Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, policymakers in Chicago have been trying to understand how to best design supports and target resources – but housing data at the local level is limited and often out of date.
The Chicago Housing Stability Dashboard is a tool from the Inclusive Economy Lab at the University of Chicago that intends to fill in the gaps by constructing a set of leading indicators of housing instability. The dashboard combines administrative, commercial, and survey data to inform policymakers in near-real time of changes in the scale and distribution of housing instability risk across our city.
We know that a history of disinvestment and segregation in both the public and private sectors is central to understanding the state of housing insecurity in Chicago and across the country. The disaggregation by race and ethnicity that is included in the dashboard wherever possible is intended to be interpreted in light of this history.
Looking for key takeaways? Click here to read our latest Update Memo.
If you are a Chicagoan at risk of homelessness, call 311 and ask for “short term help” to see what resources may be available. If you are a tenant looking for legal assistance, you can reach the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing by visiting rentervention.com or calling (312) 347-7600. For more information, please visit this resource page for renters or this resource page for homeowners on the City of Chicago’s website.
Last Update: Jun 30, 2022
Who is represented: Chicago consumers. We use “consumers” to refer to all adults who have an active credit file and enough information to calculate a credit score – most commonly by having a credit card or a loan. In 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) estimated that 89% of US adults have an active credit file, but communities with historically lower rates of access to credit may have lower rates of representation.
Why it’s important: We know that financial security and housing instability are closely linked. Research on eviction in Cook County for example, shows that “tenants who appear in eviction court have very poor credit in the run up to eviction.” Although not everyone with a subprime credit score is at risk of immediate housing instability, credit indicators can provide a picture of a ZIP code’s overall financial health.
Keep in mind: Most adults in Chicago have credit files, but not all do. Renters are less likely to have a credit file than homeowners, while estimates indicate that adults in census tracts with a higher percentage of Black or Hispanic residents are less likely to have a credit file than those in places with a larger share of white residents. Disparities in “prime” and “subprime” scores reflect a variety of factors, including the ways both government and lenders have historically failed to provide access to credit to consumers of color on the same terms as white consumers.
The share of consumers with credit scores considered subprime has decreased since the pandemic started by as much as 10 to 25 percent in neighborhoods across the city. In the most recent quarter, the subprime consumer share has increased slightly in some neighborhoods (by about 1%).
Falling behind on a debt payment is what credit reporting companies call a “delinquency” – it is one indication that a household is experiencing financial distress. The share of consumers with one or more delinquencies has increased, up to 10% on the West and South sides of the city since the pandemic started, whereas the North, Northwest, and Southwest sides of the city has seen slight decreases in the share of consumers with one or more delinquencies. In recent months, the share of consumers with delinquencies on the south side has further increased, particularly in Englewood.
When we look at the share of consumers with specific types of debt, we see a similar story, with decreases since the start of the pandemic that more recently have flattened or begun to rise. Since last quarter, the number of credit card delinquencies increased slightly on the south side (ranging from a 1 – 4% increase) and decreased slightly on the north side. Auto loan delinquencies are also rising slightly (1 – 5%) in most areas of the city.
Methodology: Credit categories reflect TransUnion®’s standard credit bands. TransUnion® defines subprime credit as scores at or below 600. Consumers with partial credit records - meaning there is not sufficient credit use data to determine a credit score - are excluded. This means that our estimates of financial instability are solely informative of financial behavior in the formal credit market. Q1 2020 is used to proxy ‘normal’ credit conditions, and to map how credit has changed over the course of the pandemic. Given pandemic closures began in late March 2020, it is unlikely consumer credit responded to COVID-related events within the period.
The views and opinions expressed in this dashboard are those of the Inclusive Economy Lab only and do not necessarily reflect, or purport to reflect, the views or positions of TransUnion®.
Last Update: Jun 13, 2022
Who is represented: Responses are representative of the Chicago Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which includes close to 10 million people in the Chicagoland area (including Naperville, Illinois and Gary, Indiana).
Why it’s important: The Census Pulse survey is designed to be representative of all adults, so it can give us a broad picture of how renters and owners are doing.
Keep in mind: The survey has had several phases, with slight changes to the survey between each phase. Survey waves are combined into a two-week rolling average to increase sample size for breakouts by respondent characteristics.
Data Availability: Beginning in Phase 2, and through Phase 3.4 (June 2022), the survey asked: “How confident are you that the household will be able to pay the next rent or mortgage payment on time?” This question was removed from survey Phase 3.5.
