Live reporting by
Jennifer Bamberg
Jonathan Lesbian Seagull
@gremlina333
Hi yal, this morning I’ll be live tweeting the Cook County Land Bank Authority meeting from home via teleconference. Before you scroll onto something that maybe feels more relevant to this moment of uncertainty we’re all currently steeped in, let me show you how relevant this is:
11:09 AM Mar 20, 2020 CDT
The Land Bank Authority is an institution born out of the last financial collapse. It’s a direct response to the foreclosure crisis of 2008, and may give us clues to how our city will respond to this one, and how **we as renters and homeowners**, can respond to this crisis too.
Oop, I'm on assignment with the @CHIdocumenters and @city_bureau. Keep following their crucial, important work.
So the Land Bank Authority was created in 2013 after a study was conducted that found 200,000 vacant homes, most of them foreclosures, all across Cook County. The CCLBA has been acquiring and selling these vacant, abandoned, foreclosed, and tax-delinquent properties ever since.
This includes single family homes, apartment complexes, vacant land, and industrial sites, which are mostly on the south and west sides, places hit hardest by predatory subprime mortgages and foreclosure.
You can follow the land trust at @CCLBA
You can follow the land trust at @CCLBA
Up until 2017, the CCLB only sold properties to developers that would rehab them and sell them at market rate. They began selling properties directly to home buyers three years ago. There's a lot of heart warming articles about that program you can find if you google it.
But what I'm wondering is, who are the developers they sold to? I’ve been poking around their website and the Chicago City data portal for only an hour or two, but I have yet to find out who these private developers are. Why isn’t that transparent or easily accessible?
How do we know the CCLBA doesn’t favor certain developers, that there isn’t some kind of patronage happening?
Because while thousands of people lost their homes in the crisis, there were entities profiting off of their misery. Companies like Pangea, and Mac Properties, who took advantage of the avalanche of foreclosures to cheaply acquire apartment buildings by the block in neighborhoods
Are these some of the developers the CCLB sold properties to? I’d love to see those transactions.
Tenants have learned from the last crisis, and are organizing rent strikes across the city in response to the pandemic. blockclubchicago.org/2020/03/20/hyd…
In any case, the meeting is underway on zoom, everyone’s new best friend. Here’s the agenda: https://t.co/MMRTajFg10
The technology is wonky and I was put on hold for a few minutes before I just tried calling back, so I will update everyone on the opening comments after I talk to my #CHIDocumenters colleague, cus that's the most important part.
I came into the call when a commissioner was giving an update on the over 1,000 skilled trades workers who are still working on CCLB houses. 1,000 carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and laborers are showing up to work in the midst of this pandemic.
She said that the PPE (personal protective equipment) for construction workers is essentially the same as what health workers are using.
Ok I’m back after calling a colleague who's notes from this meeting you can find on documenters.org! That was CCLBA Chairwoman and Commissioner Bridget Gainer, speaking on the role of construction workers. She says that construction, even non-essential cosmetic work--
--is what’s keeping the economy moving right now, and that’s why those workers are still going to work everyday, despite unprecedented layoffs across the country due to the fact that covid-19 can be spread by individuals who don’t yet know they have it.
Please, someone write about this. It’s not just CCLBA. Every construction worker I know who was already working is still out there. Construction workers r the frontline workers of the economy, exposing themselves, their communities & families in order to keep capital circulating.
Many who I've talked to don't know if they're the lucky ones because they're still pulling in a pay check, or when to expect the other shoe to drop.
@mdoukmas @SouthSideWeekly @southsideworker
@mdoukmas @SouthSideWeekly @southsideworker
The nation's record-long economic boom was in fact a construction boom. The workers still building luxury apartment complexes and office buildings are doing so for the sake of investors and their profits. The future bailouts happen on the backs of these workers.
While broke and anxious tenants across the country are organizing for a #rentfreeze and a #rentstrike, perhaps we can ask these construction workers to risk their lives not for capital, but for humanity, and convert these empty luxury developments into clinics and hospitals.
Commissioner Gainer also said that at 6:30 tonight, Gov Pritzker is going to make a shelter in place ordinance, effective tomorrow at 9:30pm. There will be exemptions for construction workers.
And then all the agenda items passed on the agenda. And then I had to take a lot of deep breaths cus this feels like a lot. If this feels like a lot for you too, take some deep breaths. I want to see #hospitalsnotcondos.
The idea that the economy is some kind of wind up doll that needs to keep building empty glass towers in order to function is a lie. We can pivot our priorities. We can turn new developments into covid-19 treatment centers.
Alright. Well, you see what happens when you delve into public city meetings that on the surface seem really irrelevant and boring? Keep following @CHIdocumenters and @city_bureau. The state is trying to stay organized, and so should we. Thanks for reading.