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Chicago Metropolis 2020 is working with other civic organizations, business leaders, housing advocacy groups, and elected officials to increase the supply of housing that is affordable to working people, especially housing near job sites and public transit. Housing is at the core of opportunity in our region. While the rate of homeownership has increased to its highest level ever, many prospective homeowners find that they can only purchase homes in outlying areas of the region – far from jobs, cultural attractions, and public transit.Too many families find themselves stretched to pay the mortgage or rent, and our region remains highly segregated by race and income. Chicago Metropolis 2020 is working to develop a regional housing strategy that will meet the needs of families and employers while broadening access to economic opportunity. Information on several products of this work follows. Homes for a Changing Region (2005-Present) Homes for a Changing Region is a forward looking series of reports on the housing needs of the Chicago region which have been compiled by Chicago Metropolis 2020 in collaboration with the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus and with communities across the Chicago region.
The original report released in 2005, compares the housing required to meet the needs of the expected population growth of 2 million people with the type of housing being planned. It also suggests action steps for the state, the region and local communities to meet the housing needs. The 2005 report “Homes for a Changing Region” forecast a serious mismatch between the type of housing being planned in the Chicago region and the housing likely to be needed by the growing population. The report warned that too many large-lot, expensive single family homes and too few small-lot single family homes, town houses and condominiums were being planned. In the 2007 report , we collaborated with leaders from Aurora, Libertyville and Oak Forest to develop community-specific plans to help each of those community demonstrate strategies to help these communities address their forecasted growth and needs for balanced housing at the local level. In early 2009, we did the same with Gurnee, Montgomery and Northlake. We concluded the year and the four year effort, by publishing a final report on Blue Island, Plainfield and Woodstock. If you are interested in downloading any or all of these reports (they are large so you should "right click" on the file and choose the "save as" option to save it to your computer), you may click on the report cover above . This project was graciously supported by contributions from the Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust, the Fannie Mae Foundation, the Harris Family Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Field Foundation of Illinois and National City Bank, now a part of PNC.
Other Housing Reports and Research
Home Grown: Local Housing Strategies in Action On December 14, 2006, Chicago Metropolis 2020 joined with the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus and the Metropolitan Planning Council to release, Home Grown: Local Housing Strategies in Action. To download this document you may click on the cover below or on this link. Home Grown is a collection of more than 30 housing-related Best Practices from the Chicago region. It shows municipal officials how their peers are addressing housing issues and provides ideas for replicating or improving upon these approaches to address their own local housing challenges. This collection demonstrates that many exciting, innovative, local efforts are contributing to a quality, diverse housing stock that meets the needs of a variety of residents in our region. In many cases, we include information on how the public was involved in the process, and what lessons the community learned, including what local leaders would do differently in hindsight.
Metropolis Index: Housing as Opportunity On July 26, 2004 we released The Metropolis Index: Housing as Opportunity. The Metropolis Index enables us to assess the state of our region and identify policies that will strengthen our economic competitiveness. The decision to focus the Index on housing is significant in two respects. First, it underscores our belief that housing is far more than a place to live. A home is also a gateway to opportunity - the most important connection to jobs, schools, transit and community. If we are to provide access to economic opportunity for more Chicago area families, than we must provide a broader range of housing choices throughout the region. Second, the Metropolis Index reinforces our belief that housing, like so many other issues, must be tackled regionally. It is an economic imperative: Workers must have housing choice reasonably close to job centers if our economy is to remain robust.
Recommendations for Developing Attainable Workforce Housing in the Chicago Region Citing the lack of a comprehensive plan to create sufficient housing for workers, Chicago Metropolis 2020 has issued a 40-point Workforce Housing Action Agenda aimed at helping the region meet the demand for attainable housing. The Workforce Housing Action Agenda published by Chicago Metropolis 2020 details specific steps which need to be taken by local, state and federal governments, as well as by the business community. The action plan calls for local zoning reforms and increased emphasis on building code enforcement and property maintenance by local governments; increased state government assistance and rewards to communities that create a broad range of housing; expansion and improvement of federal programs to increase affordable housing options; and more corporate action to create workforce housing. The report can be downloaded as an Adobe Acrobat file by clicking below.
To further our goal of a region in which all people will have access to quality affordable housing, accessible to jobs. We have developed the "Metropolis Principles". The Metropolis Principles are based in part on the Global Sullivan Principles of Social Responsibility, which have been successfully used to support economic, social and political justice by companies where they do business internationally. More than 100 business leaders in the Chicago region have signed this unique pledge, which says that they will make access to affordable housing and mass transit a significant factor when making business location decisions.
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