Interagency Council and Energy Savers Reach Out to Assisted Owners

The Interagency Council has been working to coordinate, streamline, and communicate resources for owners of affordable rental properties.

The Interagency Council and Energy Savers Keystones held a workshop on October 8 to educate assisted-rental property owners about the Illinois Housing Weatherization Assistance Program. Representatives from the Community Economic Development Agency (CEDA) explained eligibility and program requirements and distributed resources to the 75 rental owners in attendance. A second workshop took place on October 29 to accommodate the overflow crowd at the first event.

A smaller group of owners convened by the Interagency Council also met in October to discuss the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP). This new resource will provide temporary rent assistance and support services for tenants facing economic hardship.

Cook County Assessor’s Office Improves Affordable Housing Data

Property taxes are one of the most significant and least predictable operating costs for rental property owners. In recognition of this, the Cook County Assessor’s Office is undertaking several data improvement projects to ensure that affordable housing is taxed fairly and accurately. One such project involves unifying disparate databases in order to identify tax-incentive eligible properties. The Assessor’s office has begun this process with new hardware and software, as well as staff training courses, to enable more sophisticated data analysis that will further improve the valuation and tracking of affordable housing in the County.

The Assessor’s Office also benefited from the assistance of a summer graduate intern from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Michael Ford, candidate Master of Public Policy at the Harris School, worked with staff to enhance and streamline the valuation of Class 9 affordable rental properties. Mr. Ford analyzed income, expense and sales data from Class 9 properties, examined the Office’s existing valuation procedures, and proposed new methods and procedures that could both simplify the assessment of affordable rental units and improve the consistency of valuations. Mr. Ford’s recommendations have been disseminated and will inform staff as they proceed with the 2009 reassessment of the City of Chicago.

Rental Housing Alliance turns attention to State and National Affordable Housing Legislation

Preservation Compact partner the Chicago Rehab Network expects the 2010 legislative season to include a Preservation Omnibus Bill, codifying long-standing affordable housing campaigns on the national legislative agenda. Key components of this legislation could include a Federal "right to purchase" clause for properties reaching mortgage maturity, strengthened tenant rights, enhanced project-base vouchers, and important remedies to improve troubled properties and keep them in the affordable rental stock.

At the state level, Preservation Compact partner the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law worked with Housing Action Illinois to craft and advance legislation aimed at protecting tenants living in properties affected by foreclosure. The bill was signed into law by Governor Quinn on July 31, 2009. It ensures that tenants displaced by foreclosure have adequate time to find replacement housing, and it requires banks that acquire rental property at foreclosure to provide tenants with contact information for interim management and operations.

Institute for Housing Studies - Rental Housing Data Clearinghouse

On August 31st, 2009 the Institute for Housing Studies (IHS) released its latest study, Chicago Rent and Vacancy Report, Second Quarter 2009. This powerful new tool will be updated quarterly and will enable policy makers, community groups, and other stakeholders to better understand the rental housing stock in Chicago’s neighborhoods. Quarterly updates to the rent and vacancy index will include suburban Cook County.

In conjunction with the study’s release, IHS also launched a new data website, IHS.depaul.edu. The site provides a comprehensive, online inventory of government-subsidized housing in Cook County and, for the first time, will meld unduplicated data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Illinois Housing Development Authority and City of Chicago Department of Community Development to provide a fuller picture of Cook County’s affordable rental housing market. The site also features U.S. Census data for Chicago from 1930 to 2000 as well as the rent and vacancy index data from 1996 to present.