About one out of five renters were behind on housing payments in early June 2022, about double the share as a year before. A significant portion of renters who are behind report it is likely they will be evicted. Overall, owners have fared better than renters during the pandemic. They have reported being more confident in their ability to make future housing payments and are more likely to be caught up on payments. In June 2022, 55% of renters behind on housing payments considered themselves at risk of eviction in the next two months, while only 18% of owners behind on payments believed the same about foreclosure.
Despite large variations week-to-week estimates, white respondents report being more confident in their ability to pay their next month’s rent or mortgage than Black and Hispanic respondents. White respondents also more consistently report being caught up on housing payments. Because not all groups have a sample size that allows us to confidently track survey results over time, we chose to highlight estimates for Black, Hispanic, and white households here. See the Methodology section for more information and resources on estimation.
Survey questions: 1. “How confident are you that
your household will be able to pay your next rent or mortgage payment on
time?” Respondents with no or slight confidence are counted as not
confident.
2. “How likely is it that your household will have to leave this home or
apartment within the next two months because of eviction/foreclosure?”
Both very and somewhat likely were counted as being at-risk of eviction
or foreclosure. This question was only asked to respondents who
indicated that they were not caught up on payments.
3. “Is this household currently caught up on rent/mortgage payments?”
This is a yes/no question.
Methodology: Publicly released Household Pulse data files include one variable on ethnicity, which indicates whether a respondent is of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin, and one variable on race, which has four options: Asian alone, Black alone, white alone, any other race alone, or races in combination. In this document, “Hispanic” refers to respondents who identified as Hispanic of any race, “Black” refers to respondents who self-identified as “Black alone” and not of Hispanic origin, and “white” refers to respondents who identified as “white alone” and not of Hispanic origin. For a full accounting of Census Pulse Survey methodology, please visit the U.S. Census website.
Last Update: Jun 30, 2022
Who is represented: All callers to the HPCC, except those who are re-routed to other services.
Why it’s important: HPCC callers have self-identified as needing financial assistance to stay in their home, a critical leading indicator for housing insecurity.
Keep in mind: Not everyone who needs rental assistance is aware of and calls the HPCC, so it might not capture everyone who is at risk. Additionally, the number of calls to the HPCC could be affected by funding availability.
The Homelessness Prevention Call Center has experienced a significant increase in caller volume since the start of the pandemic. In spring 2022, call levels remain about 50% above pre-pandemic levels, after rising to as high as two- to three-times pre-pandemic call volume earlier in the pandemic.
In addition to facing higher call volume and lowered eligibility criteria, a higher ratio of callers are being found eligible for funds - about three out of four callers (77.1%) in the last 90 days were deemed eligible for funds, as compared to approximately one in four callers (26%) just prior to the pandemic.
The median request for assistance has hovered right around $1,750 since the start of 2021. However, the median request for assistance masks great variation in the amount of funding being requested, with the top 10 percent of requests exceeding $7,200.
The most commonly reported reasons for requesting short-term financial assistance over the last 90 days were job loss (one in five callers), loss or reduction in benefits (one in eight callers), or COVID-related crisis (one in eight callers).
Neighborhoods on the south side, particularly South Shore (60649), Woodlawn (60649), and Englewood (60621), have seen a high rate of calls per 1,000 households in the most recent quarter. Other neighborhoods (including the Near South side and Bridgeport in the 60616 zip code) have seen upticks in HPCC calls as compared to pre-pandemic levels, but these neighborhoods started the pandemic at much lower rates of calls to the HPCC.
While calls increased across the city, the gap between zip codes with already high rates of calls and all other neighborhoods widened during the pandemic. While South Shore and Woodlawn (60649) saw a call rate about 6 times that of lower-call zips just prior to the pandemic in January 2020, they now show a call rate about 9 times that of the lower-call rate zips (3.82 calls per 1,000 households as compared to 0.43 calls per 1,000 households). The share of callers found eligible for assistance has been increasing across the city since the pandemic began.
More about the HPCC: Each HPCC caller not diverted to alternative programs is evaluated for eligibility to State Homeless Prevention Funds. To be eligible for these funds, callers generally need to have a valid financial crisis that state funding can fully resolve. This means callers with need in excess of $5,000 will generally be considered ineligible, since capped State funding cannot fully eliminate their reported household debt. Callers are also limited to receiving funds once every two years. Once funding for the week runs out, all remaining eligible callers are turned away until funding is replenished. During the pandemic, many application restrictions were loosened – callers receiving unemployment became eligible and callers could receive funding for future months of rent in addition to arrears.
