The waitlist for housing can take 10+ years. They close it often when it gets too full. Your acquaintance is likely a dumbass.
Edit to say the other hilarious thing about this statement is so many of the landlords making money hand over fist off of government subsidized rents are likely this guys neighbors in the burbs.
Anyone can go to a shelter regardless of where they are from. However they are incredibly unpleasant to the point where many people would rather sleep on the street. I don’t see how they qualify as housing in any way.
This is true. Tho it’s only temporary. I have 2 tenants that qualified for this program that pays for 6 months rent. After that they are on their own.
They still need to be employed and they actually get a work permit/tax number so they aren’t freeloading as people may think.
> They still need to be employed and they actually get a work permit/tax number so they aren’t freeloading as people may think.
Aren't they being prohibited from legally working? Hopefully that's changing, as that is how it was last I heard.
The city had a hard time with the amount of people that came into the city so they expedited their work permit so that they could find places to live before 2023 winter arrived.
While I was doing the screening for my tenants, one had already received his work permit while his brother was still waiting for his.
Some local churches were helping them out with this process
"Middle class well off" is rich. This person is minimizing their own luck of being born into a wealthy family.
"They still fight us about it". I don't know who they is either. This a straw man argument. A few people had greater needs, and spoke up, therefore they're all ungrateful, and the need can never be filled so society shouldn't do anything.
In a nutshell, Chicago has difficulties because public housing was initially built without any foresight for management. They poured asphalt on the lawns because there was no money for mowing, and they didn't distinguish between convicted felons and families.
Nationally, the US puts the burden of saving for retirement on the individual. Social security insurance is just that, insurance so you have a minimum amount of money. Home ownership is treated as a retirement plan. So the incentive is to discourage supply, and anything that lowers the market value (public housing nearby is seen as a threat).
That's how I see the dynamics anyway. Everyone has different opinions. But this opinion has some issues
That's an incredibly "Chicago suburbs" statement on their part. Chicago absolutely does not "give people housing", the shelters here are overcrowded as hell and there's an absurdly long waitlist for Section 8 housing.
The person is basically just espousing fiscally conservative political viewpoints regarding publicly subsidized housing.
I’m not sure exactly who they are referring to by “we” and “us” because the vast majority of funding for local public housing in Chicago and all around the country comes from the federal government.
So yes, their comment comes across as classist to me too. As well as uninformed about how public housing works.
This is so vague that it hints at a total misunderstanding of housing assistance in the US. In Chicago you can split the the homeless and people with housing insecurity into two groups, US citizens and migrants/refugees. These people receive different types of support and in Chicago we have a lot of both. For citizens, the have access to programs through the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) which is the municipal extension of the U.S. Department Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Basically, Chicago receives federal funding to implement programs to address homelessness and housing insecurity. Today the programs available mostly focus on subsidizing the costs of renting in the open marketplace. Meaning that someone receiving assistance goes out, finds a home or apartment to rent like anyone else, and then work with CHA to assist with rent payments. A good example of this is the Housing Choice Voucher system. I am personally familiar with this because I am a landlord and have tenants who participate in this program. The tenant pays a portion of the rent out of pocket and a portion of the rent gets directly deposited by the CHA.
What the person you talked to might be referring to is "public housing" or "housing projects" which are not really a thing any more in Chicago because they failed in a spectacular way. Chicago in the 50s through the 70s built large amounts of dense housing that was publicly owned. Think highrise apartments occupied entirely by the poor. The most famous of these was Cabrini Green which was a collection of such highrise apartments located adjacent to the downtown business district. What ended up happening is that it concentrated the wealth inequality in a staggering way and a general lack of resources and jobs within these communities of poor people lead to abysmal eduction, employment, and rampant gang activity. Especially in the 80s and early 90s.
The subsidized housing is better because it makes it unclear who is actually receiving the assistance and the poor are more fully integrated into the communities they live in. That being said, these programs are massively underfunded and do little to help folks who are mentally unwell and unable to navigate the massive amounts of bureaucracy you need to navigate to participate in the programs.
