Elmer L. Beard served under seven Chicago mayors and held a top job during a tumultuous era at the Chicago Housing Authority.
In 1982, Mr. Beard was appointed executive director of the CHA, making him the highest-ranking African-American at the agency at a time when Mayor Jane Byrne had angered black voters by creating a white majority on the CHA board.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had threatened to withhold CHA funds if she didn’t remove the agency’s chair, Charles Swibel, a top Byrne fundraiser, amid allegations of mismanagement. Byrne wrote about the episode in her book, “My Chicago,” saying she placated a HUD official by telling him “Swibel would be replaced by the executive director, Andrew Mooney, as full-time chairman, and Elmer Beard, a black deputy commissioner of the city’s Housing Department, would transfer over to CHA as executive director.”
Mr. Beard wound up being fired by a subsequent CHA chairman, Afro-American Patrolmen’s League organizer Renault Robinson, but landed a job as deputy commissioner of the Department of Sewers. Mr. Beard also served with the city Department of Planning and Development.
He died Feb. 2 of Lewy body dementia at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He was 82.