(This article ran prior to publication of the full Spring Newsletter. Since the rent relief application programs have now closed, this article is being included for informational purposes only. Even if you missed the IHDA and DOH deadlines, there is likely to be another round of rent relief coming. If so, you can be sure we will get this information out to our readers in a subsequent article.) 

Stacie Young, Preservation Compact Director at Community Investment Corporation, has at least some good news for long-suffering housing providers. There is money out there for rent relief. It is a very big number. And even more is on its way.

The bad news is that there are categories of tenants who are not covered by these programs, and for whom approvals will not be granted if applications are made. More on that below.

They’re getting closer. And they remain determined. But, despite their best efforts, they have yet to accomplish their goal of lifting the statewide ban on rent control.

It’s not the disaster it might have been had the Democratic Socialists gotten what they wanted. But the newly revised ARO, which was passed into law by the Chicago City Council on April 21, will make a number of changes that will have the cumulative effect of making new multifamily development more expensive to build.

You can’t really blame housing providers in Chicago for feeling like we are uniquely under siege. For years, tenant activists and their political allies have been dreaming up new ways to make our lives more difficult. And, more and more, they have been successful in setting the agenda and scoring political victories at our expense.

WTTW airs Mike Glasser and Byron Sigcho-Lopez as they face off on the subject of rent control.

Mike Glasser has seen his role as spokesperson for small property owners grow over the past year. Mike is not only President of RPBG. He is also President of the Neighborhood Building Owners Alliance (NBOA), a consortium of neighborhood housing provider groups that have banded together to counter the growing calls from the Democratic Socialists and Progressives at all levels of state and local government to expand regulation of the housing industry.

By:

Carl Kettler
CSA and RPBG Director

Bookkeeping and accounting is an important task for any business. Property management is a vertical market served by numerous computer software vendors to make the task of tracking income, expenses, security deposits and depreciation easier. This article is not intended to be a comprehensive review of options, but rather to give a high level view of how a smaller landlord might choose the best option for their needs.

Despite making a number of very strong arguments, and despite filing the suit far from Chicago and Cook County, the law firms challenging the constitutionality of Governor Pritzker’s eviction moratorium were told to go back to the Will County Circuit Court for a final ruling on the case.

By:

Doug Imber
President, Essex Realty Group and RPBG Director

The struggles across our economy have been sadly documented these past 14 months. But rental housing providers have endured not only the economic challenges from the pandemic, but also an onslaught of ill-conceived legislation that is causing a crippling effect on the Chicago metropolitan area’s housing industry. Left on its current course, these policies will have disastrous consequences.

Tobias Bechloff and Heather Miller just signed a three-year contract with the Park District to operate The Loyola Beach House at 1230 W Greenleaf. The process was neither quick nor easy. But, now that the contract is signed, the couple is working hard to transform the building from its current ramshackle condition into the showplace they both know it can be. They are going to call their new restaurant the Ropa Cabana (short for ROgers PArk). It’s easy to find at the end of Greenleaf, right next to the Loyola Beach Playground.

By:

Steve Cain
Spring, 2021

Five months into 2021, I think we can all agree that things are looking a lot better for the city, the country and the economy than they did this time a year ago. Of course, there is one big reason for this. After a somewhat rocky start, the COVID-19 vaccination program is progressing across the country. As I write this article, more than 50% of all Americans have now received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. This number continues to rise with every passing day. The expanding vaccination program is having a measurable, beneficial effect on transmissions and hospitalizations. Equally importantly, it is helping people feel more optimistic again about the future.