The Chicago Healthy Homes Coalition (CHHC), a coalition of renters and advocates, proposes to create a citywide rental housing registry and a proactive healthy homes inspection program. This is a matter of racial and health equity. No Chicago renter should get sick or die because health hazards, such a lead or a lack of smoke detectors, exist. No renters should have to live with mold, rats, or use their stove for heat. We call upon the city to create a citywide program to hold bad landlords accountable and to ensure that all housing is safe, decent and accessible.
Chicago does not regularly inspect housing for basic safety standards. This means that poor housing conditions can go unaddressed until a tenant makes a report to the city, often after an injury or illness. Proactive inspections will ensure that unsafe housing issues are addressed sooner, fewer people will be harmed or injured, and Chicago’s housing stock will be improved.
History + Background
A little over half of all Chicagoans are renters. The city is also home to higher-than-average rates of water leaks, heating and plumbing equipment breakdown, problems with broken plaster and peeling paint, and sewage disposal issues, according to the National Center for Healthy Housing. In 2019 renters made more than 30,000 complaints for occupied blight and other habitability issues, with most complaints coming from the South and West Side.
Simultaneously, the city does not currently require proactive inspection of rental units. Dangerous conditions are only addressed after a complaint is filed with the City. Minor issues are not addressed and unreported hazards often transition into disasters before a complaint is filed. Complaint-based inspection is additionally inadequate because inspectors often limit the the investigation only to what is reported. Many complaints are also never investigated; inspectors regularly have trouble accessing properties without landlord cooperation. The lack of a rental property registration system exacerbates this problem, as many owners do not have discoverable contact information, particularly when the property is owned by a limited liability company (LLC).
The Consequences
Lead Poisoning: Because over 81% of Chicago’s housing stock was built before the federal government banned lead-based paint in 1978, most of these buildings, many of which have not been appropriately maintained, repaired, or renovated, likely contain lead-based paint. Lead is a major neurotoxin that causes lifelong learning disabilities, hearing loss, speech delays, intellectual disability, ADHD, and aggressive/violent behaviors, even at relatively low levels. In many community areas, the childhood lead poisoning rates are more than double or quadruple the city-wide rate: from 4.4 and 5.7 per 100 children in Austin and West Garfield Park, and as high as 7.2 and 7.3 per 100 children in Englewood and West Englewood.
Asthma: Researchers have found excess moisture allows for the breeding of mold, mildew, mites, and cockroaches, and that cracks allow pests like rodents and bugs to enter the home, all of which have been linked to greater asthma morbidity and mortality. In Chicago, Black children have twice the prevalence of asthma when compared to White and Hispanic children.
Societal, Economic, and Educational Harms: Other poor housing conditions, such as presence of rats and cockroaches, missing or malfunctioning necessities (e.g., toilet, stove, windows), and other structural, electrical, and plumbing issues have been connected to higher school absenteeism, reduced performance on standardized tests, and cognitive deficiencies in students.
Fires and Fatalities: Between 2014 and 2019, 140 fires killed 92 Chicagoans. Nearly half of those fires involved buildings without a working smoke detector. A Chicago Tribune / Better Government Association investigation into fires in the same timeframe found more than two dozen cases in which safety conditions played a role in the fires, but records showed the buildings had not been inspected for five or more years.
Public Fiscal Costs: Chicago’s inability to address dangerous housing conditions is expensive to the public. Very conservatively estimating that just one-half of Chicago’s 1,376 lead-poisoned children in 2017 required special education, Chicago therefore spent roughly $7.5 million to $15 million per year in additional instructional costs for those students alone. Other studies corroborate that every dollar spent to prevent lead poisoning saves hundreds of dollars in the form of greater earnings and reduced taxpayer-funded health care, special education, and law enforcement costs.
In 2018, Chicago’s Office of Inspector General found that our current complaint-based system permitted safety and health hazards to go unaddressed for longer than the law allowed. A follow up report in 2019 gave the City recommendations to improve inspections.
