Remember renters?
Here at The Right Place we never forgot about renters — the majority of Chicagoans are renters. But the last five years of "eat-my-dust" real estate sales obscured what was happening in the rental market.
Now, it looks like some help has come for Cook County.
It seems the some important people who have the power and the cash to make a difference in Chicago's rental market have put their heads together and come up with a plan. The partnership of heavy hitters is called the Preservation Compact. Kate Grossman thoroughly reported on the announcement today in the Sun-Times Metro section but you can bet The Right Place will do some digging into this.
People will be able to view documents by pressing the Preservation Compact button on the ULI Chicago homepage.
I have also uploaded a few of them here.
Press Release
The materials included in the press package are extensive and I haven’t had a chance to read them all. I pulled these few points out of the press release and you can visit the Urban Land Institute Website to see more.
But here are the basics:
At the center of the program is a new Preservation Fund, an umbrella for a suite of financial products, which will provide acquisition and bridge financing to non-profit and for-profit developers, making it possible for them to obtain as much as a half a million dollars to support the long-term preservation of rental housing in Cook County between now and 2020. The MacArthur Foundation also announced over $15 million in commitments to the Preservation Fund and other programs launched today.
According to The State of Rental Housing in Cook County, produced by the DePaul Real Estate Center:
∑ If present trends continue until 2020, Cook County will lose two units of affordable rental housing for every unit built.
∑ By 2020, Cook County’s supply of low-cost rental housing is expected to drop by 78,000 units.
∑ By 2020, more than 185,000 households will be seeking, but unable to find, affordable rental housing in Cook County.
∑ Renters earn half the income of owners in Cook County and approximately 43 percent of rental households in Cook County pay too much for rent.
The Preservation Compact’s six new initiatives for preserving housing in Cook County are:
Increased Financing. The MacArthur Foundation is providing $10 million to seed the creation of a $100 million Preservation Fund that will increase capital flow to properties at risk of being lost from the affordable rental market.
Better coordination between government agencies. The City of Chicago’s Department of Housing, Illinois Housing Development Authority, Cook County Government and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Affairs have formed an Interagency Council to share information and coordinate programs in order to maximize their impact in preserving at risk properties.
Information about at-risk housing. The DePaul Real Estate Center is creating a Rental Housing Data Clearinghouse to provide timely information, periodic reports and an early warning system on buildings at risk of being lost from both the private market and the subsidized market.
Reduced operating costs. Center for Neighborhood Technology and Chicago Investment Corporation have created a One-Stop Energy Efficiency Program that will provide technical assistance and loans for energy-efficient improvements.
Assistance to tenants. Chicago Rehab Network and Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law have formed a Rental Housing Alliance to assist tenants living in affordable rental buildings with training, technical support and legal services.
Property tax reduction. The Cook County Assessors office will expand the Class 9 Property Tax Designation to include all affordable rental buildings, not just those requiring substantial rehab.
In the coming months, ULI Chicago will work with each of these organizations, to continue the collaboration, which the Preservation Compact has begun.
Quintin E. Primo III, Co-chair of the Preservation Compact, Chairman and CEO of Capri Capital Partners, LLC and ULI member said: "Saving 75,000 of these homes through 2020 will effect well over 200,000 low- and moderate-income Chicago area residents, honest, working class families of every ethnicity."
Julia Stasch, co-chair of the Preservation Compact and Vice President for Human and Community Development at The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation said: Rental housing plays a central role in the region’s economy and is as critical to its infrastructure as highways, transit systems, schools and industrial parks, but we have been losing this critical asset at alarming rates for many years now.
