Executive Summary
Low-income and working-class families in Illinois should have meaningful options for where they choose to live.
Unfortunately, the demand for affordable housing for both renters and homeowners in Illinois far outpaces the supply. By one estimate, Chicago and its suburbs need more than 227,000 additional rental homes to meet the needs of families living at or below 50% of the region’s median outcome, not to mention a dearth of options for working-class families looking to put down roots and purchase a home. And, because of extensive legal, procedural, and social barriers, construction of these desperately needed units beyond the communities where they already exist has been extraordinary difficult. Moreover, affordable housing is often concentrated in communities far from job centers, which forces low-wage workers to travel great distances for work.
While many of the barriers to affordable housing began as explicitly racist and assist laws—like redlining and segregation—they have evolved to seemingly neutral policies since the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968. Nevertheless, these policies continue to uphold historical inequity, perpetuate today’s affordable housing crisis, and separate low-income families from the jobs that have the potential to create social mobility.
These barriers are as pervasive now as they were 20 years ago, when Illinois’ housing advocacy community (including Impact for Equity) began to advocate for a tool to increase the amount of affordable housing in job and opportunity rich communities in Illinois. As a result of that advocacy, the Affordable Housing Planning & Appeal Act (AHPAA) (310 ILCS § 67/1, et al.) was signed into law in 2003.
AHPAA was a hard-fought victory due to opposition from interest groups representing local governments, and the law was not without its flaws. As a result, an underwhelming amount of affordable housing has been built in communities subject to AHPAA in the two decades since its passage.
