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Published by the Consumer and Community Affairs Division
November 2011
Special Edition May 2008
Published by the Community
Development and Policy Studies Division
of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Suburban housing
collaboratives: a case
for interjurisdictional
collaboration
IN THIS ISSUE
Insurance and Asset Building page 1
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Suburban housing collaboratives: a case for
interjurisdictional collaboration
by Susan Longworth
Background
More than 280 municipalities surround the city of Chicago,
with more than 120 in Cook County alone. The metropolitan
region’s seven counties also include 123 townships, 307 school
districts, 136 fire districts, 173 park districts, and 108 library
districts. (GO TO 2040 2010) In recent years, some suburban
communities have recorded foreclosure rates exceeding those
of the most distressed inner city neighborhoods. In other towns,
home values have fallen to 1990s levels. In still others, less than
10 percent of the local workforce can afford to live near where
they work. Layered over all of these conditions are pared down
municipal budgets that limit the capacity of communities to
provide basic services, let alone address and maintain vacant
properties resulting from the foreclosure crisis. In short,
community leaders, elected officials, developers, policymakers,
and advocates face the challenges of balancing community
priorities with sharply reduced municipal budgets. They also
seek additional, outside resources to address the impacts of an
unprecedented foreclosure crisis and recession. Some
municipal leaders have joined forces to explore one possible
solution to address housing issues. Interjurisdictional
collaboration (IJC) is not a new concept, but it takes many
forms and may have the potential to be adapted and replicated
in other communities across the region.
1
1
Interjurisdictional collaboration
glossary
Interjurisdictional collaboration (IJC):
A strategy to leverage external
resources, align internal strategies to
collectively address common issues and
goals that cross municipal boundaries,
and capture resulting efficiencies.
(Source: Metropolitan Planning Council)
Land bank: A public authority created to
acquire, hold, manage, and develop taxforeclosed property, as well as other
vacant and abandoned properties.
(Source: HUD)
Employer-assisted housing (EAH):
A generic term describing any number of
ways that employers invest in housing
solutions for local workers. Employer
contributions can range from supporting
homebuyer education and providing
down-payment assistance to donating
land for development or supporting
political leadership around new
workforce housing policy and
development. (Source: Metropolitan
Planning Council)
Intergovernmental agreement (IGA):
Any agreement that involves or is made
between two or more governments to
cooperate in some specific way. Most
IGAs are made to upgrade services,
consolidate resources, and save money
through economies of scale. (Source:
www.ehow.com)
Community land trust: A nonprofit,
community-based organization that
develops or other assets at permanently
affordable levels for long-term
community benefit. (Source: National
Community Land Trust Network)
2
This article explores four examples of
IJC from the Chicago metropolitan area1.
All four have been supported – to varying
degrees – by the Metropolitan Mayors
Caucus (MMC), Chicago Metropolitan
Agency for Planning (CMAP), and
Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC), as
well as multiple sources of public and
private investment. These examples
involve suburban communities and
demonstrate the changing ways that
metropolitan suburbs address housing
issues. The intended audience includes
municipal leaders, state and federal
policymakers, property developers,
financial institutions, business leaders,
community development practitioners,
public policy analysts, and anyone
interested in the more efficient and
effective use of municipal resources to
address housing issues facing contiguous
groups of municipalities.
political fragmentation of metropolitan
areas makes it difficult to foster
sustainable, efficient community and
economic development. Supporters of IJC
would argue there is room in the middle to
accommodate both perspectives. And, as a
result, IJC has emerged as an alternate
strategy for more efficient use of municipal
capacity and resources to address
conditions affecting multiple, contiguous
towns, while preserving local autonomy.
What is interjurisdictional
collaboration?
For the purposes of this article,
Interjurisdictional Collaboration is
defined as a “strategy to leverage
external resources, align internal
strategies to collectively address
common issues and goals that cross
municipal boundaries, and capture
resulting efficiencies.” IJC does not entail
This article documents the ability of
or portend any change to current
IJC to address conditions stemming from
municipal governance structures, but
both the current housing crisis and a
rather that participating governments
historical “jobs-housing” mismatch (i.e., a
change how they relate to one another.
shortage of housing affordable to
People choose places to live based on
workers close to jobs). However,
personal preferences. The examples of
municipal cooperation is a long standing
IJC presented here illustrate that
practice of which there are many
communities may share borders, but
examples. Successful examples of IJC
might have little else in common. Thus, a
balance greater efficiencies and impact
key tenet of IJC is to ensure
with the need to maintain local autonomy
representation of views across
and control.
contiguous communities that seek to
Much urban planning literature explores address common problems, or that share
common objectives and are united by
the relative merits of maintaining local
autonomy and self-determination versus the shared interests. Also inherent to the
examples of IJC is they each return
efficiencies achieved through regional
measurable efficiencies or tangible
consolidation, including the more
resources to the individual communities
regionalized allocation of resources.
as a result of collaboration.
However, proponents of IJC do not see
“localism” and “regionalism” as mutually
A common application of “regionalism”
exclusive. Rather, they recognize that in
is the sharing of services, such as
“contemporary metropolitan areas, the
emergency response teams or waste
economically, socially, and ecologically
management services among a few
relevant local area is often the region.”
communities. That is not the purpose of
(Briffault, Richard 2000) Supporters of
IJC or the subject of this article. Further,
“localism” may argue for autonomy and selfthe examples of collaboration in this
determination above all, while “regionalists”
article are each suburban. Although each
argue that excessive local control diffuses
of the examples either borders or is close
scarce resources and services, leads to
to the city of Chicago and all fall within
unsustainable communities, and that
its metropolitan statistical area, the focus
is on how these municipalities interact
with each other.
In each of the examples, we also explore
the roles of the regional planning agencies
that have extensive histories of guiding the
development of the Chicago region.
Interjurisdictional collaboration in
metropolitan Chicago
Our four Chicago area examples of IJC
address improved access to and
preservation of affordable housing
options, as well as the current housing
crisis. The communities and models
profiled are situated to the north,
northwest, west, and south of the city of
Chicago. The collaboratives vary in size
from five communities to 19. One has
existed informally for over a decade; one
has grown out of a large, economic
development collaborative; one was just
getting started as the foreclosure crisis
hit; and one emerged with the foreclosure
crisis as community needs rapidly
outpaced the capacity to address them.
Within the four collaboratives, the
participating communities are not
homogeneous in any way. They are
racially and ethnically diverse, and
economically range from extreme
affluence to low income. While one
community may wrestle with how to
provide upscale housing for downsizing
seniors, another may lack the funds to
board up abandoned properties. Two
collaboratives include communities that
share a border with the city; two are
more removed. For the most part, the
collaboratives fall within Cook County,
although, two cross into neighboring
Lake County and one into Will County.
The smallest city across the four
collaboratives has a population of less
than 2,000, the largest more than
70,000. The majority have populations
under 20,000. Many have lost residents
over the past decade and are confronting
issues of increasing racial diversity. Few
have the capacity to retain the staff and
garner the resources necessary to
confront present challenges. Together,
these communities share expertise,
access funding, capture opportunities,
and implement programs that may
change how communities interact with
their neighbors to achieve important,
shared housing goals.
IJC is not a simple undertaking. The
profiled collaboratives have confronted
longstanding issues, including racial and
socioeconomic tensions. A significant
amount of groundwork needs to be laid
before IJC can gain real momentum,
which includes cultivating leadership,
building trust around common goals, and
identifying mutually agreeable strategies.
Progress is often slow and is sometimes
measured in small steps rather than
ribbon cutting ceremonies, and as roles
and actors change, some battles must be
fought multiple times. But a key motivator
of IJC is that it provides the opportunity
to pool and focus resources where they
Office of Sustainable Housing and
Communities “to stimulate more
integrated and sophisticated regional
planning to guide state, metropolitan,
and local investments in land use,
transportation, and housing, as well as
to challenge localities to undertake
zoning and land-use reforms.”
(Alexander, Lisa T. 2011)
The beginnings: the Metropolitan
Mayors Caucus
According to local housing experts,
the roots of IJC in the Chicago area
precede the foreclosure crisis.
Discussions of affordable housing once
conjured up images of decaying, urban
housing projects. The dialogue began
with the 1999 Regional Rental Market
Analysis (RRMA), managed by MPC, that
documented a long-held belief: market
forces of supply and demand were not
producing the expected (or desired)
IJC has emerged as an alternate strategy for more efficient
use of municipal capacity and resources to address
conditions affecting multiple, contiguous towns, while
preserving local autonomy.
are most needed and can have the
greatest impact, even if this means that
some participating communities receive
no direct investment.
Current economic conditions have
transformed cross-border collaboration
from an interesting exercise in
efficiency to a virtual necessity.
Reduced local, state, and federal
resources have stretched municipal
budgets to the limit. For this reason
and more, the IJC concept has also
received attention and encouragement
from the federal level. The U.S. Dept. of
Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) Sustainable Communities Grant
Program, which embraces the IJC
tenets of cooperative problem solving,
was launched by the newly created
result with respect to development of
housing affordable to local workforces.
