For prospective families hoping to call Evanston home, this Saturday is an opportunity to find an affordable house.
The Evanston Community Development Association will host an open house Saturday for home buyers who may be eligible to purchase the organization’s latest affordable housing project — a 1,000-square-foot, three-bedroom town house at 1717B McDaniel Ave., said Rev. Hardist E. Lane of Fisher Memorial Church, 944 Elmwood Ave. The home, priced at $170,000, is expected to be sold to a middle-class family.
Lane’s church worked with the Evanston Community Development Association to purchase the property. The organization, completed renovation of the home in late December, works with the Evanston religious community to improve people’s access to affordable housing.
With the construction of more high-end condominiums and the increasing cost of living in Evanston, it is becoming harder for middle-class families to purchase homes, said Sue Carlson of Evanston’s Affordable Housing Future, which studies housing trends and promotes policies that encourage affordable housing.
An $80,000 subsidy from the city helped the Evanston Community Development Association complete the affordable housing project, which cost a total of $256,000. In a 5-2 vote, Evanston City Council members allocated the money to the Evanston Community Development Association from federal funds at the Dec. 13 City Council meeting.
“We approved it because we need affordable housing initiatives,” said Ald. Edmund Moran (6th), who voted for the subsidy. “There was nothing to suggest it was a bad project.”
Moran said some aldermen were worried that the suggested selling price of the home was too high. Ald. Ann Rainey (8th) and Ald. Gene Feldman (9th) voted against the subsidy. Rainey declined to comment and Feldman could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
The subsidy was a critical component of the affordable housing project. Moran said the project already was 90 percent complete when the association came to the council.
“They spent the time and money and the effort,” Moran said. “It would have been unfortunate if we didn’t give them the money and it hung the project up.”
But grants alone will not be enough to ensure affordable housing, Moran said.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to meet the need for affordable housing simply on grants like this,” he said. “We’ll have to find other mechanisms to provide more housing.”
About 26 percent of homes in Evanston are categorized as “affordable” according to a study conducted by the Illinois Housing Development Authority that was released in early 2004.
These numbers, based off the 2000 Census, may be too outdated to provide an accurate indication of the affordable housing situation in Evanston, said Donna Spicuzza, a housing planner for the city.
Housing costs have been rising over the past few years, Carlson said..
“We believe in the idea of being sustainable,” she said. “We don’t believe in communities being sustainable if there are not a wide range of residencies. If all the workers in your community live hours away, then it creates traffic on the road, pollutes the air and so on.”
Carlson said Evanston’s unique diversity and more urban environment creates a need for affordable housing. To maintain the city’s historic diversity, people of median income — about $64,000 for a family of four — need affordable housing, she said.
“The city has been more committed than other areas, and it’s done a good job,” Carlson said. “But we don’t want to see that work dwindle away as the high end seems to be becoming the majority.”
Reach Stephanie Chen at [email protected].
