|
City officials totaled more than 7,452 homeless residents during
their most recent point-in-time count for 2025. While that
number is down 60% from the 2024 count of nearly 19,000, the
2023 count was at 6,139.
“This is a red flag that we can't ignore,” Ford told The Center
Square. “We have to have a table that talks about and comes up
with a strategy to eliminate homelessness and have some type of
strategy like we had for the migrants in this country and in
Illinois. This is a problem that has to be dealt with in a
collaborative way.”
Ford is hoping his House Resolution 252, which seeks to create a
Landlord-Tenant Task Force aimed at fostering constructing
dialogue between the two sides, will be a start. As it is, he
estimates there is a shortage of nearly 120,000 affordable
housing units, leading to more than half the city’s residents
being forced to spend in the neighborhood of one-third of their
income on rent and utilities.
With Blacks already accounting for more than half of the city’s
shelter population and 7 out of every 10 residents found to be
living on the streets, Ford worried even more hardship could
soon be on the way.
“We have to make sure that we understand that affordability is a
problem and the inventory of available homes is a problem,” Ford
said. “When you tie race to it, it's no surprise because when
you look at the demographics of those that live in poverty and
Black people are at the front line of the poverty door.”
Ford said over a yearlong period beginning in January 2024, the
number of unhoused longtime Chicagoans jumped by 38%, or more
than double the number of new immigrant arrivals living in city
shelters.
Despite Black Chicagoans making up less than a third of the
city’s population, data shows they are roughly 53% of those
experiencing homelessness and living in city shelters and 70% of
those now living on city streets.
|
|
