International Homes
International Homes
The International Homes in Uptown represent a distinct niche in the struggle for low-cost housing—affordable homeownership. Built in the early 1990s, the 1200 square-foot townhomes on Kenmore, Winona, and Winthrop were developed as a part of the New Homes for Chicago program, an affordable homeownership project that teamed with neighborhood organizations to support construction through lot grants and subsidies. The seeds of this project were planted by local community organizations and mutual aid groups who represented an immensely diverse array of neighborhood residents, hence the name “the International Homes.” In 1995, the Chicago Tribune reported “residents are Ethiopian, white American, African-American, Native American, Mexican, Bolivian, Laotian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Cambodian, Nigerian and Pakistani.”
Mayor Richard M. Daley speaking at the opening of the International Homes in the early 1990s. Around him are gathered local community leaders—Denice Irwin, who we met during the HUD buildings struggle, is seen on the far right. Irwin would have been there representing Voice of the People, as she was the president of VoP during the 1990s.
In this 1974 clip, a man describes the effect of redlining on residents’ ability to maintain and improve their homes. From “Uptown Special Projects Scrapbook,” Communications for Change, Media Burn Archive’s Guerrilla Television collection. Reproduced with the permission of Media Burn Archive.
Local community organizations, such as the Vietnamese Association of Illinois and Voice of the People, convened during the late 1980s around the issue of shrinking affordable housing of all types (rental+ownership) in Uptown, recognizing that they shared a common goal and could more effectively campaign as a coalition. The International Homes represent just one of many efforts to create affordable homeownership opportunities in Uptown, a strategy of addressing the shortage of low cost housing that has grown since the spread of gentrification to the neighborhood during the 1980s. We want to use this unique and inspiring story of cross-cultural collaboration as a jumping off point for a wider discussion of affordable homeownership in the neighborhood.
An example of the type of empty lots that proliferated in Uptown during the 1970s and 1980s. Many empty lots were the result of the demolition of buildings that had been left to decay for decades and had burned as a result of poor conditions or arson-for-profit committed by politically connected landlords. Source: Jonie Snake, flickr.com, photographer unknown, 1980s.
Men speak to the changes they are seeing in Uptown, late 1979. From “Image Union: All Night”—Image Union’s late-night special featuring “films and video tapes you don’t usually see on TV.” Image Union produced by Tom Weinberg, "Argyle Street" produced and recorded by Tony Medici. Retrieved with permission from Media Burn Archive.
By the late 1980s, gentrification had spread to Uptown and the newly elected Alderwoman Helen Shiller was doing her best to address the problems of rising rents and real estate speculation. Shiller, an ally of then-mayor Harold Washington, was willing to go toe-to-toe with developers in the fight to keep the neighborhood affordable, and she pressed the issue within her ward and in the city council.
Shiller, who had been elected with Washington’s endorsement in 1987, eventually garnered the mayor’s support for a plan to convert 17 empty Uptown lots into affordable, owner-occupied 3-flat homes. She had recruited developer Elzie Higginbottom to build the homes, which would have been built on the tax delinquent lots (acquired by city from the county through a ‘no cash bid’ tax reactivation system). The plan was to sell these homes for somewhere between $70-80k to first-time homebuyers, teachers and other local workers, with the idea that they could be made further affordable by the ability of the owners to rent out the other two units. Furthermore, local families that applied would would be given priority consideration. However, the Cook County Board tax sub-subcommittee—responsible for providing a preliminary review of the transfer—rejected the proposal and neglected to send it to the wider Cook County Board for consideration.
Tribune headlines from 1987 and 1988 illustrate the type of coverage that Shiller’s plan received in the press during the conflict over who would secure the empty lots in Uptown. Amidst the dispute, Langer hired Phillip Krone, a political operative and consultant with connections at the Tribune to lobby on his behalf. Source: Chicago Tribune.
Krone was also instrumental in helping Langer and others obtain historic preservation district designation for the neighborhoods of Sheridan Park and Buena Park, where Langer owned a great deal of property, designated as historic preservation districts. Historic preservation sounds nice enough—who doesn’t like pretty old buildings getting fixed up? The problem at the core of the creation of preservation districts in US cities during this period was its detrimental effect on affordable housing. Because the federal government had guaranteed tax breaks of 25% (later lowered to 20%) for developers in historic districts, neighborhoods that had previously possessed too low of a profit margin to be deemed worthy of redevelopment, like Uptown, suddenly became profitable with the federal largess. State governments, including Illinois, later instituted similar subsidies, further incentivizing middle class and luxury redevelopment. If a developer, like Langer, employed the right political muscle, like Krone, they could have their desired area deemed a “historic preservation district” fairly easily, opening the door to a lot of government cash. Thus, the federal and state historic district tax breaks for developers helped encourage speculation and the raising of rents in previously affordable areas, creating a taxpayer-subsidized wave of urban displacement.
