MPC President MarySue Barrett testified on Sept. 5, 2002 on the need for a state housing policy and other tools to ensure creation of more housing options for Illinois.
State Housing Hearings
Metropolitan Planning Council Testimony
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and for your leadership on housing issues in Illinois. My name is MarySue Barrett, and I am President of the Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC). I am also joined here today by our Housing Director, Robin Snyderman. The Metropolitan Planning Council is a 68-year-old regional policy and advocacy organization promoting sensible growth, economic competitiveness and equity of opportunity in Northeastern Illinois. In the housing area, since our founding, this has translated into an over-arching objective to promote a range of quality housing options near jobs and transit throughout the region.
Seems like sensible policy, but implementation is harder than you might expect, which is why I want to underscore some of the key recommendations you are hearing today about the need for more rental housing production and subsidy dollars, more incentives for developers to meet local demand, and also for stronger planning and coordination incentives and accountability mechanisms.
To inform some immediate policy decisions on the horizon, MPC released a Regional Rental Market Analysis in November of 1999, whose key findings have been corroborated by 2000 census results. In metropolitan Chicago during the 1990s, when population grew by 11 percent and the number of jobs increased by 16 percent, the rental housing stock actually shrunk. In this same period, our region experienced a 68.4 percent increase in the number of households living in overcrowded conditions. Housing in high job growth areas and revitalizing neighborhoods is beyond the reach of average working families. Where housing is less expensive, jobs and other opportunities are scarce — contributing to the traffic congestion, economic disparities and racial segregation taxing our region.
Local workers are directly affected by these trends, which is why MPC has been working with Chicago Metropolis 2020 and others to cultivate employers as a critical constituency to engage in housing policy solutions. The private sector, through employer-assisted housing programs, is learning that its investment in housing pays for itself quickly. We must capitalize on that wisdom. Since the last census, there has been a 49 percent increase in the number of Illinois homeowners paying more than 30 percent of their incomes on housing. But, of course, the burden continues to be greatest for renters. Nearly 900,000 Illinois households earn less than $20,000 per year, but only 554,000 Illinois households are paying housing costs considered "affordable" to households at this income. This suggests that there is a deficit of over 340,000 homes affordable to people earning less than $20,000 per year.
Complicating this is the fact that typical supply and demand models are not at play in our region. The Regional Rental Market Analysis suggested that non-economic barriers are interfering with our market's ability to meet the local demand. Non-economic barriers include everything from community resistance to the fact that our region includes 274 municipalities, each with different systems for addressing housing needs. Absent a state housing policy to guide them, the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus asked MPC to help them form a housing task force which recently adopted a housing action agenda and housing endorsement criteria that spell out how housing for a growing workforce can be a community asset. I urge you to support the work done locally, via the Mayors' Housing Endorsement Criteria, to step away from the stereotypes and misconceptions related to past failures in housing, and instead focus on the kind of housing that can and must succeed: housing affordable to the local workforce and a broader range of income holders; housing that is well-managed, well-designed, near jobs and near transit. The Mayors' agenda calls for additional resources and incentives to promote planning, coordination, production and preservation strategies to address our region's housing challenges. It also promotes employer-assisted housing programs and other strategies to leverage private sector dollars, while recommending improvements and expansion of the federal rent subsidy program, the Housing Choice Voucher.
The shortage of apartments and homeownership options for the local workforce in high job growth areas is not just about available funds. Community resistance often gets codified into zoning and building codes that too frequently are barriers to the development of needed housing options. Model codes and ordinances could assist local leaders in eliminating barriers in a responsible and systematic fashion. A department of housing, or a deputy governor for housing — with direct reporting authority to the governor and redeploying the Illinois Housing Development Authority existing Office of Housing Coordination Services — could work with stakeholders, councils of governments, agency directors and legislative leaders to identify new resources, package incentives and establish accountability mechanisms to assist municipal, county and state leaders as they assess and address the housing needs of their constituencies. It is critical to integrate housing finance and housing policy across the many departments currently working on housing issues.
We already have a new law on the books, thanks to HB 4023, to encourage planning efforts at the local level and reward municipal and county leaders in identifying local needs and implementing solutions. Lessons learned from other states reinforce the need to do more than simply promote good planning. Illinois needs housing production goals, requiring local governments to develop and preserve housing affordable to the local workforce, for residents at all income levels as well as those with special needs. Infrastructure and other state funding sources should be linked to a community's progress on its housing goals. Incentives should be tiered, rewarding progress on comprehensive planning, on adopting new tools (model codes, ordinances, permit streamlining, etc), and — most importantly — producing results
Simultaneously, the State of Illinois, counties and municipalities must continue to explore tax incentives for owners and developers who are meeting the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus' Housing Endorsement Criteria and addressing local housing needs.
At MPC's Annual Meeting Luncheon this year, both gubernatorial candidates spoke about the housing, sensible growth and other key issues challenging our region. Both expressed their understanding that more leadership is needed around housing in Illinois. The challenges are daunting, but it is exciting to see the potential for meaningful changes that you are looking to make happen. Whether one's primary concerns relate to health care or education, traffic gridlock or open space, welfare reform or workforce competitiveness — our ability to tackle these issues depends on the availability of a range of quality housing options near jobs and transit throughout the state.
Thank you.
Click here to read the testimony of various MPC partners, including employers implementing housing programs and one of the municipal leaders in the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus Housing Task Force.