The suburban housing market was not
accommodating the job and population
growth of the 1990s. Home ownership
was largely out of reach for the new
workforce, and rental housing close to
major employment centers was not
plentiful or affordable. Long commutes
from affordable communities to those
with job centers were resulting in fatigue,
traffic congestion, and employee
dissatisfaction and turnover – a huge
cost for employers.
While these trends were detrimental
to businesses and to the quality of life for
the region’s residents, addressing the
shortage was a challenge due to the
Chicago region’s municipal
[Continued on page 7]
3
Collaboration in the north suburbs
The suburbs of Highland Park, Lake Forest, Deerfield, and
Northbrook form a loose semi-circle around the community of
Highwood, the smallest, least affluent, and most racially diverse
of the five, which has a population of just over 5,300. To the
north, Highwood is bordered by Lake Forest, one of the
wealthiest communities in the nation, with median household
income close to $150,000 – more than twice the Illinois state
median. To the south is Highland Park, another lake shore
suburb where median household income greatly exceeds the
state median, and median home value is close to $600,000. To
the west and southwest of Highwood are Deerfield and
Northbrook; both have median household income over
$100,000 and educational attainment levels exceeding state
and national averages.
In 2006, a threat to one of the only affordable rental
properties serving the area’s local workforce catalyzed the first
set of meetings about interjurisdictional housing collaboration.
Led by former Highland Park Mayor Michael Belsky, whose
community had an established track record promoting
affordable housing, the five communities discussed the potential
loss of Highwood’s 250+ unit North Shore Estates, located
across from the former Fort Sheridan on the shores of Lake
Michigan. The conversion of North Shore Estates to market-rate
condominiums would represent a significant loss of already
scarce local, affordable rental housing. Over 45 percent of
renting residents across the five towns pay more than 30
percent of their gross monthly income in rent, indicating a
shortage of housing affordable to the area’s workforce (20052009 American Community Survey).
In 2007, to better understand the impact of a shortage of
housing affordable to area workers, MPC analyzed collective
housing supply and demand in the five towns: close to 60,000
local workers earned less than $50,000 per year, and fewer than
5,000 residences were affordable to that income level. The
mayors of these five suburbs, having already lost Uline (a
manufacturer of shipping materials) and other employers to
Wisconsin, recognized the need to promote a housing stock
affordable to local employees as a means to retain businesses.
Highland Park already had a number of unique housing programs
and developments, and Lake Forest was in the process of
expanding its own program base. Between these two
municipalities with strong community development staffs sits
Highwood, which struggles to maintain a village administrator.
Area mayors recognized the value of employer engagement
and were receptive to a new partnership to help retain major
employers. In 2007, just prior to the foreclosure crisis, Charter
One Bank, in partnership with the mayors of the five
communities and the MPC, launched the Workforce Housing
Initiative to provide local employers with a “menu of options” of
market-based solutions to help employees afford existing
homes and/or create new homes affordable to working families.
These options ranged from down-payment assistance and
4
home ownership counseling assistance to land donations.
Across the metropolitan area, more than 70 employers are
providing housing assistance to their employees, and have
helped close to 3,000 employees become home owners over
the last 10 years. Furthermore, some of the North Shore’s
leading employers, including Walgreen’s, Abbott Labs, Lake
Forest College, and others have stepped up to support needed
development and housing policy change.
In spite of their collective affluence, these north suburban
communities have not been immune to the recession and
resulting stresses on businesses and residents. According to
Midwest Real Estate Data LLC, between May 2010 and May
2011, 25 percent of all home sales in the northern suburbs were
“distressed” – meaning either a foreclosure or short sale.
MPC and MMC sponsored several meetings with the
communities to consider how to create an inventory of
affordable housing through employer engagement and by
creating a sustainable community land trust that could
potentially extend across the five suburbs. The Highland Park
Illinois Community Land Trust (HPICLT) was recognized as an
appealing model, so participating towns and employers
applauded the decision of that HPICLT Board to “go regional”
as the new Community Partners for Affordable Housing
(CPAH). Today, in addition to ongoing land trust activities in
Highland Park, Lake Forest recently approved two scattered
site affordable homes. While implementation is still evolving,
each of the communities recognizes, as communities nationwide
are learning, that they have neither the capacity nor the
resources to address affordable housing needs at the
necessary scale on their own. CPAH serves a 20-mile radius
from Highland Park, and advises the communities as they
consider their affordable housing options.
However, the prospects of funding these types of initiatives in
today’s environment underscore current resource shortages.
Recent applications for funding have not been successful, as these
suburbs must compete with less affluent communities. However,
even unsuccessful attempts to secure funding have advanced
planning activities, as well as the sharing of best practices.
Collaborative Demographics Profile
Interjurisdictional Collaboration Areas (Sept 2011): North Shore
North
# of Municipalities
5
Total Population
105,938
Median Household Income
$121,690
# Home Rule Communities
5
# Non-Home Rule Communities
0
% Vacant Housing Units
6.6%
% Owner-Occupied Housing
Units
84.5%
% Ownership Housing
Unaffordable*
33.1%
% Rental Housing Unaffordable**
46.3%
* unaffordable defined as monthly owner costs
greater than 30% of household income
** unaffordable defined as gross rent greater
than 30% of household income
Source: Metropolitan Planning Council.
5
Collaborative Facts
North
Catalytic Reason for IJC
Engage employers in the need for workforce
housing
Year Structure Formalized
The collaborative activities in the north suburbs
have not been formalized. The communities
engage periodically to address workforce
housing issues
What is Structure?
While there is no formal structure, a local nonprofit, Community Partners in Affordable
Housing (CPAH) advises the communities, as
requested
What is Staffing?
CPAH lends the expertise and donates the time
of its staff, as needed
Dollars Leveraged
To date, the north suburbs have not collectively
secured any funding
Activities/Work in Progress
Hosted joint employer outreach events on ways
to support workforce housing
Highland Park Illinois Community Land Trust
expanded to serve the sub-region in 2010 and
now operates as CPAH
CPAH is conducting projects in multiple towns
Source: Metropolitan Planning Council.
6
fragmentation, a lack of coherent state
policy on affordable housing, and
furthermore, “community resistance to
apartments was consistently mentioned
as the primary barrier” to providing rental
housing. (For Rent: Housing Options in
the Chicago Region 1999)
The RRMA mobilized the MMC’s
housing leadership to establish a
common set of housing goals and
consensus around the related community
benefits. Today the Caucus has a fulltime housing director, in addition to its
executive director, and represents over
270 area mayors providing a forum for
discussion, cooperation, consensus, and
change around issues affecting the
entire region. The Caucus’s Housing
Endorsement Criteria and subsequent
Housing Action Agenda2, first approved
in 2002 and subsequently updated and
re-approved in 2011, together created a
common platform from which to promote
the right balance of housing options
affordable to local workers and a range
of other households, including seniors
and young singles. The Housing
Endorsement Criteria are principles
guiding the type of housing communities
that should work to develop and
preserve. Specifically, the endorsement
criteria encourage activities to promote
economic development and workforce
housing stating: “Housing, when
appropriately located, encourages the
expansion of existing (businesses) and
the establishment of new businesses
and industries within the region. The
mismatch between where the jobs are
and where workers can afford to live has
significant costs. Increasingly, employers
recognize that local housing for all levels
of their workforce promotes stability and
productivity for the workers, as well as
the individual company.”
The Housing Action Agenda outlines
“proactive steps toward the full range of
quality housing options for the diversity
of households that call this region home.”
The mayors understood that a solid
housing agenda also needed the support
of area employers focused on a
competitive workforce, which meant
providing viable “live near work”
housing options. According to MPC,
which has worked with companies to
develop EAH programs, it is a
“generic term to describe any number
of ways employers are investing in
homes for the local workforce. By
helping employees buy or rent homes
close to work or transit, employers
help reduce the long commutes that
contribute not only to time away from
family, traffic congestion, and air
pollution, but also to employee stress
and fatigue.” Beyond EAH, The
Mayors Caucus and partners like
CMAP and MPC developed
publications and tools, such as
Housing 1-2-3 and the Homes for a
Changing Region Initiative, to help
communities fulfill the objectives of
the Action Agenda.
In the early 2000s, after helping a
number of towns implement some of
the Caucus’s new strategies, it
became clear that working town-bytown would not create the efficiencies
needed to address the live- near-work
challenges on a meaningful scale.
While successes emerged,
experience showed that each was so
complex that measurable, region-wide
progress could not be a realistic
result of towns working
independently. Notably, even the
employer engagement in these
efforts further motivated a
collaborative approach, since
employers reach across municipal
boundaries for employees and
customers.
