Illinois’ 2020 Annual Comprehensive Housing Plan
Introduction:
To promote quality affordable housing to each household and has accessible and appropriate services that support individual and family success. Housing is an essential asset and economic engine for neighborhoods. A comprehensive Housing Planning Act provides the opportunity for Illinois to coordinate across public and private platforms to guide policy and funding towards meeting the housing needs of some of the most vulnerable Illinoisans.
Creating the ACHP is a collaborative effort between the Housing Task Force and the participating State Agencies. An additional function of the plan is to catalog funding activity administered by the State for affordable housing construction, rehabilitation, preservation, subsidized home mortgages, operating or rental housing subsidies, and support services. The major ACHP responsibility is to find out new developments in the housing world via this Technical Plan.
Comprehensive Housing Planning for Illinois:
In the first Comprehensive Housing Plan in 2003, the Housing Task Force developed Housing Principles to generally reflect important overarching themes in affordable housing: production (Creation and Preservation); services (Affordability and Choice); and promotion of long-term goals (Leadership). These principals are still used as an organizing mechanism that helps to focus different planning goals and tasks.
To help clarify their intended purpose, each action item within the Technical Plan is identified in an annual focus area (determined annually by the Housing Task Force) and is categorized under a broader strategy and associated with one of the Housing Principles. Recommended annual efforts or program developments, and state agency activities related to the Technical Plan are presented in this Annual Comprehensive Housing Plan and progress is documented in Annual Progress Reports. The annual discussion topics are grouped into Focus Areas in order to provide context and background information not readily found within the annual and ongoing Technical Plan.
Illinois’ Eight Priority Populations:
1. Low-income households (with particular emphasis on households earning below 30% of area median income);
2. Low-income seniors;
3. Low-income persons with disabilities;
4. Homeless persons and persons at-risk of homelessness;
5. Low- and moderate-income persons unable to afford housing near work or transportation (Live Near Work);
6. Low-income persons residing in existing affordable housing that is in danger of being lost or becoming unaffordable (Preservation);
7. Low-income people residing in communities with ongoing community revitalization efforts; and
8. Other special needs populations, including people with criminal records and veterans experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness.
The Annual Comprehensive Housing Plan:
The creation of the ACHP is a collaborative effort between the Housing Task Force and the participating State Agencies. Via quarterly meetings throughout the year and through select working group efforts (described below), the Housing Task Force examines the prior year’s focus areas and identifies new directions for future plans, including general recommendations and strategies. The Task Force also helps to facilitate progress for planning goals and proposes new ad hoc Working Groups to investigate specific housing needs, trends and areas of future concern. Recommendations from the Housing Task Force and its related committees are intended to promote both State and local action, which are then incorporated into a Technical Plan, which collects planning recommendations across several years.
2020 Focus Areas:
Intended to represent the most prevalent affordable housing challenges facing Illinois, the annual Focus Areas are high-priority items from the Technical Plan which are highlighted and condensed each year into specific action items and strategies. These facilitate focused activities and measurable progress for the Task Force, and in many cases can extend over several years, spanning multiple Plans. For 2020, the Housing Task Force determined that many of its efforts continue to be viable for the 2020 Annual Comprehensive Housing Plan, thus this plan seeks to highlight strong and continued responses to ongoing issues bolstered by new ideas that fill additional gaps. The Housing Task Force selected the following recommended Focus Areas for the 2020
Annual Comprehensive Housing Plan:
Revitalizing Communities:
Utilize current funding and explore new programs and initiatives to assist communities in developing a balance of affordable homeownership and rental opportunities, preserving existing affordability and mitigating displacement caused by market pressures, and expanding innovative methods for infill and sustainable reuse of foreclosed properties.
Supportive Housing:
Assist special needs populations and those transitioning into (or remaining in) community-based living settings with services that support their needs, including long-term care services and support.
Leadership and Capacity Building:
Enhance collaborative planning efforts to foster policy changes that better address the housing needs of all Illinois residents. Identify and determine ways to maximize and support new and existing state and federal resources, and work to align resources with policies that promote equal access to quality housing throughout the State.
Innovative Use of Resources and Strategies:
Identify innovative techniques in design for populations who require accessible features. Expand housing production for priority populations utilizing resources that contain or reduce costs of acquisition, development and operations. Conduct research on energy efficiency cost savings and innovative strategies to promote the use of sustainability design techniques in affordable housing development.
2020 Housing Production Plans:
Housing Production Plans highlight how the State will invest its resources to create additional housing for Illinois families and individuals. Housing Production Plans are required by the Comprehensive Housing Planning Act, as they set funding goals to serve the needs of the identified Priority Populations.
Conclusion:
In addition to developing and rehabilitating affordable housing, the State of Illinois provides housing-related assistance and services to the Priority Populations through a variety of programs administered by its State Agencies. The following Residential Services Program tables identify many of the State’s efforts to provide services to Priority Populations in 2020. Therefore, in progress reporting, the population and number of persons or households served through each funding source will be considered individually and reported as accurately as possible, but the total households or individuals assisted will not represent all new clients.