Intentionality and Long-Term Planning

Addressing housing challenges takes time: developing new units, coordinating the various players that need to collaborate, and amassing the needed resources are processes that unfold over the course of years. Consequently, we need to have a clear long-term plan that articulates not only our goals but also our strategies, priorities, resource needs, and more. The City must:

• Immediately establish a comprehensive housing plan that
  • Is explicitly designed and implemented through a racial equity lens.
  • Articulates the need for several different kinds of affordable housing, including for seniors, families with children, households earning under 50% of the Area Median Income (AMI), middle-income households, and more.
  • Is clear about goals and benchmarks, and holds the city accountable.
    • Goals must be specific regarding populations served and types of support provided (e.g. tenant-based rental assistance, preservation of existing stock, new units, etc.)
    • Includes a publicly visible dashboard that tracks progress in terms of development of new units as well as utilization of the Affordable Housing Fund and other forms of assistance, perhaps modeled on Chicago’s dashboard
  • Is a clear priority for city leadership.

Zoning Reforms

Exclusionary zoning policies such as minimum lot sizes and single-family requirements have the effect of keeping affordable housing out of some neighborhoods, which is unsurprising since many of these policies came about as part of an explicit effort to preserve segregation. In order to facilitate affordability as well as racial and economic integration, we need to take a comprehensive look at this code.

In doing that, we must also avoid one-size-fits-all approaches. For instance, upzoning (allowing for taller and/or denser buildings) has a very different effect near Northwestern University than it does in other parts of our city. We need local policies that work for every neighborhood. To achieve that, Evanston must:

• Establish a clear statement of purpose for the zoning code that shall prioritize affordability for low- and middle-income people and families and the well-being of Evanston residents.
• Conduct an audit of the zoning code and related processes through an equity lens to determine the impact of current exclusionary zoning practices and the costs that arise from compliance with the code—and then embark upon a comprehensive rewriting of the code.
  • Concurrent with the zoning code audit and rewrite, develop interim criteria that focus on racial equity and affordability, and make them clear to the public so that decisions are predictable and consistent with the City’s priorities and plan.

Inclusionary Housing Ordinance Enhancements

Inclusionary zoning is an important tool to ensure that new developments create affordable units, rather than simply adding to the stock of high-cost or luxury housing. Over the years, Evanston’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance has been strengthened several times, most recently in 2018. However, there is still more that needs to be done. Specifically, Evanston must:

• Enhance its efforts to create housing opportunities for families living at or below 50% the Area Median Income (AMI).
  • The city should enhance density bonuses for developers who create housing for families at or below 50% AMI
    • These should be dependent upon access to public transit
    • Priority should be given to larger units that can accommodate families
• Increase the fee-in-lieu (an alternative that allows developers to pay fees in lieu of meeting IHO requirements) to incentivize developers to create more affordable housing units on site.
• Establish and communicate a clear plan for the use of the Affordable Housing Fund.

Housing Subsidies

No matter how much good work we do to make better policy and focus our existing investments in a way that advances our housing goals, the fact remains that we also need more funding to provide subsidies. While almost all subsidy resources come from institutions beyond Evanston’s borders, there is still some work the City can do to add dollars to the pool and, even more significantly, to partner with other levels of government to ensure that our needs are met.

To make progress in this direction, Evanston must:

• Improve and expand Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (TBRA) programs and the HOME program that funds TBRA.
• Advocate with the federal government for an expansion of HOME funds.
• Create a clear and consistent long-term plan that will allow the funds to be used efficiently.
• Assess impact fees for commercial development to go to the Affordable Housing Fund to ensure that the cost of providing affordable housing is fairly shared.
• Increase the number of developers participating in the project-based voucher program by working with the Housing Authority of Cook County to educate developers about the nature of the program and to identify opportunities for its utilization.
• Partner with the Illinois Housing Development Authority to provide technical assistance and ensure the sustainability of financing models.

Housing as it Relates to Public Transportation

Housing and transportation are fundamentally inextricable issues: where we live is directly connected to how we get everywhere else. While the City of Evanston has limited influence over mass transit agencies, we still make numerous infrastructure, zoning, and programmatic decisions that relate directly to transportation and can be utilized in concert with housing policy to improve quality of life and affordability in our community. Specifically, we must:

• Encourage transit boards (CTA, Metra, and Pace) to prioritize travel between current affordable housing units, jobs, and shopping.
• Use Evanston capital expenditures to increase the likelihood that the transit boards will make these needed investments.
• Invest in bike lanes and walkability to increase accessibility for non-car owners.
• Work with the federal government to access COVID relief funds to invest in transit system needs.
• Subsidize transit for low-income people by
  • partnering with nonprofits already doing this work,
  • providing direct subsidies, and
  • working with federal and state governments and transit boards to access greater subsidies.
• Provide financial counseling about transportation options (either directly or in partnership with nonprofits like Open Communities that already do this work) and potentially expand this counseling to include counseling about utilities, homeownership preparation, and general financial counseling.

Housing as an Equity and Racial Justice Issue

Housing has long been a key pillar of institutional racism, in part because of an unholy alliance of governments, financial institutions, racist homeowners associations, and realtor groups who conspired to enforce segregation. Though that system is mercifully gone, many inequities persist, including pervasive residential segregation, enormous racial wealth gaps exacerbated by generations of housing discrimination, and significant inequities in access to capital to enable home ownership. To meaningfully address these severe injustices, Evanston must:

• Use data about home loans and demographic makeup of census tracts to identify and disrupt racial disparities in lending by financial institutions.
• Access national bank programs that support single family BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) home ownership.
• Cease doing business with financial institutions that do not lend in Evanston’s Black community.
• Conduct a thorough review of the Landlord and Tenant and the Nuisance Premises ordinances to eliminate or reform any provisions that perpetuate racial exclusion or economic segregation.
• Center the reparations program in the city’s planning process around housing and affordability, and expand that program over time.