A homeless encampment along Lower Wacker Driver under Michigan Avenue in 2018.
Sun-Times file photo
The City Council’s Progressive Caucus on Monday responded with “We heard you” humility to the defeat of a binding referendum that would have authorized the Council to raise the transaction tax on high-end property sales to generate $100 million in a year to combat homelessness.
Mayor Brandon Johnson had struck a defiant tone after his signature “Bring Chicago Home” referendum was rejected by a margin of about 4.6 percentage points. After last Wednesday’s Council meeting, he vowed to keep fighting for a dedicated revenue source to combat homelessness and warned anyone who might assume the defeat will make him put the brakes on his progressive agenda to “buckle up” for a rocky ride.
But the Progressive Caucus, which includes his closest Council allies, is taking a dramatically different tack.
“When voters send a message through their vote, we have a responsibility to listen, even if we disagree,,” the Progressive Caucus said in a statement released Monday.
The “message” from the 52.3% majority, the statement continued, was that homelessness is a “serious problem that must be addressed” and the “progressive tax structure” was a fair way to go about it — but also that voters had “real questions about whether or not they could trust the government to spend the money the right way.”
“Collectively, city leaders can and must do better to earn and maintain our constituents’ trust,” the statement said.
Progressive Caucus Chair Maria Hadden (49th), the driving force behind “Bring Chicago Home,” said rebuilding that trust must be the first order of business.
Ald. Maria Hadden (49th) speak with a reporter after Wednesday’s City Council meeting, a day after voters rejected a referendum to raise the real estate transfer tax, with the goal of bringing in an extra $100 million a year for programs to reduce homelessness.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
“Showing our body of work so that we’re able to demonstrate — through both past efforts but also the type of work that each of us is doing in our wards and in the city as a whole–that voters can trust the Progressive Caucus. They can trust the efforts that we’re working on to continue a commitment to transparency, especially around budgetary issues,” Hadden said.
“In my ward, we got 71% approval for this. I feel like I’ve built a trusting relationship with constituents in my ward. … I’ve got a demonstrated record of other legislation that I’ve put forth. … Maybe they felt better about the Bring Chicago Home plan because they’ve been more aware of something I’ve been working on for multiple years and they feel like they can trust me….They know my track record and if I’m saying, `We really need this,’ they believe me.”
Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd), one of the most outspoken opponents of “Bring Chicago Home,” has called the results a “repudiation of the new brand of ‘first-we-get-the-money’ socialism.”
He said supporters didn’t articulate a precise plan to spend the money and also didn’t explain why $100 million more is needed each year to combat homelessness when hundreds of millions of dollars in federal stimulus funds earmarked for homelessness remains unspent.
Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson amplified those concerns.
“In the absence of those details, what we’ve learned from Bring Chicago Home is the taxpayers aren’t willing to hand over a blank check even in the face of serious challenges and problems that we all know exist and that we all know together we need to deal with,” Ferguson said.
Apparently referring to Johnson’s post-election bravado, Ferguson said: “What is stated in the heat of a moment that is still unfolding, I don’t think is the measure. It’s whether or not the reset occurs on the basis of his actions that follow.”
The Council has “an opportunity to do that right away” with another part of Johnson’s agenda — a $1.25 billion bond issue to fund economic development and housing.
Hadden countered that proponents spelled out “time and again” what they would do with the money, but were drowned out by “a lot of noise out there” about the bond issue and unspent stimulus funds. COVID relief, for instance, already is allocated and must last through 2025, she added.
“We already know how we’re gonna spend them. It’s not like we can spend them again,” Hadden said.
“Bond funds come with different restrictions. They’re not necessarily the type of funds that you can use on programs and services. They’re for capital infrastructure. So we still have a revenue gap if we want to continue to do some of these successful programs … to continue to grow our services to actually meet the needs of Chicagoans experiencing homelessness.”
Hadden said referendum proponents must “re-group” to determine their next move, but ruled out a referendum in the fall, an election with much higher turnout.
Given the heated presidential rematch between incumbent Democrat Joe Biden and former Republican President Donald Trump, she said, “strategically, I don’t think November would be a good time.”