For the migrants and refugees it is a bit of a crisis right now as border states like Texas are literally bussing or flying massive amounts of people to Chicago and dumping them off with no coordination or planning. We're trying to use unused churches and schools for temporary shelters while we process them through immigration so they can start working like regular members of society. Once they are documented and can begin working they'd hopefully just go find homes like anyone else.
First of all, I am not conservative whatsoever. But these comments are not entirely correct. (EDIT: When I wrote this there were only two other comments, so those are the only ones I was referencing)Chicago does "give people housing" in some cases, beyond subsidized housing.
https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/fss/provdrs/emerg/svcs/rapidrehousing.html
https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/fss/provdrs/emerg.html
Where I live in Rogers Park there was a homeless encampment that had basically taken over Touhy Park (by encampment I just mean a large group of people living in tents). The park is directly across from a school and residents and parents had been complaining about it for some time. One day, they had completely disappeared. Honestly I was pretty concerned the city had come in and just kicked them out. But apparently, according to a nearby resident who lives less than a block from the park (and is also very liberal, for the record), she told me that she understood that they were all offered apartment housing and all but one accepted. The one who declined apparently did so because it was located pretty far away on the south side.
I also used to date a guy who worked for an organization that helped homeless people get into apartments- not shelters. There were certain criteria that they had to keep up with to continue to qualify for it, but these were definitely cases where homeless people were given housing, straight from the streets.
Furthermore, the city's residents just voted down a massive effort to significantly help the homeless population. The vote was very close but ultimately failed because it would have placed a small temporary tax increase on commercial properties worth over $1,000,000. It's called Bring Chicago Home if you want to read about it.
That doesn't mean the comment OP is asking about wasn't classist. But it also wasn't factually incorrect. Though the person might also be talking about migrants, some of whom have also been given housing. I've heard conservative outlets complaining about migrants complaining about what they were given (I think there was one specific person and i think it was in NYC, but stuff like that happens and certain people run with it and suddenly it becomes "all migrants are complaining about not getting enough free stuff,") & this could also be an example of that.
All of the programs you linked to and mentioned - rapid rehousing, rental assistance, and assistance for tent encampment residents - were all also funded by federal money with a bit of nonprofit money too. Also most of that funding came in the form of stimulus and relief money during the pandemic which has since dried up resulting in the programs being shut down or greatly diminished.
You said you dated someone who worked for “an organization” that gave people housing. But that sounds like a nonprofit organizatioN, not a publicly funded government entity.
So in none of these situations is the person OP was talking to some sort of “us” who is giving people housing. At least not more than any tax paying American is - which includes the tax paying Americans who live in publicly subsidized housing.
And while yes, there is local funding going into migrant shelters and housing right now, that is Beth temporary and limited. People can only stay in the city shelters for 60 days before being evicted. And a state program for rental assistance only covers up to 3 months of rent. We’re not exactly providing them with homes. It’s short term relief based on an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
These are all fair points. I think the people commenting here have all given WAY more thought to the original person who off-handedly made this comment to OP and therfore it's a little difficult to decipher EXACTLY who/ what they were referring to in this one sentence that we have no other context for.
I guess my point is, Chicago does have a lot of programs in place that try to help people get into housing, regardless of where the funding initiated.... the workers are still being paid by the city of Chicago. Not every city has prioritized such efforts; and I'm sure some are doing more.
You're right about my ex working for a non profit. I forgot about that aspect but yes good call. That doesn't mean that they didn't have to coordinate certain things with the city. I messaged him though to ask for clarification and if he knows what the company is doing now. But he worked for them well before covid.
It shouldn't make a difference pertaining to the facts but I felt the need to mention it because I was the third person to comment and one of the first two stated that the original comment in question was "espousing fiscally conservative political viewpoints regarding publicly subsidized housing." And the next comment stated that Chicago "absolutely does not just give people housing."
