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Chicago Tribune
24-04-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Afternoon Briefing: About those air quality readings yesterday
Good afternoon, Chicago. Readings from several popular weather apps had people across the Chicago area spending much of yesterday wondering whether their air was safe to breathe — until the dangerously unhealthy levels were revealed to be a glitch. Early in the morning, Google's air quality map showed that Chicago had the worst air in the country. Apple's weather app, too, showed that the Air Quality Index had climbed into the 400s, a reading so hazardous that people are encouraged to stay indoors. (The Air Quality Index, which ranges from 0 to 500, is a measure of the density of five pollutants in the air: ground-level ozone, particulates, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide.) To put that in perspective, that's as high as the levels reached in 2023 when smoke from wildfires in Canada blanketed much of the East Coast and turned the sky in New York City orange. Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Highland Park parade shooter sentenced to life in prison without parole Robert Crimo III will spend the rest of his life in prison for opening fire on spectators at the 2022 Highland Park Independence Day Parade. Read more here. Chicago Housing Authority board member reprimanded for 'sexually graphic conversation,' report says A Chicago Housing Authority board member had a 'sexually graphic conversation' in front of agency employees and has been reprimanded by the interim board chair, a housing authority Office of the Inspector General report reveals. Read more here. More top business stories: Column: Nikola Jokić or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for MVP? How the Tribune's Bulls writer voted for NBA awards. It's finally time for the most controversial stretch of the NBA season — the waiting period between submitting end-of-year ballots and announcing the final award winners. Read more here. 'Étoile' review: A dance of egos, hookups and ballet backstage drama — and it's funny! In the Amazon dramedy 'Étoile,' a ballet company in New York and another in Paris swap some of their talent for a season, hoping the gimmick will sell more tickets and fix some financial struggles. Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton first major Democrat to declare bid for retiring Dick Durbin's Senate seat Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton today became the first of what is expected to be many candidates to launch bids for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Dick Durbin.
Chicago Tribune
07-04-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Afternoon Briefing: Aldermen confirm mayor's ally to the City Council
Good afternoon, Chicago. Nine Chicago Housing Authority senior leaders received more than $787,000 collectively in separation agreement payouts over the last five years, including two who had received written warnings from Tracey Scott, the agency's former CEO. A Tribune analysis of CHA records shows that each of the nine received at least two months of compensation at the salary level they had on their last day of work. Six of the agreements were signed between August 2024 and early March 2025. Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Aldermen confirm Mayor Brandon Johnson's ally to the City Council In a 32-11 vote, City Council members voted to approve Cook County Commissioner Anthony Quezada as alderman of the 35th Ward after his predecessor, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, resigned last month to lead the Chicago Park District. Read more here. Backyard chickens might not crack high egg prices, but Chicago-area owners say they're worth it Though experienced chicken owners caution that the cost of raising chickens might cancel out any egg savings at the supermarket, they encourage the public to give the hobby a try. Read more here. DePaul mens' basketball coach Chris Holtmann sells Ohio home for $3.5M $2.5M Lakeview home listed by former Cubs player Kyle Hendricks goes under contract Roommates in Rockford, these Chicago Blackhawks prospects shared everything — including each other's burdens Rockford IceHogs forwards Gavin Hayes and Samuel Savoie have to work together on the ice, but the roommates also had to reach an off-ice accord on a very important subject: food. Read more here. More top sports stories: 3 takeaways as the Chicago Bulls creep closer to 8th place in the Eastern Conference with a win Column: IHSA addresses issues with multiplier waiver and success factor. The solutions appear to be a win-win. M'daKhan, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Bridgeview, specializes in great halal smoked and grilled meats, inspired by lifetimes of backyard barbecues in Little Palestine. Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: U.S. stocks are falling in a manic Monday after President Donald Trump doubled down on his tariffs, despite seeing how much Wall Street wants him to do the opposite.