Methodology: For the geographic analysis, ZIP codes with fewer than 25 total calls in the last 90 days were excluded from the analysis. “2019 Baseline” refers to data from the same days or months in 2019. Community areas were matched to ZIP codes based on whether more than a quarter of their land area was in that given ZIP. Each CCA could be matched to at most three ZIPs.
Want to reach the HPCC? Call 311 and ask for “short term help.”
Evictions through: Oct 01, 2022; Foreclosures through: 2022 Q2
Who is represented (eviction analysis): Eviction cases within the city of Chicago that were filed for service with the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. “Filing for service” with the sheriff’s office is a legally required step for landlords pursuing an eviction in Cook County to inform a tenant that their landlord is filing a legal case to remove them from their home.
Who is represented (foreclosure analysis): All residential foreclosure cases filed within the City of Chicago.
Why it’s important: Prior to the pandemic, eviction disproportionately affected Chicago’s Black households, particularly in and around South Shore, while the foreclosure crisis took a toll on the wealth of Hispanic households and other households of color. Beyond potential displacement, eviction cases can make it difficult for renters to find future housing, while foreclosures of rental properties could affect the city’s stock of affordable homes.
Keep in mind: This analysis does not include the full picture of every eviction case filed in the city, as some cases filed with the court are called off before the landlord files for service with the sheriff’s office. Since May of 2021, access to eviction filing data has been limited as a result of state law. Additionally, there may be a delay between when a landlord files a case with the court and when they file for service.
Now that the pandemic-era eviction moratoria have been lifted, the rate of eviction cases filed for service with the Cook County Sherriff’s Office has steadily increased over the past year. The monthly number of eviction cases are now starting to approach pre-pandemic levels. There were a little more than 600 cases per month filed in late summer, as compared to 700-800 per month over the same time period in 2019. About three out of every 1,000 South Shore households faced an eviction filing in the past quarter.
Similarly, foreclosure rates have steadily increased. In Q2 of 2022, foreclosure filing rates were almost as high as the same quarter in 2019.
Though eviction rates still remain lower across the city than prior to the pandemic, the ZIP code containing South Shore (60649) has consistently experienced the highest level of evictions filed with the sheriff’s office, including in the last three months. About one out of every 1,000 South Shore households faced an eviction filing in the past quarter.
Eviction restrictions: The CDC and the state of Illinois both imposed moratoria on evictions that protected most Illinois renters during the pandemic, through early October 2021. To qualify, renters had to meet certain income limits and send a signed declaration to their landlord about the impact of the pandemic on their ability to pay rent.
Foreclosure restrictions: Through the pandemic, federal policy has protected most federally backed properties from foreclosure and given many homeowners additional opportunities for mortgage forbearance (temporary pauses on payments).
Methodology: Eviction data was provided at the ZIP level by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. Foreclosure regions are based on the Chicago Department of Planning and Development’s planning districts.
Zillow through: 2022-08-31, CPI through: 2022-08-01
Who is represented: Our analysis focuses on the Chicago Metropolitan Statistical Area, which also includes Naperville and Gary. Zillow estimates for some specific ZIPs are unavailable due to insufficient data.
Why it’s important: With rents surging in many cities two years into the pandemic – and given high rates of inflation across the economy – both residents and policymakers are increasingly concerned about housing affordability. These cost changes have important implications for housing stability; one study observes that the rate of homelessness in a community increases once median rent rises above 30 percent of median income.
Keep in mind: Without a centralized, reliable source of data on rental prices, each method of measuring prices comes with its own limitations. Zillow and other similar private rental data sources likely have a bias towards multifamily buildings and an exclusion of informal leases. CPI’s housing measure includes both self-reported rent and an estimate of how much homeowners would be paying in rent if they were tenants. And since CPI surveys are conducted relatively infrequently, there can be a delay before price increases are reflected in the CPI housing index.
Housing rents are currently about 12 – 15 percent higher than in March 2020. Despite demonstrating both highs and lows during the pandemic (the median rent observed by Zillow dropped from a high of $1,731 in March 2020 to a low of $1,651 in January 2021), the average rent has recently risen to $1,981 in August 2022.
