In between finishing a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard and beginning an Annen-berg Fellowship at the University of Southern California, Edward Lifson took a tour of “the train,” Chicago’s Margot and Harold Schiff Residences. Lifson, a former Chicago Public Radio host, likes to write stories about modern architecture’s use of light, space, and materials, but what he found at the Helmut Jahn project trumped all of that: people just grateful to be given a chance to have a home.