Our Solution
CHHC is proposing a three-year pilot to begin the transition from Chicago’s ineffective and dangerous complaint-driven inspection system to a proven proactive rental inspection and rental registry program.
The pilot includes three major components:
(1) healthy homes inspection of all residential rental properties in two select community areas;
(2) a citywide residential rental registry
(3) community outreach to educate and engage tenants, landlords, and other stakeholders.
The program is designed to be budget neutral, as it will be funded by registration fees paid by landlords. It will be implemented by a project manager hired by the city, in collaboration with the Departments of Housing, Buildings, and Health.
Healthy Homes Inspections. The City will develop a healthy homes inspection program to be used citywide and pilot the program in two community areas—one high-need and one mixed-need. The pilot’s healthy homes inspections will incorporate nationally-recognized principles of healthy homes, including that they be dry, clean, safe, contaminant-free, well-ventilated, thermally controlled, well maintained, and accessible.
Rental Registry. As part of the pilot, the City of Chicago will establish a citywide residential rental registry, to be managed by the Department of Housing. All landlords will be required to register their rental properties with the City annually, paying a registration fee and providing some basic information about the property.
Repair Grants for Small Landlords. The rental registry fees would go into a fund that prioritizes grants for small landlords who own 6 or fewer units to make necessary repairs. This will encourage landlords to participate in the program.
Community Outreach. Because community buy-in and support is critical to the success of the pilot, the City will involve key stakeholders in the community at all stages of pilot development and implementation by creating a community advisory board to assist with oversight and evaluation at the end of the pilot. The City will also hire inspectors and other City personnel from pilot communities, which will help to ensure that the pilot is implemented equitably and with the needs of the community in mind.
9 Potential Solutions to Keep Chicagoans Safer From Fires. Better Government Association
Evaluation
To evaluate the pilot project, the City will hire an independent professional who is a healthy housing expert. This individual will design and implement a robust evaluation, collecting and analyzing both qualitative and quantitative measures.
Quantitative Measures: Identified hazards; hazards remediated; cost to the City; cost to landlords; training needs; number of inspections/inspectors; frequency of inspector success in property entry; estimated fiscal benefits for the public; financial and health benefits for impacted households.
Qualitative Measures: Qualitative measures will include open-ended interviews with inspectors, community stakeholders, advocates, landlords, and tenants about their experiences during the pilot.
The evaluation will also use the inspection data to identify common housing hazards that are not considered violations under Chicago’s Building Code and make recommendations for possible amendments. The evaluator will additionally ascertain compliance with the rental registry requirements, to inform potential incentives and penalties to ensure compliance.
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This is not budget neutral. The funding will have to come from somewhere, and saying housing providers are going to foot the bill is misleading. When costs go up, then rents go up. So you’re actually charging renters for the services.
What about homeowners? They are also entitled to have their lead pipes replaced. It’s a citywide issue and we should have a citywide solution.
Trying to privatize public damages doesn’t actually work in the long run. We have a dearth of affordable housing. This will damage it significantly, especially those renters who are living paycheck to paycheck.
It is budget neutral for the city and in fact in the long run it will save the city money because tenants who live in decent housing are more likely to have stable jobs, their kids better educated, have better health, less crime, etc. Maintenance is a basic cost and does not have a huge impact on rent. The market and corporations viewing housing as a short-term investment is by far the biggest driver in escalating rents. Once again in the long run, good maintenance programs will keep rents lower, as it means less demolition and less major rehabbing of units. It is also environmental sound as the largest produce of CO2 emissions as it relates to the built environment is producing the materials to make the buildings. I certainly agree that home owners should have their pipes replaced and that we need a citywide solution for this. I agree we need more affordable housing. We are totally supportive of increasing HUD’s budget significantly to create more affordable more affordable housing. In Vienna almost 40% of all housing is subsidized and this reduces everyone’s housing costs. Renters are already stressed living in unaffordable and substandard housing. Housing is a human right.
