Elect people who will reduce the housing shortage

Rents in Chicago are growing faster than the country’s average and the inventory of housing for sale in Chicagoland is at an 11-year low. When I look at new construction homes permitted per year in Chicago, I see a sharp drop in the number of permits for detached houses and multifamily buildings in the last three years.

There isn’t enough housing available for the new households moving into Illinois or between cities and neighborhoods. And where there isn’t population growth there is still household growth: current residents who want or need to split from their living situation, single people living with roommates who are ready for a place of their own, and other kinds of missing households.

Elected representatives in all parts of the state can use their position to do something about it, and if they aren’t it’s time to elect new ones.

The Illinois Homes for All Coalition, to give one example of a group in favor of legalizing more housing supply, advocated primarily for three bills in Springfield this year to ensure that municipalities allow more housing than they currently do. The October veto session is the last chance for the Illinois General Assembly and Governor Pritzker to do something big about increasing housing supply — and slow the rise in prices — that could take effect next year.

Later this year Abundant Housing Illinois, a local YIMBY Action chapter, will be sharing endorsement recommendations for state representatives, state senators, Cook County commissioners, and Congress — races that are in the March 17, 2026, primary. (The next Chicago mayoral and City Council race will be in 2027.)

There are candidates running in all of those levels on a platform that includes increasing housing supply. At the moment, however, they publicly include (based on my review of their websites’ issues sections):

• Cat Sharp for Cook County commissioner
• Sunjay Kumar running for Illinois House
• Drake Warren running for Cook County commissioner
• Nick Uniejewski for Illinois Senate
• Ridge Knapp running for Illinois House
• Terry Nguyen Le running for Illinois House

What Chicago and Cook County are currently doing to increase housing supply

• Led by specific alderpersons, proactive upzoning of corridors to permit the “missing massive”; this is going to happen on segments of Broadway and Cottage Grove coming soon, and has already been done on segments of Howard, 35th, and Western. Learn more.
• Establishing the Green Social Housing revolving loan fund to provide an additional financing source for including more income restricted affordable housing in otherwise market rate buildings. (Read our blurb from July.)
• Missing Middle Infill Housing is financially supporting new small scale multifamily housing for sale (think owner occupied two and three flats that haven’t been built in many neighborhoods in decades).
• Cook County has a modular housing initiative, devoting $12 million to fund the purchase of brand new, locally-built prefabricated single-family houses in Humboldt Park (a Chicago neighborhood), Chicago Heights, Proviso Township.

What Chicago (and Illinois) should also do

This list is nowhere near exhaustive.

• Allow ADUs to be built everywhere in the city and state. In Chicago they’re currently allowed only in five pilot areas, but there’s an ordinance to allow them citywide. (Sign this petition to show your support.) To ensure equitable development cities could also adopt new programs to lower the cost of design and construction, including helping fund renovations of existing but unpermitted ADUs. In Illinois the proposed bill, HB1813, could still be passed in the October veto session.

Update: Chicago City Council passed a permanent and almost-citywide ADU program on September 25, 2025.

• Upzone neighborhood streets to re-allow 2, 3, and 4-flats, and re-legalize cottage courts and pocket neighborhoods. This concept, several of which were built in Chicago before the 1960s, does two things at once: (1) respond to the demand for detached housing and yards for children while (2) maintaining the population of streets and neighborhoods where deconversions are popular. In Illinois the proposed bill, HB1814, could be passed in the October veto session.
• Extend parking reforms to more places to bring down the cost of construction and create more space for homes. These mandates, present in nearly every municipality, require more parking than is ever needed or used, wasting land and building area dedicated to car storage. Chicago eliminated parking mandates in 74% of the city while Oak Forest in Southwest Cook County eliminated parking mandates citywide. For the state, the proposed transit revenues and reform bill, HB3438, would eliminate parking mandates around transit in much the same way Chicago did.

Lots of candidates are still out there collecting signatures from registered voters in the candidates’ respective districts in order to get on the ballot. You may run into them at street festivals, block parties, and labor rights rallies. Ask them what their stance on the housing shortage is. Stemming the rise in rents and payments, and restoring the ability to move between houses, neighborhoods, and cities as lives change, depends on allowing more housing.

Elect people who will reduce the housing shortage was originally published in Chicago Cityscape’s Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.