.::.Housing Action Illinois .::.

Funding for Emergency and Transitional Housing Restored by Illinois General Assembly
November 30, 2011

On November 29, the Illinois General Assembly approved a supplemental appropriations bill that restores cuts to several human service programs, including the $4.7 million cut to more than 100 nonprofit organizations in all parts of the state funded by the Emergency and Transitional Housing Program. Larger budget cuts restored include funding for mental health and substance abuse programs.

Most of the money in the $270 million bill will be used to fund the operation of seven state facilities for people with mental illness and developmental disabilities that had been slated for closure. (Hopefully, in the next year efforts to close these facilities and help people move into community-based housing will come to fruition.)

The bill was passed with bipartisan support and we expect Governor Quinn to sign the bill into law as soon as he receives it. Revenue to pay for the bill comes from reallocating existing resources.

For this victory, we especially want to thank all the nonprofit organizations funded by the Emergency and Transitional Housing Program that reached out to their legislators and the media during the last six months to communicate the impact of the cut on your ability to provide housing and services to people experiencing homelessness.

Thanks also to the more than 370 people contact their legislators through our action alert on HousingMatters.net. We also greatly appreciate all the advocacy organizations that also worked on restoring the cut, including the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and the Supportive Housing Providers Association.

Please thank you legislators who voted favor of the bill, Senate Bill 2412 (House Amendment #2. Click on these links to see the House and Senate votes.

Survey Shows Funds for Homelessness Prevention Not Available This Winter in Half of Illinois Communities

Another Hole Appears in Safety Net for People Experiencing Homelessness
November 21, 2011

Survey Shows Funds for Homelessness Prevention Not Available This Winter in Half of Illinois Communities

Agencies that administer homeless prevention grants across Illinois report that 55% of them will run out of funds by Dec. 31, leaving no help for families facing homelessness, according to a statewide survey released Monday.

In 11 years, the state's homeless prevention grant program has helped 96,231 Illinois households avoid homelessness. The average grant in FY 2010 was $916, and 88% report they remained housed four months after getting the one-time grant.

But state budget cutbacks have decimated the program, leaving just $1.5 million available this year - $9.5 million (87%) less than was funded in FY 2008.

Meanwhile, federal stimulus funds that have offset state funding cutbacks are also running out, with 56% of agencies saying those federal funds are depleted.

General Assembly Should Pass TIF Reform Bill During Veto Session
November 4, 2011

For more information contact: Bob Palmer, Policy Director, Housing Action Illinois, 312-282- 3959 or bob@housingactionil.org

Housing Action Illinois is calling for the Illinois General Assembly to pass Tax Increment Finance (TIF) district reform legislation before the end of the Veto Session on November 10.

Senate Bill 540 passed the House almost unanimously (107-6-2) on May 31, the final day of the spring legislative session. However, the bill was held up in the Senate due to an unrelated amendment added in the House at the last minute extending the property tax incentives the Sears Corporation currently receives to keep their corporate headquarters in Hoffman Estates.

Negotiations have been ongoing to provide some sort of incentives for Sears to stay in Hoffman Estates in the face of opposition to extending the property tax incentives from the local school district, Community Unit District 300.

"If the TIF reform bill doesn't pass next week, the opportunity to secure some improvements in the areas of reporting and transparency and excessive use of TIFs may be lost." said Bob Palmer, Policy Director for Housing Action Illinois. "If the General Assembly has time to negotiate tax breaks for Illinois corporations, it should find time for TIF reform. We don't think that the TIF reforms should be held up because of the Sears issue. Ideally they would be dealt with separately."

Recession Over, But Poor Renters Still At-Risk of Homelessness
Proposed State Budget Cuts for Shelters Would Shrink Safety Net

May 2, 2011—According to a national report released today, the Housing Wage for Illinois is $17.38. The Housing Wage is the hourly wage a family must earn – working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year – to be able to afford the rent and utilities for a safe and modest home in the private housing market while spending no more than 30% of income on housing costs. Illinois’ Housing Wage has increased 35% since 2000.

