A proposal to reduce the budget of the fund undercuts the administration's own economic development and housing priorities. Download and adapt this letter to send to the governor.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich
State of Illinois
Office of the Governor
James R. Thompson Center
100 W Randolph St., 16th Floor
Chicago, IL 60601
217/524-4049 (fax)
Dear Governor Blagojevich
On behalf of the Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC), I am writing to express concern about the precious resources recently cut from the Illinois Low Income Housing Trust Fund. This action, in the name of fiscal prudence, jeopardizes the very priorities championed by your administration. By reducing these housing funds, the administration’s economic development goals are likewise undercut.
In June of 2002, you gave the keynote address at MPC's Annual Meeting Luncheon, and spoke persuasively about the need for a more proactive housing policy, one that is linked with State efforts to accommodate population and job growth, with education and economic development, and with infrastructure planning.
Later that year, you became the first governor in over a decade to appoint a Housing Committee as part of your transition team. Not surprisingly, many of the recommendations outlined in that report were consistent with those of your Transition Team’s Economic Development Committee, primarily because the hundreds of volunteers engaged in these committees shared your commitment to pursue linkages between housing, sensible growth, and economic development. Illinois will not be attractive to business unless it can accommodate the needs of the local workforce. No issue is more central to family stability than the quality, location, and affordability of a home.
In September of 2003, you adopted many of the Transition Team recommendations by signing an Executive Order to Establish a Comprehensive Housing Initiative, outlining Illinois’ first housing policy, and appointing a Task Force with intergovernmental and private sector representation to implement that vision. MPC is honored to participate in this endeavor, under the leadership of Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) Executive Director Kelly King Dibble.
On March 30, 2004, the Task Force met in Springfield to review the draft reports generated by its six working committees. Both national lessons and local ingenuity are well represented in these initial documents, and the interaction between the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Department of Transportation, Department of Human Services, Office of Management and Budget, and others has been particularly creative and encouraging. There is a growing awareness about the fiscal advantages of linking housing policy to workforce stability, transportation planning, education reform, and economic development.
We are well aware of the State's budget crisis, and are working through the Housing Task Force and other venues to encourage efficiencies among public resources while leveraging more private sector resources. Our Employer-Assisted Housing program, for example, has leveraged $5 from employers for every $1 made available from the State. This sort of creativity is essential, especially given the unmet demand for housing among the priority populations outlined in your executive order — including people who cannot afford to live near their jobs and people earning less than 30 percent of area median income (AMI). More than 500,000 households earning less than 30 percent of AMI currently lack affordable housing. Because of limited resources, however, only 46 of the 4,597 homes approved last year through IHDA's multifamily housing program were affordable at that income level. In places such as suburban Cook County, where demand is high due to population and job growth, not a single unit of workforce housing was approved.
You are making strides to implement the critical policies to redirect these trends. Now, we urge you to restore the resources recently transferred out of the Illinois Housing Trust Fund and ensure that such action does not recur in the future.
Please feel free to contact me at 312/863-6001, or Housing Director Robin Snyderman at 312/863-6007, if you would like to discuss this issue further. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
MarySue Barrett, President