Housing and Neighborhoods

Chicagoans live in vastly different and segregated neighborhoods with disparate housing conditions, unequal neighborhood amenities, and uneven access to opportunity.

Decades of discriminatory and racist housing practices have made Chicago’s Black-white homeownership gap the largest among the nation’s 10 biggest metropolitan areas, according to the Urban Institute. Though most blatantly discriminatory housing practices have been outlawed, inequities continue due to insufficient enforcement, a history of disinvestment and legacies of structurally racist policies. Mortgage denials for Chicago homes are twice as high for Black residents as for white residents, according to 2019 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data obtained through the Woodstock Institute. According to WBEZ from 2012-2018, 68.1% of mortgage loans went to majority-white neighborhoods, while just 8.1% went to majorityblack and 8.7% to majority-Latino neighborhoods.

Other ongoing challenges facing many Chicagoans, especially in communities of color, include housing affordability — nearly one in four Chicago households spends more than half its income on housing costs — and food access, with 40% of Chicago parents living in community areas with limited access to grocery stores, according to a Chicago Department of Public Health survey.

The Housing and Neighborhood pillar’s goals are intended to ensure that every resident is able to live in a stable, quality home and that every neighborhood has diverse, affordable and accessible housing options with access to transit, well-paying jobs, an array of amenities and needed services.