Vouchers of all kinds are severely underfunded.  In fact, only 1 in every 4 people who qualify for federal housing subsidies actually receive it. The rest are on a waiting list that can be years long if they can even get on the list at all. For example, Chicago’s waiting list for Housing Choice Vouchers hasn’t opened up since 2014. Many public housing authorities who administer vouchers must open a lottery to eligible applicants to even put their names on a waiting list.

Reliance on the private market makes funding for housing subsidies vulnerable to increasing rents and landlord greed. Because funding has drastically lagged behind inflation and rents have greatly increased over time, the number of households helped by these means has decreased over time and will continue to do so without significant change.

Landlords often discriminate against voucher holders. Illinois has attempted to address this problem with a law that went into effect in January 2023 that prohibits discrimination based on the source of income a prospective tenant has, however, the law relies on private action against landlords who engage in discrimination against voucher holders or others protected by the rule rather than any form of active enforcement mechanism. It requires anyone facing such discrimination to take time and money to sue those landlords when they are, by their very nature of being a voucher holder, already low-income and likely lack resources to engage in such action. Unenforced protections are often ignored, especially where there is money to be made.

Co-ops are a model of collective ownership of a building or set of buildings. Co-ops often work to make housing affordable to a point, but that is not a requirement.

Co-ops do share some traits with social housing. Like social housing, co-ops have a democratic governance structure, however, there are no set guidelines for how these governance structures operate or guarantees towards equity. The building is still financialized, encouraging the treatment of the property and its financial vehicle as a form of investment. However, it is often limited compared to most private market options when run for affordability. As a result, while some co-ops find ways to subsidize entry costs for very low and extremely low-income potential residents, the vast majority have buy-in fees that are prohibitive to those who need affordable housing most and have no guarantees that housing costs won’t rise above 30% of a household’s income. It also incentivizes residents to treat the co-op entity like a business, encouraging a growth mindset rather than centering housing on ensuring shelter for all and sustainable communities.

Nationally, housing for low- to moderate-income people is largely a private enterprise, with homes constructed by nonprofit and for-profit developers subsidized by federal tax credits. Tax-credit properties are only required to remain affordable for 30 years, and the credits aren’t producing deeply affordable housing at the scale Americans need.

Aside from the problems of temporary affordability, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program is vulnerable to fraud and abuse and has been the subject of multiple federal investigations across the country, including Dallas, Illinois, and Florida. 

Social housing is not profit-based and permanently affordable and could be built directly by a publicly-owned developer and owned and run by a public agency or a community-controlled agency or organization.

Social housing gives the residents democratic control of their housing. While the state would provide oversight, funding, and bureaucratic support, the actual maintenance of the housing and the decisions about financing, community projects, and other administration of the social housing unit would be in the hands of the tenants themselves with allied community experts as technical support. 

The tenant council of each building or set of buildings will decide that for themselves. The tenant council will have the sole privilege of hiring and firing contractors, including property management companies if they so wish, or they can choose another option, like hiring one of the residents to do that work. 

We recognize that social housing must be part of the fabric of the housing market beyond just cities like Chicago where public transit already exists and as social housing expands, so must the public transit networks where they are placed. Bringing public transit to downstate municipalities will not just improve accessibility for the working class, but it will generate significant economic growth in those communities as well, with studies showing $3.50 in economic returns for every dollar spent on public transit systems.

Accessible, affordable housing and accessible, affordable public transit systems go hand in hand, and equitable transportation systems as well as transit-oriented development are key principles of the Green New Deal. Our vision for public transportation includes an expanded, fee-free system that allows all people to enjoy their communities fully.

However, we cannot rely on current public transportation systems to ensure that people have what they need. To ensure that all Illinois residents have access to reliable and accessible public transit everywhere, we will be working in coalition with transit advocacy organizations across the state and the country to make public transit accessible for everyone across the state of Illinois. Accessibility means living in community – having the ability to leave one’s home to go to the store, go to work, visit friends and family, and do anything else one wants to do any time one wants to while using reliable public transportation.

