Cook County Economic Development Bureau Chief Maria Saldana, IFF CEO Joe Neri, and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle at the groundbreaking of the Maywood Apartments
When the South Suburban Housing Collaborative and the West Cook County Housing Collaborative...
Vacant Properties
Vacant and foreclosed properties exact potentially destabilizing costs on entire neighborhoods and communities by lowering property values, raising crime rates, and straining municipal resources.
High concentrations of vacant and foreclosed properties are clearly a problem in the Chicago region. Completed foreclosure auctions, which result in the lender gaining ownership of a property, increased in the region by 227 percent between 2006 and 2009. Demand for these homes, despite state and federal interventions designed to encourage home purchases, remains low.
New models must be developed to allow families to stay in their homes, perhaps as renters, so that communities remain stable, valuable housing stock is preserved, and municipalities and servicers do not have the added liability of maintaining and securing vacant property. Municipalities need more tools for purchasing, maintaining, and returning the recent influx of vacant and foreclosed properties to productive use.
This page details the efforts of the Regional Home Ownership Preservation Initiative (RHOPI) vacant and foreclosed properties task force to lead municipalities on maximizing the impact of limited vacant property resources; promote cross-jurisdictional collaboration, land banking, and regional strategy; and position the region for success in obtaining federal, state, and local resources to stabilize neighborhoods and mitigate the effects of vacant properties on communities.
It’s clear that vacant homes put a damper on their surrounding community. Not only are they eyesores, they put other homes at risk of losing value and may attract crime and other destabilizing elements. To minimize these risks, many municipalities have ordinances that allow them to hold the homes’ owners responsible for securing and maintaining the property. What can already-...
Banks repossess nearly 2,800 homes in Cook County in the first quarter of 2011
Completed foreclosure auctions in Cook County increased substantially from the final quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2011, adding thousands of properties to the County’s vacant property inventory, say...
Learn how other states and localities are planning to use their NSP3 money
On September 8, 2010, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced the allocation of $1 billion in Neighborhood Stabilization Program 3 (NSP3) grants to States and to Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) entitlement communities particularly hard hit by home...
By Tim Mack
Tim Mack has been a member of Will County’s Community Development Division since 2007, specializing in grant financial management for CDBG, HOME, and LEAD. He assumed the program management role for the county's Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) with its inception in 2008. He also has 10-plus years of personal experience in...
Excerpted from Chicago Tribune article by Mary Ellen Podmolik on July 1, 2011.
The Treasury Department will allow Mercy Housing Inc., a national nonprofit group, to use almost one-quarter of the federal "hardest-hit" funds sent to Illinois for a private mortgage modification program in the Chicago area.
Working with the Illinois Housing...
Projects such as the one in East Baltimore that aim to redevelop blighted urban communities present a complex challenge that involves land acquisition, financing, relocation of dislocated residents and businesses, zoning, permitting, construction, leasing, and more.
These challenges become even more demanding when redevelopment officials commit themselves to treating...
By John McCarron
LISC New Communities Program
Home prices keep falling and mortgage foreclosures keep rising.
A new study on renters, meanwhile, counts 12,334 apartment buildings going into foreclosure during 2009-2010 and with them a whopping 37,726 rental units. LISC/NCP neighborhoods were among the hardest hit, with five losing more than 200...
Rising levels of housing vacancies in metropolitan Chicago suggest both challenges and opportunities, especially for the region’s local governments. Vacant units may create the need for additional public services to maintain properties while simultaneously contributing less to the local property tax base. However, vacant properties may also provide an opportunity to pursue...
Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the Micro-Market Recovery Program, an innovative new program for Chicago that will address foreclosures and stabilize property values in key neighborhoods throughout the city.
“Through close collaboration with Chicago’s non-profit and community organizations the Micro-Market Recovery Program will stabilize and sustain local property...