Chicago Tribune
23-03-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Edward Keegan: An example of sophisticated affordable housing in Logan Square
The new 89-unit Encuentro Square affordable housing development in Logan Square is a smart addition to Chicago's architecture with a compelling design that's simple and straightforward, but layered with just enough detail to keep things interesting. It's located just north of The 606's western end. When the popular elevated trail opened a decade ago, there wasn't a lot there at its western terminus. The McCormick YMCA opened its doors just north of the trail in 2018, but while its facilities serve its neighbors well, its architectural design is desultory at best. Encuentro Square changes that calculus. The two-building complex was designed by locally based Canopy / architecture + design, which has been practicing since 2009 and is best known for its work in the affordable housing market and what Canopy principal and founder Jaime Torres Carmona dubs the 'social impact space.' The project's name is Spanish for 'to gather,' 'to connect,' 'to engage' — which describes how the project aspires to relate to its Logan Square neighborhood. The $67.5 million development currently consists of two buildings: There's a four-story L-shaped structure at the corner of West Cortland Street and North Hamlin Avenue and a six-story canted structure at the corner of West Cortland and North Ridgeway Avenue. The two buildings provide 89 affordable apartments that are available to families and individuals with incomes at or below 60% of the area's median income. And 55 of the units can be rented with Chicago Housing Authority vouchers. The property had long been home to a single-story manufacturing facility. It was acquired by the Trust for Public Land in 2014 while The 606 was still under construction and sold to the city of Chicago in 2019. The city demolished the old building in 2021 and remediated the land before donating it to the current development. The complex is set back at Hamlin and Cortland to provide a small public plaza at the four-story building's entrance. The six-story building is entered off Hamlin where the south end of the building steps away from the sidewalk to help diminish its 200-foot length and better define the complex's private interior courtyard. Both entrances open to the courtyard, and ground level interior spaces are devoted to various amenities for the residents. A new public park space will eventually be located south of the next phase's single structure, adjacent to The 606's terminus. The buildings display a sophisticated use of very ordinary materials, an attribute it shares with many of Chicago's best buildings. Much of the complex is clad in a white, horizontally corrugated metal siding. It's not the most obvious choice for an apartment building. Rather, it's a straightforward inexpensive 'industrial' material that reminds us of the site's more workaday past. But in Canopy's capable hands, the expression is clean, sleek and modern. At four and six stories, the buildings are a bit larger than most of their immediate neighbors, but they don't feel hulking nor do they overwhelm. In order to create a sense of welcome to the neighborhood, the architects developed the six-story facade facing Cortland as a feature wall. The designers drew inspiration from the monarch butterfly, 'a symbol for culture, resiliency and community,' Carmona said. But rather than apply a mural to the building, the architects chose to express the butterfly abstractly as architectural metaphor. This can be seen in the undulating movement of colored metal panels across the facades. They begin just four panels high about halfway down on Ridgeway, rise to two stories tall at the corner before soaring to the upper floors as the building's mass turns into the new midblock courtyard. And the monarch butterfly informed the complex's palette as well: a combination of reds, oranges, browns and charcoal. The western half of the four-story building eschews the white corrugated cladding in favor of flat gray panels with gray corrugate insets. The gray structure has a hint of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, although its celebration of the building's gridded frame is far more playful than the master could have tolerated. The design of the windows is notable. Like most apartment buildings, each floor's apartment layout is identical. But the designers shift the location of windows within the same interior spaces to create a more varied expression on the facades. Most windows are placed within boldly orange-hued aluminum 'portals' that give the exteriors a sense of depth and texture. In particular, the windows really pop from the facades at the building's curved corners. They produce an element of domesticity that's often lacking in contemporary residential construction. And their placement is neither ordinary nor dull. The east building is more than 200 feet in length, and the designers wanted to suppress the mass a bit. 'As a really long apartment building, we wanted to slow down the length of the building,' Carmona said. 'Using those portals allows there to be this sense of rhythm, but the sense of slow.' One interior note that's readily seen from the outside are the expressed elevator lobbies in the taller building. They each have floor-to-ceiling glass facing the courtyard with super-graphics calling out each floor that are visible from a block away. These lobbies provide intimately scaled social spaces for the residents while also creating a bold presence on the exterior. Residents just recently started moving into their new apartments at the complex. And Encuentro Square is not yet done. There are plans for a third building that will stretch between Hamlin and Ridgeway that will more fully enclose the complex's courtyard. Given the continuing need for affordable housing — and the high level of design they've already achieved here — this is new development that should happen as soon as possible. Encuentro Square is a very sophisticated example of contemporary multifamily housing. That it's 100% affordable housing is particularly noteworthy; many — even most — new 'luxury' apartments throughout the city don't do design this well. If every new building in Chicago achieved this level of design, we'd be much the better for it. Edward Keegan writes, broadcasts and teaches on architectural subjects. Keegan's biweekly architecture column is supported by a grant from former Tribune critic Blair Kamin, as administered by the not-for-profit Journalism Funding Partners. The Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.
