Daley suggests end to housing fund battle

Special to juliehamos.org
February 16, 2005
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter

Mayor Daley and legislative leaders floated a compromise Tuesday to resolve a turf battle that has derailed a new surcharge on real estate transactions aimed at generating $34 million a year to subsidize rents for low-income residents.

Cook County Board President John Stroger and Recorder of Deeds Eugene Moore have been at odds over who gets to control the $1 portion of the proposed $10 fee.

A former state representative, Moore convinced his former Illinois House colleagues to raise the fee to $11 so that he and Stroger could each get $1 in administrative costs. But the state Senate restored the fee to $10.

With House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) siding with Moore and Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) aligning himself with Stroger, neither version got called in the other chamber.

No handshake yet

As Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown reported last month, low-income residents struggling to pay rent were the big losers. The stalled bill would have helped 5,500 families statewide. Chicago would have gotten $11 million, enough to double -- to 4,000 -- the number of renters served by the city's Low Income Housing Trust Fund.

On Tuesday, Daley threw his support behind a proposed compromise. Instead of raising the surcharge to $11, state Rep. Julie Hamos (D-Evanston) wants to keep it at $10 and give each of the Democratic warhorses 50 cents.

"With all of the technology they use today in recording, this is not very complicated. . . . It's not going to cost that much money. It's appropriate. Fifty-fifty," Daley told a news conference at the South Loop Apartments, 1521 S. Wabash.

Hamos said she had hoped to convince Stroger and Moore to shake hands and appear together Tuesday, but both men told her they're still studying the proposal. "If we can do this in the Middle East, we can certainly do this in Cook County," Hamos said.

Moore could not be reached for comment. Caryn Stancik, a spokeswoman for Stroger, said the board president is "absolutely OK'' with the proposal to earmark $1 for the county's general fund and give 50 cents of each dollar to the recorder's office to administer the program.