An estimated 56% of renters in Illinois do not earn enough to afford a two-bedroom unit. The typical renter in Illinois earns $13.44 per hour, which is $3.94 less than the Housing Wage. Illinois’ minimum wage is $8.25.

In Illinois, among metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas, the lowest Housing Wage for a two-bedroom apartment is $11.13 in the metro-east Bond County metropolitan area. The highest housing wage for a two-bedroom apartment is $19.54 in the Chicago metropolitan area.

“Data from Out of Reach supports what we know about Illinois: low-income families are still struggling to find decent and affordable housing,” said Bob Palmer, Policy Director for Housing Action Illinois. “While we work to rebuild our economy after the recession, and reduce our federal and state budget deficits, we cannot forget the low-income families whose basic housing needs continue to be unmet.”

Housing Action Illinois is advocating to protect federal and state funding for programs serving the needs of people who cannot afford housing. For example, agencies providing emergency shelter and transitional housing are facing the loss of more than half their state funding, from $9.1 million to $4.4 million, under Illinois Governor Pat Quinn’s budget proposal. In the most recently completed fiscal year, state-funded programs served 42,068 people, 29% of them below 18 years of age.

This year, Illinois ranks as the most expensive state in the Midwest for renters and the 20th most expensive state in the nation. The National Housing Wage is $18.46 in 2011.

The report, Out of Reach 2011, was jointly released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), a Washington, D.C.-based housing policy organization, and Housing Action Illinois, a statewide coalition formed to protect and expand the availability of quality, affordable housing throughout Illinois.

Data for every state, metropolitan area, combined non-metropolitan area and county in the country is available online, at http://www.nlihc.org/oor/oor2011.

Housing Counseling Agencies Forced to Eliminate Jobs and Assist Fewer Homeowners in Foreclosure Due to Elimination of Federal Funding

April 27, 2011—Federally-funded housing counseling agencies in Illinois are reeling from the fiscal year 2011 budget deal that reduced funding for their work from $88 million to zero. In response, they are figuring out how to cope with cuts at a time when demand for their services already generally exceeds their resources. Supported by Housing Action Illinois, agencies are also joining nationwide efforts to restore funding for their work in the fiscal year 2012 budget.

Based on a survey of HUD-certified housing counseling agencies conducted by Housing Action Illinois after the cuts became public on April 12, of the 27 responding agencies, 24 indicated that the cuts would force them to lay off staff and/or see fewer clients. Two agencies anticipated that they would be forced to shut down and two agencies were uncertain of the impact.

Counseling agencies work with troubled homeowners to determine the best possible options for keeping borrowers in their homes, and foreclosure counseling sessions often provide homeowners with their best chance at preventing foreclosure through a loan modification or graceful exit.

“We have been concerned that funding would be eliminated due to the perception among some members of Congress that efforts to assist homeowners facing foreclosure haven’t worked, but the data actually shows that housing counseling adds significant value,” said Bob Palmer, the Policy Director at Housing Action Illinois, citing a November 2009 Urban Institute released a study that found that homeowners who received foreclosure counseling were 60% more likely to keep their homes versus homeowners who did not receive counseling.

Housing Action maintains that the main reason why even more homeowners in foreclosures haven’t been able to successfully work with their lender to get a positive outcome is that the federal government hasn’t held loan servicers and lenders accountable for implementing programs such as the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP).

According to RealtyTrac, there were 151,304 foreclosure filings in Illinois in 2010 and recent projections suggest that there will be an increase in foreclosures in 2011 as families and communities continue to struggle to find relief.

The elimination of the housing counseling line item is compounded by a 22% cut to the Community Development Block Grant program, which provides additional funding for many counseling agencies through their local government.

The only remaining federal funding for housing counseling agencies is the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling (NFMC) Program, which provides a small performance-based fee to a counseling agency for each homeowner in foreclosure they assist. The program was created in 2007 to supplement existing resources and generally provides far less revenue to agencies than the funding that was just eliminated. It also does not cover the costs of other services provided by counseling agencies, such as pre-purchase and reverse mortgage counseling.