This decision was influenced in part by the fact that Uptown developer Randall Langer had submitted a cash bid on the properties, the equivalent of their accumulated back taxes or about $114,000. Langer, who purchased nearly 500 apartments in Uptown over the course of the 1980s and was known to raise rents significantly in his buildings, lobbied heavily to acquire the 17 vacant lots. He was successful in the end, spoiling Shiller’s effort at expanding affordable homeownership in the neighborhood. The inability to get the 3-flat project off the ground was in part the result of bad luck—really bad luck. Harold Washington’s sudden death on November 25, 1987—the day before Thanksgiving—immediately put the project in jeopardy. In the political power shuffle that ensued, proponents of the plan Shiller and fellow Uptown activist and Washington advisor Slim Coleman saw their clout diminished as Chicago’s Democratic machine, briefly interrupted by the Washington coalition government, began to churn anew. Later, Shiller helped orchestrate the CHA purchase of a number those lots then owned by Langer for the construction of scattered site public housing in Uptown. Getting this scattered site housing built was critical—however, the CHA had to pay market-rate for the property, allowing Langer to make a killing in the deal at the expense of taxpayers.
Following the collapse of the 3-flat plan, Shiller and others around Uptown had to refigure how they would respond to the effect of gentrification on affordable housing in the neighborhood, both rental and homeownership. The International Homes grew out of one approach, a partnership with the city’s New Homes for Chicago program, a project which started in 1990 that focused on building affordable new homes around the city. The New Homes program is still around today, although it has gone through some changes since the 90s. Another method for improving affordable homeownership opportunities was to get affordable units built into new condo construction. Alderwoman Shiller made it a practice to demand that low income units were built into new condo construction in Uptown. These efforts were helped along by Chicago Partnerships for Affordable Neighborhoods (CPAN) in the early 2000s, and by the Affordable Requirements Ordinance (ARO), passed in 2006. CPAN was a system that provided incentives to developers for including more affordable units in new construction, and the ARO was the first measure that required builders to include a certain number of low income units in their developments (beginning with either 10 or 10% of the units, whichever was greater).
Eric Butler (first on the left), longtime resident of the International Homes, with friends and his brother Craig (second from the right) at a community picnic held in the outdoor common area of the homes on Kenmore sometime during the 1990s.
Listen to Eric Bulter, current Vice President of the International Townhomes Association, discuss how he and his wife heard about the development.
Voice of the People, the longstanding affordable housing manager and advocacy group emerged as the neighborhood developer for the project. Through the New Homes program, Voice was able to get the land to build the homes for free from the city, and the buyers would be eligible for a subsidy of up to $20,000. The homes were geared towards working families, and prospective buyers had to meet income requirements in order to qualify for the mortgage. Eligible applicants then entered a lottery—there were separate lotteries for each community group—and those who were selected had the opportunity to buy one of these low-to-moderately priced homes. The homes sold for between roughly $56,000 and $76,000 (approx. $115-150k today), depending on the income of the buyers, which generally ranged from about $18,000 to $40,000.
In spite of being targeted towards low and moderate income buyers, some families had to scrape together money and take on second jobs to qualify for the mortgages. The agreement through which raffle-winners were given an opportunity to buy the homes stipulated that they, the buyers, would not be able to sell the homes for a profit for five years, in an effort to preserve their affordability. However, after those five years expired, there was little stopping the homes from being bought up by investors and/or sold for a profit. This push and pull between personal homeownership economics and sustainable affordability is one of the challenges of affordable homeownership developments, alongside the importance of home equity in our financial system.
A pair of the International Homes in 2023. Photo: Kenneth Allen
Eric tells how buying an affordable home made all the difference for his family as they navigated a housing market beset by luxury condo conversions in the 1990s.
The International Homes represent a victory for local community and mutual-aid groups. By forming a cross-cultural coalition, disparate groups were able to secure the necessary funding and know-how to effectively respond to the needs of their members. Unfortunately, while projects like the International Homes made a huge difference for those who were able to move into these developments, their overall impact on the affordable housing stock in Uptown, and the rest of the city, has been minor. In 1997, the New Homes program was revised and the relative price of the homes rose as the project shifted to target more moderate income buyers. This was in part due to the use of more expensive construction materials, a decision made to try to distinguish the homes from other low-cost developments like Scattered Site housing.
Copyright 2018 Dis/Placements Project
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