In 2007, Charter One Bank
launched its Workforce Housing
Initiative in the north and northwest
suburbs, which expressly encouraged
communities to work across political
borders in the same way businesses
do. With this initiative, suburban
leadership had the impetus and
support to collectively move EAH
forward with an interjurisdictional and
cooperative framework.
Regional Home Ownership
Preservation Initiative
RHOPI is a collaboration of
organizations working to address the
Chicago region’s foreclosure crisis through
coordinated regional responses. Engaging
public, private, and nonprofit actors,
fostering collaboration, and building
capacity and support across the region,
RHOPI was formally launched in 2008 to
address the crisis, its fallout, and resource
gaps for owners, renters, and communities.
Rapidly deployed federal foreclosure
prevention programs could not address the
causes of default; unemployment and rapidly
falling home prices were difficult issues
facing borrowers and lenders alike. With the
rising number of vacant properties putting a
strain on municipal resources, the
desirability and safety of neighborhoods was
threatened. Meanwhile, municipal
governments were under pressure to put
properties back to productive use, and
renters in foreclosed buildings faced
uncertainty and deteriorating living
conditions. A more coordinated regional
response was needed. The result was a
collaboration of individuals at more than 70
organizations in the Chicago MSA reaching
“on-the-ground solutions and cross-sector
and inter-jurisdictional coordination.” (RHOPI
Charter, www.regionalhopi.org)
Aside from the initial sponsoring
organizations, the Chicago Fed, The
Chicago Community Trust, and
Neighborhood Housing Services of
Chicago (NHS), lead RHOPI partners are
Housing Action Illinois, the Woodstock
Institute, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for
Planning, Metropolis Strategies,
Metropolitan Mayors’ Caucus, and
Metropolitan Planning Council. RHOPI is an
outgrowth of the Home Ownership
Preservation Initiative (HOPI), launched by
NHS in partnership with the City of Chicago
and the Chicago Fed in 2003. HOPI
became a national model for localized
foreclosure intervention and abatement
efforts. HOPI partners include many of the
nation’s largest lenders and servicers.
[Continued on page 11]
7
Northwest Suburban Housing Collaborative
The Northwest Suburban Housing Collaborative (NWSHC)
comprises five suburbs – Palatine, Buffalo Grove, Arlington
Heights, Rolling Meadows, and Mount Prospect – located in
northwest Cook and southern Lake counties. Popular suburbs
known for good schools, demand for housing drove up prices
during the housing boom, which put most homes out of reach for
many of the people who worked in these communities. However,
median home values peaked in mid-2006, and have since
declined by over 50 percent, according to the Zillow Home Value
Index (www.Zillow.com).
According to 2010 Census data, population across the five
communities has been relatively flat with a cumulative decrease
of less than 1 percent since 2000. Palatine is the only town to
experience population growth in this period. These historically
White suburbs are also seeing more diversity, with increases in
Asian and Hispanic populations. The combination of decreasing
populations – further reducing community resources – and
increasing diversity can cause communities to pull apart, rather
than come together.
Nonetheless, these five communities share borders, and
despite demographic shifts remain relatively homogeneous. To
prospective residents, in fact, the communities may appear
similar. Further blurring the boundaries are the many children
who cross municipal borders each day to go to schools in
neighboring communities.
The five collaborative suburbs also shared a “spatial
mismatch,” meaning that affordable homes are situated far from
employment centers, leading to long commutes, traffic
congestion, increased carbon emissions, worker fatigue, and
stress. In 2007, data revealed that just 7 percent of the local
housing stock was affordable to workers earning less than
$25,000 – about 36 percent of the workforce in the five-town
footprint. Rental housing does not provide any relief. American
Community Survey (ACS) data showed that in 2009, over 40
percent of renters in these communities paid more than 30 percent
of their net monthly incomes toward rent, indicating a large portion
of residents shouldering a disproportionate rent burden.
A lack of affordable housing close to jobs has an impact
on worker performance and retention, increasing costs to
local businesses and affecting their bottom line. To address
this disconnect between where people live and where they
work, the area’s municipal leaders engaged with local
employers, through the Charter One Workforce Housing
Initiative, to implement EAH, including down-payment
assistance and home ownership counseling.
In 2007, according to projections calculated by Fregonese
Calthorpe Associates for Chicago Metropolis 2020 and the
MMC, the towns would need an additional 3,500 rentals and
7,900 for-sale homes affordable to local households earning
less than $75,000 by 2030. The NWSHC knew it was facing a
huge challenge, even as the foreclosure crisis began to unfold
across the region.
More recently, the collaborative suburbs have seen increases
in condominium foreclosures, putting further pressure on the
availability of rental and affordable for-sale housing. Recent data
from the Woodstock Institute show Northwest Cook County
experiencing a 24.5 percent increase in foreclosure filings
between 2009 and 2010. However, condominium foreclosures
in Northwest Cook increased by 32.3 percent over this period,
and foreclosures on condominiums made up 42.5 percent of
total 2010 foreclosure activity in the area.
Woodstock Institute data further reported that Northwest
Cook County, between 2009 and 2010, saw the largest
percentage increase – 66.1 percent – in foreclosure auctions
(the point at which the foreclosure process is complete and the
home owner is typically evicted) of any suburban region,
compared to a 19.9 percent increase for the city of Chicago.
Most of these properties revert to lenderownership, become real estate owned
(REO), and are likely vacant. (Chicago City
and Regional Foreclosure Activity 2010)
Foreclosure increases and resulting
vacant properties “impact the local
property market. Their value is affected
by that. You see crime being a factor, and
there’s neighborhood stability. With
families leaving, a sense of community is
being affected,” said Woodstock Institute
former senior vice president Geoff Smith,
as quoted in the March 29, 2011, issue of
TribLocal Palatine, speaking about the
increase in condominium foreclosures in
Palatine. Foreclosures in Palatine
increased by almost 45 percent between
2009 and 2010, almost 70 percent of
them condominiums.
8
Collaborative Demographics Profile
Northwest
# of Municipalities
Interjurisdictional Collaboration Areas (Sept 2011): Northwest
Interjurisdictional Collaboration Areas (Sept. 2011): Northwest
5
Total Population
263,420
Median Household Income
$74,185
# Home Rule Communities
5
# Non-Home Rule Communities
0
% Vacant Housing Units
Lake
5.7%
% Owner-Occupied Housing
Units
% Ownership Housing
Unaffordable*
34.6%
% Rental Housing Unaffordable**
Buffalo Grove
75.3%
42.9%
* unaffordable defined as monthly owner costs
Palatine
greater than 30% of household income
Arlington Heights
** unaffordable defined as gross rent greater
than 30% of household income
Source: Metropolitan Planning Council.
Cook
Rolling Meadows
Mount Prospect
Legend
Metra Rail
Metra Stations
Expressways
Northwest Housing Collaborative
DuPage
0
1.25
2.5 Miles
9
Northwest Housing Collaborative
With foreclosures continuing to rise and showing no signs
of abating; recent grants and other support were timely,
providing the resources to implement sound planning. A
November 2010 forum, convened by MPC, MMC, the
Preservation Compact, and other regional partners, gathered
municipal leaders and more than 30 multi-family property
owners and managers representing more than 4,000
apartments and condominiums, to accelerate planning for a
rental preservation strategy. Following several planning
meetings in 2010, the NWSHC developed an aggressive and
multi-faceted work plan for 2011. The primary focus of the
work plan was the hiring of a housing coordinator to focus
and galvanize the work of the collaborative, which continues
to meet regularly. In May 2011, the NWSHC received a grant
from The Chicago Community Trust to fund the position.
The Trust grant gave the collaborative “credibility” in the
words of a local leader. The members know each other well
and the mayors interact frequently around a variety of
issues, but a grant motivated them to formalize the
relationships through an
intergovernmental agreement (IGA). The
collaborative’s main priority will be to
Collaborative Facts
address the increase in multifamily
foreclosures that are destabilizing entire
Catalytic Reason for IJC
developments and communities.
Tantamount to that priority is the
preservation of the existing affordable
rental housing stock, by targeting key
Year Structure Formalized
properties, and continuing to serve as a
resource and advocate for improved tax
What is Structure?
policy to the Cook County assessor. EAH
What is Staffing?
activities are ongoing as pressures
continue on businesses to contain costs
Dollars Leveraged
and on workers to find stable jobs. ThreeActivities/Work in Progress
to-five-year goals center on strategies to
improve options for quality housing
affordable to the local workforce near
jobs and/or transit via a sustained, selfsupporting iterjurisdictional entity that
balances the combined priorities of
rental preservation, EAH, and
foreclosure mitigation.
Northwest
Engage employers in the need for workforce
housing; condo foreclosures; multi-family rental
preservation
2011
Intergovernmental Agreement
Individual acting as Housing Coordinator
$40,000
Hosted joint employer outreach events on ways
to support workforce housing
Held a resource forum for owners and
managers of multifamily rental housing
Conducting Homes for a Changing Region
housing supply and demand analysis through
technical assistance from CMAP
To further support its cross-border
work, in March 2011, the NWSHC received
a technical assistance award through
Source: Metropolitan Planning Council.
