Extreme Housing Shortage for Low Income Renters

From Housing Action Illinois and the National Low Income Housing Coalition

An analysis released today shows a dramatic shortage in the number rental homes affordable and available to extremely low-income households. These renter households, often faced with excessively high housing costs, are at great risk of becoming homeless.

Jointly released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and Housing Action Illinois, Housing Spotlight: The Shrinking Supply of Affordable Housing, shows that in Illinois there are only 28 rental homes both affordable and available for every 100 renter households considered extremely low-income, that is, earning 30% or less of the area median income. In Illinois, a family of four is extremely low-income if their annual household income is at or below $21,650.

Illinois is one of 13 states below the national level of 30 affordable and available units per 100 households at or below the extremely low-income threshold. No state in the nation has an adequate supply of affordable, available rental housing.

“These numbers counter the perception that the foreclosure crisis and decline in home values has resolved the shortage of affordable rental housing,” said Bob Palmer, Policy Director for Housing Action Illinois. “What’s actually happened is that competition for those few rental units affordable to extremely low-income households has increased and rents for these households have continued to go up.”

By comparison, the data shows that there are 102 rental homes both affordable and available for every 100 renter households considered low-income, that is, earning 80% or less of the area median income. In Illinois, a family of four is low-income if their annual household income is at or below $$57,700.

At the federal level, advocates call for funding of the National Housing Trust Fund, which would provide communities with funds to build, preserve, and rehabilitate rental homes that are affordable for those households impacted by the affordable housing shortage. Unlike other federal housing programs, the great majority of National Housing Trust Fund resources are targeted at extremely low-income households. Signed into law in 2008, the National Housing Trust Fund has not yet been funded. President Obama included $1 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund in his FY13 budget proposal, released on February 13.

“Solving the shortage of affordable rental housing is the most important homelessness prevention measure we can undertake,” said Sheila Crowley, President and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “Investing in the National Housing Trust Fund is our best chance of ensuring affordable housing for all Americans.”

An affordable unit is one in which a household at the defined income threshold can rent without paying more than 30% of its income on housing and utility costs. A unit is affordable and available if that unit is both affordable and vacant, or is currently occupied by a household at the defined income threshold or below.

The full report is available at http://nlihc.org/doc/HousingSpotlight2-1.pdf.

Victory! Basketball rims returned to Uptown Park

Only days after North Side residents took their demands to the Board of the Chicago Park District, basketball rims have been replaced at the Broncho Billy Playlot near Magnolia & Montrose.

The rims had been removed by order of new Alderman James Cappleman, claiming it was a response to crime, despite little evidence of a connection between crime and the basketball rims.

Residents organized a petition drive, got the support of many community leaders and took their effort to get the rims back to the Park District Board on Oct. 12.

Victory! Unjust eviction blocked.

In another major victory for the tenants of Northpoint Apartments, on May 11 a jury threw out the unjust eviction case against Carol Vialdores, so she and her family can stay in their Rogers Park home of 15 years.

A combined campaign of grassroots organizing and legal advocacy overcame yet another unfair eviction attempt. Ms. Vialdores, who is also a tenant activist and Northside Action for Justice member ,was targeted for eviction because she demanded respect as a tenant and was active in organizing other tenants.. She was able to get legal help from Northwestern University Law School Legal Clinic and a legal team led by John Elson. A coalition of organizations and Northpoint tenants gathered hundreds of petitions opposing the eviction. There was a press conference at the HUD building on Monday, May 3rd, and a meeting with Ed Hinsberger (the head of the HUD family housing program). At that time he said they would talk to Northpoint/Aimco about the case, but no commitment was made to stop the eviction.

Carol and her supporters continued to mobilize support and packed the courtroom for the trial. Many potential jurors said they could not, in good conscience, evict a family, so Northpoint’s lawyers kept them off the jury. On Tuesday in the late afternoon, after hearing the case and receiving clear instructions from the judge, the jury came back and decided in Carol Vialdores favor and threw the eviction out.

This case had a happy ending, thanks to the work and support of the people, the courage of Carol in standing up for her rights and a dedicated legal team. However, there is a continued pattern of abuse and mismanagement on the part of Northpoint/AIMCO that needs to be addressed and this victory (like the victory in the Bledsoe case six months ago) is part of the continued tenant organizing campaign to win respect and justice at Northpoint and for low and moderate income residents around the city.

Highest vacancy rates ever

The US Census Bureau reports that, in the Midwest and across the country, housing vacancy rates have reached record highs -- especially for rental units. Figures were not broken down by city or community, but community groups on the North Side have also seen a significant rise in vacancies -- in both condo and rental buildings.

