Joining Forces' 2023 Advocacy Trip
Joining Forces hosted an advocacy trip to Springfield from April 18th to the 19th where we met with legislators to discuss important housing bills. For more details, read our blog post about the trip here.
What We Advocated For
State Budget
We asked for an increase of $75 million to support and expand homeless services in Illinois.
Governor Pritzker’s FY24 transformational budget proposal for $350 million in combined federal and state funding to
implement HOME Illinois creates a foundation for achieving functional zero homelessness over the next several years.
We ask state legislators to co-sponsor these appropriations bills to demonstrate support for funding HOME Illinois and
additional resources for existing programs that were flat-funded in the Governor’s budget proposal to make sure currently
funded providers can better prevent and end homelessness.
Examples of challenges providers experience are:
For more details, read this fact sheet.
Senate Bill 1476
This bill will provide necessary reforms to the Affordable Housing Planning and Appeals Act (AHPAA) to ensure that each community does its fair share to provide affordable housing.
We want to increase the municipal floor for affordable housing from 10% to at least 30%, and make both the planning requirements and enforcement of the law clearer and stronger. Some of the improvements we are most focused on are:
For more details, read this fact sheet.
State Budget
We asked for an increase of $75 million to support and expand homeless services in Illinois.
Governor Pritzker’s FY24 transformational budget proposal for $350 million in combined federal and state funding to
implement HOME Illinois creates a foundation for achieving functional zero homelessness over the next several years.
We ask state legislators to co-sponsor these appropriations bills to demonstrate support for funding HOME Illinois and
additional resources for existing programs that were flat-funded in the Governor’s budget proposal to make sure currently
funded providers can better prevent and end homelessness.
Examples of challenges providers experience are:
- Unable to pay competitive wages to retain and recruit qualified staff.
- Shelters losing donated spaces and volunteers due to COVID-19 concerns.
- New supportive housing that has secured development financing, but needs operating and services funds to open.
- Timely processing of contacts and payments by IDHS.
For more details, read this fact sheet.
Senate Bill 1476
This bill will provide necessary reforms to the Affordable Housing Planning and Appeals Act (AHPAA) to ensure that each community does its fair share to provide affordable housing.
We want to increase the municipal floor for affordable housing from 10% to at least 30%, and make both the planning requirements and enforcement of the law clearer and stronger. Some of the improvements we are most focused on are:
- Increasing the required minimum threshold of affordable housing. Under the current 10% standard, only 46 of Illinois’ 1,298 municipal governments are subject to AHPAA, even though residents and workers in almost every community suffer from high housing costs.
- Reinforcing the planning requirements for municipalities that are determined to have too little affordable housing. Municipalities would now be required to submit plans with clear deadlines and benchmarks.
- Strengthening enforcement. Currently, affordable housing developers have the ability to appeal to a State Housing Appeals Board (SHAB) to reverse a municipality's decision to deny their affordable housing project. However, since the law's inception, there has never been an appeal filed with the SHAB. By broadening standards for filing an appeal to the SHAB will allow community residents to have standing.
- Streamlining the composition of the State Housing Appeals Board. For at least the last one-and-half years, the SHAB has only had one member, no chairperson, and has not met since 2018. Updating the composition of the SHAB will reduce obstacles to identifying a chair and other members.
For more details, read this fact sheet.