CMAP’s Local Technical Assistance (LTA)
Program to conduct a housing supply and
demand analysis that will drive the collaborative’s planning and
priority setting into the future. This plan will reflect shared
values, agreed upon strategies for implementation, and will
serve as the necessary road map for the collaborative moving
forward. With both staff and planning
support in place, the collaborative is poised to
ensure a balance of housing options is available
for all residents.
10
With the beginning of the foreclosure
crisis the following year, experience with
IJC proved to be quite valuable, as
cooperation across communities and
jurisdictions emerged as perhaps the
only strategy with any potential to
address a large volume of mortgage
defaults and property abandonments.
With a shift in urgency came a shift in
emphasis, in the Chicagoland area,
moving from a focus on EAH to one of
foreclosure prevention and mitigation.
IJC in action: the response of the
Regional Home Ownership
Preservation Initiative
For decades, various policy and
market realities have led to
concentrations of foreclosures in
disinvested and economically frail
communities. Former Chicago Mayor
Richard M. Daley recognized very early
the urgent need to address the high
foreclosure rates in city neighborhoods.
The mayor called upon Neighborhood
Housing Services of Chicago (NHS) and
other well-established housing
organizations to develop a plan of action.
In response to Mayor Daley’s request, in
2003, NHS coalesced many of the
services it provides to lower-income
communities – affordable, sustainable
mortgages, counseling, emergency loans,
and foreclosure intervention services –
under a single umbrella initiative: the
Home Ownership Preservation Initiative
(HOPI). However, a number of suburban
communities, particularly the near south
and near west suburbs, also had high
foreclosure rates but not the budgets to
initiate foreclosure mitigation efforts. By
the summer of 2007, it was clear the
result of years of irresponsible mortgage
lending was going to be very serious, and
the Chicago region was going to
experience a severe housing crisis.
Indeed, the Chicago metropolitan area
followed the national foreclosure trend,
with an approximately 100 percent
increase in foreclosure starts from 2006
to 2008 in the city and across the sixcounty region.
In 2007, the HOPI initiative was
expanded, through a partnership with the
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, The
Chicago Community Trust, and NHS to
form a regional version of HOPI, which is
commonly referred to as RHOPI. This
metro-wide effort convened more than
100 experts and practitioners, and
focused on developing coordinated
priorities and action plans around home
buyer and home owner counseling and
legal aid; refinancing and financial
products; and foreclosed vacant
properties. A separate group of experts
foreclosures often had the fewest
resources to address them.
Building on the RHOPI platform and
working through its network,
Neighborhood Stabilization Program
(NSP) funding created an innovative
opportunity for IJC to address
Chicagoland’s growing housing crisis,
particularly in Cook County’s south and
west suburbs. Given the overwhelming
number of foreclosures in these
communities, a collaborative model was
the most effective vehicle through which
to access, manage, and deploy NSP
“By making collaboration across federal and state programs
routine, agencies can help regions to more effectively
implement comprehensive solutions to their problems.”
– GO TO 2040
developed a research agenda. RHOPI
started as an initiative to learn more
about facts, trends, and responses to the
region’s foreclosure crisis, coordinate
actions, and establish priorities. It
developed into an unprecedented
partnership of governmental, nonprofit,
and private sector organizations.
Ultimately, the RHOPI process brought
people and organizations together and
broke down silos among sectors and
jurisdictions. The flexible network RHOPI
created also served as a platform to
leverage the federal programs activated
by the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and develop
immediate solutions to some of the most
pressing problems that the foreclosure
crisis brought to the region. (Requejo,
Roberto 2009)
RHOPI embraced cross-border and
interagency collaboration as a strategy.
Geographic areas with concentrated
foreclosures overlapped municipal
boundaries, and even towns with
relatively few foreclosures were affected
by the distress of their neighbors.
Unfortunately, the towns hardest hit by
dollars and resources. In the south,
communities were able to build on the
existing collaborative structure of the
South Suburban Mayors and Managers
Association (SSMMA) to integrate a
discussion on mitigating the effects of
the foreclosure crisis into ongoing
economic development discussions,
namely linking the problems of the
foreclosure crisis to the solutions of
transit-oriented development. With 21
communities signing on to a joint NSP
application to Cook County, the Chicago
Southland Housing and Community
Development Collaborative secured
almost $9 million in NSP funding.
Ultimately, the county directed resources
to just 11 individual communities.
In the west, NSP provided the catalyst
to create the West Cook County Housing
Collaborative (WCCHC), consisting of
five communities extending west from
Chicago’s border along the I-290
corridor. Once again, while all the
member communities signed onto an
application, the WCCHC elected to focus
the resources in Maywood and Bellwood.
(Another collaborative member, Berwyn,
[Continued on page 15]
11
West Cook County Housing Collaborative
The West Cook County Housing Collaborative (WCCHC)
consists of the suburbs of Oak Park, Forest Park, Maywood,
Bellwood, and Berwyn extending west from the city, along the
I-290 Eisenhower Expressway. Oak Park is perhaps most widely
recognized of the five suburbs. One-time home of architect Frank
Lloyd Wright, tree-lined streets shade stately homes on large lots
and excellent schools draw in residents. Oak Park has the highest
median household income of the five WCCHC communities. Not
surprisingly, it also has the highest median home value, topping
$380,000 (ACS). Oak Park is also ethnically diverse, while its
collaborative partners are predominantly minority; historically
Black but increasingly Hispanic. For example, Bellwood and
Maywood are each more than 70 percent Black, with
unemployment rates exceeding state and national averages, and
each losing as much 7 percent of their population since 2000.
Forest Park lies in-between Oak Park and Maywood. While
median household income is not as high as in Oak Park, Forest
Park does not show the same signs of economic distress as its
neighbors to the west and southwest. It has been more
successful at retaining residents, losing only about 3.5 percent of
its population since 2000. Community members are well
educated – with attainment levels exceeding state and national
averages – and the community remains relatively affordable, with
the lowest rental burden of any member of the collaborative.
Berwyn has historically been a predominantly White community.
In recent years, however, the community has become increasingly
– and is now majority – Hispanic. Berwyn has also struggled with
population loss and higher than average poverty rates. It had 2.5
times the number of foreclosures of Oak Park, even though
similar in population size.
This diverse group of communities came together in 2009 to
form the WCCHC to address the common and growing issue of
both multi- and single-family foreclosures. Between 2009 and
2010, foreclosure filings in West Suburban Cook County
increased by 13.5 percent, with 40.3 new filings per 1,000
mortgageable properties, compared to 35.1 for the Chicago
region. (Chicago City and Regional Foreclosure Activity 2010) In
light of this deteriorating situation, and as a result of RHOPI,
MMC and MPC, with other partners, helped WCCHC develop a
coordinated strategy to tackle the foreclosure crisis and promote
affordable and mixed-income housing creation and preservation.
In May of 2009, WCCHC received funding from The Chicago
Community Trust to hire a housing coordinator to provide
dedicated capacity on housing and community development
issues. This role is being filled by IFF, a nonprofit lender and real
estate consultant, which can leverage its organizational
expertise in research, policy, planning, and finance, as well as
play the role of developer. WCCHC is the only collaborative in
the region to have an organization as its coordinator. Funding
has permitted the communities to formalize their relationships,
12
conduct structured meetings, and serve to mitigate some of the
staffing constraints of working across communities that have
varying levels of capacity and resources. WCCHC members
renew an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) each year to
signal their commitment to the work of the collaborative,
including the common goals of sharing knowledge, and, to some
extent, resources, in support of housing issues that directly
impact their communities.
In 2009, the WCCHC received $3,067,089 in NSP dollars
from Cook County, working with IFF as the developer, to acquire
and rehabilitate foreclosed single-family homes and multi-family
properties near large employers and transportation options.
Approximately 90 percent of the funding was provided for rental
rehabilitation, with the balance for single-family rehab. The West
Collaborative has acquired a 26-unit, multi-family rental property
in Maywood, and the remaining funds are being used for three
single-family homes in Bellwood.
At the Maywood Apartments property development, where
rehab is underway, the selection and management of the project
management team is overseen by IFF. The development is
expected to create 120 construction positions, as well as a fulltime permanent position. After completion, the units will be
leased as affordable rental units, with half of the units affordable
to households at or below 50 percent of area median income
($37,700 for a family of four). “This development is the first
among our plans to create quality, affordable housing near
public transportation and other existing community assets in
West Cook County,” said Michelle Hoereth, director of housing
at IFF. The Bellwood properties are nearing completion and two
buyers for the rehabbed homes have already been identified.
Highlighting some of the nuances of IJC, the city of Berwyn,
with some of the highest foreclosure rates in the region, received
its own NSP allocation of approximately $4 million from the State
of Illinois program. Berwyn has used the funds to acquire 27
homes. As they are rehabbed and sold, the town will recycle the
funds to ensure revitalization efforts continue. While Berwyn
remains an active participant in the WCCHC, the flow of NSP
funding from HUD to both Cook County and the state resulted in
Berwyn’s funds being allocated to the individual municipality.