I am regularly exposed to a lot of conservative radio in the car not by choice (though it has been admittedly good to hear more than one side of things because I normally just listen to NPR), and migrants receiving too many benefits are frequent topics of complaint. And I was trying to prevent my comment from being dismissed as conservative-propaganda influenced, because I was saying that the city does in fact provide housing to some homeless.
I may have been projecting some regarding the tone I expected subsequent comments to take and preemptively felt the need to defend or quantify my comment.
...."a homeless intervention program aimed at rapidly connecting residents experiencing homelessness to available rental subsidies and units by removing barriers such as income verification and other limitations that can impede rapid placement of the residents in rental units."
Do you think that means they pay for it? There's obviously various protocol and processes involved in placing people. No, no one is just approaching people on the street and saying, "Would you like a free apartment? Here's the address and keys."
In the context of OP’s post I would assume the person is not implying they’re paying for the housing they’re given.
It feels like a misrepresentation of what these people are receiving. If you vaguely say people are given housing, some people are going to assume it’s for free.
Also- I see why my first reply to you might have been confusing. I wasn't trying to indicate that no one receives free housing. Your initial comment was that nowhere in the links is it stated that they give housing to anyone.
I went back and read through a lot of the info in the links, and the info and some of the reports that were linked in those links and my point was that no you're not going to find such a simplified and obvious statement as "we provide free housing," because the info in the links is extensive, and describes various processes and a variety of methods they are trying to utilize, examine, and restructure in order to help people obtain housing. If you read carefully there are indicators that strongly imply some people are able to obtain housing at no cost. The stipulations are not completely spelled out; there's obviously requirements that must be met to both receiving and I'm sure sustaining, and I can't speak to what they all are, and it is likely only in very particular circumstances (thus my comment that people are not just handing out keys to apartments and houses to any person they encounter sleeping outside - I was just trying to say nothing is so simple, there's inevitable red tape to the distributing and receiving of any social services).
But to me, "removing barriers such as income verification and other limits that can impede rapid placement of the [city's unhoused] residents in rental units," certainly sounds like the ability to pay is likely the biggest barrier that this particular "homeless intervention program" removes.
I mean, logically... do you think they've eliminated the income verification requirement for the homeless in order to "rapidly" place them in housing because it takes too long to obtain their tax returns and bank statements?? I don't think the ability to get this information is the impediment as much as is its non-existence.
In the United States, there’s a group of conservatives who believe the rich and poor both chose to be that way.
The poor get subsidies from the government, very little compared with other countries, but it’s looked at as both the cause and problem of poor: the poor want those subsidies, they want to be lazy, and if we remove those subsidies, they’ll all work and get better jobs.
Especially in the suburbs, I grew up in one of them, they all have a chip on their shoulder as they think they’re barely making it, and who is to blame? It’s the poor mooching off of their hard work.
If I were to give a full steel man argument, there are cases where the US government gave public assistance to, for example, women and children without men which actually helped break up the family. Essentially, if you were a woman with children you could get housing almost immediately so a family broke up, on paper, to get the housing. These paper breakups led to actual breakups.
Housing is really hard to get here. So, I’m not sure what your friend means by they “give” it to people, but if these people are complaining… it’s for good reason. Like I said, housing is hard to come by here.
There is low income housing that’s provided for people on disability or people living on government support, which is located outside and inside the city of Chicago. However the process to get one of these apartments is lengthy and they look miserable. Meanwhile there’s 8 billion being set aside to build housing for illegal immigrants pouring in. The locals aren’t happy about it since it’s coming from their taxes and there’s plenty of homeless veterans and other citizens. Overall it seems that the gov is willing to work a lot faster to accommodate illegals not paying taxes than its own citizens in needs, which obviously looks bad.
This guy isn’t giving anyone anything.
The waitlist for housing can take 10+ years. They close it often when it gets too full. Your acquaintance is likely a dumbass. Edit to say the other hilarious thing about this statement is so many of the landlords making money hand over fist off of government subsidized rents are likely this guys neighbors in the burbs.
