Allow construction of dense housing in the city to make homes affordable

 Dear Mayor Misty Buscher,

My name is ________. I am an undergraduate student attending the University of Illinois Springfield, where I am a senior studying social work. Living on campus, I have learned much about life in Springfield, and there is one problem that is common in this city that I would like to address: homelessness. I am writing to you advocating against a major policy in Springfield that is perpetuating this problem in this city. This policy is code § 151.10 in Springfield's Code of Ordinances Title XV.

According to the Springfield & Sangamon County’s 2022-2028 Strategic Plan to Address Homelessness report, about 260 people experienced homelessness in Springfield at any point during 2022. I have been fortunate enough to have a roof over my head my entire life so far, but I have talked to a few people that have experienced homelessness and have read many gut wrenching stories of those experiencing homelessness in my social work classes and local newspapers.

Many of these individuals are suffering from serious illnesses. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 20.8% of Illinois homeless people reported that they were enduring a serious mental illness and 10.9% of them had chronic substance abuse conditions in 2023. HUD also found that homeless are three to six times more likely to have conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and HIV/AIDS. These illnesses often are the central reasons why these individuals are homeless, as there were not proper community services available for them to build themselves up into contributing members of society. They

also might not have had funds for their treatments and for the other financial responsibilities they face, such as rent, bills, food and paying for their childrens’ needs and wants. The combination of these financial and other responsibilities, plus their ailments, plus the lack of services needed to keep up with their responsibilities and ailments can greatly increase a person’s chances in becoming homeless.

Springfield has had many successful efforts to reduce homelessness to Springfield. One of these efforts include Springfield & Sangamon County’s 2022-2028 Strategic Plan to Address Homelessness. In this plan, Heartland HOUSED, Heartland Continuum of Care, Capital Township, the city of Springfield, Sangamon County, and many other agencies have come together to create new affordable housing that include systems of support and resources for people experiencing homelessness in Springfield. Another example would be your and Ward 5 Alderman Lakeisha Purchase’s withdrawal of ordinance 2024-376, which would have allowed Springfield police to fine people for public camping along with taking people’s possessions after not moving after a 24-hour notice.

The HUD provided Heartland Continuum of Care funds to create 142 new affordable housing units for these people. I strongly suggest combining the Heartland HOUSED project and BUILD Springfield’s efforts to improve and maintain a sustainable city that can build up the people it swears to protect. One of BUILD Springfield’s goals is “community building” and working with major community organizations to make huge strides to prevent and reduce homelessness would align with this goal.

However, ordinance § 151.10 from Springfield's Code of Ordinances Title XV limits the necessary construction to create affordable housing for these individuals, along with construction to expand Springfield’s population. Under this ordinance, “the aggregate residential densities within a planned unit development shall not exceed 35 persons per acre of the net development area.” In essence, this rule prevents high rise buildings from being constructed in Springfield, IL. By amending or getting rid of this rule, the construction of high rise buildings for apartments can occur, meaning more affordable housing construction could be done for those in need of it. In addition, high rise apartments in Springfield can attract more people to live in Springfield, which would be good for the city’s economy.

Overall, I appreciate your efforts in listening to my and the rest of your constituents' information and suggestions regarding the topic of homelessness in Springfield.

References

Bandoch, J., & Tabor, Joe (2024). Regulatory reform can make housing more affordable for Illinois families. Illinois Policy.

https://www.illinoispolicy.org/reports/regulatory-reform-can-make-housing-more-afforda ble-for-illinois-families/.

National Alliance to End Homelessness. (2023). Health and homelessness. Retrieved September 20, 2024, from

https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/what-causes-homelessness/health/.

Springfield, Illinois, Municipal Code § 151.10.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (2023). HUD 2023 continuum of care homeless assistance programs homeless populations and subpopulations in Illinois. https://files.hudexchange.info/reports/published/CoC_PopSub_State_IL_2023.pdf.

            It’s a good letter, and you get right to the point, mention a specific problem, and give specific suggestions to the mayor, who does have some ability to get the ordinance repealed.  I might have followed your excellent opening paragraph with something close to your penultimate paragraph, explaining that the ordinance limits the density of housing construction. So, in essence, the main thrust of the letter would become a please for a change in ordinances that would allow construction of apartment building complexes that would make population density higher than it is now in some areas of town.  