The WCCHC has also focused on promoting EAH, including
hosting a joint luncheon in 2010 for mayors from the member
towns, as well as interested employers. The group is now
working on several opportunities with individual municipalities
and employers. In the spring of 2011, the Community Bank of
Oak Park River Forest became the first west suburban employer
to offer EAH to its employees. The bank is offering up to
$5,000 in assistance to two employees a year, with plans to
refer additional employees to pre-purchase counseling and
education services.
Interjurisdictional Collaboration Areas (Sept. 2011): West
Interjurisdictional Collaboration Areas (Sept 2011): West
Bellwood
Oak Park
Maywood
Forest Park
DuPage
Cook
Berwyn
Legend
CTA Blue Line
CTA Green Line
Metra Rail
Metra Stations
Expressways
West Cook County Housing Collaborative
0
0.5
1 Miles
13
To guide and manage these concurrent activities, as well as coordinate applications
for funding, WCCHC has formalized a work plan, which will help to focus efforts on
affordable housing opportunities around the transit centers, possibly even creating a
transit oriented development fund.
WCCHC benefits from strong municipal leadership supported by a coordinating
structure that lends a formality to collaborative discussions. An elected official from
each community participates in the steering committee, and a staff person from each
community sits on the working group. The latter meets at least monthly; the former
meets at least quarterly and is the official voting body for WCCHC activities. The
WCCHC operates under the Public Meetings Act. Participants clearly understand areas
of mutual self interest, which include preserving a diverse housing stock and leveraging
shared transportation assets.
WCCHC received a technical assistance award through CMAP’s Local Technical
Assistance Program to conduct the Homes for a Changing Region housing supply and
demand analysis. The result will be the development of individual housing policy plans
for each of the five municipalities, as well as a sub-regional policy plan. These plans will
aim to create a balanced mix of housing types across the communities in order to serve
the needs of current and future residents and workers. The collaborative is also making
an effort to align its programs and policies to promote efficient redevelopment activity.
This important activity will lay the groundwork for an eventual shift from reacting to a
foreclosure crisis that has devastated communities to implementing the benefits of
collective planning to benefit the region.
Collaborative Demographics Profile
West
# of Municipalities
5
Total Population
165,863
Median Household Income
$58,947
# Home Rule Communities
4
# Non-Home Rule Communities
1
% Vacant Housing Units
8.5%
% Owner-Occupied Housing
Units
60.2%
% Ownership Housing
Unaffordable*
38.6%
% Rental Housing Unaffordable**
48.9%
* unaffordable defined as monthly owner costs
greater than 30% of household income
** unaffordable defined as gross rent greater
than 30% of household income
Source: Metropolitan Planning Council.
Collaborative Facts
West
Catalytic Reason for IJC
Foreclosure response
Year Structure Formalized
2009
What is Structure?
Intergovernmental agreement
What is Staffing?
Nonprofit organization serving as Housing
Coordinator
Dollars Leveraged
Over $7 million
Activities/Work in Progress
Hosted joint employer outreach event on ways
to support workforce housing
Held a resource forum for owners and
managers of multifamily rental housing
Rehabbing over 55 foreclosed or vacant single
family homes and multifamily units
Conducting Homes for a Changing Region
housing supply and demand analysis and
developing a joint transit-oriented development
plan through technical assistance from CMAP
Source: Metropolitan Planning Council.
14
applied for and received its own
allocation from the state.) In both cases,
while tangible outcomes, such as units
put back into service, are limited to the
confines of those specific communities,
the entire collaborative benefits from the
resulting stability.
Roles of regional planning agencies
As much as IJC is motivated by
individual communities responding to
localized challenges, the role of regional
planning organizations has been vital to
the success of the Chicago region’s
examples. These entities have provided
a framework for discussions, as well as
supportive resources relating to
convening, funding, and expertise. In his
2000 book American Metropolitics: The
New Suburban Reality, Myron Orfield
states, “Effective regional land-use
reform hinges on three elements:
coordinated infrastructure planning, a
regional housing plan, and regional
review and coordination of local
planning.” (Orfield, Myron 2002)
Chicago’s regional planning and policy
organizations, including CMAP, MPC,
and the MMC have effectively carried
out this task.
A decade ago, the MMC, as convener
of the region’s municipal mayors,
sanctioned the Housing Endorsement
Criteria and Housing Action Agenda.
Armed with these documents and related
tools for implementation, the region’s
mayors could move ahead with a common
and agreed-upon understanding of goals
and objectives. The MMC has continued
to play this role, and served to represent
the collective voice of the mayors at the
state and national levels. It is joined in
these efforts, and works closely with, the
independent and nonprofit MPC, which
serves as a connector between regional
needs, challenges, and solutions, and
among individuals and organizations to
guide the growth of the Chicago
metropolitan region. Within IJC, MPC
lends its technical expertise to the
individual collaboratives to advise in the
planning and execution of their initiatives,
encompassing housing, transportation,
and economic development. MPC has
staff dedicated not only to the execution
of IJC initiatives, but also to elevating the
visibility of the concept among local, state,
and national policymakers.
CMAP is the official regional planning
organization for the northeastern Illinois
counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall,
Lake, McHenry, and Will. CMAP recently
released GO TO 2040, metropolitan
Chicago’s first comprehensive regional plan
in more than 100 years. To address
anticipated population growth of more than
2 million new residents, GO TO 2040
establishes coordinated strategies that
help the region’s 284 communities address
transportation, housing, economic
development, open space, environmental,
and other quality-of-life issues. This
overarching vision provides an important
guiding reference point for the region’s
individual communities. GO TO 2040 also
prioritizes collaborative activities as a
strategy to improve government efficiency.
Recognizing that moving to collaboration
must be motivated by individual
communities at their own pace, GO TO
2040 targets its recommendations to state
and federal funding sources: “By making
collaboration across federal and state
programs routine, agencies can help
regions to more effectively implement
comprehensive solutions to their problems.”4
Together these three entities, in concert
with many others, have supported local
collaborative activity, lending expertise in
planning, advocacy, fundraising, organizing,
reporting, monitoring, and more. Above all,
their role has been most frequently cited as
one of leadership.
Origins of IJC: pros and cons
Examples of IJC date back decades.
In today’s budget constrained
environment, one might expect that
ideas to foster the efficient use of
municipal resources would meet little
resistance. However, today, as in the
past, cross-border collaboration is met
with varying levels of enthusiasm – as
misconceptions about resource sharing,
loss of identity, and dilution of power are
difficult to reconcile. Proponents stress
today’s complex issues do not respect
municipal boundaries, and smaller
municipalities are often challenged to
provide key public services due to
inefficient cost structures. Detractors
tend to push back when the discussions
of collaboration and service sharing
evolve into discussions of centralization
and consolidation. Nevertheless, there
exists a history of leaving local
structures and powers in place, while
encouraging actions around regional
standards and plans, particularly when
dealing with issues of economic
development and affordable housing.
(Briffault, Richard 2000)
Degrees of municipal collaboration
can be mapped along a continuum of
interactions. At the “most elemental”
and informal, communities may
participate in networks; moving from
there to cooperation through to
coordination and collaboration. It follows
that the final stop on this continuum is
consolidation. “Each category differs in
level of complexity (information sharing
vs. complicated joint problem solving); in
intensity of linkages (based on common
goals, decision rules, shared tasks, and
resource commitments); and in the
formality of agreements reached
(informal vs. formal structures, policies,
and procedures).” (Ciglar, Beverly A.
1992) While most of the early reviews of
community collaborations focused on
small, rural communities, the application
to suburban, metro communities is
appropriate given the degree of
fragmentation, size of the communities,
and their respective resource
constraints and motivations.
A handful of common circumstances
or events have been demonstrated to
move communities toward collaboration.
These include:
• A crisis/disaster (economic or natural)
• A political constituency of cooperation
• Supportive capacity building or
incentives provided by external sources
15
• Early and continued support by elected
officials
• Visible advantages of cooperation for
participating governments
• Existence of a “policy entrepreneur”
who can see beyond existing structures
• Early focus on visible, effective
strategies
• An emphasis on collaborative
skills-building
It is not necessary for a collaborative to
have all of these elements, but as the
examples show, possessing multiple
characteristics creates a common catalyst
for the success of collaborative efforts.
(Ciglar, Beverly A. 1992)
Certainly, the Chicago area
collaboratives fulfill many of these preconditions, and practitioners acknowledge
the importance of external support, both
in terms of capacity building as well as
dollars; the need for consistent municipal
leadership and buy-in, in addition to being
able to provide visible examples of
success – families in homes, for example.
However, municipal leaders acknowledge
the importance of clearly articulating the
“mutual self-interest” of the participating
communities, while allowing for the
independence of each.
