Mayor's plan to use $965 milloion on debt, not social services, causes ire from Chicago's housing advocates

by Suzanne Hanney

The possibility that Mayor Lori Lightfoot might use half of $1.9 billion in American Rescue Plan discretionary funds to pay down debt lit up the chat room of a May 4 virtual citywide housing forum.

“Disappointed,” “sad,” “mad,” “frustrated,” read the comments in the “We Demand Better” forum hosted by the Bring Chicago Home (BCH) coalition. Members of the coalition include the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH), Right to Recovery, Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, ONE Northside, United Working Families and more.

The coalition unveiled righttorecovery.org/survey as a mechanism for gaining ideas on how relief money should be spent. Respondents can express their preferences by allocating a hypothetical $1,000 to everything from housing to free early childhood education, reopened public health and mental health clinics and more vaccination sites.

Juanita Rodgers, a grassroots leader with CCH, said that Chicago’s homeless population keeps increasing and is now at 77,000, with 3 out of 4 (75%) doubled up with friends or relatives.

“We are here to demand the city dedicate some of that money to the homeless population.” Rodgers continued with a poem, “When you burn down this city, what about these people? When you build this city up, what about these people? These are the ones being robbed and murdered. Don’t you care when they are hurting?”

“Let the mayor know we have rights,” said Roxanne Smith of Communities United. “Housing should not be gentrified. We should have a place to fit your income without robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

Dr. Sabina Wong of the PCC at the Boulevard Medical Respite Center, who is also a member of the Chicago Homelessness and Health Response Group for Equity (CHHRGE), a coalition of healthcare and emergency shelter providers, said that the group has learned that doctors and medicine don’t make people healthy, but a secure place to rest at night does.

“CHHRGE stands firmly behind the Bring Chicago Home campaign,” Wong said. “Health care savings exceed housing costs.”

Single Room Occupancy hotels are a crucial part of Chicago housing stock, but an endangered species, said Lamont of ONE Northside. “Chicago can choose to do the same old, same old and see the same results, or do better.”

The advocates pointed to a California initative, Project Homekey, which created 6,000 units of housing in 95 projects, many of them converted motels.

California used $750 million in federal coronavirus relief, supplemented with $100 million in state funds, plus philanthropic grants and municipal matching funds, according to the Los Angeles Times. The LA area will gain 1,800 units, of which 1,000 will be in the city itself.

Chicago officials said April 14 that using $965 million of the $1.9 billion from the American Rescue Plan was a top priority of Mayor Lightfoot because it would allow the City to reverse a decision to borrow $465 million to balance the 2020 budget and another $500 million for 2021, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. This kind of debt restructuring, known as “scoop and toss,” takes old debt and throws it into the future. It was used in the Daley and Emanuel administrations until 2017.

WTTW.com compared scoop-and-toss to a person who uses a high-interest credit card to buy groceries and who only pays the minimum each month. Borrowing $965 million to balance the two budgets would add eight years and $1 billion to the City’s debt service, according to SourceMedia.

Ald. Jason Ervin (28th ward), chairman of the City Council’s Black Caucus, said he understood the need to rectify finances but that government taking care only of its own needs would be “a tough sell,” according to the Sun-Times.

“I hope there will be some conversation about the flexibility of some of this revenue being utilized for the extensive amount of support that many of our residents will need going forward.” www.streetwise.org 11