            After you've made high density construction of apartment buildings the main focus, you could open the justification by describing the lack of affordable housing and the need for affordable housing, and then throw in some facts about the cost-per-unit of housing construction being much lower if people build denser housing development such as apartment buildings.  Your point would be that dense housing allows for more affordable housing, and increasing the supply of affordable housing is a preventative measure to avoid increasing the numbers of persons who are housing insecure or actually unhoused.

            I think you might also want to point out that we know that packing low-income persons or persons with mental health problems together into single neighborhoods is not good, and such persons ought to be dispersed around the community. To that end, you might point out that having new construction of dense housing development with 50-100 units in a few places around the city would allow a smaller percentage of residents in such buildings to be people transitioning out of a state of homelessness or needing permanent supportive housing.  That is, if we had six or seven such developments, providing 400 to 500 more housing units, we would only need to make 40 to 50 of them “supportive housing” units, a similar number of them rapid rehousing units, and that would leave 80% of the units available as a mix of market-rate (larger and more luxurious) and affordable (smaller and more basic but eligible for housing choice vouchers or social housing) so that the complexes would not become places of concentrated poverty.   I think you need to make this point because people may be aware of the disastrous social consequences of concentrating persons with low skills and low income into dense housing systems. 

            I think you might also mention research on the profitability and economic advantages to the public of dense housing, and also share some points about the fact that a certain percentage of the population is attracted to living in more densely populated areas (not everyone wants a single detached house). You would find information about this from various urban planning and architecture think-tanks, Youtube channels, and websites (check out Strong Towns). 

              Your letter goes into some detail about how serious health problems are a contributing factor to people becoming unhoused. To me, this suggests that you are making a point about the inevitable problem that some people will fall into addiction or become afflicted with a chronic disease, and society needs to prepare for this by creating a certain percentage of housing stock that is not available as a commodity to be purchased in a free market, but rather, provided as a human right so that all citizens can be secure in their shelter and basic standard of living. Estimates of what percentage of all housing should be provided as social housing or public housing vary from 5% to 35%, but some amount of housing units in Springfield ought to be available for persons who can't pay market rents, either temporarily or indefinitely, and changing an ordinance to allow construction of dense housing will make it easier to create such units.

You might also mention racial housing segregation, and perhaps point out the differences in incomes, poverty rates, and wealth accumulation by ethnicity/race in the United States (or even Springfield, if you can get that census information). Then you could site research that suggests a main contributing factor to persisting racial segregation in the Midwest is the continued existence of zoning ordinances that restrict multi-family housing in certain areas. Such policies preserve the asset values of persons who are already wealthier (European-Americans and Asian-Americans) and decrease the ability of persons who are poorer (Blacks and Hispanics) to gain access to better schools, better jobs, and home ownership. 

You might also mention environmental advantages of providing denser housing options.  

You might suggest a master plan for the future of Springfield to make it a more walkable and sustainable city, where 20% of all housing stock is concentrated in dense core areas, 30% is in denser areas of mixed detached housing and multi-family housing construction, 30 % is in medium-density neighborhoods of single, detached housing with scattered multi-family structures, and 20% is in low-density neighborhoods with larger yards and mostly single, detached housing with only a very few multi-family structures. Currently almost nothing in Springfield is concentrated dense core area housing, so stop issuing permits for more urban sprawl and build up the denser housing to create a more sustainable mix of housing and neighborhood types. 

            

            

Student suggests raising revenue to end homelessness by increasing taxes on gaming

 The honorable J.B. Pritzker 401 S. Spring St.

Springfield, IL 62704

February 29^th, 2024

Dear Governor Pritker,

My name is [_Student_]. I am a senior at the University of Illinois Springfield, in the Bachelor of Social Work program. I am currently taking a social welfare and policies course that is shining some light on the detail of how the legislation effects policies in social work. I want to thank you for signing House Bill 2831 (the HOME IL Bill you signed on July 26th of last year). I appreciate your continued support support in advocating for the unhoused population and our goal to end homelessness in the state of Illinois.

I watched your budget speech, and appreciate many of your ideas, including raising the tax on wagers placed at sports books. I wonder though, why are we not also raising the taxes on all gambling types? Being new to Illinois, the first thing I noticed right away is there are gaming areas in almost all of the gas stations, restaurants, and bars. As an advocate for mental health and addiction prevention I don’t understand the need for these facilities at all. However, if they must exist I do believe they need to be heavily taxed right along with the alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana industries. These taxed sources alone will provide enough funds to increase the budgets necessary to be able to end homelessness in Illinois.