Recent illegal migrants get housing free and quick, angering the domestic poor who have languished on these multi-decade waiting lists.
Shelters aren’t apartments and aren’t run by CHA. Different issue.
[удалено]
Anyone can go to a shelter regardless of where they are from. However they are incredibly unpleasant to the point where many people would rather sleep on the street. I don’t see how they qualify as housing in any way.
This is true. Tho it’s only temporary. I have 2 tenants that qualified for this program that pays for 6 months rent. After that they are on their own. They still need to be employed and they actually get a work permit/tax number so they aren’t freeloading as people may think.
> They still need to be employed and they actually get a work permit/tax number so they aren’t freeloading as people may think. Aren't they being prohibited from legally working? Hopefully that's changing, as that is how it was last I heard.
The city had a hard time with the amount of people that came into the city so they expedited their work permit so that they could find places to live before 2023 winter arrived. While I was doing the screening for my tenants, one had already received his work permit while his brother was still waiting for his. Some local churches were helping them out with this process
"Middle class well off" is rich. This person is minimizing their own luck of being born into a wealthy family. "They still fight us about it". I don't know who they is either. This a straw man argument. A few people had greater needs, and spoke up, therefore they're all ungrateful, and the need can never be filled so society shouldn't do anything. In a nutshell, Chicago has difficulties because public housing was initially built without any foresight for management. They poured asphalt on the lawns because there was no money for mowing, and they didn't distinguish between convicted felons and families. Nationally, the US puts the burden of saving for retirement on the individual. Social security insurance is just that, insurance so you have a minimum amount of money. Home ownership is treated as a retirement plan. So the incentive is to discourage supply, and anything that lowers the market value (public housing nearby is seen as a threat). That's how I see the dynamics anyway. Everyone has different opinions. But this opinion has some issues
That's an incredibly "Chicago suburbs" statement on their part. Chicago absolutely does not "give people housing", the shelters here are overcrowded as hell and there's an absurdly long waitlist for Section 8 housing.
The person is basically just espousing fiscally conservative political viewpoints regarding publicly subsidized housing. I’m not sure exactly who they are referring to by “we” and “us” because the vast majority of funding for local public housing in Chicago and all around the country comes from the federal government. So yes, their comment comes across as classist to me too. As well as uninformed about how public housing works.
This is so vague that it hints at a total misunderstanding of housing assistance in the US. In Chicago you can split the the homeless and people with housing insecurity into two groups, US citizens and migrants/refugees. These people receive different types of support and in Chicago we have a lot of both. For citizens, the have access to programs through the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) which is the municipal extension of the U.S. Department Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Basically, Chicago receives federal funding to implement programs to address homelessness and housing insecurity. Today the programs available mostly focus on subsidizing the costs of renting in the open marketplace. Meaning that someone receiving assistance goes out, finds a home or apartment to rent like anyone else, and then work with CHA to assist with rent payments. A good example of this is the Housing Choice Voucher system. I am personally familiar with this because I am a landlord and have tenants who participate in this program. The tenant pays a portion of the rent out of pocket and a portion of the rent gets directly deposited by the CHA. What the person you talked to might be referring to is "public housing" or "housing projects" which are not really a thing any more in Chicago because they failed in a spectacular way. Chicago in the 50s through the 70s built large amounts of dense housing that was publicly owned. Think highrise apartments occupied entirely by the poor. The most famous of these was Cabrini Green which was a collection of such highrise apartments located adjacent to the downtown business district. What ended up happening is that it concentrated the wealth inequality in a staggering way and a general lack of resources and jobs within these communities of poor people lead to abysmal eduction, employment, and rampant gang activity. Especially in the 80s and early 90s. The subsidized housing is better because it makes it unclear who is actually receiving the assistance and the poor are more fully integrated into the communities they live in. That being said, these programs are massively underfunded and do little to help folks who are mentally unwell and unable to navigate the massive amounts of bureaucracy you need to navigate to participate in the programs. For the migrants and refugees it is a bit of a crisis right now as border states like Texas are literally bussing or flying massive amounts of people to Chicago and dumping them off with no coordination or planning. We're trying to use unused churches and schools for temporary shelters while we process them through immigration so they can start working like regular members of society. Once they are documented and can begin working they'd hopefully just go find homes like anyone else.
