Parish Housing Cooperatives in the Shadow of Pruitt–Igoe: Monsignor John Shocklee and the Bicentennial Corporation

Saint Louis's Pruitt-Igoe is arguably the most notorious public housing complex in America. Completed in 1956 and demolished by 1972, the physical decay, poverty, and crime in Pruitt-Igoe’s thirty-three eleven-story high-rise buildings are emblematic, in many people's minds, of the failure of traditional public housing. However, in recounting the rise and fall of Pruitt-Igoe the general public and urban historians alike overlook the war on poverty waged by St. Bridget’s Catholic Parish and its pastor, Monsignor John Shocklee, who was often hailed as “the priest of Pruitt-Igoe.” In 1964, Shocklee founded the Bicentennial Corporation, an ecumenical, multi-racial, and metropolitan organization whose board of directors oversaw some twenty-one anti-poverty programs including an adult GED program, a pre-school, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Meals on Wheels, a credit union, and block partnerships between inner-city neighborhoods and suburban churches. Recognizing that housing was a central concern, Shocklee ensured that the crown jewel of the Bicentennial Corporation was a housing rehabilitation program which purchased and refurbished houses in the shadow of Pruitt-Igoe and sold them to low-income homeowners being driven from public housing. By 1968, the Bicentennial Corporation’s housing program had inspired a revision of Section 221(h) of the National Housing Act of 1966, expanding support for non-profits rehabilitating housing for sale to low-income families. Especially as the United States once again faces a national affordable housing crisis, the role that religious organizations and leaders have long played in advocating for public housing, supporting tenant rights, and providing low-income housing is ripe for deeper exploration.