Chicago Tribune
11-03-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Housing authorities look for solutions as voucher recipients fail to lease units with rental subsidies
Tiara Booker was striking out. She had been looking for months for a place to live using her housing voucher, and she was facing the public housing authority's deadline to lease a unit with the voucher. She and her two children had to couch-surf and sleep in her car as she searched. She said landlords either requested higher rent payments than the voucher allowed or wouldn't accept her voucher, which she considered discrimination based on her source of income and/or her race. Booker ended up losing her housing voucher for a couple of hours. But in what she calls a 'miracle,' a landlord called her back and said she would accept it. The Lake County Housing Authority gave her back the voucher. Booker said she would have been 'broken' if she had lost it. 'I could survive, but my kids … having to look at them and listen to them cry and their concerns and their wishes and their hopes and sit there with nothing to offer them,' Booker said. 'That would have been a different type of hurt.' Booker is not alone in her struggles to find housing with a voucher. From the tiny North Chicago Housing Authority to the behemoth Chicago Housing Authority, local housing agencies are seeing their voucher recipients struggle and fail to find housing. The vast majority of vouchers come through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Housing Choice Voucher Program and are doled out to local public housing authorities. Formerly known as Section 8, the nation's primary subsidized housing program allows housing authorities to provide subsidies to low-income residents to find housing in the private market. Voucher holders typically pay about 30% of their income toward rent, with housing authorities covering the rest. The multi-billion-dollar program helps more than 2 million households nationwide and is needed at a time when housing, particularly affordable housing, is scarce in Illinois and across the country. It can take years, sometimes decades, to get off the waitlist for a housing voucher. Voucher recipients are failing to find housing for numerous reasons, according to experts, public housing authorities, landlords and renters. In Illinois, the majority of voucher holders are Black, as the Black population has historically faced racial discrimination preventing them from building wealth, making them more likely to use vouchers. Because of this, advocates say some of the barriers voucher recipients face in finding housing is racial discrimination, too. Voucher recipients get 120 days to lease a unit, per HUD policy, with extensions granted on a case-by-case basis, according to the housing authorities that spoke with the Tribune. While the agencies keep lists of available units and can recommend outside organizations that can help with housing searches, the authorities themselves do not have enough staff to aid all voucher recipients in their search, they said. Nina Chalmers, executive director of the North Chicago Housing Authority, said low lease-up rates are becoming an 'epidemic' across the country. 'I don't know where (the program) is going.' HUD did not respond to a Tribune request for comment. CHA's focus elsewhere The Chicago Housing Authority, which has more than 52,000 Housing Choice vouchers and nearly 3,500 vouchers through other HUD programs, does not actively monitor how many people are able to lease units with vouchers it provides and instead focuses on how many vouchers in the agency's possession are in use, according to Cheryl Burns, CHA's head of the Housing Choice Voucher Program. The CHA has seen 61% to 77% of its voucher recipients able to lease a unit from 2019 to 2022. The rates are lower for 2023 and 2024, 45% and 31%, respectively, but CHA said that's because some of those recipients are still searching for units to rent. CHA's data includes voucher recipients outside the Housing Choice Voucher Program. CHA data are consistent with national figures. Only 60% of voucher holders are able to use them to lease homes, according to a 2024 national study conducted with data from 2015 to 2019 by New York University's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. The numbers are worse for markets with an older housing stock and for voucher recipients of color, the study says, both of which apply to Chicago. Many people involved in the voucher program have poor credit or no credit, as well as eviction records, Burns said, which makes it more difficult to find housing. Landlords also don't always count a recipient's voucher toward their income, which can result in not meeting landlords' income requirements. The CHA helps voucher recipients respond to landlords in that circumstance, Burns said. Advocates argue that not counting a voucher toward the income requirement is discrimination. While the lease-up rates are low, about 99% of CHA's Housing Choice vouchers allocated by HUD are in use as voucher holders try to find homes. That means CHA is using its federal dollars, said Burns, who has been in her role since 2019. '(We are) focused more on helping families rather than increasing lease-up rates,' Burns said. Lake County collaboration The Waukegan Housing Authority, North Chicago Housing Authority and Lake County Housing Authority entered into an agreement late last year allowing their voucher holders to lease units in any of their jurisdictions in an effort to expand housing options and, in turn, increase lease-up rates for voucher recipients. Typically, in order to lease a unit with a voucher in a different jurisdiction, a resident would have to 'port out,' a HUD policy that requires additional paperwork and changes in case managers. The North Chicago agency, which has about 540 Housing Choice Vouchers, has seen a range of 31% to 66% of voucher recipients able to lease units between 2019 and 2024. In 2024 the rate was 50%, although some recipients are still looking for places to lease. Chalmers, the executive director of the North Chicago Housing Authority, said she has seen the agency's lease-up rates decline in her 24-year tenure. The city of North Chicago's housing stock has not been well maintained and has shifted from rentals to for-sale homes, she said. 