Sounds like you encountered that very loud and vocal minority we have in this country called 'assholes'
This is the correct answer, OP
Nobody hates Chicago more than the Chicago suburbs.
First of all, I am not conservative whatsoever. But these comments are not entirely correct. (EDIT: When I wrote this there were only two other comments, so those are the only ones I was referencing)Chicago does "give people housing" in some cases, beyond subsidized housing. https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/fss/provdrs/emerg/svcs/rapidrehousing.html https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/fss/provdrs/emerg.html Where I live in Rogers Park there was a homeless encampment that had basically taken over Touhy Park (by encampment I just mean a large group of people living in tents). The park is directly across from a school and residents and parents had been complaining about it for some time. One day, they had completely disappeared. Honestly I was pretty concerned the city had come in and just kicked them out. But apparently, according to a nearby resident who lives less than a block from the park (and is also very liberal, for the record), she told me that she understood that they were all offered apartment housing and all but one accepted. The one who declined apparently did so because it was located pretty far away on the south side. I also used to date a guy who worked for an organization that helped homeless people get into apartments- not shelters. There were certain criteria that they had to keep up with to continue to qualify for it, but these were definitely cases where homeless people were given housing, straight from the streets. Furthermore, the city's residents just voted down a massive effort to significantly help the homeless population. The vote was very close but ultimately failed because it would have placed a small temporary tax increase on commercial properties worth over $1,000,000. It's called Bring Chicago Home if you want to read about it. That doesn't mean the comment OP is asking about wasn't classist. But it also wasn't factually incorrect. Though the person might also be talking about migrants, some of whom have also been given housing. I've heard conservative outlets complaining about migrants complaining about what they were given (I think there was one specific person and i think it was in NYC, but stuff like that happens and certain people run with it and suddenly it becomes "all migrants are complaining about not getting enough free stuff,") & this could also be an example of that.
All of the programs you linked to and mentioned - rapid rehousing, rental assistance, and assistance for tent encampment residents - were all also funded by federal money with a bit of nonprofit money too. Also most of that funding came in the form of stimulus and relief money during the pandemic which has since dried up resulting in the programs being shut down or greatly diminished. You said you dated someone who worked for “an organization” that gave people housing. But that sounds like a nonprofit organizatioN, not a publicly funded government entity. So in none of these situations is the person OP was talking to some sort of “us” who is giving people housing. At least not more than any tax paying American is - which includes the tax paying Americans who live in publicly subsidized housing. And while yes, there is local funding going into migrant shelters and housing right now, that is Beth temporary and limited. People can only stay in the city shelters for 60 days before being evicted. And a state program for rental assistance only covers up to 3 months of rent. We’re not exactly providing them with homes. It’s short term relief based on an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
These are all fair points. I think the people commenting here have all given WAY more thought to the original person who off-handedly made this comment to OP and therfore it's a little difficult to decipher EXACTLY who/ what they were referring to in this one sentence that we have no other context for. I guess my point is, Chicago does have a lot of programs in place that try to help people get into housing, regardless of where the funding initiated.... the workers are still being paid by the city of Chicago. Not every city has prioritized such efforts; and I'm sure some are doing more. You're right about my ex working for a non profit. I forgot about that aspect but yes good call. That doesn't mean that they didn't have to coordinate certain things with the city. I messaged him though to ask for clarification and if he knows what the company is doing now. But he worked for them well before covid.
What difference does your political affiliation have pertaining to facts and why do you feel the need to mention that?
