, it currently operates as a ?Museum in the Streets? ? reaching audiences in public forums as well as online. Included in the ?Museum in the Streets? programming is the traveling exhibit?Inside Out: An Audio and Visual Installation. Featuring photography from the work of eight photographers who have committed long periods of their professional careers photographing public housing in Chicago, images are paired with recordings of residents? stories, told in their own words, creating a multi-layered experience of life within public housing and the view from the outside. The exhibit will travel to six local and six national venues in 2009-10. Other public programs include lectures and book signings with local and national authors, academics and celebrity personalities, in conjunction with the Roosevelt Branch of the Chicago Public Library, University of Illinois Chicago, DePaul University, Roosevelt University and Columbia College. Public programs with the Chicago History Museum, The Field Museum, DuSable Museum, The Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media at Columbia College Chicago, Italian American Sports Hall of Fame, American Theater Company and Chicago Dramatists Theater. The Museum is collaborating with the University of Illinois-Chicago for the ?2010 Architecture for Change Summit: Informing Affordable Housing Policy.? The Summit will convene architecture activist practitioners, educators and organizations, affordable housing activists in related fields, foundations, non-profit leaders and government officials. The group will consider meaningful and inclusive change in conventional housing practices and policies in support of appropriate and sustainable affordable housing design while addressing key issues such as design principles, practice and policy opportunities, governmental officials? perspectives, and collective advocacy agenda. The Museum is also finalizing a relationship between its International Center for the Study of Housing and Society (The Center) and the Real Estate Center at DePaul University. The Center will examine the social, cultural, and economic issues related to public housing and will be the only institution that compares public housing internationally to make connections between the United States and the world. The Center will serve as a repository of policies and experiences. It will be a place where people with differing political views and scholars from diverse institutions and disciplines meet, talk, and learn. Creating a model public housing apartment at the Merchandise Mart in the Dream Home space on the first floor will allow visitors to have an opportunity to see what the actual Museum will house. The exhibit committee is working to identify an exhibit designer to lead the project, which is slated to be open from December 18 ? March 31, 2010.