Abundant Housing Illinois

Link to full article in the Chicago Tribune

Fifty-six years after the Fair Housing Act banned redlining and racial discrimination in housing, economic and racial segregation remains entrenched across our state. Indeed, Illinois ranks first among the 50 states in the share of Black residents living in census tracts that are at least 90% Black. By some measures, Chicago remains the most segregated large city in America.

Across political lines, residents of our state acknowledge the aftershocks of decades of legally sanctioned racial segregation that denied millions of people proper access to public services, education and housing opportunities. Many of us in comfortable circumstances are less comfortable acknowledging other policies that perpetuate equally stark economic and racial divides and that specifically exclude low-income families from our own communities.

In large swaths of Illinois’ towns and cities, exclusionary zoning laws block the construction of affordable multifamily housing. By limiting housing supply, these laws raise housing costs throughout our state, excluding families with limited financial resources from many neighborhoods, quietly entrenching economic and racial segregation. In Chicago, at least two-thirds of residential districts are zoned for single-family homes only, prohibiting construction of more affordable multifamily homes such as duplexes, fourplexes or townhouses.

Such exclusion is even more pronounced in many surrounding suburbs. Research has consistently found that exclusionary zoning policies increase rents, needlessly raise home prices and aggravate homelessness.

Despite recent legislative efforts to encourage affordable housing construction, Illinois faces a shortage of at least 289,000 affordable homes. Nearly half of Chicago renters are classified as “rent-burdened,” paying more than 30% of their income on housing. In many neighborhoods, affordable housing stock is rapidly declining; neighborhoods such as Logan Square, Avondale and West Town have each lost of their affordable housing stock in recent years. As market pressures raise rents, affordable two- and four-flats disappear, often due to . Amid such shortages, it is deeply unwise to keep laws on the books that ban the creation of affordable types of homes.