This program is overdue. Unscrupulous landlords provide mediocre to subpar living environments, feign financial hardship and take advantage of tenant’s limited knowledge of and/or access to resources to protect them from financial ruin and/or homelessness.
Interesting. I’ve been living in a mold infested building for 4 years but just uncovered it a couple months ago. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed with mold poisoning. I contacted everyone I possibly could and no one ever reached out. Currently being evicted after retaliatory actions from my landlady. Applied for the renters program in Dec. and was denied because I missed minutes of a webinar class. A total lie. After months of asking for evidence, I just received it and the spreadsheet was in pdf so I couldn’t see the metadata attached to it. I am currently trying to detox but I am still living in the building trying to find help from the city. The gov failed me. I am on disability and am never going to be able to rent because of the 3x rent requirement. All my disability goes toward utilities, car insurance, etc and my lawyer that I had to retain because the CDE couldn’t help me and their referrals told me they wouldn’t do pro Bono because it was a waste of time and resources. Bottom line, I know someone that was living in mold exposure and received diff treatment then myself. She was awarded immediate rental assistance and therefore, I also feel like I didn’t fit into a category because I was white and a citizen receiving disability with a mental illness suffering from bipolar disorder, PTSD AND anxiety. I hope that the toxins do not result to something serious like cancer. I have sinus infections, breathing issues, heart palpitations, skin sores, stomach issues, I’ve coughed up blood, joint pain, I lost 40 lbs. mycotoxins are not healthy. Detoxing isn’t working as I need to be out of the environment and I am not yet, as my attorney fights for my rights.
I am sorry to hear that you are having such health and housing problems. Certainly you case illustrates why Chicago needs a healthy homes inspection program. As for how to proceed, have you tried talking with a personal injury attorney. Under the current laws, it may be difficult to resolve this problem because as you have found out the laws are not that good. Have you contacted the building department and requested an inspection. Who is the landlord? I would contact your alderman and see if they can help find an affordable unit.
My landlord refused to make any repairs in my home. The living conditions are horrible. He gave me a used refrigerator and the door came off, he refused to give me another refrigerator. I am unable to properly use my bathroom at night due to my light blinking in and out. The doors are coming off the hinges and the bathroom tub is horrible. I sent him a demand letter three weeks ago and he threaten to kick me out.
I do not know whether you are covered by Chicago’s Landlord and Tenants Law. If this is an owner occupied building of 6 units or less, then you are not covered and have fewer rights. You can call 311 and request a building inspector. It will take 3 weeks or so to get an inspector out. If you are covered by the law then you can tell the landlord that if you refrigerator is not fixed in 14 days, then the law allows a tenant to purchase a new or used one and deduct the cost from the rent. You can spend up to one half the rent or $500 whichever is greater. Another option if the landlord does not make the repairs in 14 days is to reduce the rent to reflect the diminished value of the unit. You cannot reduce the rent to zero. A final option if the repairs make the unit not reasonably fit and habitable is to terminate the lease and move out. Lastly, call you alderman and demand the city implement a proactive inspection program, which would inspect every rental unit every 5 years or less is the case of a bad landlord.
I wish someone inspect this building. I am sure there are many health hazards. The maintenance men are breaking into my home and cutting wires and disabling my security system. They are very abusive and refuse to make any repairs or even replace my key. They are a non profit and are conning churches with the lie this is a safe place to live. I am a middle aged woman on disability. I have been very sick and am just now well enough to fight hack
Did the landlord give you permission to install an alarm system? If not, that may be a problem. If you have permission to have the alarm then , the maintenance people would be violating Chicago provision against lockouts in which case you need to call the police and get the police police to talk with the maintenance personnel. They could be arrested for doing this. If you do not have permission, the maintenance people still need to provide you with a 2 days notice to enter your unit. I would write a letter to the owner detailing the violations. If they continue, the law states you could sue the landlord for one months plus attorney fees for violating the Chicago Landlord and Tenants Ordinance.
As a renter, I fully support this effort.