While rents have increased in all zip codes that Zillow tracks since the start of the pandemic, rents have risen more steeply on the South side (by more than 15%) than on the north side (5 – 15%).
Zillow’s rental index intends to limit bias by weighting by an area’s rental stock, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Information on the age of a given rental building and the number of units it contains is obtained from the annual American Community Survey (ACS).
This article summarizes how the CPI housing metric is created.
The Voices of Chicago Survey is discontinued. Last Update: Nov 27, 2021
Who is represented: Chicagoans likely to be at elevated risk of housing instability. Nearly 75,000 people applied to the Department of Housing’s emergency assistance program at the start of the pandemic. About one quarter of those applicants were Chicago renters who later responded to any one of several Inclusive Economy Lab surveys over the course of 2020, as part of a separate research study. This group of prior survey respondents was randomly divided into waves of 1,000 people each for the Voices of Chicago project. Responses were weighted to represent the Dept. of Housing’s overall applicant pool, which we refer to here as “housing assistance applicants.”
Why it’s important: The survey tracks experiences we know are a major part of housing instability – like doubling up and informal eviction – but are not often quantified, since they don’t appear in traditional data sources.
Keep in mind: Since responses are weighted to represent housing assistance applicants, survey results are not representative of the Chicago population at large or of Chicago low-income renters. The weighting process is limited by the data available; for more details, see the “Methodology” section below.
Compared to low-income renters across Chicago metro area (defined as those with less than 60% Area Median Income), housing assistance applicants are more likely to be Hispanic and less likely to be Black or white. Though exact income for applicants was not collected, the majority of survey respondents have household incomes between $0 and $3,000 per month.
About half of housing assistance applicants were behind on rent in late November; among those applicants, median back rent owed is about $2,200. Average debt among those who are behind is about $3,700, indicating that a portion of applicants have much higher amounts of back rent. The share of applicants living doubled up in someone else’s home is about 9%.
Rent payment has stayed fairly constant through 2021, and tenants remain worried about eviction. 60 to 70 percent of housing assistance applicants are reporting paying full rent the most recent month, and a similar share say they are confident in paying next month’s rent. Between 10 and 25 percent are reporting they did not pay any rent at all the most recent month. Meanwhile, a majority of respondents consistently have some level of worry about eviction.
Among housing assistance applicants, forced moves and threats by landlords have been relatively common. Paid moves are generally reported more frequently than lockouts. Rates of forced moves and landlord threats are especially elevated among applicants who did not pay full rent in the most recent month – as of late November, 19% had experienced a forced move, lockout, or paid move, and 22% had experienced a threat of eviction since the beginning of the pandemic.
Survey population: The Chicago Department of Housing launched an emergency housing assistance program in the spring of 2020, distributing one-time unconditional grants directly to households financially affected by the pandemic. IEL surveyed applicants to the program in May, August, and December of 2020. Anyone who responded to one of IEL’s surveys and who reported being a Chicago renter in their most recent survey was included in the Voices of Chicago survey pool. The pool was randomly divided into biweekly waves of 1,000 people each, launching in February of 2021.
Survey questions: 1. “Did you / your household pay
your full rent for the most recent month?”
2. “Can you / your household pay your rent for next month? (If your
landlord told you that you do not have to pay the full amount next
month, can you pay the amount they asked for?)”
3. “How worried are you about being evicted in the next two
months?”
4. “Are you currently living as a temporary guest in someone else’s home
until you get back on your feet financially?”
5. “Since March 2020, has your current or past landlord done any of the
following? Please choose all that apply.” Note: Question wording changed
slightly during Wave 4 for clarity.
6. “How much do you owe your landlord in back rent? If you have moved
since March 2020, please include any rent you owe to previous landlords.
If you do not owe any rent, write 0.”
Methodology: While survey waves were randomly selected, the relatively low sample size of a given wave means a sustained pattern across multiple waves is necessary to detect actual shifts in the sample average. Survey responses are weighted to the population of all applicants to DOH’s program. Weighting was based on data available for both survey respondents and applicants, which was limited to gender and race/ethnicity. Racial and ethnic demographics for DOH applicants were imputed from name and date of birth using the gender and wru packages in the R statistical software. We note that there are many limitations to this approach, including its inability to represent gender identity other than the male/female binary, and the potential for error given its probabilistic nature. Therefore, we only use this approach where there are no alternative data and a comparison would provide important context to the analysis.
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