District 129 Watching Jericho Circle Move Closely

The Aurora Housing Authority is set to relocate the 80 families still living in Jericho Circle, before the wrecking ball takes the complex down.

But if you're wondering just what that means for the West Aurora School District, and Nicholson Elementary School - where about half of Jericho's 200 school-age children attend classes - well, the answer is, no one knows yet.

Jericho Circle, a low-income housing complex on Aurora’s west side, has been slated for the wrecking ball for more than two years, due to serious structural issues discovered in back-to-back studies conducted in 2007 and 2008.

The first step, however, is to get the remaining residents out, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development is assisting with housing choice vouchers that can be used to find new housing anywhere in the country.

The first 10 of those vouchers showed up last month, according to Jean Federman, the AHA's executive director. And now the remaining 70 have arrived, and all the remaining tenants of Jericho have gone through orientation meetings, Federman said. Now it's up to them to find new places to live.

Federman said there is no firm deadline attached to the new vouchers, but they would like to see all of Jericho's remaining tenants relocated by the beginning of the next school year.

And with the HUD vouchers, the former Jericho tenants can move to another state, or they can stay in Aurora, and in the West Aurora School District. All of which makes advance planning for the next school year problematic.

“We don’t know yet,” said Mike Chapin, spokesman for the West Aurora School District. “We don’t know whether they will be out or not, whether they will still be in the district, or what schools in the area they might attend."

Chapin said the district will not understaff Nicholson or other schools—“We will err in the other direction,” he said—but will watch the progress of the relocation, and react accordingly.

Federman said of the first 10 tenants to receive vouchers, half decided to relocate out of the area. But none of the tenants have signed new leases, she said, so that might change.

The communication between the AHA and the West Aurora district, once a source of consternation for district officials, has improved, Chapin said, since HUD officials visited Aurora in March.

“We are ready to serve the students, whether here (at Nicholson) or at other schools,” Chapin said. “We will be very supportive with students and their families through the summer.”