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understand how to best design supports and target resources – but housing data at the local level is limited and often out of date.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 key 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 are 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 August 2021 Quarterly Update.
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 23, 2021
Who is represented: Responses are weighted to be 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 in a given geography, 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.
Although renters are increasingly caught up on payments (88% in late June), a significant portion of renters who are behind report it is likely they will be evicted. 43% of renters behind on housing payments consider themselves at risk of eviction in the next two months, while only 4% of owners behind on payments believe the same about foreclosure. Overall, owners have fared better than renters during the pandemic. They have been more confident in making future housing payments and more likely to be caught up on payments.
Despite large variations over time, white respondents report being more confident in paying next month’s rent or mortgage than respondents of color. White respondents also more consistently report being caught up on housing payments.
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. 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. For a full accounting of Census Pulse Survey methodology, please visit the U.S. Census website.
Last Update: Jul 10, 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 (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.
Among the 55% of housing assistance applicants who were behind on rent in mid-July, median back rent owed was about $2,800. Average rental debt was about $4,000, indicating that some applicants had significantly higher amounts of back rent. The share of applicants living doubled up as a temporary guest in someone else’s home has stayed consistent between 5 and 15 percent.
Rent payment has stayed fairly constant through 2021. 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.
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 mid-July, 14% had experienced a forced move, lockout, or paid move, and 25% 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.
Last Update: May 28, 2021
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.
Calls to the Homelessness Prevention Call Center have increased during the pandemic. There were more calls in 2020 than in 2019, especially during late fall and winter. After reaching a peak in March 2021, call volume began falling in April and May. However, the share of eligible callers referred to funding has decreased since the fall, potentially due to limited funding availability or insufficient system personnel capacity to process requests.
More callers have been requesting larger amounts of assistance. The current median request is about $1,900, but the median obscures a growing number of requests for higher amounts (12% of calls in May requested more than $5,000 in assistance). The most commonly reported reasons for calling over the last 90 days were job loss (one in three callers) and loss or reduction in benefits (one in five callers). Both reasons represent an increase in their share of calls since 2019.
Neighborhoods on the south side, particularly South Shore and Woodlawn, have seen both a high number of recent calls per household and an increase in calls since before the pandemic. Austin, and East and West Garfield Park also have a high rate of recent calls. Other neighborhoods (Uptown, Edgewater and neighborhoods on the near south side) have seen upticks in HPCC calls but started the pandemic at much lower rates.
While calls increased across the city, the gap between high-call ZIPs and other neighborhoods widened during the pandemic. In February 2021, lower-call ZIPs saw about 3 times the call rate than they did a year earlier, while the highest-call ZIP – South Shore and Woodlawn – saw a rate 7 times a year earlier. 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.”
Last Update: May 12, 2021
Who is represented: All eviction and foreclosure filings in Chicago, except for those sealed by the court at the time of filing.
Why it’s important: Prior to the pandemic, eviction was disproportionately affecting Chicago’s Black households, 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: Since May of 2021, access to new eviction filing data has been limited as a result of state law. IEL is working with partner organizations, the Chief Judge, and the Clerk of the Circuit Court in order to obtain data access and update this analysis as soon as possible. Identifying a record as being in Chicago required a successfully geocoded address, meaning records with unclear address data are not included.
Cases continue to move through the courts, but filings are at a fraction of pre-pandemic rates. Eviction filings in May 2021 were at one tenth the same month in 2019; foreclosure filings in the first quarter of 2021 were at one fifth the same quarter in 2019.
Though eviction rates remain low across the city, East Garfield Park and South Shore have experienced the highest level of recent eviction filings. Washington Park and Greater Grand Crossing are also seeing higher eviction filing levels than other neighborhoods. Foreclosure filings also remain historically low, but the south side of the city, particularly the Far South planning region, has had relatively higher rates than the rest of the city.
Eviction restrictions: The CDC and the state of Illinois have both imposed moratoria on evictions that have protected most Illinois renters during the pandemic. To qualify, renters must meet certain income limits and send a signed declaration to their landlord about the impact of the pandemic on their ability to pay rent. The most recent CDC moratorium is set to expire on October 3, 2021, and Governor Pritzker has said that the Illinois moratorium will expire at the end of August 2021. Some evictions – those where the tenant is threatening the safety of others, for example – are still allowed. For more details about tenant protections in Illinois during the pandemic, please visit this page from Illinois Legal Aid Online.
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 pause on payments). Recent Illinois legislation implements additional foreclosure protections for all properties by pausing judicial sales and orders of possession through July 2021.
Methodology: Eviction community areas are determined by an internal address geocoding process and cross-verified through ArcGIS. This means addresses listed with non-standard conventions may not be represented in the data – this applies to around one in ten Chicago filings. Foreclosure regions are based on the Chicago Department of Planning and Development’s planning districts.
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