STEP FORWARD - Shriver Center

By Bill Wilen,  Director of Housing Litigation

Prior to 1996, federal housing law provided that every public housing unit that was demolished had to be replaced on a one-for-one basis with another public housing or equivalent unit.   In this manner, the nation’s inventory of public housing units would remain constant, and housing would remain available to meet the housing needs of the nation’s most vulnerable populations, such as the very-poor, the elderly and the disabled.  However, in 1996, this requirement was suspended and later repealed by Congress.  (more…)

By Kate Walz, Senior Staff Attorney

On July 30 President Bush signed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, H.R. 3221, passed by Congress in mid-July. But media coverage of the bill has largely focused on how it will help beleaguered homeowners facing foreclosure. As a low-income housing advocate, whose clients live almost exclusively in rental housing, I was pleasantly surprised to find items benefiting renters.

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By Sam Tuttle, Housing Staff Attorney

Increasingly, homeowners across the country are facing the loss of their homes not simply through foreclosure but because they cannot keep up with their property taxes. 

As in many states, Illinois homeowners who are delinquent in their taxes may lose possession of their homes to private parties who pay the homeowners’ delinquent taxes, rather than paying the market value. The private party, or tax purchaser, then takes ownership, irrespective of the years the homeowner may have been making payments on the home. Consequently, homeowners who owed less than $1,000 in unpaid taxes have lost their homes due to a tax delinquency, even though the equity in their homes was 30 or 40 times that.  (more…)

By Kate Walz, Senior Attorney

With over nine million renters in this country paying more than half of their income toward housing and the nationwide supply of decent, affordable rental housing only shrinking, the Cook County Preservation Compact might be an idea worth replicating nationally.

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