Housing and Neighborhoods

We Will’s Housing and Neighborhoods pillar involves the residential spaces and surrounding communities where Chicagoans pursue their private lives, raise families and spend the bulk of their leisure time.

For all Chicagoans, having a safe and affordable place to call home is as critical to their survival and daily routines as food and water.

The condition of the city’s housing stock, which includes all the properties available for permanent lodging, is influenced by issues that can extend far beyond any one home’s front door, including market trends, unit location and size, proximity to public amenities or nuisances, age and physical condition, and a myriad of other influential forces involving other aspects of Chicago life. The conditions are further impacted by the goals and interests of the property owners themselves, neighbors, architects, lenders, regulatory requirements, and other issues.

In 2019, the City of Chicago established a dedicated Department of Housing to focus on this important issue alongside dozens of housing-oriented associations, non-profit developers, and advocacy agencies that work collectively to ensure residents have safe, affordable and convenient places to live, especially low-income earners, seniors, veterans and the disabled.

While Chicago’s reputation as a “city of neighborhoods” may have been influenced by residential settlement patterns that ultimately created inequities citywide, it’s a widely accepted proposition that stable housing is essential to Chicago’s legacy as one of America’s most livable big cities. Other than personal health, nothing is more important than a safe and affordable home for individual comfort, safety and growth.

We Will’s housing pillar discussions to date have emphasized housing’s importance to the overall wellbeing of residents, neighborhoods and the entire city. As a result, public comments have sought to leverage the roles of individuals within larger discussions that determine how neighborhood markets evolve.

Research team and focus group efforts will expand upon comments received to date, including:

• Residents' voices should be heard for all major development decisions involving new policies and projects at the local level.
• Planning efforts should ensure weaker housing markets should be equitably incorporated in the fabric of stronger markets without causing displacement or gentrification.
• Public safety is essential around the buildings in which people live, requiring the cooperation of social service agencies, schools, youth-oriented agencies and other groups, in addition to traditional law enforcement agencies.
• Policy improvements that aim to ensure neighborhood affordability should include homeownership programs, repair programs, rental assistance programs, and related education efforts.
• Housing efforts should not focus exclusively on units and costs, but also local amenities that overlap with We Will’s other pillars.