I noticed that a recent (2023 report on 2022 revenue) report from the Illinois Gaming Board reported about $1.8 billion to the state from gambling, and I read that recently (in the past few months) you have suggested raising the taxes on gaming wins from 15% to 35% to raise another $200 million in state revenue. 

By my calculations, providing emergency shelters, permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, caseworkers, mental health and addiction counseling workers, and coordinators to work with landlords and nonprofit housing development corporations, the state could functionally end homelessness with an expenditure of less than $500 million, if it was spent on the most effective types of services using efficient housing-first approaches. Not all of that money would need to come from the state, as the federal government and local governments as well as private philanthropy all have roles to play.  Remember also that the $500 million needed to end homelessness is not just money for housing, it’s also money for a system of community mental health care, support, and addiction & recovery counseling. And, we don’t need $500 million in new spending, we just need additional spending to bring total efforts to about $500 million, which is, by my rough approximate estimate, about $200 million.  

Springfield currently has a great model of permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing programs. Helping Hands of Springfield recently expanded and are achieving great things in the area. Springfield is moving toward ending functional homelessness, following a pattern set by Rockford, Illinois. The rest of the state needs this type of program to be able to achieve the goal of ending homelessness all together in the state. In order to tackle homelessness and maintain a proper prevention level, I believe we need to greatly expand in this direction. Adding in a robust team of professionals to follow the individual through their journey and provide guidance. This will not only bring the individuals off the streets, but also help in the prevention of their becoming homeless again. This team should consist of medical professionals, social workers, intensive case managers, legal representatives and a interdisciplinary team that looks at each individual’s specific needs.

One option many people will suggest is to turn an old building into a housing unit to provide housing for those experiencing homelessness and be “done with it”. You can see that sort of thinking with the slogan of the Poor Peoples Campaign (“The USA has 5 vacant houses for every homeless person”). Having one large facility with multiple unhoused individuals being permanently placed together is not a great solution. In fact, the most significant caution about permanent supportive housing is that for the program to work, persons who need permanent support must be distributed around a community, and not concentrated in confined neighborhoods. The main reason is that many of these individuals are suffering from a great level of mental illness, physical disabilities, and substance use disorders. While aiming for recovery, a group setting of individuals without monitoring is a recipe for failure. These individuals need the assistance and guidance to be able to achieve life long stable housing, and they need housing distributed around communities so that they can interact in friendly ways with many persons who are not suffering from addiction, depression, or psychotic illnesses. 

In conclusion, I’m urging you to redouble the efforts you and the General Assembly have already made with the HOME IL bill of 2023, and follow through on your proposal to raise taxes on gambling profits and winnings.  Use the $200 million in additional revenue our state generates from the increased public capture of profits and winnings from gambling to end homelessness, and in so doing, set up Illinois as a model for the nation, where gaps in mental health services, drug addiction treatment, and housing policies have been filled and the citizens of Illinois can live in a state where the 25th Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is respected and implemented.

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. 

Student advocates for local government to allow short-term rental

I am writing to encourage you to consider our community's home sharing policies and the recent laws that have tried to restrict the ability of local residents to rent out rooms on a short-term basis. There are many services such as Airbnb, Home away, and VRBO. These services have allowed families and individuals to receive an extra income and help them afford housing costs of their own. While helping out those that open their home to others home sharing also helps individuals, couples, families, and others have access to affordable places to stay for short or extended periods of time. The services have become something that not only benefit one party, but both parties involved in home sharing. 

In past years, there have been laws in different states and regulations on how home sharing with these services can be done. Localities depend on taxes for overnight guests at hotels to help support tourist infrastructure and other local services, so there is concern about lost public revenue. Another concern is maintaining safety and health in the homes that are shared; how can guests be protected from thieves and predators who might take advantage of guests, and how can the public ensure that homes open for sharing are wholesome and safe? On the other hand, the services use reputation scores to screen out hosts or guests who have unsavory dispositions or menacing behaviors, and cities and states already collect revenue from shared homes through property taxes and income taxes (perhaps there could be regulation on how revenue earned through home sharing services is reported to the IRS). There are several articles about this, but two I recommend are the October 26th 2016 article in the New York Times “Airbnb Sues Over New Law Regulating New York Rentals” and the information page at 2nd Address Research updated (when I consulted it) on February 5, 2020: “Short-Term Rental Laws in Major U.S. Cities.” These two articles have valuable information in regard to laws and the regulations that some major cities must follow to use home sharing services. 

