Avalanche of evictions could leave Chicago renters with nowhere to go

by Wendy Rosen

Thousands of Chicago renters facing eviction when the pandemic eviction moratorium ends may find it tough to find an affordable place to live.

Roughly 21,000 evictions that would have otherwise been filed in 2020 are predicted to be filed when the moratorium expires. Prior to the pandemic, Chicago’s average monthly eviction rate was 1,500.

This dire prediction from the report, “Eviction Filings, Unemployment and the Impact of COVID-19,” was presented by Peter Rosenblatt, associate professor, Loyola University Chicago, Department of Sociology, at a Dec. 17, 2020 virtual town hall held by Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing (LCBH).

Based on actual data and predictive modeling for 2020, researchers found a statistically significant relationship between unemployment one month and the number of evictions the next month.

“Renters may find themselves owing a significant amount of back rent over several months and at this point landlords may well file an eviction,” Rosenblatt said. “So, the question we’re looking at -- will there be this huge wave or tsunami of eviction filings once the moratorium lifts?”

LCBH recommends immediate relief for those facing eviction, including increasing rental assistance, extending the eviction moratorium, and sealing COVID-19-related eviction court records.

Though the COVID-19 eviction moratorium keeps cashstrapped tenants housed for now, they’ll still owe back rent when the moratorium ends. How tens of thousands of renters who have suffered job loss will pay their debts remains a question.

Prior to the pandemic, the Chicago Department of Housing’s (DOH) Inclusionary Housing Task Force identified a “longstanding affordable housing crisis with a citywide shortage of nearly 120,000 affordable homes,” according to the Task Force report. The 2008 housing crisis kindled the current affordable housing shortfall as a surge of foreclosures prompted developers to purchase bargain properties and convert them into luxury residences.

“What we learned is scary. We learned that we lost hundreds of thousands of [affordable] homes and rental units since the last housing crisis,” said Noah Moskowitz, senior community organizer, housing, ONE Northside. “And now we have hundreds of thousands of tenants in Illinois at risk of eviction. Small and medium-sized landlords won’t be able to hold on.”

Moskowitz joined community members, landlords, advocates, attorneys, and Alds. Maria Hadden, (49th), Andre Vasquez, (40th), Byron Sigcho-Lopez, (25th), and Matt Martin, (47th), at the livestream event, “We Won’t Get Fooled Again: Tenants Rights, the last housing crisis and what we can do about this.” Participants at the Feb. 6 event, organized by the Chicago Housing Initiative, seek to strengthen housing ordinances to protect Chicago’s vulnerable residents.

Advocates are concerned that Chicago could lose more affordable units as large entities snap up properties from small landlords who may face foreclosure or bankruptcy when tenants can’t pay rent.

Eviction Filings, Unemployment, and the Impact of COVID-19, Dec. 2020 report prepared by Loyola University Chicago Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL) and Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing (LCBH).

“These conglomerates will be acquiring apartment buildings and 2- and 3- flats across neighborhoods where landlords have struggled with rent collection, said Ali Bahramirad, underwriter, National Equity Fund and Affordable Requirements Ordinance Task Force member. “That would allow large investors to buy a lot of this housing – do some updates to the housing and increase the rents, making affordability in a lot of neighborhoods in Chicago even a bigger issue.”

Ald. Vasquez said the threat of eviction is personal. He suffered multiple displacements as a child. “I understood that one missed bill payment, one accident that leads to hospital bills, or one hurdle could just derail our path forward and leave us unhoused.

“And that’s all prior to the global pandemic and economic depression we’re all living in now,” Ald. Vasquez said. “That’s why it’s incumbent on us to find solutions to protect those who are most vulnerable in this moment and to push against the status quo solutions that have nailed us in the past.”

For nearly 15 years developers have opted to pay fees in lieu of producing the number of affordable units specified by the City of Chicago’s Affordable Requirements Ordinance (ARO).

Since the ARO’s inception in 2007, developers have built or planned 30,000 to 40,000 new high-rent housing units, completed 444 affordable units and started construction on 682. They’ve promised another 3,148 units, which includes the ARO mandate for the megadevelopments Lincoln Yards and The 78, Moskowitz said.

The proposed Chicago Inclusive Housing Ordinance (CIHO) would reform the ARO.

Ald. Sigcho-Lopez is a co-chair of the Inclusionary Housing Task Force that identified two major problems with the current ARO. First, its units are targeted to people making at least 60 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI). Second, 75 percent of ARO units are studios and one-bedrooms that don’t accommodate families.

“We have a recipe for Mayor Lightfoot,” Ald. Sigcho- Lopez said. “We’ve got to make sure we have a strong ARO, where developers and realtors are not drafting our laws, but we are drafting them based on best practices based on what we have seen in other cities working where developers are held accountable and aren’t drafting legislation.”

The 18th St. Station on the CTA Pink Line in Pilsen, decorated by local artists. Gentrification has raised rents here to among the highest in the city, so that a proposed ordinance would require 30% set asides of affordable housing

Photo by Suzanne Hanney

The CIHO would require:

• Developers to build affordable units on site, and would end “in lieu of” fees

• Half the units affordable to people earning 50 percent of the AMI ($31,850), which is the median Latinx income; another quarter of the units targeted to people at 20 percent of AMI ($12,740) the annual income for a majority of disability recipients; the final quarter priced at 30 percent of AMI ($19,150), the median Black household income

• Affordable housing set-asides of 10 percent in low-cost zones, 20 percent in moderate-cost zones, and 30 percent in high-cost and high-displacement areas

• Sixty percent of affordable units to be 2-bedrooms, and 30 percent to be 3-bedroom or larger

• Wheelchair-accessibility

• Commercial developers to pay a per-square-foot density fee to help fund existing affordable housing programs

“This is a matter of making sure that we have a social fabric of the city that is a city for everyone. Not just for rich developers and corporations,” said Ald. Sigcho-Lopez. “We cannot allow this to be the norm and see thousands of people being evicted in the middle of a pandemic. This is our time.”

Wendy Rosen is a multimedia reporter covering a range of issues from immigration to housing to education. She is a winner of the National Federation of Press Women 2019 National Communications Contest for her photo story in StreetWise on Chicago’s Rohinga refugee community.