Housing Action Illinois has already contacted key members of the Illinois Congressional delegation to seek their support for restoration of the funding, including Senator Richard Durbin, Assistant Majority Leader, and Representative Judy Biggert (R-Hinsdale), Chair of the Financial Services Committee Subcommittee Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity.

Housing Action Illinois provides advocacy support and technical assistance to HUD-certified housing counseling agencies.

49 Organizations Sign Letter to Oppose Current Year Spending Cuts to Federal Housing Programs
March 1, 2011

On February 19, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1, setting funding levels for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, which runs through September 30. Senate leadership refused to take up H.R. 1 and the federal government is now operating under a Continuing Resolution, which runs through March 18.

Attention has now turned to the Senate to see what proposal counter proposal they will make. Forty-nine organizations signed-on to the following letter to let Illinois Senators Richard Durbin and Mark Kirk know that their organization acknowledges the seriousness of the budget deficit, but opposes reduction to programs providing affordable housing and addressing homelessness.

As the Senate negotiates an agreement with the House on funding for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, we, the undersigned call for Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs to be funded at FY10 levels at a minimum, and 3 HUD programs must be funded at higher than FY10 levels to prevent households from being evicted from affordable housing:

The federal government does have to get the budget deficit under control and eventually reduce it, but there are ways to do without harming the people with the fewest resources, such as letting tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire after 2012 and/or restructuring the mortgage interest deduction as credit targeted at low and moderate-income households.

In 2008, nearly 400,000 people in Illinois lived in HUD assisted units. The average household income was $12,500 and 77% of these households have incomes at or below 30% of their area median income. Among the assisted households, wages are the main source of income for 26% of households. Only 4% have the majority of their income come from TANF or other welfare assistance. The great majority, 64%, of households rely on other sources of income, such as retirement or disability income.

Mortgage Loan Servicers Need To Be Held Accountable
Data in New Report Demonstrates that Homeowners Wait Far Too Long for Loan Modifications

November 16, 2010—A new report released today by Housing Action Illinois provides additional evidence to support the position that mortgage loan servicers in the Chicago metropolitan area are:

Not agreeing to affordable loan modifications for the great majority of homeowners facing foreclosure.
Not committing sufficient resources to respond to homeowners in an accurate and timely manner as required by the directives for the Home Affordable Modification (HAMP) program and other federal loan modification programs.

The report was completed as part of Housing Action Illinois’ Servicer Accountability Initiative (SAI), which collected data on cases from 661 individual homeowners working with one of ten HUD-certified counseling agencies in the Chicago metro area between December 2009 and September 2010.

For ten different servicers, Housing Action compiled the number of cases that were approved and denied for a loan modification, as well as the number of pending applications. Four servicers accounted for 80% of all total cases: Bank of America (31%), JP Morgan Chase (22%), Wells Fargo (14%), and CitiFinancial (13%).

Of the 516 loan modification applications submitted, 44% were approved, 16% were denied and 40% of the applications were still pending as of the end of September. However, when the counselor indicated what type of modification was provided, they were overwhelmingly Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) temporary loan modifications, not permanent loan modifications.

While federal HAMP program directives require that servicers must acknowledge receipt of the application within 10 business days and respond within 30 calendar days with an approval of a trial modification, a denial of a modification, or a request for more information this is simply not occurring.

To address the low percentage of permanent loan modification approvals and the high number of pending cases, the report makes 24 specific recommendations in the following areas:

Mortgage loan servicers need to: (1) provide clear and consistent means for communication between homeowners, housing counselors, and servicers throughout the loan modification process; and (2) increase their capacity to respond to loan modification applications in an accurate and timely manner.
The federal government needs to: (1) more effectively respond to complaints related to servicer compliance with HAMP; (2) make changes to the HAMP program in order to make the program more effective and fair; and (3) develop means for holding servicers accountable for not complying with HAMP directives.

The entire report is available at:
http://www.housingactionil.org/downloads/SAI_FINAL_REPORT.pdf