Progress Illinois

For the better part of the last decade, Housing Action Illinois has published an annual "Out of Reach" report documenting the growing gap between the average cost of a typical two-bedroom apartment and the average household income in the Prairie State.  According to their latest edition, this discouraging disparity continues.

In 2008, 49 percent of the state's population could not afford a  two-bedroom apartment at "fair market rent" ($893 a month). The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) helps crunch the numbers each year, based on the federal definition of "affordability" -- that no more than 30 percent of a household's income should be spent on rent or mortgage payments, utilities, property taxes, and insurance combined. Based on last year's rate, the average full-time worker in Illinois would have had to earn a minimum of $17.17 an hour, or $35,723 a year, to "afford" the typical two-bedroom place. Earning less, particularly in Chicagoland, isn't a realistic option:

In Illinois, a minimum wage worker earns an hourly wage of $7.75. In order to afford market-rate rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Illinois, a minimum wage earner must work 89 hours per week, 52 weeks per year. Or a household must have 2.2 minimum wage earners working 40 hours per week year-round in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

In Illinois, among metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas, the lowest Housing Wage for a two-bedroom apartment is $10.50 in the Bond County metropolitan area. The highest housing wage for a two-bedroom apartment is $19.31 in the Chicago metropolitan area.  

While wages for a majority of low- and moderate- income households have remained flat throughout the decade, Illinois' "housing wage" has climbed by 32.5 percent since 2000. Gentrification, particularly in the Chicago area, accounted for the initial spike. But another trend has made affordable housing even harder to come by: mass foreclosures in multi-unit buildings.

Today, Housing Action blasted Gov. Quinn for devoting only $25 million to affordable housing in his capital plan.  From their release:

Only about 294 units of affordable housing would be created with $25 million in state funding. If more money were available, plans are in place to start work almost immediately on 3,585 affordable homes and apartments across the state according to a statewide analysis released today. Those projects have total development costs of $756 million. Without a significant increase in state funding, many of the planned projects will never be developed. [...]

“We were very disappointed to learn that such a small amount was included for housing,” said Bob Palmer, Policy Director for Housing Action Illinois. “Advocates, housing developers and state legislators have been pushing for the past two years for $500 million in the capital budget. California recently bonded $2.85 billion for housing and Massachusetts committed $170 million in its capital budget for just one year.”

Read the whole thing here.