Home sharing services are ideal and a great asset to our communities throughout the United States. Although risks come with home sharing, like renting, there are fees involved to ensure elimination of major risks that could arise. Home sharing helps people earn income by lending out their property to allow individuals to have a place to stay and resting area when visiting or staying in the local area of their property. Banning these services would hurt low income families and individuals as homes are typically people’s greatest asset. When using one of their greatest assets to produce a side income or an income at all, this helps lift low income families away from struggle and being on the brink of poverty. 

Most cities that have regulations forbid renters in rent-controlled housing or in public housing or in public subsidized housing from participating in income-generating home sharing. I suppose the assumption is that the subsidies or rent-control are there to make housing affordable so people can live there, but should not be used to gain an advantage in generating income. This seems odd to me, since many businesses and industries also receive subsidies and government support to enhance their ability to earn profits, so why should poor persons in low-income housing be denied an opportunity to earn money? Other common regulations are limits on how many homes can be shared for short-term rents. Limits in several cities are just one or two homes, and usually the home or one of the homes must be a primary residence of the person who is offering it for short-term sharing. It is also common for regulations to demand that only a room or two be rented, but the primary resident must be in the apartment when their guests are there. There are also many cities that set limits on how many guests may pay for short-term stays. Some of these regulations make sense; we don’t want wealthy people to buy up all the housing units and run dozens of apartments and houses like a hotel, displacing local residences who find it difficult to locate affordable housing. Other regulations seem unreasonable. Why do some cities only allow two guests, but not three? Doesn’t such a regulation discriminate against families with children? 

Although home sharing is wonderful for producing income and for the owners of the properties, there are also many benefits that come from home sharing for those that utilize the services. This allows individuals to not have to utilize the typical hotel arrangement, and typically the pricing is much more reasonable. Hotel arrangements are great for a quick stay, but a more reasonable and ideal home would make sense for someone that travels often and will be in the area for an extended period of time. A home, apartment, or town home typically has a kitchen allowing for home cooked meals, saving guests money from continually eating out. Continually eating out at fast food restaurants may save money, but it is not healthy, and eating at sit-down places typically aren't cheap and, can add up and take attention away from saving funds to put toward something more important and valuable. So, the home sharing services make travel and vacations more accessible to persons with modest incomes, who could not afford to stay in hotels and eat out in good restaurants every night while traveling. A city council considering regulations against home sharing might want to force visitors to eat in local restaurants to generate more tax revenue, but if people are cooking in a kitchen in their short-term shared home or apartment they will still need to purchase supplies in local grocery stores and markets, so either way, they stimulate the local economy. 

Another example of how home sharing benefits individuals is for instance, someone that cannot quite yet afford to get an apartment, rent a home, or buy a home could use home sharing services while they work to get back on their feet. It is a home-like environment that is welcoming and has appliances and resources that are ideal for families, couples, or individuals. Like hotels that rent by the week, low-income persons who are saving for a deposit on an apartment or home may find very low-cost short-term “rents” by engaging in a home sharing plan, getting a room in someone’s home for several weeks or a few months, and avoiding the requirement of signing a six-month or 12-month lease, such as most rental properties require. 

Home sharing is a great resource for individuals to earn extra income to help them thrive and survive and is a great resource to help people get back on their feet. Additionally, home sharing is a great resource for people that travel frequently and like a homey experience. It helps those that aren’t quite ready to rent and be restricted to an apartment, duplex, or home for however long the lease is written for, typically a year. All around, home sharing is the preferred way to go when traveling somewhere and has proven to be profitable and a great resource for all parties involved. Restricting people from doing what they wish with their property seems makes sense in some cases: we don’t want people manufacturing fireworks in their residential neighborhood, or hosting loud live music concerts every evening in their garage. But, house sharing services are not like these hazardous or polluting activities, and we should allow home sharing to happen. Allowing our city’s residents to share their homes brings valuable benefits to many in our community, and harms no one.  Please, as you consider regulations on home sharing in our city, do not impose regulations that go too far in restricting the freedom of those who would share their homes, and certainly do not ban this practice.

 

Articles Referred To:
https://www.2ndaddress.com/research/short-term-rental-laws/ 

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/technology/new-york-passes-law-airbnb.html

Another resource:

https://www.epi.org/publication/the-economic-costs-and-benefits-of-airbnb-no-reason-for-local-policymakers-to-let-airbnb-bypass-tax-or-regulatory-obligations/