Curious, that there's been virtually no news coverage of this, given the pressure from the real estate industry to actually increase the rental vacancy rate with tax giveaways that will do little to help the housing crisis or the economy. (The Realtors routinely get news coverage of low vacancy rates.)

If tenants and tenant advocates understood the reality of high rental vacancy rates, they would have a stronger hand in negotiating with landlords over affordability and quality of housing. That makes now a good time to press for pro-tenant policies and practices.

Protest the "Bailout Bandits" - Oct 27

Community and Labor organizations are coming to Chicago from across the country to protest the "Bailout Bandits," at the American Bankers Association convention in Chicago.

These big banks wrecked our economy, then took bailouts adding up to $15,000 for every man, woman and child in the country, then they pushed people out of jobs and homes while giving themselves record bonuses.

Click here to sign up to be on the NA4J bus on Tuesday, Oct 27.


For fact sheets on the bailout bandits, flyers you can download and more info on the days of action, check out:

www.jwj.org/bailoutbandits

http://www.stopbankgreed.org/get-the-facts/

www.showdowninchicago.org

Victory for the Bledsoe Family

Weeks of grassroots action, including collecting over 700 support postcards from neighbors, has led HUD, IHDA and Northpoint to work out a plan to keep the Bledsoe Family in their Rogers Park home.

Check out more of the story and video of the action at HUD here.

For info on a victory party, come to the NA4J membership meeting,
Thursday, Oct 22, 6:30pm, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr #312

info@actionforjustice.org

Orphaned Kids Face Eviction

Aimco Corporation -- the for-profit comapny that owns Rogers Park's Northpoint apartments and many other properties around the country -- wants to evict Rosetta Bledsoe's grandchildren. Aimco claims that, because Rosetta died and their new guardian, their Aunt Erica Bledsoe, wasn't previously on the lease, that the orphaned children will be evicted from their home of many years.

Click Here to help stop this eviction.

Action for Justice is part of the ad hoc Bledsoe support committee, helped with a rally on July and is asking people to tell HUD to step in and stop the eviction. HUD provides the funding to Aimco/Northpoint. And is supposed to help alleviate the affordable housing crisis.

Volunteers are also collecting support postcards at Triangle Park on Sept 26 and Oct 3.

For more background on the story, see Chicago Now and the Tribune.

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Update:

Ad Hoc Bledsoe Support Committee has been formed and is online here.

Job loss = evictions = high vacancy = deeper crisis

The economic crisis and loss of jobs add to high vacancy in rental housing. Until recently, high health

A study by Depaul University shows that with unemployment hitting blue collar workers more, low and moderate income neighborhoods are hit much harder by vacancies, which add blight to communities.

The report indicates that the unemployment and the slow economy have lowered incomes and have caused many families to "double up" or move in with another family resulting in a stagnant rental market and higher vacancies.

The Chicago Rehab Network has a summary of the nearly 7,000 foreclosures in Chicago in just the first 3 months of 2009 -- and the main "corporate criminals" responsible for these evictions.

Health care crises and job loss (which often means loss of health insurance) are leading causes of foreclosures and bankruptcies.

Protest the Bailout Bandits

Protest the
"Bailout Bandits"
Thursday, September 24
12 Noon
Wells Fargo
(Monroe & Franklin)

As part of a national week of actions for economic recovery, NA4J part of a community-labor coalition that will put Wells Fargo and the other bailout bandits on trial for their corporate crimes.


The "too big to fail" banks took billions in bailouts -- both through the $700 Billion TARP and far more through Federal reserve -- supposedly to save the economy by offering credit to keep people working through the recession. Instead they made money from gambling with our money, paid themselves bonuses and continue to force people out of jobs and out of homes.

If you're fed up with Congress being owned by the banks, tired of the bailout bandits taking our money and using it to fight any reforms and block a recovery for the rest of us, if you agree that we need good jobs and affordable housing for everyone ...

Join us September 24
(and again October 27)

Too Big to Fail vs. Too Small To Notice?

Go ahead; I dare you.
Name me 3 of the 16 Illinois banks that collapsed in 2009 and have been taken over by the government [no fair googling!]. Or how about a few of the 91 banks taken over across the country so far this year? That's right, 91.

Today's news has a piece about Corus Bank being taken over by the government. It caught our attention because it was in the news as the 4th largest failure in the country so far this year.

A $7 Billion institution is nothing to sneeze at. But what seems most important to note is that not a single insured depositor will lose a dime, and all the bank branches will be open (under MB Financial) on the next regular business day. Practically the only thing that most people would notice is the new name on the buildings. Business as usual.

