City Council members introduce ordinance to make finding affordable housing easier

CHICAGO (WLS) -- There's a new effort to help people navigate the challenges of applying for affordable housing. The waiting lists are long, and the process can be painstaking.

Some city leaders and advocates say the current affordable housing system is due for an overhaul.

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A new ordinance aims to remove some of the existing barriers to make finding housing easier and more accessible.

"We have a shortage of 120,000 units of affordable housing throughout the city and we need to make sure that the systems in place are making it easier for people to find a shelter, find a home," Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez said.

The Accountable Housing and Anti-Discrimination Waitlist Act was introduced at last week's Chicago City Council meeting and is cosponsored by Ald. Gilbert Villegas and Ald. Maria Hadden.

"Our offices are being inundated with folks looking for affordable housing and so we just didn't have a clearinghouse or a database in place to take a look at affordable housing outside CHA," Villegas said. "What we're seeing now is years and decades of waiting for affordable housing, people dying on the lists. We've got to do better."

SEE ALSO: Chicago affordable housing wait can take years as city, CHA face severe shortage

The measure would create a centralized online waitlist portal where all providers list their available units and residents can apply for affordable housing.

The city would monitor the waitlist and use the database to place residents in private development unit".

"If I'm a developer in the city of Chicago, I'm going to build 1,000 units, I'm seeking some type of incentive or zoning change then that triggers the 20 percent affordable housing," Villegas explained. "Those 200 units will be required to be put into a database."

The overall plan also aims to address housing discrimination.

"The developer would be required to submit on a quarterly basis all the applications they've received and explain why some of them were turned away," Villegas said. "Because what we want to make sure is people are having a fair shot and not being discriminated against because they're poor."

"Every 120 days, affordable housing providers will need to report on the number of applicants they have accepted and say the reason for denial of each applicant that they screen to the department of housing," Emily Coffey with Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights said.

Sponsors say the ordinance would protect Chicago's access to federal affordable housing funds, placing the city into substantial compliance with the fair housing act.

"The application fees for rent is going up, the security deposits have gone away, now there are moving fees. Additional fees for your pets, and once people finally find a place that they can apply to, there's still no guarantee they're going to get that apartment," Alderwoman Maria Hadden said.

The ordinance is now with the committee on housing and real estate. Villegas and Hadden expect it to be approved in committee in the coming weeks. They hope by October it passes through the full city council, and would like to see it up and running by Q1 of 2025.

In response to the proposed ordinance, the Chicago Housing Authority said, "We share the same values as Alderpeople Hadden and Villegas and fully agree that housing more people is a top priority. CHA currently has an occupancy rate of nearly 96%, which exceeds HUD's goal of 95%...We are also finalizing a new website with an easier-to-use waitlist and property search function, which will be launched this fall. This new website will also make it easier for families to see estimated wait times by property and use that information to guide their decision on which properties to apply for."