Emanuel’s nine recent affordable housing initiatives

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Incentives summary

• Passed: Property owners who live near the 606’s western portion can apply for a grant up to $25,000 to renovate their house so they can fix issues and modernize it and stay put (our post about this in May)
• Proposed: The Department of Housing will make a comeback in the mayor’s 2019 budget, split from the Department of Planning & Development (Chicago Sun-Times)
• Passed: A program called Opportunity Investment Fund (OIF), administered by the Community Investment Corporation, will make secondary loans (a.k.a. mezzanine debt; the primary lender provides 80%, the loan holder provides 10%, and the secondary loan provides the last 10%) to small and midsize developers at lower than market rates to acquire multi-family housing if they hold 20% of the units as affordable for 15 years (our post from this month; this program is already embedded in the Development & Financial Incentives section of every Address Snapshot report)
• Passed in February (but re-announced in June): Similar to OIF, the Preservation of Existing Affordable Rental (PEAR) program will make interest-free loans to purchase or refinance multi-family housing and make 20% of the units as affordable for 30 years (press release); as of this writing, there has been one loan made, to Chicago Metropolitan Housing Development Corporation for $2 million on a 30-year term (ordinance).
• Committed: 1,600 new units for homeless by way of “non-time limited rental assistance and new subsidized housing units”. This isn’t a new program, but will use existing initiatives to generate these units. The Chicago Housing Authority and supportive housing organizations will be involved in identifying how to reach this goal. (press release)
• Proposed: $40,000–60,000 purchasing assistance in the “Building Neighborhoods and Affordable Homes” program for homebuyers to buy a house in certain community areas, to buy new single-family houses built by developers who got $1 land from the city through the “City Lots for Working Families” program (which was announced last year) (this program seems identical to Mayor Richard M. Daley’s “New Homes for Chicago” and “City Lots for City Living” programs) (press release, ordinance)
• Study: The City will pilot expanding the TOD ordinance to incorporate four bus routes, and a study will evaluate “Incentives to support affordability and allow all residents of communities with TOD to share in the benefits of new development” to address concerns about displacement (press release)
• Study: The Planning & Development department is asking for organizations to reply with information about tiny houses: how building & zoning codes would need to be modified to allow them, and how much they would cost to build (responses are due Friday, July 13, 2018)
• Proposed: Add a 2% surcharge to vacation rental housing (Airbnb, VRBO) to fund more shelter beds for victims of domestic violence (press release, ordinance)