Blocks Together's housing and economic development campaign goals were to impact policy and practices around resource allocation of public funds for more direct benefit in the West Humboldt Park community. While the usual rhetoric is there is no money, BT members initiated a campaign that would led them to the issues of local Tax Increment Financing, where there was "money".
Photo of West Humboldt Park Library, BT members organized for over 7 years to win this library and demanded the local TIF be used to build it after elected officials said there were no funds for the project. The Library has become an anchoring institution for learning, and employment support.
In 2008 – BT’s Housing Committee began participatory action research around school closures and the intersection with Tax Increment Financing dollars. From here the Housing Committee created a long term agenda to bring more transparency and direct benefit from the local TIF and organized the first town hall meeting around the Chicago Central Park TIF, the TIF district that covers most of West Humboldt Park.
2009 – BT members worked on a campaign to use Chicago Central Park TIF funds to bring an affordable housing development into the community with a community developer.
2010 – BT and Westside United members created a Community Benefit Agreement (CBA) for the project but the developer of the affordable housing project refused to sign. From here BT and Westside United members wanted to require CBA’s with public funds used in the community.
2011 – The Chicago Central Park TIF was underestimated and residents worked with the City’s Department of Planning to reallocate funds into community informed budget line items such as increasing funds for job training and daycare services.
2013– BT staff and members work with the Participatory Budget (PB) project and University of Illinois at Chicago, Great Cities Institute to learn how to use PB in the community. BT Members also visited other wards in Chicago and other organizations throughout the country to learn how public dollars were being used through PB.
2014 – Alderman Walter Burnett commits to using the $2 million in TIF funds from the canceled housing development to the PB process to allow residents to directly decide how to use those funds!
Organizing around Tax Increment Financing has been gaining momentum in the last few years, when BT started to work on it years ago we had a funder tell us it was irrelevant work, their actual words was that it was "so 1990's". The work around making changes around TIF illuminates quality community building strategies. Organizing around TIF accountability and increased benefit forces communities to understand the numbers, the policy and legislation around TIF, and a little bit of urban planning. In West Humboldt Park residents learned together and strategized together, organizing community teach in's about TIFs and made TIF the "community gossip".
It was clear as worked together as a community to research the TIF budget that these funds were being taking from the community and expenditures were not matching the critical needs and redevelopment goals that would have created long term change. We could do better.
The work around TIF organizing BT has been doing is about changing the policies and practices of public dollars that takes from a community while leaving that same community in more economic vulnerability. The work to address this inequity is grassroots and powerful as it moves residents to think about what economic development looks like, and holds elected officials accountable to real investment, calling out the political games.
A new controversial City steered development in Englewood is prime opportunity to begin a campaign that further illuminates the issue of low income communities being taken advantaged of, residents own funds not being used to maximize development. While development projects are being announced, the reality of jobs and contribution of institutions to the larger local economy must be spelled out and held accountable to the needs of a community.
As the municipal election realities are facing Chicago head on, the issue of TIF reform is critical. The complexities of the City's financial dealings is interconnected with many of the issues that face Chicago; school funding, unemployment, safety, and infrastructure. Our candidates must have positions on changing how we utilize TIF, how to continue the program or not, and support challenging the status quo of vague and ineffective redevelopment that has continued to leave so many Chicagons behind, and work with residents to create new realities through with own investment.
It was clear as worked together as a community to research the TIF budget that these funds were being taking from the community and expenditures were not matching the critical needs and redevelopment goals that would have created long term change. We could do better.
The work around TIF organizing BT has been doing is about changing the policies and practices of public dollars that takes from a community while leaving that same community in more economic vulnerability. The work to address this inequity is grassroots and powerful as it moves residents to think about what economic development looks like, and holds elected officials accountable to real investment, calling out the political games.
A new controversial City steered development in Englewood is prime opportunity to begin a campaign that further illuminates the issue of low income communities being taken advantaged of, residents own funds not being used to maximize development. While development projects are being announced, the reality of jobs and contribution of institutions to the larger local economy must be spelled out and held accountable to the needs of a community.
As the municipal election realities are facing Chicago head on, the issue of TIF reform is critical. The complexities of the City's financial dealings is interconnected with many of the issues that face Chicago; school funding, unemployment, safety, and infrastructure. Our candidates must have positions on changing how we utilize TIF, how to continue the program or not, and support challenging the status quo of vague and ineffective redevelopment that has continued to leave so many Chicagons behind, and work with residents to create new realities through with own investment.
Photo: 63rd and Halsted, Google Images
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