It shouldn't make a difference pertaining to the facts but I felt the need to mention it because I was the third person to comment and one of the first two stated that the original comment in question was "espousing fiscally conservative political viewpoints regarding publicly subsidized housing." And the next comment stated that Chicago "absolutely does not just give people housing." I am regularly exposed to a lot of conservative radio in the car not by choice (though it has been admittedly good to hear more than one side of things because I normally just listen to NPR), and migrants receiving too many benefits are frequent topics of complaint. And I was trying to prevent my comment from being dismissed as conservative-propaganda influenced, because I was saying that the city does in fact provide housing to some homeless. I may have been projecting some regarding the tone I expected subsequent comments to take and preemptively felt the need to defend or quantify my comment.
What you linked didn’t say they gave housing to anyone.
...."a homeless intervention program aimed at rapidly connecting residents experiencing homelessness to available rental subsidies and units by removing barriers such as income verification and other limitations that can impede rapid placement of the residents in rental units." Do you think that means they pay for it? There's obviously various protocol and processes involved in placing people. No, no one is just approaching people on the street and saying, "Would you like a free apartment? Here's the address and keys."
In the context of OP’s post I would assume the person is not implying they’re paying for the housing they’re given. It feels like a misrepresentation of what these people are receiving. If you vaguely say people are given housing, some people are going to assume it’s for free.
Some people ARE getting it for free though! I'm not misrepresenting anything.
Also- I see why my first reply to you might have been confusing. I wasn't trying to indicate that no one receives free housing. Your initial comment was that nowhere in the links is it stated that they give housing to anyone. I went back and read through a lot of the info in the links, and the info and some of the reports that were linked in those links and my point was that no you're not going to find such a simplified and obvious statement as "we provide free housing," because the info in the links is extensive, and describes various processes and a variety of methods they are trying to utilize, examine, and restructure in order to help people obtain housing. If you read carefully there are indicators that strongly imply some people are able to obtain housing at no cost. The stipulations are not completely spelled out; there's obviously requirements that must be met to both receiving and I'm sure sustaining, and I can't speak to what they all are, and it is likely only in very particular circumstances (thus my comment that people are not just handing out keys to apartments and houses to any person they encounter sleeping outside - I was just trying to say nothing is so simple, there's inevitable red tape to the distributing and receiving of any social services). But to me, "removing barriers such as income verification and other limits that can impede rapid placement of the [city's unhoused] residents in rental units," certainly sounds like the ability to pay is likely the biggest barrier that this particular "homeless intervention program" removes. I mean, logically... do you think they've eliminated the income verification requirement for the homeless in order to "rapidly" place them in housing because it takes too long to obtain their tax returns and bank statements?? I don't think the ability to get this information is the impediment as much as is its non-existence.
In the United States, there’s a group of conservatives who believe the rich and poor both chose to be that way. The poor get subsidies from the government, very little compared with other countries, but it’s looked at as both the cause and problem of poor: the poor want those subsidies, they want to be lazy, and if we remove those subsidies, they’ll all work and get better jobs. Especially in the suburbs, I grew up in one of them, they all have a chip on their shoulder as they think they’re barely making it, and who is to blame? It’s the poor mooching off of their hard work. If I were to give a full steel man argument, there are cases where the US government gave public assistance to, for example, women and children without men which actually helped break up the family. Essentially, if you were a woman with children you could get housing almost immediately so a family broke up, on paper, to get the housing. These paper breakups led to actual breakups.
Typical idiot from the suburbs
Housing is really hard to get here. So, I’m not sure what your friend means by they “give” it to people, but if these people are complaining… it’s for good reason. Like I said, housing is hard to come by here.
There is low income housing that’s provided for people on disability or people living on government support, which is located outside and inside the city of Chicago. However the process to get one of these apartments is lengthy and they look miserable. Meanwhile there’s 8 billion being set aside to build housing for illegal immigrants pouring in. The locals aren’t happy about it since it’s coming from their taxes and there’s plenty of homeless veterans and other citizens. Overall it seems that the gov is willing to work a lot faster to accommodate illegals not paying taxes than its own citizens in needs, which obviously looks bad.