Via Crain's Chicago Business:Mercy Housing Lakefront has lined up $68 million in funding for an extensive renovation of two affordable-housing apartment buildings in Uptown: the 16-story Northeastwood Shores Apartments at 850 W. Eastwood Ave. and the three-story Harold Washington Apartments at 4946 N. Sheridan Road. The financing closed last week when the city issued $33 million in bonds backed by a letter of credit from Bank of America Corp., says Scott Fergus, a senior vice-president with the non-profit affordable housing provider. Mercy also obtained a $23-million mortgage from Freddie Mac. Addition funding came from federal tax credits purchased by Charlotte, N.C.-based B of A, a federal housing loan and $3 million in tax-increment financing from the city. More than 700 residents, including refugee families and senior citizens, will be moved to temporary housing during the renovations.
Condo for sale, any takers? I've had enough.
ReplyDeleteIt's obvious the majority of low-income housing needs to be renovated. The conditions of these buildings are awful. It's like the broken window theory. It's good things these buildings are being renovated, and hopefully it will be done soon and throughout the ward. Though this should be done without using more TIF funds. We never needed more low-income housing, but the existing definitely needed major improvements.
ReplyDeleteBye Jason. Please let the door hit you on the way out. I mean that in a nice polite way.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
ReplyDeleteLook Jason, you can move, if your condo ever sells, and others will move in, who hopefully are more invested in their neighborhood. We can fix this ward, we can fix our schools ourselves, with a lot of hard work and personal investment. We can clean up our streets and take it upon ourselves to pick up littler, paint and make better tree/street scapes. Renovating depilating low-income housing is a good thing, and very much needed. You can't expect or wait around for the machine to come in and do everything. This is our neighborhood, and if we want it better, we have to be willing to fix things ourselves, and we have to be in support of renovations where they are desperately needed. This isn't more low-income housing, it's just better. It's a step in the right direction, and we need more.
Stef, I have to agree with you - "this isn't more, its just better."
ReplyDeleteI hope that the residents take pride in the newly rehabbed buildings and work with the rest of their neighbors to make Uptown a safer place.
The only thing that I view as a negative is using yet another $3 million in TIF money. Thanks Helen.
this seems like a legitimate use of TIF money to me.
ReplyDeleteDoes Mercy Housing pay real estate tax on these properties? If so, I'm marginally less incensed with the use of TIF.
ReplyDeleteI believe Mercy Housing is run or supervised by the Mercy order of nuns (the same ladies in charge of Mercy Hospital). So it would be a religious non-taxable organization.
ReplyDeleteWhat, there's a "church-state-separation" issue here re: TIF?