Nevertheless, local practitioners agree
the Chicago-area collaboratives have not
quite reached the mid-point on the
continuum, when the collaboratives shift
from reacting to crises and initiate proactive planning around transit-oriented
development, for example, to position the
region for long-term stability.
Two West Coast examples of IJC
served as early inspiration to Chicagoarea planners and municipal leaders. The
first is “A Regional Coalition for Housing”
(www.ARCHhousing.org), a partnership
between the county and the cities of East
King County in Washington State, who
have joined together to preserve and
increase the supply of housing for lowand moderate-income households in the
region. ARCH assists the 16 member
16
governments in developing housing
policies, strategies, programs, and
development regulations, coordinates the
cities’ financial support to groups creating
affordable housing for low- and moderateincome households, and assists people
looking for affordable rental and
ownership housing.
ARCH was created in 1992, through an
interlocal agreement of several suburban
governments in Eastside King County3.
ARCH’s member governments have
supported a wide range of housing created
and operated by local organizations and
private developers that serve individuals,
families, seniors, the homeless, and
persons with special needs.
Similar to the Chicago examples, ARCH
was conceived from a study undertaken in
the early 1990s by the Citizens Affordable
Housing Task Force in Bellevue,
Washington. The study confirmed:
• A growing need for affordable housing
• Multiple gaps in the current delivery
system
• The critical nature of local
government support in increasing the
affordable housing supply
• Increased local government support
complements the efforts of private
sector housing developer
• Local governments that work
together can be more effective
Since 1993, the ARCH Housing Trust
Fund has funded over 1,800 units of
East King County housing for families,
seniors, and persons with special needs.
Between 1993 and 2002, ARCH
member jurisdictions committed $20+
million to this fund, including Community
Development Block Grant (CDBG) and
general funds. This amount also includes
over $2 million in contributions of land,
fee-waivers, and other in-kind donations.
(A Regional Coalition for Housing 2011)
ARCH demonstrates that various
levels of government can play catalytic,
as well as sustaining roles in IJC,
depending on local characteristics.
However, ARCH differs from the
Chicago-area examples in the degree of
engagement and leadership provided by
the county.
Predating the ARCH example is an
early collaborative model in California’s
Silicon Valley. Driven and initially funded
by private sector interests, it was
originally conceived in 1977, by HewlittPackard’s David Packard as the Silicon
Valley Manufacturing Group. The Silicon
Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) exists
today to involve principal officers and
senior managers of member companies
in a cooperative effort with local,
regional, state, and federal government
officials to address major public policy
issues affecting the economic health and
quality of life in Silicon Valley.
The vision of SVLG (www.SVLG.org)
is to ensure the economic health and
a high quality of life in Silicon Valley by
advocating for adequate affordable
housing, comprehensive regional
transportation, reliable energy, a
quality K-12 and higher education
system and prepared workforce, a
sustainable environment, and business
and tax policies.
According to the organization’s Web
site, “David Packard founded the group
on the premise that local employers
should be actively involved in working
with government to find innovative
solutions to issues like transportation,
housing, permit streamlining, education,
and the environment.”
As of 2011, SVLG’s membership
included more than 340 of Silicon
Valley’s most respected employers. The
members provide nearly one of every
three private sector jobs in Silicon Valley.
SVLG is a multi-issue organization;
housing/land use is but one of 10
issues to which members devote their
attention. The Housing and Land Use
Committee aims to preserve and
increase the quality of life and economic
vibrancy of Silicon Valley by increasing
opportunities for workers and residents
[Continued on page 20]
Chicago Southland Housing and
Community Development
Collaborative
The 19 communities in the
Chicago Southland Housing and
Community Development
Collaborative (CSHCDC) stretch from
the Illinois/Indiana border on the east,
past I-57 on the west. At one time,
the communities thrived on nearby
industry, providing jobs and
opportunity. The area’s proximity to
rail, shipping, and interstate
expressways represents an important
asset, although most manufacturing
jobs have left and efforts to
reinvigorate the jobs market through
business attraction have been
challenged by the current economy.
Interjurisdictional Collaboration Areas (Sept 2011): South
Interjurisdictional Collaboration Areas (Sept. 2011): South
Blue Island
Dolton
Midlothian
Harvey
Oak Forest
Phoenix
South Holland
Markham
Cook
Calumet City
Hazel Crest
Lansing
Homewood
Lynwood
Olympia Fields
The origins of IJC in Chicago’s
Matteson
Ford Heights
southern suburbs are not found in
housing, but rather in economic
development, specifically jobs and
transportation. The region’s history as a
Richton Park Park ForestSouth Chicago Heights
leader in intermodal transportation is a
coveted asset it uses to attract new,
perhaps greener, industrial businesses.
The region is collectively referred to as
Legend
the Chicago Southland, and the
Metra Rail
SSMMA is a council of government
Metra Stations
(i.e., intergovernmental agency) that
Expressways
provides technical assistance and joint
services to 42 municipalities
South Suburban Housing Collaborative
representing a population over
650,000 in Cook and Will counties. Its
0
1.5
3 Miles
sister organization, the Chicago
Southland Economic Development
exceeding rates seen in the city of Chicago itself. (Chicago City
Corporation (CSEDC), was created in 1978, to identify, organize, and Regional Foreclosure Activity 2010) Property values have
and mobilize public and private resources to create and expand
dissolved – with home values in affluent Olympia Fields falling
businesses, thereby providing economic growth, sustainable jobs,
to their lowest levels in 15 years and homes in the community of
and development in the Southland. Overcoming the challenges
Phoenix losing more than a third of their value in the past year,
of coordinating the interests of more than three dozen
alone. (Zillow Home Value Index 2011) Municipal resources have
communities, SSMMA and CSEDC have driven economic
been exhausted and entire communities are destabilized by
development, business retention, and job creation for more than
vacant properties. However, the Southland communities were
four decades. Although not the original intent, they also created an
able to leverage their years of collaborative experience,
organization through which to meet the foreclosure crisis head-on.
combined with the support of the organizations participating in
RHOPI, to quickly respond to the growing crisis.
While some southern suburbs had struggled with
foreclosures for years, the area as a whole was
Twenty-one communities collectively submitted an NSP 1
disproportionately hard hit by the foreclosure crisis, with
application, resulting in almost $9 million in funding from Cook
subprime foreclosure rates exceeding 15 percent. (Newberger,
County, and overcoming structural barriers that would have
Robin 2010) Overall, properties with foreclosure filings
forced similarly challenged communities to compete with one
increased by almost 20 percent from 2009 to 2010. With 51
another for resources.
foreclosure filings per 1,000 mortgageable properties, the
Southland has the most in the Chicago metropolitan area,
17
between the individual towns and regional and federal
resources. This structure leverages the existing administrative
infrastructures of the SSMMA and makes efficient use of
limited staff.
The collaborative’s numerous achievements, in addition to the
NSP award, include:
• On October 20, 2010, SSMMA learned its proposal to
accelerate its interjurisdictional transit-oriented development
goals (and related cargo-oriented development goals) was
awarded nearly $2.4 million through the HUD Sustainable
Communities Grant Program.
• The Southern Collaborative is also a recipient of technical
assistance offered by CMAP through its Local Technical
Assistance Program, which is funded through a Sustainable
Communities Regional Planning Grant from HUD. The initial
project undertaken by the collaborative is to create a housing
investment prioritization tool, which will help the collaborative
and its members to prioritize sites when federal funding
opportunities become available. Other projects related to
Transit Oriented Development (TOD) are expected to occur in
future years of the program.
“The fragmentation of municipal government in many metropolitan suburbs presents a
major impediment to advancing housing recovery, neighborhood preservation, and
economic growth. I applaud those leaders in the south suburbs of Chicago who have
piloted new ways of doing business, working across borders and along rail and job
corridors, to promote employment and housing stability.”
– Bruce Katz, vice president and founding director of the Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution.
Although nearly two dozen communities signed on to the
application, which followed a strategy of linking housing to public
transit and systemic economic development initiatives, totaling
over $70 million, 11 communities actually received funding.
Despite the complexity of the project, all funds were obligated on
time by September 2010. To date, 29 homes have been acquired
and are being rehabbed or redeveloped. New owners recently
moved into two of these homes. Five blighted properties have
been demolished in Hazel Crest and Phoenix. Since NSP, with
the SSMMA and CSEDC, the housing collaborative has had
continued success securing funding by highlighting the
connections between jobs, transportation, and housing in building
not only sustainable communities, but regions.
• Although the collaborative did not receive any NSP 1
The Chicago Southland Housing and Community
Development Collaborative – which consists of the
communities of Blue Island, Calumet City, Dolton, Ford
Heights, Harvey, Hazel Crest, Homewood, Lansing, Lynwood,
Markham, Matteson, Midlothian, Oak Forest, Olympia Fields,
Park Forest, Phoenix, Richton Park, South Chicago Heights,
and South Holland – is currently housed within the SSMMA.
