This Tuesday & Thursday, call for affordable-housing land!

Zoom with us for our monthly town hall this Tuesday, March 22, at 6-7:15pm. There we’ll get ready to show up powerfully to the 20th Ward Night.

Ward night is on Zoom this Thursday, March 24 at 6pm. The City's housing department will be there. We can tell City officials that we need the City’s vacant lots for affordable housing!

Here’s the context: You may have heard that last month, the City of Chicago finally publicly previewed its plans for the largest provision of our 2020 Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) ordinance. The provision requires that -- of the many vacant lots the City owns in Woodlawn -- 52 be set aside for housing for residents most at risk of displacement: housing affordable for residents making 30 to 50% of area median income.

We've been organizing for the City to set aside lots whose zoning and size allows for development of as much affordable housing as possible, specifically, 30 lots we've identified on a commercial corridor near the Obama Center's site. So far, as of February, we've gotten the City to announce plans to set aside only 13 of these lots, which would create only 100 affordable apartments. (Learn more in this Block Club Chicago article.)

The City itself estimates that 10,000 Woodlawn residents are at risk of displacement due to their low incomes and rising rents — due to gentrification. So join us to tell City officials: 100 apartments isn’t close to enough! We need ALL of the City’s Woodlawn lots on 63rd by the Obama Center (east of Cottage Grove Ave.).

On February 10, STOP board member and tenant leader Marilyn Harper spoke at a press conference by Woodlawn residents. She demanded that the City of Chicago fully and immediately implement the CBA ordinance’s requirement regarding lots for affordable housing.