Panel Aims to Find Affordable Homes / Newly Created House Committee Focuses on Issue

Adriana Colindres 
State Journal-Register

February 9, 2003

Not everybody has a safe, clean place to call home.

For financial or other reasons, people who lack their own secure shelter sometimes must resort to sleeping in a rickety apartment building, a car or a friend's basement.

To help ease what's described as a "housing crisis" in Illinois, a newly created Illinois House panel is putting a spotlight on the issue of increasing the affordable housing supply.

"The new Housing and Urban Development Committee is, we think, the first-ever committee of its kind in the history of the Illinois General Assembly to actually have housing as its predominant focus," said state Rep. Julie Hamos, D-Chicago, who chairs the group.

The state legislature hasn't paid sufficient attention to housing issues in recent years, Hamos said.

"And now we are facing a housing crisis," she said. "We hear that from many different constituencies."

State Rep. Raymond Poe, R-Springfield, agreed that lawmakers need to become more informed about housing issues.

"There's always those needs out there," he said. "If we're going to represent urban districts, we ought to be as knowledgeable as we can."

Hamos said the problem places a burden on five key groups of people: low-income families, low-income seniors, people with disabilities, people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness and those who would like to live closer to their workplaces.

Despite the impression some Illinoisans might have, the dilemma isn't exclusive to Chicago and the suburbs. Nor is it limited to people with low incomes.

"There's so many households and families that are one paycheck away from not being able to afford a place to live," said state Rep. Ricca Slone, a Peoria Heights Democrat who serves on the new panel. "In an economic downturn, it gets worse."

In Peoria and Springfield, it's clear that more affordable housing is needed, according to people who try to deal with the problem.

"Affordable, safe, decent housing is lacking in our community," said Pam Schubach, executive director of the Peoria YWCA. The organization hopes to start construction this spring on seven duplexes that would be rented to struggling families in search of housing.

Finding an affordable place to live in Peoria can be a difficult task for people making as much as $35,000 a year, Schubach said. Mostly, though, it's a problem faced by women who have children and an income in the $20,000 to $30,000 range, she said.

"In the city of Springfield and elsewhere in the country," said Bill Logan, executive director of the Springfield Housing Authority, "affordable housing is basically the domain of government."

"There's not a lot of private-sector building of affordable housing," he said. "There's no money in it. They can't make any money; it's very simple."

Rita Tarr, who supervises the crisis assistance office for Catholic Charities of Springfield, said the affordable housing problem is everywhere.

"It truly is an urban, suburban and a rural issue. It's not a Chicago issue," Tarr said.

"Our shelters that we have here in Springfield are full. Every night, we're turning away people," she added. "Here in my office, we're taking about 60 requests a week for people who need help with housing."

One of last week's requests came from Rochester. The caller was a woman, who with her child had been living with a boyfriend.

"Boyfriend kicked her and the kid out. Had no place to go," Tarr said.

The city of Peoria commissioned an affordable housing study last year, and one of its findings was that Peoria needs about 2,000 more rental units to meet demand.

The Neighborhood Development Commission has started laying the groundwork for implementing the study's proposed strategies, said Pat Landes, Peoria's assistant director of planning and growth management. The city has given $1 million in seed money for the effort.

"People should be able to have safe and decent and sanitary housing, and not pay more than 30 percent of their income for it," Landes said.

The issue ought to be of concern to anyone who cares about the future of his or her community, she said.

"Housing is a stabilizing factor in any community. For instance, if we can increase the number of families who have home ownership, we help stabilize the school population," Landes said.

Slone is pushing a plan that she says is intended "to help spread affordable housing more evenly across a metropolitan area."

Based on a long-standing Massachusetts law, her House Bill 220 would expedite the process for developers seeking permits to build affordable housing in a community. The Massachusetts law has resulted in about 23,000 to 25,000 units of housing during the past 25 or so years, she said.

Another part of Slone's legislation would require the developer to preserve the units as affordable housing - rather than, say, condos - for a specified period of time. Her bill says the minimum time period should be 15 years, but Slone said she is planning to change that number, perhaps to 25 or 30 years.

But state Rep. David Leitch, a Peoria Republican who serves as the housing committee's GOP spokesman, called that proposal "a step in the wrong direction" because it would impose mandates on municipalities. The state should rely on incentives, not mandates, to encourage the construction of affordable housing, he said.

"The way to be effective is to work with the private sector and set up some meaningful financing mechanisms," he said.

At a time when state finances are in turmoil, it might seem that there isn't much state government could do to boost the supply of affordable housing. But Hamos, the committee chair, said that isn't necessarily the case.

"We are going to have a legislative program, I promise you, that is not going to cost significant new dollars, but it is going to require the state of Illinois to do a better job of managing the resources we already have," she said.

Within the next two to three weeks, Hamos hopes to finish working on legislation that would encourage developers to build affordable housing and seek better coordination among the 18 or so state agencies that deal with housing issues.

Tarr, the Catholic Charities worker, suggested lawmakers should shift their fiscal priorities and place a stronger emphasis on housing.

"Every human has three basic needs: We have to have food, clothing and shelter," she said. "The reality of the situation is until people can have those three basic needs met, they can't move on. These things need to be addressed and dealt with before we start funneling this money (into) other areas."