Chicago is launching a property tax program setting aside $500,000 — some of which the city won by suing bus companies that delivered migrants from Texas — to pay for debt relief for households in three South Side neighborhoods, Mayor Brandon Johnson announced on Thursday.
Cook County separately announced a proposed new program to help a small group of taxpayers catch up on delinquent property tax bills.
The city program offers up to $5,000 to homeowners in Englewood, South Shore and the Lower West Side if they are at risk of losing their homes in a tax sale due to unpaid bills from 2023 or 2024, according to a news release from the mayor’s office. So if all applicants qualify for the full amount, 100 households would receive payments.
It comes as part of the Jackson Park Housing Pilot Ordinance introduced by Ald. Desmon Yancy, 5th, that is geared toward anti-gentrification measures near the Obama Presidential Center.
In a twist, part of the funds to cover these checks will come from lawsuits the city filed starting in 2023 against Texas bus companies who were sending migrants to Chicago over the objections of the Johnson administration.
“By taking action to recoup funds from companies who skirted the rules and sought to profit off a painful and challenging time for our city, we are showing that government can do more than just react during a moment of crisis,” Johnson said in a statement. “Instead, we are using every tool available to us to hold bad actors accountable, recover resources, and put those dollars right back towards stabilizing our communities.”
In total, the Law Department filed litigation against 95 companies, arguing that they violated city ordinances against unloading passengers without authorization, and won $260,950 in settlements, on top of $181,000 in default judgments for companies that were no-shows in court.
Yancy’s ordinance adds housing protections around Jackson Park, which is adjacent to his South Shore ward that has clamored for a community benefits agreement after Woodlawn secured one. He said in a statement Thursday that the $500,000 property tax relief program is “designed to make sure new investment does not come at the expense of the people who have called our neighborhoods home for generations.”
The pilot will be administered with the United Way of Metro Chicago and 211 Metro Chicago, and would help residents whose homes are on the chopping block for a tax sale this December or next March. The city is mailing letters to qualifying Chicagoans, identified via property index numbers near the Jackson Park Housing Pilot community, a zone the city previously set up for an anti-gentrification housing program as a result of the Obama Presidential Center.
To qualify, homeowners must live in that property as their primary residence, earn below 100% of the area median income and have unpaid property tax bills from 2023 and 2024. The application went online Thursday and will close on Nov. 20.
The move comes ahead of a gnarly reelection fight for Johnson, who has begun rolling out a host of sweeteners for his progressive and Black voter bases. On Tuesday, he also announced a pilot gunshot detection system mostly on the South and West sides, and on Wednesday debuted his 2027 “Fair Share” budget, a nod to Mayor Harold Washington’s 1986 spending plan of the same name.
The county’s program allows Clerk Monica Gordon to administer payment plans and waive interest costs for a small group of property owners that owe delinquent taxes. It was part of a package of reforms overhauling annual tax sales that passed at the state level earlier this year with the support of Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Treasurer Maria Pappas.
The tax sale — blasted by critics as especially harmful to low-income homeowners and ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 — allows private buyers to bid for property tax debts and charge interest on the debtors. If property owners don’t pay, they risk eventually losing the deed to their home. The state reforms ultimately do away with that system, and Cook County alone will acquire liens on overdue property taxes, charging taxpayers 0.75% a month, or 9% a year, in interest.
The pilot program would require the county’s Bureau of Economic Development to choose a group of 100 properties at each of the next six scheduled tax sales with the lowest delinquent tax tab and make those owners eligible for a plan to slowly pay down their debts. The Clerk would be responsible for running the program. The pilot was introduced at the county board Thursday and is expected to be considered next month.