The collaborative employs a housing coordinator, whose salary
is grant-funded. This critical position supplies program
information and housing expertise, and serves as a crucial link
This significant public funding is complemented by ongoing
support from The Chicago Community Trust and Grand Victoria
Foundation, as well as the Field Foundation, allowing for
sustainability and innovation in programmatic initiatives.
18
dollars from the State of Illinois, in May 2011, SSMMA
was awarded $6.6 million in Community Stabilization
Program support through the state. Structured much like
NSP, it will support the area’s foreclosure response
strategies and infrastructure projects.
• Communities in the south sub-regional cluster are
implementing an energy efficiency program that provides
residential energy code training for municipalities funded
under the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block
Grant (EECBG) Program. This provides a general training
session to any interested SSMMA member community.
Local planners cite long- and short-term measures of success.
On the one hand, images of families in homes are tangible
indicators of the impact of the collaborative efforts. However, in
the longer term, “it all comes back to the jobs” and the opportunity
to market the southern suburbs as a “really decent place to live.”
Collaborative Demographics Profile
South
# of Municipalities
19
Total Population
325,747
Median Household Income
$54,106
# Home Rule Communities
11
# Non-Home Rule Communities
% Vacant Housing Units
8
8.6%
% Owner-Occupied Housing
Units
70.2%
% Ownership Housing
Unaffordable*
37.1%
% Rental Housing Unaffordable**
55.0%
* unaffordable defined as monthly owner costs
greater than 30% of household income
** unaffordable defined as gross rent greater
than 30% of household income
Collaborative Facts
South
Catalytic Reason for IJC
Foreclosure response
Year Structure Formalized
2009
What is Structure?
Council/Board Resolutions
What is Staffing?
Individual acting as housing coordinator
Dollars Leveraged
Over $15 million
Activities/Work in Progress
Hosted joint employer outreach event on ways
to support workforce housing
Held a resource forum for owners and
managers of multifamily rental housing
Rehabbing or redeveloping over 85 foreclosed or
vacant single family homes and demolishing over
45 blighted homes
Conducting Homes for a Changing Region
housing supply and demand analysis
Building a tool to priortize housing investments
through technical assistance from CMAP
Key partner on a HUD Challenge Grant that will
streamline development processes across
borders, establish a sub-regional land bank, and
create a community development fund
Source: Metropolitan Planning Council.
19
to secure affordable homes, proximate
to their work.
Specifically, the Housing and Land
Use Committee seeks to:
• Increase supply: encourage the
construction of compact rental and forsale developments in appropriate
locations near transit, jobs, and services
that also protect open space and prime
agricultural land and maximize public
infrastructure investments
• Increase home ownership: expand the
ability of Silicon Valley employees to
purchase affordable homes near work
• Adequate funding: advocate for an
appropriately scaled and stable
funding stream for housing at the
local, state, and federal levels
Metropolitan Policy Program,
Brookings Institution.
Learning from the past:
opportunities and challenges
The benefits and early experience of
IJC can be summarized as follows:
“By working together, (municipalities)
can pool resources, prioritize investments
for maximum benefit, achieve economies
of scale, and create a ‘one-stop shop’ for
developers, employers, and lenders. The
collaboratives’ groundbreaking approach
has earned the support of a wide range
of nonprofit organizations, foundations,
and companies across the region, as well
as such national thought leaders as The
Brookings Institution. It also has been
heralded by the Obama administration as
Developers and municipal leaders alike cite the benefit of
“vertical integration” stemming from the collaborative
structures. Many of the issues effectively tackled
through IJC are too big for towns with limited capacity to
address and too small to be handled at the regional level.
• Eliminate or reduce barriers and
increase incentives to facilitate the
above goals (Silicon Valley
Leadership Group 2011)
The IJCs active in the Chicago area
share these goals demonstrating that a
collaborative strategy can be replicable,
evolutionary, and enduring. “The
fragmentation of municipal government
in many metropolitan suburbs presents
a major impediment to advancing
housing recovery, neighborhood
preservation, and economic growth. I
applaud those leaders in the south
suburbs of Chicago who have piloted
new ways of doing business, working
across borders and along rail and job
corridors, to promote employment and
housing stability.” – Bruce Katz, vice
president and founding director of the
20
a model for sustainable redevelopment in
America’s inner suburbs.” (Grimshaw
Bolton, Kim 2009)
However, achieving true collaboration
poses many challenges. As discussed
earlier, a “push” toward collaboration
across municipalities is more difficult
and much less likely to work than a “pull”
that derives from potential mutual
benefits and needs beyond the
capacities of individual towns.
With many short-term (stemming from
the foreclosure crisis) and long-term
(housing and job location mismatch)
demands and limited resources, it has
been difficult, at best, for individual towns
to affect housing and planning change
on any measurable scale.
Proponents say IJC brings
economies of scale to municipal
management, leverages human capital,
and facilitates knowledge sharing. Few
of the towns described in the
collaborative profiles possess the
resources to hire and retain their own
housing or community development
staff in the best of times, let alone
enough staff that can meet the
challenges faced by residents when
municipal revenues are at record lows.
IJC mitigates resource shortages by
placing collective assets of combined
communities in places where the need
is greatest.
At the same time, and because
problems do not respect jurisdictional
boundaries, solutions don’t either. This
reality has resulted in a fundamental shift
from individual community stabilization as
an end point, to sub-regional stabilization
as the ultimate goal. Accepting and
acknowledging this shift in the definition
of success has been facilitated by the
groundbreaking work of regional planning
organizations, including the MPC, MMC,
and CMAP, through documents such as
the GO TO 2040 regional plan, which
prioritizes the goals of IJC.
Developers and municipal leaders
alike cite the benefit of “vertical
integration” stemming from the
collaborative structures. Many of the
issues effectively tackled through IJC
are too big for towns with limited
capacity to address and too small to be
handled at the regional level. IJC
provides the ideal vehicle through which
to implement the goals of GO TO 2040,
for example, when the task might
overwhelm an individual municipality.
As demonstrated through each of the
examples, collaborative participants are
able to access and leverage funding that
would otherwise have been elusive were
they operating on their own. “Maybe we
could have written the grant, but we
would never have been able to manage
it,” said one local planner. Whether it’s
federal resources, such as NSP dollars,
or resources available closer to home
from local foundations, funders and
administrators are looking at
collaboration and cooperation as
effective ways to deploy limited dollars.
Nevertheless, while participating
communities acknowledge that members
of a collaborative will benefit even if they
don’t get direct dollars, access to funding
is still a motivator for formalizing
collaborations, and ensuring that
“everyone gets something” remains an
indicator of success.
As collaboratives secure the
resources to affect meaningful change,
interest in joining them increases. This is
a double-edged sword and no guidance
exists regarding the optimal size for
municipal collaborations. Local
collaborative leaders suggest starting
small, with limited, focused goals.
However, individual collaboratives retain
control over their structure, methods of
communication, levels of formality, and
eventual direction. Ultimately, the
individual collaboratives will have to
determine when they have reached a
point where efforts to capture
efficiencies evolve into new structures
that are themselves inefficient. At the
same, time that size and growth must be
managed in order to be effective, the
collaboratives and their participants
must be transparent. This too is
approached with different tools: one
collaborative is operating under the
Public Meetings Act, and another is
developing a criteria-based tool to
facilitate objective decision making.
While this article is written to tell the
story of the communities and show their
perspectives, the benefits of IJC are
evident to all who interact with them. For
example, the South Collaborative
consists of 19 distinct communities.
With such a complex structure, a
collaborative can provide developers,
banks, and funders – each with their
own limited resources – with a single
point of contact, reducing their exposure
to the politics and “individuality” of the
disparate communities.
While it offers many compelling
benefits, IJC is complex and timeconsuming. Cross-border collaboration is
politically and bureaucratically
counterintuitive; few programs provide
any incentive to collaborate, and voters
and elected officials are often disinclined
to embrace the “sharing” of resources
with neighboring townships. However,
recent signals from Washington indicate
that while action is urgent, innovation is
expected and rewarded. MPC’s
document, Goal Driven, Right Sized and
Coordinated: Federal Investment
Reform for the 21st Century, points to
the new Office of Urban Affairs,
created to coordinate federal
investment, such as the Sustainable
Communities Initiative of the U.S.
departments of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD), Transportation
(DOT), as well as the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). The 2010
HUD budget also set aside 1 percent
of the entire budget for “transformation
initiatives.” More recently, this initiative
has been formalized with the creation
of the Transformation Initiatives Fund
to continue the practice of supporting
particularly innovative efforts. MPC’s
paper also lauds the ‘’Bush-era
Workforce Innovation in Regional
Economic Development Initiative, which
continues to enable flexible, goal
driven, cooperative, regional workforce
solutions.” Nevertheless, aligning intent
with implementation remains a work in
progress, according to practitioners.
