‘This coalition is not going to give up,’ housing advocates remain focused on fighting homelessness despite setbacks in City Council
This week, a series of setbacks within Chicago’s City Council has paused movement on the Bring Chicago Home (BCH) proposal, which calls for restructuring the real-estate transfer tax on high-end property sales and imposing a one-time tax on sold properties.
Housing advocates with the BCH coalition need aldermanic support to get a ballot measure approved that would ask Chicago voters if the city should increase the real-estate transfer tax for buyers who purchase residential or commercial properties for more than $1 million. Those funds would be redirected toward efforts to combat homelessness.
The resolution is currently in Chicago’s City Council’s rules committee and, with the City Council’s approval, could become a ballot question in the upcoming February 2023 municipal election.
The resolution was on Tuesday’s agenda for the rules committee, as were two other ballot measures. However, that meeting was canceled hours before the committee was set to meet.
And on Monday, a special meeting for the City Council took place to discuss the BCH proposal.
The meeting was scheduled to start at 9 a.m. but was moved to 11:30 a.m. because there weren’t enough City Council members to discuss the proposal.
That meeting was scheduled by sponsors of the resolution, including Alds: Maria Hadden (49th Ward), Carlos Ramirez Rosa (35th Ward), Daniel La Spata (1st Ward), Matt Martin (47th Ward) and Andre Vasquez (40th Ward).
Hadden said the meeting was a hearing to allow members of the public and City Council members to weigh in on the resolution. She added that they weren’t asking council members to vote on the resolution.
Only 19 City Council members were present at the first meeting, but at least 26 needed to be present to move forward with the meeting.
“There are people who don’t want to have a real estate transfer tax increase for a variety of reasons. So, even though we weren’t asking council members to vote on the issue, there are some people who didn’t want to aid the cause in any way. There were also a bunch of people who said they would come for the hearing because it is our job to show up for City Council meetings,” Hadden told The TRiiBE on Nov. 15, referring to City Council members who weren’t present for the meeting.
At 11:30 a.m on Monday, the meeting started for a second time, but there still weren’t enough City Council members to move forward. This time, 25 members were present—just one person shy of the 26-member requirement for a quorum.
“I’m disgusted, hurt and upset at the 25 other alderpeople that did not show up [and] hid like cowards, because they’d rather do what the mayor [Mayor Lori Lightfoot] tells them to do than do their job. They should be ashamed of themselves,” said April Harris, a grassroots leader of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.
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Harris and other BCH coalition members were present at City Hall on Monday and were prepared to give public comment during Monday’s meeting. But because there wasn’t a quorum, the meeting adjourned and they weren’t allowed to speak.
“Why are you an alderperson if you don’t care about your ward or what’s going on in your ward?” she asked.
The BCH coalition has been pushing its proposal since 2019.
The ballot measure would ask Chicago voters if the city should increase the real estate transfer tax by 253 percent for buyers who purchase residential or commercial properties for more than $1 million. Those funds would be redirected from the city to combat homelessness by providing permanent affordable housing and the services necessary to obtain and maintain permanent housing in Chicago.
The future of the BCH’s proposal is up in the air. Hadden explained that time is of the essence for the measure to be added to February’s municipal election ballot. To be included on the ballot, the City Council would have to vote and approve it before the Chicago Board of Elections’ Dec. 11 deadline, Hadden explained.
“Because there’s a deadline, no matter what the issue is, if it’s not approved by a certain date, it can’t be on the ballot,” she said.
If the next City Council meeting were to take place on Dec. 7 and the resolution was approved for a vote, then there would still be enough time for it to be included on the February ballot. At the time this article was being published, the next full meeting for the body is Dec. 14, according to the city clerk’s website.
Hadden, like Harris, is frustrated with how things have unfolded this week in the City Council.
“The urgency of City Council and the mayor needing to act—I can’t understate it, so it’s deeply frustrating. Not to have people disagree with the solution we’re offering but to prevent us from moving forward and not have an alternative,” Hadden said.
This year, Hadden said, at least 15-30 people in her ward who are experiencing homelessness live in Touhy Park. Her ward includes Rogers Park and parts of the West Ridge neighborhood.
She also reiterated that the city needs a dedicated fund to address homelessness.
“If we had more money, we could be doing more rental assistance regularly, and I’d have fewer people living in [Touhy Park] right now. It’s not a fault or failure of our programs; it is a gap in the amount of money that we’ve got. And so right now, we have a lot of money that we’re using, and it’s still not enough,” she said, adding, “What happens when that money is gone?”
Hadden is referring to funds from the Chicago Recovery Plan. This plan includes funding from the American Rescue Act, also known as the COVID-19 stimulus package. President Joe Biden signed the economic stimulus bill into law in March 2021. The city of Chicago was given about $1.9 billion from Congress in 2021. The city has until 2025 to use those funds, she added.
“So that’s really the challenge I put out there to colleagues, to the [Lightfoot] administration, to folks who don’t want to see the real estate transfer tax increase.How are you going to help us find $150 [million] to $200 million a year for the services that Chicagoans desperately need?” she asked.
Although this week was disappointing for Harris and other housing advocates, she said the setbacks had not dampened their commitment to combat homelessness.
“This coalition is not going to give up. We’re not an organization that backs down,” Harris said.