Our Stories: Resident Voices of Public Housing

FAIN: GE-50115-09

National Public Housing Museum (Chicago, IL 60601-2424)
Donald Bradford Hunt (Project Director: August 2008 to July 2010)

Planning for an oral history initiative to include the voices of residents of public housing to expand the scholarly perspective on the history of public housing for programs by this new museum.

The National Public Housing Museum (NPHM) is requesting $40,000 out of a needed $70,000 to support planning for Our Stories: Resident Voices of Public Housing. This oral history-based humanities project will build on the efforts of recent scholars to uncover the complexity of public housing developments and how residents and others constructed community amidst concentrated poverty, building decay, and social stigmatization. Our planning process will be guided by four key humanities themes related to public housing scholarship - identity, community, social justice and leadership - which reach the heart of debates about interpreting public housing in American society. "Our Stories" is not intended to advance any specific agenda but to instead bring greater public awareness to the often obscured, misunderstood, and devalued history of public housing communities.