'I am from the same community, so I have seen it grow; I have seen it decline,' Chalmers said. 'There were a lot of apartment complexes in the city, and a lot of those are either abandoned or their landlords just don't want to do the upkeep that it takes to remain in the program.' While residents now have more housing options because of the partnership with Lake County and Waukegan, Chalmers said many are hesitant to move to a different community. The housing authority also set up a meeting for local landlords to learn about the program with the goal of getting more to rent to voucher holders, but Chalmers said it wasn't successful in attracting more participation. She hopes HUD will allow her agency to provide monetary incentives to landlords to help encourage them to participate in the program. The Waukegan and Lake County authorities have already received HUD's approval to offer landlords incentives. Charles Chambers Jr., the CEO of Waukegan's agency, which has about 675 Housing Choice Vouchers and 225 vouchers through other HUD programs, noticed lease-up rates starting to dip during the COVID-19 pandemic and began working with HUD. The agency's annual lease-up rates ranged from 28% to 55% between 2019 and 2022. In 2023, the rate jumped to 77%. In 2024 the rate was 17%, but some people are still searching for housing. These rates include voucher recipients outside of the Housing Choice Voucher Program. Chambers, who has been in his role since 2011, said the decline in lease-up rates stemmed from a lack of available housing units as well as difficulties getting new landlords to join the program after many experienced tough times during the pandemic era eviction moratoria. Now, lease-up rates are improving, Chambers said, thanks to the expanded jurisdiction and the recruitment of new landlords with the help of monetary incentives, which began around 2023. 'The future for us is looking very bright now,' Chambers said. To make the future even brighter, Chambers would have HUD provide a pool of money for landlords to repair tenant-caused damage help incentivize more to participate in the Housing Choice Voucher Program. Washington State launched a fund like that in 2018. The Lake County Housing Authority, which has about 3,200 vouchers, the bulk of which are for the Housing Choice Voucher Program, saw program lease-up rates range from 52% to 66.5% between 2020 and 2024. In 2024 the rate was 62%, with some recipients still searching for housing. Lorraine Hocker, executive director of the Lake County agency since 2018, cited the lack of available and affordable housing units, the large need for supportive services in addition to housing and hesitant landlords — all challenges exacerbated by the pandemic — as some of the reasons for voucher recipients' struggles. Hocker noted that from 2022 through the first half of 2024, the agency was not letting as many vouchers expire as usual given all the increased difficulties. The agency's landlord incentive program, which started in October 2022, has encouraged landlords to rent to voucher recipients, Hocker said. The authority also hired a landlord liaison for the first time in November 2022 to coordinate with landlords and aid in people's housing searches. At the national level, HUD's larger-than-normal increase in 2023 in how much rent the agency can offer landlords for someone with a voucher helped too, Hocker said. For Ingrid Ellen, the lead researcher for the NYU report on national lease-up rates, improving the voucher program falls into three buckets: outlawing and enforcing source of income discrimination, providing further support to tenants and making the program easier for landlords. 'The voucher program provides incredible benefits to households that are able to use their vouchers,' Ellen said. 'But (the research) does suggest thinking hard about ways to make the program easier to use both by landlords and by tenants.' Housing providers weigh in Public housing authorities' bureaucratic processes and lengthy inspections discourage housing providers from participating in the program, property owners and managers say. Housing authorities must inspect units before voucher holders can rent them. Landlords also must get their rent amount approved by housing agencies, which can require negotiation if the housing authorities don't accept the initial rent amount. The extra time it takes to move a voucher holder into a unit can mean lost rental income for the property owner. Michael Mini, executive vice president of the Chicagoland Apartment Association, a trade group that represents housing providers, said the challenge he hears about most from members related to the voucher program is the length of time it takes to lease a unit. But, Mini told the Tribune