Letter to the Editor: Affordable Housing Plan Is About Options, Not Giveaways

Dear Editor,

There is one truth on which we can all agree: the days when a middle-income family can hope to own, or even rent, a home of their own in Winnetka is past. Moreover, older Americans and families experiencing a disability, job or spouse loss are having difficulty maintaining their homes. Indeed, nearly one in four Winnetka homeowners and renters cannot afford where they live. Only 6% of Winnetka’s workforce lives in the Village and without the adoption of the proposed affordable housing plan, these problems will only accelerate.

The Village Council of Winnetka has spent many years and taken much care studying housing needs, current supply, and trends. For example, new homes cost three times the teardowns they replace and the Village has lost more than 300 rental units over the last 30 years.

Now the Village is scheduled to adopt an affordable housing plan that is the thoughtful result of these more than five years of study. Winnetkans in opposition to the plan appear not to have read it as they make false and outlandish claims about it and about the Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs which proudly supports the plan.

Interfaith was founded in 1972 as an unprecedented ecumenical undertaking, to
address racial and economic disparities in housing, by Rev. Paul S. Allen, of the Winnetka Congregational Church (now pastor emeritus) and the late John McDermott of the Community Renewal Society as well as other religious and civic leaders on the North Shore. Interfaith has grown into a coalition of 38 congregations, 10 civic organizations, and over 300 individual donors from throughout the northern suburbs dedicated to housing justice by advancing open, inclusive and diverse communities. Interfaith offers services in housing discrimination investigation, HUD-certified foreclosure prevention counseling, landlord/tenant advice, Homesharing match facilitation, and education, organizing and advocacy for fair and affordable housing. We toil for the rights of all people to obtain decent, safe, and affordable housing. All its services are free of charge and confidential.

More importantly, the proposed affordable housing plan is simply not what its detractors report it to be. The plan is a set of policies that would encourage homeowners and landlords to create or preserve housing for seniors, families, couples, and single people who cannot afford upper bracket housing. “Housing for landscapers” (as has been claimed)? Hardly – with target income levels at roughly $75,000 per year. Opposition group members condemn the plan that seeks to permit, for example, housing that might be affordable for our police officers and
school teachers to live in the town they serve by labeling the policies “social engineering”, a “giveaway”, and a threat to property values. Several comments make clear racial references – like “Cabrini Green” will become “Winnetka Green”. The affordable housing opponents make claims that are not only appalling in and of themselves, but the claims are unrelated to any fact or policy contained in the plan. Winnetka’s proposed plan is not about creating a right to housing or subsidized housing or “forced selling.” It’s about expanding choices: aiming toward a more
diversified portfolio of housing, as it were.

It is time to embrace this plan and move it forward for the benefit of all Winnetka.

Sincerely,

Susan Marie Connor
President, Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs

Gail Schechter
Executive Director, Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs