Chicago Non-Profit Transforming Vacant Land Stripped by Redlining & Other Discrimination

Chicago's Emerald South is working to reverse the negative effects of historic redlining by revitalizing and transforming 205 acres of vacant land. Ghian Foreman leads the Emerald South Economic Development Collaborative, a nonprofit. Its Terra Firma initiative. begun in 2021, is a multiyear, $50 million land care initiative to beautify, maintain, and activate vacant land in the community. 

The Collaborative's mission is "to attract and coordinate investment through community convening and collaborative partnerships that increase local ownership and prosperity." It was started in 2017 with a $250,000 grant from the Chicago Community Trust and funding from the Polk Bros. Foundation. The goal is to create ways for local businesses and residents to benefit from the tourists expected to come to the area once the Obama Presidential Center is built in Jackson Park.

The project focuses on revitalizing neighborhoods across what the organization calls the Mid South Side: from Bronzeville to the north, down to South Chicago, to the south. According to housing policy experts, many of these areas were shaped by discriminatory housing practices. "There were policies that were put in place - redlining, restrictive covenants, urban renewal - where a lot of these buildings that sat here were actually torn down," said Foreman.

According to the Cook County Assessor, there are over 30,000 vacant lots in Cook County, both city- and privately-owned. The vast majority, 93%, are in communities of color, while only 7% are in majority-white neighborhoods. On Chicago's South Side, vacant lots account for 67% of the total, compared to just 4% on the North Side.

Emerald South is still in phase one of its ambitious plan. So far, the organization has cleaned and beautified over 100 acres. That land is marked by its signature split-rail fencing, a symbol of what's to come. "First, it's just clean and green, no trash, a fence, a sign that this land is cared for," explained Foreman. "Then, we activate spaces with murals and community art. And after that, we start imagining- What if we owned the land? What if we built on it?"

Read the February 19, 2025 ABC7-TV article.

Read the 2018 Chicago Tribune article.

Housing Rights Initiative Files Massive Discrimination Case After Testing Finds Rampant Housing Discrimination Across Chicago Area

 

The Housing Rights Initiative (HRI) has filed a series of 176 complaints against 165 real estate agents, brokerages, and landlords in Chicago. The group claims that this is the largest housing discrimination case in Illinois history. The lawsuits are the result of an undercover investigation conducted by HRI. In total, the housing watchdog group filed 176 complaints against 165 defendants with the Illinois Department of Human Rights. Defendants in the suit include major brokerage companies such as Coldwell Banker, Christie’s International Real Estate, Keller Williams, and Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Chicago.

HRI is represented in these complaints by two public interest law firms, Peter Romer-Friedman Law PLLC and Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC, and by Disability Rights Advocates (DRA), a national nonprofit disability rights legal center with offices in Chicago, Berkeley, and New York.

An HRI testing project found that real estate professionals often declined to rent Chicago-area properties to investigators posing as low-income families. The HRI claimed that real estate agents, brokerage firms and landlords discriminated against prospective renters who sought to use vouchers provided through the federal rental assistance program known as Section 8. A group of investigators went undercover last year as prospective tenants, contacting hundreds of brokers and landlords by text message to determine whether they were complying with the Illinois Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination against people with housing vouchers. The group found that voucher holders were explicitly discriminated against about 36% of the time, according to a statement issued by the HRI. A range of real estate heavyweights were among the firms that allegedly broke the law.

Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Illinois Human Rights Act in 2022 (HB 2775), making it illegal for landlords, brokers, and agents to discriminate against housing applicants looking to use Section 8 or disability vouchers to help pay their rent. This historic filing builds upon that foundation by holding discriminatory real estate companies accountable and sending a message that landlords cannot refuse to rent to qualified low-income families in Illinois.

Peter Romer-Friedman, founder of one of the law firms (PRF Law) that filed the complaints, said the measure was drafted to “fill the gap” of the Fair Housing Act, a federal law that does not protect against so-called source of income discrimination. He said some of the complaints could be brought to court.

Emily Roznowski, DRA Staff Attorney, commented: “People with disabilities make up a disproportionate share of housing choice voucher holders. HRI’s investigation and the complaints filed today will ensure that people with disabilities in Illinois have access to the decent, safe, and accessible affordable housing of their choice. No one should be turned away from renting an apartment based on their source of income, whether that income comes from a voucher or Social Security Disability Insurance.”

Read the January 20,2025 WBEZ Chicago article.

Read the January2025 PRF Law article.

CFPB Files Order to Stop Townstone Financial’s Unlawful Redlining

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has filed a proposed order to resolve its case against Townstone Financial for discriminatory lending practices and redlining African American neighborhoods in Chicago. If entered by the court, the proposed order would prohibit Townstone from taking any actions that violate the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and require it to pay a $105,000 penalty to the CFPB’s victims relief fund. The action follows lengthy contested litigation and a unanimous July 2024 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that the ECOA prohibits lenders from discouraging prospective applicants on a prohibited basis from applying for loans.

Townstone was a nonbank retail-mortgage creditor and broker based in Chicago through 2018. Some 90% of Townstone’s mortgage lending was in the Chicago metro. From 2014-2017, Townstone was in the top 10% of lenders in applications from the Chicago metro, receiving an average of 740 mortgage loan applications annually. Townstone ended mortgage lending in 2018 during the CFPB’s investigation, and is now solely a mortgage broker. 

In 2020, the CFPB sued Townstone for discouraging potential applicants because of their race or the racial composition of where they lived or sought to live. Townstone’s advertising, marketing, and business practices discouraged African Americans from applying for credit and actively avoided the credit needs of African American applicants and African American neighborhoods in the Chicago metro.

Townstone drew only five or six applications a year for properties in neighborhoods that were more than 80% African American, despite those neighborhoods being nearly 14% of census tracts in the Chicago metro, and over half of the applications it did draw were from white applicants. From 2014-2017, barely 2% of Townstone’s mortgage-loan applications were for properties in majority African American neighborhoods, even though they make up nearly 19% of the Chicago metro’s census tracts.

Under the Consumer Financial Protection Act, the CFPB has the authority to take action against institutions violating consumer-financial protection laws, including the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Consumer Financial Protection Act. If entered by the court, the proposed order would require Townstone to pay a $105,000 penalty, which will be deposited into the CFPB’s victims relief fund. If Townstone violates the ECOA again, it could find itself in contempt of the court order and face further sanctions.

Read the proposed order.

Read the November 1, 2024 CFPB press release.