Mrs. Ella Patterson, 102 years old, the oldest resident at the project, and her great-grandson

The federally-funded Ida B. Wells Homes, completed in 1938, offered low-cost housing to 2,000 families. The project's modern facilities and sponsored activities made it "the envy of the whole South Side", wrote Drake and Cayton in Black metropolis. Many of these pictures were taken during wartime, when FSA photographers were prompted to concentrate on uplifting subjects. The previous year, Rosskam noted that such housing projects 'accommodate too few residents to affect conditions substantially. The real obstacle is the restriction, imposed on a growing community, which prevents adequate expansion in space.'