last year, his members should be complying with the source of income law. Soh Tanaka, a manager of 45 properties in Lake County and an owner of one rental property, has rented to about five voucher holders through the three Lake County housing authorities. He said the voucher program is 'very inefficient,' as there are 'a lot of hoops to jump through' with inspections and a lack of uniformity among housing authorities' procedures. Waukegan, for example, still requires wet signatures for all paperwork, although the agency said it is evaluating electronic programs. When renting to a voucher holder, Tanaka said, the process takes a few weeks longer. Tyson Schutz, managing broker at a local real estate firm that manages about 800 units, said the process to rent to a voucher holder can take three months, as opposed to days for a market-rate tenant. He said his real estate agents are trained in fair housing practices, but the longer process to rent to a voucher holder makes it harder to get property owners to participate in the program. 'If you lose three months of rent for the administrative process … you may not be able to pay the bills for that apartment,' Schutz said. Katie Fallon, a researcher at the Urban Institute, released a recent report on how voucher lease-up rates might improve if housing authorities partnered with investors who own more than 100 housing units. Those investors, she said, may be better able to withstand the longer inspection processes. Tanaka said the rental process should be streamlined for all housing authorities. Schutz said the approval process should get down to 48 hours. 'Why would it take three months to approve an application for a voucher holder when it takes me 24 hours for a market tenant?' Schutz said. Booker finds 'paradise' After the initial apartment she found was infested with mice, Booker, the woman who nearly lost her voucher permanently, said she is now happily settled with her 11-year-old and 5-year-old in Gurnee in what she calls 'paradise.' For the optician, the voucher has provided stability, something she has not always experienced because her parents died when she was 3. 'It is a blessing to get it, but a strain and a burden to find somewhere or someone that will accept you,' Booker said. Her advice to other voucher recipients: 'Don't give up.'
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Afternoon Briefing: Historic Naperville house sold
Good afternoon, Chicago. Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration is moving ahead on a plan to get the homeless residents of a controversial Gompers Park encampment into housing. City officials laid out their plan today for an 'accelerated moving event' at the Northwest Side park where people have lived in tents for months. The delayed effort's 'north star' is to get the encampment's 29 residents into permanent housing, but the city will not be asking people to leave, Chief Homelessness Officer Sendy Soto said. 'We want to ensure that they are receiving the services and that this does not feel like a displacement for them, but rather receiving a benefit and an opportunity,' Soto said. Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Subscribe to more newsletters | Asking Eric | Horoscopes | Puzzles & Games | Today in History The Chicago Fire Football Club celebrated the opening of its new training facility on the Near West Side in a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday, as community members, public housing residents and worker and housing advocates remain frustrated with the Fire and the Chicago Housing Authority, whose land the facility sits on. Read more here. More top news stories: 15-year-old girl wounded Tuesday morning in shooting near school in Chatham neighborhood Tiffany Henyard absent from Dolton Village Board meeting after primary defeat Despite fears that a private sale would risk demolition or, at least, alterations to the 158-year-old structure, the new owners say they want to take care of — not change — the property. Read more here. More top business stories: Gated house on Lake Michigan in Winnetka was on market for $10.3M, taken off next day Mokena estate with 2 homes and clubhouse: $8M The Bears will acquire sixth-year interior lineman Jonah Jackson from the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for a sixth-round pick in this year's draft, a league source confirmed to the Tribune. Read more here. More top sports stories: 3's a crowd? Chicago Blackhawks see trade for Spencer Knight as a net positive, despite glut of goalies. Northwestern's late comeback falls short. What does it mean for the Wildcats' Big Ten tournament hopes? Chicago's large Catholic population means there are plenty of restaurants helping to make the period from Ash Wednesday to Easter a little less painful by offering seafood-focused specials. Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: In Teatro La Plaza's 'Hamlet,' a cast with Down syndrome gives the Danish prince a whole new life Column: 'American Masters' brings jazz giant Hazel Scott out of the shadows 'Greenland is not for sale' has become a mantra for Greenlanders in the weeks since U.S. President Donald Trump pushed their Arctic homeland into the spotlight by threatening to take it over. Read more here. More top stories from around the world: President Donald Trump will stand before Congress and offer divided nation an accounting of his turbulent first weeks Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls Oval Office spat with President Donald Trump 'regrettable'
