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Politics & Government

Forum Appraises Skokie Housing Issues

Residents get opportunities to air their various concerns at Skokie Voice meeting.

Residents were apprised of the housing situation in Skokie on Wednesday night, and the village – like so much of the U.S. – is still feeling the effects of the housing and economic crises, with no quick fixes on the way.

held a forum at the Oakton Community Center in an effort to provide the nearly 100 attendees an opportunity to listen and air their concerns about the local housing situation.

The questions centered on affordable housing and how it differed from Section 8 housing. Concerns were also expressed about foreclosed properties and their ramifications.

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Section 8

Most of the first hour was spent discussing the differences between affordable housing and  Section 8 housing. In the latter, the county provides housing vouchers to recipients and individual property owners decide whether to take them in as tenants.

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The number of such vouchers in Skokie has risen from 265 in 1999 to 440 in 2009, according to a fact sheet provided at the meeting. But the village has little say on the use of the vouchers as long as government requirements are met.

“Communities can’t exclude the number of people on vouchers,” said Howard Handler, the governmental affairs director for the North Shore-Barrington Association of Realtors.

He answered questions along with Richard Koenig, the executive director of the Housing Opportunities Development Corporation; Peter Peyer, community development director for Skokie; and Terry Oline, the property standards director for the village.

People were concerned about crime issues that they attributed to Section 8 housing.

“We need very tough nuisance laws,” said Bonne Fell, Skokie Voice’s membership chairwoman.  “If people move to Skokie, they are going to be held to a higher level of behavior.”

The Housing Authority of Cook County does possess the right to take away a voucher if problems arise, said Koenig, who has developed affordable housing projects throughout the North Shore. On the issue of what defines “affordable housing,”  he said,  “Affordable housing means different things to different people.”

Affordable housing

One basic rule of thumb is when a family pays no more than 30 percent of its gross income to live in a dwelling, including utilities, that constitutes affordable housing.

According to data provided at the meeting, most of the people who seek affordable housing are elderly, physically handicapped or victims of domestic abuse.

Foreclosures

As for foreclosures, it remains a sore spot. In May, 0.3 percent of the housing units in the village went into the foreclosure, which is slightly higher than the rate across Cook County and the state, according to Handler.

Of six adjacent communities, Morton Grove and Skokie have some of the highest foreclosure rates. There is very little hope that situation will get better any time soon with the economy still soft.

“The banks themselves cannot handle the number of foreclosures,” Handler said.

Peyer and Oline told the audience that enforcement codes were in place to monitor foreclosed or abandoned properties and the village was doing what it could to maintain the exterior of such properties.

Other housing issues

Other topics touched on were the residency limits of individual homes, the nearly 30 group homes in the village and nuisance laws. 

At the end of the more than two-hour meeting, some residents said they felt better about what was said and how to move forward.

“We need to be involved in setting some housing standards that the village could enforce legally,” said Allison Zidek. “I never thought Section 8 housing was at the root of all of our issues; it is the enforcement of the existing housing laws.”

Another resident, Moshe Betterman, said he was disappointed in the “derogatory undertone” of some in the audience toward Section 8 housing.

Talking of the need to improve education and other social services, Betterman noted: “I think it is important to look at the institutional infrastructure that the village has besides and beyond housing.”

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