That's how the federal regulatory system is supposed to work, and in most cases, the way it does work. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) takes over banks that were run into the ground by executives/boards, makes sure the regular folks are OK and keeps the overall system running. Even in the biggest bank take-overs, it only takes a few days for the shop to reopen under a new structure. But the investors and owners, the ones that made all the profits when the casino was going their way, get wiped out. As they should.

But what about CitiBank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase and the rest of the "bailout bandits"?

Oh ... they were 'too big to fail.'

So big (which really means they are so politically powerful that Congress and the Administration caved in to their demands) that they got Congress to free them up to gamble with other people's money, allowing their executives got to pocket tens of millions of dollars in (false) profits during the heyday of the destructive housing and speculation bubble, a frenzy that drove the economy to ruin.

So big that, rather than taking their lumps for their recklessness, they got bailed out to the tune of over $4 Trillion (yes, with a 'T', far more than the $700 Billion in the TARP) and now many of these same bad actors are making money cleaning up the mess they made money on in the first place.

They were "Too Big to Fail". Most bank failures are too small to notice. And "too big to fail" is simply too big.

To be clear, taking over Citicorp and the other 'zombie' banks would not be simple. Since when is cleaning up a crime scene ever tidy? But it was and is very doable.

It is long past time to break up the banks, re-establish meaningful regulation and create publicly-controlled alternatives, ranging from a publicly owned national community investment bank to community development credit unions.

If you want to see an end to the corporate crimes of these financial giants, come to the protest at Wells Fargo, Thursday, September 24, 12 noon at Monroe & Franklin.

Action for Justice members will be there, helping other groups in the Chicago Jobs with Justice coalition put Wells Fargo on trial for its corporate crimes, and calling for jobs and housing.

And next month, we'll be back to give some hell to the American Bankers Association annual convention, downtown from October 25-27.

PS: To keep up on the list of bank failures, visit here.

"Affordable" for Whom??? Yet another TIF Abuse

The Chicago Sun-Times has a story about yet another example of how Chicago abuses Tax Increment Financing as a slush fund for Mayoral and Aldermanic friends and donors. This time it's about so-called "affordable" housing around the Maxwell street destruction ... er ... UIC redevelopment.

Another recent TIF atrocity was handing money to the "blighted" building formerly known as Sears Tower. For a sampling of past TIF abuse, see the Reader's TIF archive.

Beyond the now-familiar process of using public power and resources (TIF, zoning changes, etc.) to make powerful friends rich, the Suntimes finally uses some ink on the question NA4J folks have been asking for over a decade:

"Affordable" for whom????

The key basic questions on all public policy proposals should be:
* who benefits?
* who pays?
* are there other ways to achieve stated goals?

In the case of TIFs and redevelopment, the system is rigged to favor insiders, liek the people that buy "affordable" housing as an investment and them flip them for easy, politically-generated profit. Like the woman that made $29,000 without even moving into a subsidized townhome (she already owned two). The flippers made an average profit of $63,000.

Beyond the question of the politically connected gaming the system is the broader policy question of "affordable to whom"? Many gentrifying development deals include some kind of "affordable" component to alleviate community opposition. these so-called 'affordble' units are key aspects of why the deals are supposedly in the public interest.

But housing advocates have been arguing for decades that the city uses "affordability definitions that defy any logic.

For example, to qualify for 'affordable' units at University Village, a 4-person family's income must be below $75,000 per year -- which is considered 'low income' if one uses the metro region figures. Costs -- rent or purchase prices -- are not based on one's income, but on a formula based on the median income -- of the metro region.

The median household income (regardless of household size) in the city of Chicago was about $45,000 in 2007.

Using the formula based on the metro region means that many so-called 'affordable' units are priced for residents with the highest 15-20% of incomes.

The TIF reform referenda that passed overwhelmingly in sample precincts emphasize that housing produced should be affordable to households below that community's median income.

Include housing in state capital budget

Every State Senator is RIGHT NOW being asked to set priorities for the state's capital budget.
The Governor's plan only allocates 1/10th of 1% of the $26 Billion capital plan for affordable housing.

Please take 15 seconds ** RIGHT NOW ** to click the link below and send a short email to the Senator Steans, asking for at least $500 million over 5 years.

http://citizenspeak.org/node/1591

Housing is just as important part of our state's infrastructure as bridges and roads.

By providing new resources for the development and rehabilitation of affordable housing, our state will be creating jobs, generating new revenue, and creating an infrastructure of opportunity for the hundreds of thousands of people in our state that need safe, decent, affordable housing.

All it takes is two (count 'em -- 2) clicks of the mouse.

Priced Out of Shelter: The Decline in Affordable Housing

Priced Out of Shelter: The Decline in Affordable Housing
03/04/2009
A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by Glen Ford
(To download or listen to this Black Agenda Radio commentary, click here.)

