South Suburban Housing Collaborative

 • Cook County Commissioner Bridget Gainer will describe the new county vacant property ordinance that takes effect in February 2012:  Please Click Here to View Ordinance The ordinance requires a property's mortgagee to pay a fee to list buildings as vacant on a county wide registry. The ordinance applies to all areas of unincorporated Cook County. Read more »

 The West Cook County Housing Collaborative and the Chicago Southland Housing and Community Development Collaborative received nearly $11 million in federal funding from the IKE Disaster Recovery Program to further their interjurisdictional work on stabilizing communities in south and west Cook County in the wake of the foreclosure crisis.  The funding will help hard-hit communities preserve workforce housing, address blight, and recover from th

The November 2011 edition of ProfitWise News and Views, written by Susan Longworth and published by the Community Development and Policy Studies Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, features Suburban Housing Collaboratives: a Case for Interjurisdictional Collaboration.

In 2009, states, counties, and cities across the country applied for approximately $3.9 billion from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to confront the problems of foreclosures and property abandonment. The Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) is the principal federal response to address the impact of foreclosed properties on neighborhoods.

Today, the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association (SSMMA) was awarded a $2.4 million Sustainable Communities Challenge Grant from the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to strengthen the Southland through a redevelopment strategy that builds off existing and planned rail assets and related housing and economic development opportunities.
 

The Information Management Network looks forward to the riveting review of how the economic stimulus plan has taken effect in Illinois at the 9th Annual Illinois Public Finance Conference. Join public finance officials from across the state to discuss the opportunities and challenges of managing Illinois' financial progress. Bond issuers, investors and insurers as well as legislators and administrators will address the economic goals of counties, cities and the state as a whole. Read more »

An in-depth look at the innovative regional planning and cooperation going on to revitalize neighborhoods hard hit by foreclosure in South and West Cook County can be found in the Fall/Winter edition of Shelterforce, the National Housing Institute’s journal of affordable housing and community building.

The Cook County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday awarded a total of $12,068,039 in foreclosure recovery funding to two groups of communities in south and west Cook County, recognizing that these municipalities will make the most of these investments as a result of their trailblazing efforts to work across municipal borders on comprehensive, sustainable redevelopment plans.
 
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It's been less than 12 months since the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) was established through the Housing and Economic Recovery Act to help communities devastated by foreclosures. It didn't take long to figure out that a strategic approach to the problem, working in collaboration instead of competing against each other, would be far more effective for the cash-strapped Cook County towns most in need.