For many lower-income households in Chicago, making ends meet can seem like an eternal struggle.
Imagine paying for housing, utilities, groceries, transportation and other essential costs for your family each year on just $32,150. That’s the poverty threshold for a family of four, according to the federal government’s latest poverty guidelines.
It’s hard to save or get ahead when every cent that comes in the door ends up going right back out to cover the rent, pay bills and buy food.
But there are far fewer poor families in Chicago waging that fight these days.
There were close to 600,000 city residents living below the poverty line in 2010, according to Census data. By 2023, that number fell to nearly 440,000, a staggering decrease of more than 36% during that 13-year span.
That’s progress, right? Well, not so fast.
Unfortunately, the decline of poor Chicagoans since the Great Recession is not due to some economic boom. It’s more likely that the city’s lowest-income residents simply can’t afford to live here anymore.
That seemingly never-ending struggle to just get by has now become an impossible task altogether for many.
A recent WBEZ examination shows the cost of rent and utilities has grown three times faster than income over the last two decades. And the tidal wave of rising rents has come crashing down hardest on Chicagoans who are least able to pay. Before the surge in rent prices, most of those struggling to get by were already spending more than half their income on housing costs and barely keeping their heads above water.
Now, they’re sinking.
A city that nearly everyone could afford
But it hasn’t always been so hard for lower-income households to afford Chicago. In fact, there was a time when poor families could reasonably afford half the apartments in communities throughout the city, data shows. As part of its coverage of the city’s rising rents, WBEZ built the Chicago rent time machine, an interactive online tool that shows the community areas that would be affordable for a given income level, dating back to 1930.
The tool shows, when adjusted for inflation, today’s poverty threshold for a family of four — $32,150 a year, or about $2,700 a month — back in 1950 would reasonably cover the cost of rent and utilities for half the apartments in most Chicago community areas. “Reasonably cover” is defined to mean spending less than 30% of household income on rent and utilities.
However, that affordability footprint has gradually evaporated over time. By 2000, it was down to a handful of communities. And by 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, it was down to just two communities — Fuller Park and Riverdale on the South Side.
There’s research which suggests that building more housing can keep rent prices from spiraling out of control. But new apartment construction in the Chicago area tanked during the recession, and it hasn’t come close to rebounding to prior levels.
In addition, much of the building that has occurred has largely been for higher-income renters in trendy, gentrifying neighborhoods. Meanwhile, there’s been a net loss of housing units in neighborhoods that have been affordable for decades. Most South Side and West Side neighborhoods have witnessed much more demolition than construction since 2000.
But if you think the city’s lack of housing affordability is a problem for just the poor or those on the verge of homelessness, you’d be wrong. While Chicago offers more than you’ll find in some other cities struggling with soaring rents, the affordability footprint here is shrinking for everybody.
Even for a household earning the citywide median income, just under $75,000 in 2023, affordability is also evaporating — and fast.
In 2000, the Loop was the only community area where a household earning the citywide median couldn’t reasonably afford to rent half the apartments. By 2022, that list had grown to seven communities.
Regardless of whether it’s too expensive to build, there’s too much red tape in public financing or there’s a lack of widespread support for it, we need to figure out how to build and preserve housing within reach for the masses.
A good place to start is by realizing that the poor aren’t the only ones in need of affordable housing.
Alden Loury is data projects editor for WBEZ and writes a column for the Sun-Times.
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