Chicago: Affordable Housing for the Disabled!

Vacant condos ripe for accessible, affordable housing

Mary Ellen Podmolik The Home Front

January 8, 2012

Two local organizations, IFF and Access Living, are in the early stages of developing a new model of affordable housing, first in Chicago and then throughout Illinois, for people with disabilities who want to live on their own.
Armed with a budget of slightly more than $19 million, the Home First Illinois program also will take a crack at filling up some of the city's empty condominiums. That's because the program revolves around the idea of placing people with disabilities in scattered-site housing rather than grouped together in state-funded or private institutions.
"It's a new model for affordable housing," said Michelle Hoereth, director of housing for IFF, a nonprofit lender and real estate consultant that helps nonprofit organizations in the Midwest. "We can purchase condos that are foreclosed, in a short sale or the owner just wants to sell. There are plenty of units that aren't distressed but are vacant."

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Funding for the effort includes $15 million from the state, $4 million from Chase bank and $125,000 from the Chicago Community Trust. So far, the program has received $5 million in state funds that will be used to purchase and renovate 18 to 20 condos within Chicago and to cover such costs as association fees and property taxes.
IFF will be the legal owner of the condos and will rent them to tenants at subsidized rates.
Just like any potential homebuyer, IFF has a list of certain must-haves. The condos must be in safe neighborhoods and accessible, so most will be in elevator buildings. IFF will make the adaptations necessary within units to make them 100 percent accessible for people with physical disabilities. The buildings must have easy access to public transportation and have a concentration of amenities, like a grocery store, in the immediate neighborhood.
Most are likely to be concentrated on the North and Northwest sides, and the CTA's rehabilitation project to make the Brown Line more accessible makes the corridor a natural place to look for units, said Kristine Giornalista, a senior project manager at IFF. Some of the neighborhoods under review are Uptown, Edgewater, Lakeview and Lincoln Square.
The one- and two-bedroom units are expected to have acquisition costs of no more than $150,000 each.