The execution of funding agreements
in support of collaborative activities has
proven challenging. According to one
collaborative participant, “funders don’t
understand why anyone would accept”
the inequitable distribution of resources
that is understood by IJC participants.
While the collaboratives may have
executed IGAs and resolutions, none is
their own legal entity with 501(c)(3)
status. Most collaborative leaders feel
that it is premature to incur the effort and
cost of establishing a separate
organization when the collaboratives are
new, and perhaps even still in “proof of
concept.” As a result, understanding the
“entity” created by IJC remains confusing
to funders, even when they may
encourage the activity. More frequently,
however, existing public sector programs
make a collaborative application difficult
or are not designed to accommodate a
collaborative response.
Just as the issues that bring
collaboratives together are complex, so is
their management. There is no “one-sizefits-all” when it comes to managing an
IJC, except to say that each
collaborative must define its own. The
examples in this article illustrate
different approaches – from hiring a
single coordinator, to contracting with an
established housing organization, to
delegating it to an existing organization
already working within the collaborating
communities. The final decision rests
with the communities involved, and is
determined by their unique histories,
relationships, and characteristics.
In addition to leadership and
management, each group will have to
determine its own approach to decision
making and conflict resolution. The
collaboratives surrounding Chicago
are at various stages of formalizing
their relationships, but ultimately
agreements are in writing and agreed
to by all parties. This formalization is
most frequently driven by the award
of funding and, in the words of one
coordinator, “structure fosters
engagement, commitment,
and accountability.”
Most collaboratives, but not all, are
single issue focused and start small,
enabling young collaboratives to better
manage their activities for maximum
impact. However, some experts argue
that small collaboratives exacerbate the
human and financial resource constraints
that motivated the collaboration in the
first place. While others argue that a “too
large” collaboration may be compromised
by personal agendas and that arriving at
a single point of mutual self-interest is
too challenging. (Borich, Timothy O.,
Huntington, Stuart and Fessler,
Susan 1992)
As demonstrated by the South
Suburban collaborative, sometimes
conditions do not allow for starting small.
With so many communities engaged in
the proposal for NSP 1 funding,
community leaders knew that limiting
participation to a smaller group was not
possible, given the magnitude of the
problem. The focus then and now
remains on identifying and implementing
strategies to mitigate the impact of the
foreclosure crisis and advance housing
efforts within a regional plan for
economic development.
21
Participation in interjurisdictional
efforts cannot be mandated; it is by
definition self-motivated and voluntary.
Unfortunately, it is often the communities
that could benefit the most that don’t
have the resources to even come to the
table. A challenge for proponents of IJC
remains how to engage those
communities where there is great need
but which, for varied reasons, remain on
the periphery of the very collaborative
efforts from which they stand to benefit.
However, with transparency and
credibility, mentioned above, come
accountability and compliance. The
resources available through NSP, for
example, require a great deal of
reporting and oversight. As part of a
collective group, this requires that
point to completing steps along a
“collaboration continuum” as their
primary successes, such as establishing
regular meetings or executing an IGA.
Others might have more tangible
successes, such as rehabilitated homes
sold or rental units preserved.
Regardless of viewpoint, “success” for
collaborative efforts requires a long time
horizon. As one planner acknowledged,
“Rehabbing three homes is not going to
change a community; but it will change
a block, and one block at a time, we will
change the community.”
Nevertheless, as stressed by Oak
Park President David Pope in a May 18,
2011, MMC meeting, “We have a
window of opportunity right now and
hopefully that window will stay open
Participation in interjurisdictional efforts
cannot be mandated; it is by definition
self-motivated and voluntary.
individual municipalities be accountable
to their peers. For some, this is a
welcome opportunity to share the burden
of reporting and learn from the
experiences of others. For others,
this is a level of disclosure that may
border on intrusive.
Finally, in the world of IJC, even
defining success can be a challenge.
Not all communities engaged in a
collaborative effort are going to benefit
equally when dollars go into some
communities and not others. Thus, what
may be a “success” for the collaborative,
may be perceived as a “loss” for
individual communities, even if the
collective region benefits. The
successes of IJC can be challenging to
convey to constituents who see
redevelopment in neighboring
communities. With IJC success can be
defined both in terms of process and in
terms of outcomes. Some of the
collaboratives described in this article
22
long enough to show successes of
current IJC efforts.” In a world where
attention spans are measured in
electoral terms, funding priorities
are ever-shifting, and given the
enormity of the tasks confronting
today’s communities, the window seems
small, indeed.
And yet, with clearly articulated and
measured benefits, including economic
efficiencies arising from economies of
size; gaining access to more resources;
capturing the spillovers from collective
actions; and synergies, the justification
for IJC seems clear. However, the
questions that emerged following a
1992 conference on multi-community
collaboration as a rural revitalization
strategy remain relevant in today’s
metropolitan context:
1. How can higher levels of government
– regional, state, and federal
policymakers – best encourage
interjurisdictional municipal
collaboration?
2. Which forms of organization are
sustainable over time?
3. How can interjurisdictional
collaboratives best attract and utilize
outside resources, both public sector
programs and private sector (bank,
developer, philanthropic)
partnerships?
4. What is the most appropriate role of
the outside facilitators and technical
assistance providers in fostering IJC?
5. What is the best way to measure the
long-term results of IJC. (Borich,
Timothy O., Huntington, Stuart and
Fessler, Susan 1992)
How these questions are answered in
urban, suburban, and rural communities
will drive how towns view their neighbors
and how regions think about their future.
Following a November 7, 2011, forum,
hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of
Chicago, focused on these questions
with mayors and developers, MPC, MMC,
the Illinois Housing Council, and CMAP
will issue a set of recommendations to
supplement this article.
Notes
1 The region consists of seven counties: Cook, DuPage, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, and Will. We
use the term “collar counties” to refer to the five counties surrounding Cook County, and the
term “suburban Cook” to refer to all municipalities and unincorporated areas in Cook County,
excluding the city of Chicago.
2 For more information on the Housing Endorsement Criteria, please visit http://www.
mayorscaucus.org/fileBroker/Housing%20Endorsement%20Criteria%20072310.pdf. For
more information on the Housing Action Agenda, please visit http://www.mayorscaucus.org/
fileBroker/2002%20Housing%20Action%20Agenda.pdf for the 2002 Agenda and http://
www.mayorscaucus.org/fileBroker/HCD%20Action%20Agenda%202011%20FINAL.pdf
for the Action Agenda approved in 2011.
3 King County is located on Puget Sound in Washington State, and covering 2,134 square
miles, with more than 1.9 million people.
4 The complete version of GO TO 2040 can be found at http://www.cmap.illinois.gov/2040/
main . A shorter version, as well as updates and related resources, is also available on the
same link.
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Briffault, Richard. Localism and Regionalism. Buffalo Law Review, 2000: 1-38.
Chicago City and Regional Foreclosure Activity. Chicago: Woodstock Institute, 2010.
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Biography
Susan Longworth joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in 2011 as a
business economist in the Community Development and Policy Studies Division.
Ms. Longworth has over 20 years of community development experience, with a
special emphasis on CDFIs and community banks. She holds an undergraduate
degree in English from the University of Michigan, a master’s in public service
management from DePaul University, and an international MBA from the
University of Chicago.
Acknowledgement
We would like to acknowledge and thank the many interviewees and
reviewers who contributed their time, perspective and expertise to this paper.
These include, but are not limited to:
Rob Anthony, Executive Director, CPAH
Grace Bazylewski, Planning & Development Director, Village of Lansing (retired)
David Bennett, Executive Director, Metropolitan Mayors Caucus
Kim Grimshaw Bolton, Communications Director, Metropolitan Planning Council
Nora Boyer, Housing Planner, Village of Arlington Heights
Lee Deuben, Executive Director, Illinois Housing Council
Rob Grossinger, Vice President, National Community Revitalization Initiative
Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.
Michelle Hoereth, Director of Housing, IFF
Hildy Kingma, Director of Economic Development and Planning, Village of Park
Forest
Colette Lueck, Trustee, Village of Oak Park
David Mekarski, Village Administrator, Olympia Fields
Janice Morrissy, Director of Housing Initiatives, SSMMA / Chicago Southland
Housing and Community Development Collaborative
Arlene Mulder, Mayor, Village of Arlington Heights
Joe Neri, Chief Executive Officer, IFF
Ed Paesel, Executive Director, South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association
David Pope, President, Village of Oak Park
Jacques Sandberg, Director of Real Estate Development (Midwest Region), The
Community Builders, Inc.
Lori Sommers, Director of Community Development, Village of Maywood
In particular, this paper would not have been possible without the guidance of:
Bob Dean, Deputy Executive Director for Local Planning, Chicago Metropolitan
Agency for Planning
Allison Milld, Director of Housing Initiatives, Metropolitan Mayors Caucus
Robin Snyderman, Vice President of Community Development, Metropolitan
Planning Council
Dominic Tocci, Project Manager, Metropolitan Planning Council
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