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Hi John,
There is exciting news out of Chicago! The City Council just voted to approve the Green Social Housing Ordinance — a major step towards affordable, environmentally-friendly housing for residents across the income spectrum.
Across the country, we’re all feeling the effects of our worsening housing crisis. The Trump regime is cutting federal funding to affordable housing programs that millions of people rely on, and corporate landlords continue to jack up the rent. That’s why in Chicago, residents and housing organizers have been working on a solution to create safe, stable homes in their neighborhoods.
This has been years in the making! I remember meeting with housing organizers and campaigners in Chicago for a Social Housing Summit in 2023, where we planted the seed for this ordinance. Since then I’ve been working with our Chicago affiliate Grassroots Collaborative and the Illinois Green New Deal coalition, who have been driving this campaign, to come up with the research, vision, and goals behind this ordinance.
Illinois Social Housing Summit in 2023 [[link removed]]
This ordinance is exciting for so many reasons: it will create housing that is deeply and permanently affordable, environmentally sustainable, and governed by the people who will actually live in it!
When it comes to addressing the roots of our housing crisis, community control is key. Everyday people should be the ones deciding what our homes and communities look like, not corporate landlords or banks or private developers.
In Chicago, the ordinance will establish a green social housing developer that will be governed by a board of city staff and community members, and each new development will have a tenant governance committee. That means residents can act together to raise concerns, make recommendations, and even request reviews of their property managers.
For now, the next step is to get the developer up and running, and ensure that its implementation aligns with our vision for social housing.
If you want to learn more, you can explore these basic principles of social housing [[link removed]] , read lessons from our learning trip to Vienna and Berlin [[link removed]] , and watch me explain social housing with Legos [[link removed]] .
This new ordinance is a powerful display of how we can put people, not profit, at the center of our housing system — in Chicago, and across the country!
Lauren Jacobs [[link removed]] In solidarity,
Christina Rosales
Housing and Land Justice Director
PowerSwitch Action
1305 Franklin St.
Suite 501
Oakland, CA 94612
United States
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