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CAFHA’s research outlines policies and practices that perpetuate segregation and makes recommendations for systemic and impactful change.

FAIR HOUSING RESEARCH

CAFHA’s research is community-driven, participatory, and solutions focused. Our research directly supports our advocacy initiatives.

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Since releasing CAFHA’s last report on the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Homeownership Program in 2021, CAFHA and our partners have worked to advance recommendations to grow the program at the federal and local levels. This report, compiled in partnership with Woodstock Institute, picks up where the last left off and documents progress made, strategies tested, and lessons learned while advocating for greater program investment.

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Yoon-Ji Kang, Esther. Namigadde, Adora. WBEZ The Rundown. July 5, 2024

Roots to Grow: Strategies to Promote Subsidized Homeownership

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Public Housing Authority Homeownership Programs: Scaling Up a Powerful Yet Underutilized Tool to Restore Wealth-Building Opportunities

In 2021, CAFHA published new research highlighting the underutilization of Homeownership Programs offered by Public Housing Authorities. This report focuses on the opportunities, barriers, and impacts of these programs on Black voucher holders. CAFHA felt this focus was important due to the long-documented history of race-based homeownership exclusion committed against Black Americans, the fact that Cook County voucher holders are predominantly Black, and that discrimination against voucher holders in Cook County is largely rooted in anti-Black racism. 

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Working Toward a Healed City: How Chicago Can Build Equitable Communities From the Ground Up

Racism and political dynamics have polluted Chicago’s community planning process and resulted in the city’s failure to fulfill civil rights obligations. Remedying the adverse effects of Chicago’s deeply rooted aldermanic prerogative will take time, commitment, and leadership from the City’s administration, elected officials, and neighborhood-level stakeholder groups. CAFHA partnered with Shriver Center for this 2019 report highlighting key areas of overlap between incoming Mayor Lightfoot’s agenda and the findings of our previous 2018 report, A City Fragmented: How Race, Power, and Aldermanic Prerogative Shape Chicago’s Neighborhoods. This report outlines best practices for incorporating equity into a comprehensive planning process, presents ideas for correcting community input processes developed with housing advocates, and suggests next steps for the administration to ensure all Chicago’s neighborhoods receive the resources necessary to thrive.

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A City Fragmented:  How Race, Power, and Aldermanic Prerogative Shape Chicago's Neighborhoods

In 2018, CAFHA partnered with Shriver Center for Poverty Law to launch this first-of-its-kind report highlighting the current mechanics and impacts of aldermanic prerogative within a civil rights legal framework. The findings demonstrate that the City of Chicago has neglected to fulfill its civil rights obligations by failing to ensure a fair balance of power that allows for the development of equitable family affordable housing.

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Not Welcome: The Uneven Geographies of Housing Choice

In 2017, the Chicago Policy Research Team (Chicago PRT) and the Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance (CAFHA) published this policy report examining source of income discrimination and the experiences of Housing Choice Voucher participants in Chicago and suburban Cook County. This report explores the barriers to HCV participants’ housing choice, affirms the benefits of affording access to areas of opportunity in our region, and offers mechanisms to ameliorate discrimination and smooth the uneven geographies of housing choice.​

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Equity in Chicago Rental Housing Discourse

Dr. Ian Kennedy, Sociology
Community Partner: Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance (CAFHA)
 

CAFHA is honored to partner with Dr. Ian Kennedy of the Institute for Research on Race & Public Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago on a project exploring the ongoing issue of discrimination within the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program in Chicago. While designed to help low-income families find safe housing, the HCV program is often undermined by landlords’ reluctance to rent to voucher holders. This project focuses on a critical barrier to HCV success—exclusionary language in online rental ads. Despite laws prohibiting discrimination based on source of income in Cook County, discriminatory language remains common, disproportionately affecting Black households, who make up 85% of HCV holders in the region. Kennedy, in partnership with the CAFHA, aims to document the prevalence of such discriminatory language, identify offending landlords, target discriminatory neighborhoods, and ultimately shape policy that better protects HCV holders in their quest for stable housing. 

"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."

– Ida B. Wells

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