“Organizations have been working for years to get stuff through to hold CHA and the city accountable, and done the bare minimum” in response, Taylor said. The ordinance proposal builds on the work of community groups like the Chicago Housing Initiative, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Southside Together Organizing for Power, the Resident Association of Greater Englewood and others, Taylor said. To that end, Taylor recently introduced the Accountable Housing and Transparency ordinance, which aims to make it easier and quicker for people seeking affordable housing to find a home that fits their needs. “… Crime and violence in the community, it’s because we don’t secure and be a safety net for the people like we’re supposed to.” “Housing is key to everything else that’s wrong with this city,” Taylor said. When a family lacks affordable housing, it has a reverberating effect on the community, she said. “To ask to get help and not get it says something about this country and this city, especially.” “I vote, I pay taxes, I participate and volunteer ,” Taylor said. Though Taylor is now an elected official with the financial means to pay her housing costs, the decades of delays represent a broken system - one that far too many Chicagoans must navigate if they’re in need of a home, she said. The sour cherry on top: Though she waited nearly two decades to once again be chosen off the waiting list, she was given only one week from the day the letter arrived to complete her application online. The vouchers are “for people who actually need it, and for now, I’m not in a need,” she said. She no longer needs a voucher, as subsidized housing would likely be more expensive than the $1,000 monthly rent she’s paying now, she said. Taylor now lives in a Woodlawn building owned by a friend, who charges her an enviable rate for the five-bedroom space. Then, when she was “hood rich” off her spring income tax refund, she’d catch up on gas and other late bills, she said. Knowing Peoples Gas has an annual winter moratorium on shutoffs, she’d stop paying that bill in favor of paying down other utilities. In the interim, Taylor paid her housing costs in a variety of ways, including living with her mother for a time. I’m going to always choose him first,” Taylor said. “I was told to choose between the housing and my child, and I’m his mama. She declined a housing choice voucher at the time because its terms would’ve required her to kick out her son, who had just graduated high school, she said. Taylor’s application was previously chosen from the CHA’s Section 8 waiting list in the 2000s, she said. “I was looking at this letter this whole weekend like, ‘You can’t be serious,'” Taylor said. Last Friday, the now-20th Ward alderperson received a letter informing her that her application was selected off of the CHA’s waiting list, she said. WOODLAWN - Jeanette Taylor first applied for a Chicago Housing Authority voucher in 1993 as a single mother of three, living in a one-bedroom apartment where the dining room served as an extra bedroom. Uptown, Edgewater, Rogers Park Open dropdown menu.South Chicago, East Side Open dropdown menu. Pilsen, Little Village, Back of the Yards Open dropdown menu.Lincoln Square, North Center, Irving Park Open dropdown menu.Lakeview, Wrigleyville, Northalsted Open dropdown menu.Jefferson Park, Portage Park, Norwood Park Open dropdown menu.
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