1. Housing Justice for Health Equity Health and Medicine Policy Research Group August 27, 2018

2. Chicago Housing Initiative
Organized in 2007, the Chicago Housing Initiative (CHI) is a low- income housing coalition. Today, CHI is made up of eight community organizations.
Mission: To amplify the power of low-income Chicago residents to preserve, improve, and expand low-rent housing options, promote community stabilization, and advance racial and economic inclusion and equity.
Many of our grantees had been working on housing preservation over the years but their response to rental housing loss was reactive and often late. By collaborating they could more effectively address preservation.

3. Need for affordable housing:
Median price for two-bedroom apartment rising
Lowest range: Bronzeville & Pilsen- $1400
Humboldt Park, $1550
Lincoln Park, $2,125
Bucktown $2,600
South Loop $2,800
Incomes are not keeping pace
Chicago minimum wage: $12/hr
= $1,920 per month
= $23,040 per year

4. Need for affordable housing:
Price of housing a full-time minimum wage worker can actually afford:
$576 per month rent (30% of income)
97,000 families with children making <$35,000
Majority of these families will end up paying more than half their income on rent each month
Last time CHA opened its waiting list
Over 280,000 families applies for 40,000 spots on a waiting list
- That is roughly one in every four Chicago families

5. Broad Factors driving housing crisis:
Treating housing as an investment rather than basic human need
“Commodification”
Intensifying income inequality
Produces areas of extreme wealth and then on the flip side, geopolitical “sacrifice zones”
Federal & local defunding of affordable housing
Rising market rents + privatization of affordable housing programs = Limited public subsidy dollars can’t serve as many families

6. Local factors intensifying housing crisis
Public & Affordable Housing Loss
Under the Plan for Transformation
Number of low-rent apartments demolished: 18,650
Number of public housing units re-built (0-30% AMI): 2,560
Net loss of apartments serving families (0-30% AMI): 16,090
Net loss, “affordable” apartments (families 0-60% AMI): 14,369
Source: Bowlby’s ‘The Poor House’ for original unit counts & Habitat Construction Reports to the Gautreaux Court for replacement housing delivered

7. CHA Track Record of Rebuilding After Demolition: 49% of promised units

8. City of Chicago - Affordable Housing Plan for 2004–2008 (p. 10)
Overall impact, over 200,000 black residents were pushed out of Chicago during the last census cycle.
Source: Build / Preserve / Lead – A Housing Agenda for Chicago’s Neighborhoods:
City of Chicago - Affordable Housing Plan for 2004–2008 (p. 10)

9. City of Chicago - Affordable Housing Plan for 2004–2008 (p. 10)
Latinx families are increasingly being pushed out of their historic communities and into neighborhoods further from the city center.
Source: Build / Preserve / Lead – A Housing Agenda for Chicago’s Neighborhoods:
City of Chicago - Affordable Housing Plan for 2004–2008 (p. 10)