The National Public Housing Museum will soon have a home.

Museum staff, city officials and advocates broke ground Tuesday at the future site of the museum, which is also on the property of the last remains of the Jane Addams Homes, one of Chicago’s oldest federal housing projects.

The museum has been in the making for some 15 years and will be the only cultural institution devoted to telling the story of public housing in the United States, according to museum organizers.

“[It’s a space] where we can amplify the voices of public housing residents in order to create a more public dialogue about the future of housing,” said Lisa Lee, executive director of the museum.

The site, to open in 2023, will include 15 mixed income apartments. On the museum side, some of the features will be a permanent exhibition featuring a rotating collection of objects from public housing residents nationwide, an oral history archive to collect stories of residents and a music room.

It will also feature three apartments to portray what it was for residents during different time periods: a Jewish family during the birth of public housing, an Italian, Puerto Rican and Polish family adapting to a changing neighborhood and a Black family during the civil rights era.

One of those apartments is modeled after the home of the Rev. Marshall Hatch, with New Mount Pilgrim Church. His family lived in the Jane Addams Homes from 1960 to 1974. He said his mom passed away while living there, so the groundbreaking was incredibly meaningful to his family.

“For us, it literally is home,” Hatch said.

One of the original voices behind the museum was former Chicago Housing Authority Commissioner Deverra Beverly, who passed in 2013. Her son, Kenneth Beverly, was at the groundbreaking.

“Long before it came about, long before we had funding, long before we were blessed with Lisa, long before we was told that this vison could come to life, Deverra Beverly saw it,” Kenneth Beverly said.