While “most public policy attention has been directed at the plight of home owners, one-third of all Americans pay rent” and their quest for affordable housing has long been “the neglected step-child of federal housing policy.”

“The United States has never achieved national goals in creation of affordable housing.”

One of the great engines of the current economic disaster was the relentless push by finance capital to inflate the price of real estate – and therefore, housing – to levels far in excess of what the average family could reasonably afford to pay. The United States has never achieved national goals in creation of affordable housing – not in a single year since the federal government began setting goals. The real estate industry has always seen to that. However, under the Bush administration, housing prices zoomed into the stratosphere, based on an unsustainable bubble of debt that has now burst catastrophically. Those who were barely able to find shelter for their families in the pre-Bush era found themselves in a truly desperate situation, even before the crash, as detailed in a new study issued by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Although most public policy attention has been directed at the plight of home owners, one-third of all Americans pay rent, including about half of low income households. Their options shrank dramatically during the years that George Bush was in office. The study shows that, by 2007, eight million rental households were paying more than half their income to the landlord and for utilities. Federal guidelines say that households should pay only 30 percent of income to keep a roof over their heads. And we’re not talking about families that foolishly splurge on housing. Two-thirds of those that pay more than half their income for rent are living at or below the federal poverty line. Because of the lack of affordable housing, these households have no other choice.

The current housing crisis may cause rents to come down in some areas. But wages will also go down, and unemployment is rapidly rising, putting increased pressures on the poor and the soon-to-be poor.

“Wholesale destruction of public housing stock continues under local administrations of both parties.”

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calls affordable housing “the neglected step-child of federal housing policy,” constantly squeezed out of the Washington budget by competing demands for subsidies for home owners.housing

Public housing is worse off than a step-child. The Bush administration’s hostility to public housing was manifested dramatically in New Orleans, where the feds used Katrina as an excuse to demolish every public housing unit they could aim a bulldozer at. But disdain for public housing is a bipartisan affair. Since 1995, 165,000 units of public housing have been lost and not replaced, nationwide. This wholesale destruction of public housing stock continues under local administrations of both parties, including in cities with Black majorities and Black mayors.

Section 8 rental assistance was supposed to take up the slack for public housing. But each year, 10,000 to 15,000 units of Section 8 housing disappear and are not replaced. Only one out of every four households that are eligible for federal housing assistance, gets it. The need is well documented, but the funds are consistently withheld.

The new stimulus package provides a one-time cash infusion, but there still exists no long term commitment or national plan for affordable housing in the United States.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

Large Majorities Support Housing & Jobs

Voters in a diverse sampling of precincts in the 46th ward were asked two referendum questions on important public policy issues (Nov4).

By a 2-1 margin, voters support 40% of TIF revenue being allocated to create/preserve housing that is affordable to households at or below that community's median income.

By a 4-1 margin, voters agreed that companies that benefit from public subsidies (including TIF) should be required to:
* give community residents firs tchance to apply for jobs
* ensure that all workers earn a Living Wage
* respect worker rights, include health and safety standards and the right to organize.

These same precincts voted roughly the same as the neighborhood and the city on the Obama-McCain race.

Policy referenda are advisory in Chicago, but clearly there is strong support among the electorate for progressive government policies that will help address the housing and employment crisis we face.

Housing & Jobs: Key to stable, affordable, healthy communities

Northside Action for Justice members put 2 referendum questions on the Nov. 4 ballot. Action for Justice is encouraging a vote of "YES" on both questions. Affordability and stability depend on both housing cost and household income.

Even the Chicago Tribune admitted (7/6/08) that "low income families face one of the worst housing crises in recent memory." Since the summer, the foreclosure crisis, economic meltdown and worsening recession have only become worse.

The City claims it has no money to address human needs, and threatens lay-offs, while hundreds of millions of dollars sit in TIF funds, destined to subsidize the big business friends of City Hall. The federal governemtn bails out Wall Street without meaningful conditions and, so far, does little to bail-out the rest of the country that is hurting.

It is important that we send a message to civic, political and corporate leaders that we must use all tools available to address the crisis in both housing and jobs. These advisory referenda are one small way to keep sending the message, that we want economic security, stable and affordable housing, corporate accountability and good jobs that pay a living wage.

Questions:

Should the City of Chicago adopt a policy whereby beneficiaries of public subsidies (including TIF) with more than 15 employees must give local residents first chance to apply for jobs, certify that all employees and contractors' employees receive a living wage and pledge to honor worker rights, including safety standards and the right to organize without interference?

Should the City of Chicago allocate 40% of TIF funds (Tax Increment Financing) to preserve and produce housing affordable to persons at or below the community median income, including acquiring vacant or foreclosed-upon properties, rehab and construction?