Delivering social housing that is resident-centered would mean that we are expanding the capacity of both public developers and democratically-controlled housing that is centered on providing good-quality housing rather than profit extraction. As it stands, much of public housing is on its way to being privatized – privately redeveloped, or worse, sold by the public housing authority for revenue, later to be developed into market-rate housing or other profit-making ventures as was done with the sale of the ABLA Homes land to a billionaire-owned soccer team. The low-income housing developers and non-profit developers left to pick up the pieces are not democratically accountable and are often bureaucratic and inaccessible to residents who are supposed to benefit from this type of housing. Additionally, when public housing authorities reposition their housing, permanent affordability is not always guaranteed. Social housing can model an alternative way.

While there is no immediate pathway for public housing residents to steward their housing, winning social housing can change this. As public housing authorities shed their property, there is a possibility for a public developer (a democratically-run social housing developer) to purchase and maintain those properties and make them affordable in perpetuity.

Social housing has been implemented in many places throughout the world and below are some examples of where social housing has either been established or is in the process.  

Vienna

Social housing was first instituted in Vienna more than a century ago and remains to this day, with about 62% of residents living in this type of housing. These buildings are built with transit, environment, and community in mind and include amenities such as pools and fitness centers for all residents. These walkable, diverse communities are part of what makes them so attractive to the people of Vienna. 

Singapore 

Housing in Singapore is administered by the Housing Development Board (HDB) and 82% of residents live in HDB-built apartments. There is more of an emphasis on ownership, with 9 out of 10 HDB units being owned by the residents, not rented. The other 10% of units are reserved for extremely low-income individuals. Grants and awards towards purchases of HDB apartments are also offered. 

Seattle

Passed as a ballot initiative in February 2023, Seattle Initiative 135 is a measure that establishes the “Seattle Social Housing Developer” or a public development authority. This institution is responsible for the further development, ownership, and maintenance of housing for the public good. Housing preference will be given to low-income residents, and the composition of the buildings will be mixed-income.

Hawaii

Hawaii is one of the most expensive states to live in and currently produces a fifth of the housing that is needed, so leaders there are looking towards social housing to help fix this problem. Last year, the Hawaii Legislature passed Senate Bills 2583 and 2251 that will “enable two state agencies to build 99-year leasehold condos based on the Singapore model.” These units will be only for Hawaii residents and owner-occupants so units wouldn’t be used for vacation rentals or vehicles for speculation.

CHA has never operated under the principle of people first and has a long and harmful history when it comes to housing. A history that is still unraveling to this day as we have seen in its sale of the ABLA Homes land to a billionaire and his soccer team. CHA has fallen under federal consent decrees in the past for racist practice that has not meaningfully been resolved, and it was directly involved in the disinvestment of public housing and displacement of residents, including the now-infamous case of Cabrini Green.

When we look at models for Social Housing that are working, we see where models, for example, Vienna, work and where our current model, CHA, is not. The root of the issue is accountability. The Vienna model is rooted in public accountability whereas the CHA model is rooted in private accountability. The Green New Deal Social Housing proposal builds a model that is meant for all people and is accountable to the public.

In market-based solutions, the main priority is profit. All other considerations come second. This pursuit of profit and the financialization of housing is one of the key reasons we have an affordability crisis. High prices generate high returns. Conventional thinking would lead you to believe that the market would increase the supply of housing to keep up with the demand and lower prices, but in the past two decades, an artificial shortage has been created to keep prices high and generate larger returns. The only way to address the housing crisis is to work toward a system that prioritizes the people over profits.

Strong environmental and union labor standards are at the center of social housing. Developments will be built to net-zero emissions standards and feature sustainable design and technology throughout each property, including all-electric heating and minimal off-street parking. Properties will utilize on-site solar power to the maximum extent practicable, and where necessary, retrofit older properties to include high-efficiency equipment. Social housing developments will adhere to all construction and operating labor standards, creating hundreds of thousands of good union jobs along the way. 

The Illinois Green New Deal Coalition is committed to continuing to advocate for pro-worker, pro-climate policies, including Illinois’ Climate & Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), which sets the strongest pro-worker provisions and protections in the country. (https://climatejobsillinois.org/) Because there has yet to be research conducted on social housing development, we can’t say for sure what its impact is on the creation of jobs. However, job creation from low-income housing development can be a good indicator.  Research from 2010 shows building a 100-unit Low-Income Housing Tax Credit development in a typical metropolitan area creates 80 jobs from the direct and indirect effects of construction and 42 jobs supported by the induced impacts of the spending.