 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
The Oak Park Regional Housing Center (OPRHC) is a non-profit located within the village of Oak Park, Illinois. The Housing Center provides direct services in Oak Park and surrounding communities throughout Chicago and western Cook County.
Since 1972, OPRHC has worked to sustain racial integration and affirmatively further fair housing in Oak Park and the surrounding communities. The Housing Center strives to reconnect neighborhoods by ensuring access to quality housing, regardless of race, gender, religious views, sexual orientation, familial status, or disability.
In 1963, citizen groups began to lobby for an open housing legislation. From this, in 1968, the Village of Oak Park adopted the Fair Housing Ordinance. In the early 1970s, African American families began to integrate into Oak Park. Many faced discrimination in neighboring communities so in 1972, Roberta "Bobbie" Raymond opened the Oak Park Housing Center to ensure equal access to housing. The idea for the Housing Center came from her master’s thesis. The Housing Center initially launched with a staff of twenty and approximately twelve relators willing to show their clients housing in Oak Park. Since then the Oak Park Housing Center became the Oak Park Regional Housing Center to highlight the mission to integrate not only Oak Park, but also to encourage fair housing throughout the entire region. The center has been featured by the American Planning Association for being the third best neighborhood in the US, the hit television show The View for being named one of the top five sexiest suburbs in the United States, Travel and Leisure magazine named Oak Park one of the most beautiful neighborhoods, and Chicago Magazine votes Oak Park one of the twenty best towns and neighborhoods in Chicago and the suburbs.
The Oak Parker Magazine is the distinctive voice on the history, culture, and diverse lifestyles that shape the Oak Park community. This magazine has been published by the Oak park Regional Housing Center since 2011. [1] [2] In addition to the print version of the magazine, theoakparker.com is a regularly updated source for events and topics including home decor, finance, health, food & culture, and monthly features of local businesses. [1] [2]
Oak Park’s housing market is 40% rental and over one-third of renters move every year. Every day, the Oak Park Regional Housing Center helps prospective renters make affirmative moves by encouraging clients to consider moves that will sustain or improve Oak Park’s integration. Despite the numerous obstacles for sustaining racial integration, 800 of their clients made affirmative moves in 2011, 575 of the moves were in Oak Park. That is a 67% affirmative rate for Oak Park, 20 percentage points higher than moves to Oak Park that are without the Oak Park Regional Housing Center. Their numbers continue to grow year after year. In 2010, 700 renters came the OPRHC in search of housing and by 2011, this number grew to 869.
The Oak Park Regional Housing Center provides leadership and partners with organizations and jurisdictions at the local, state, and national level. They promote equitable public policy by consulting with the agencies at the federal, state, and local level. In addition, they are large supporters of local policy and encourage inter-jurisdictional collaboration in order to ensure that the integration in Oak Park spreads throughout the region.
The Housing Center offers technical assistance to local landlords. Training includes screening consistency, pre-lease agreements, proper notices, compliance with landlord/tenant and fair-housing laws, unit standards, and property management. The Technical Assistance program also previews apartments and connects landlords with grant dollars and loans to improve the quality of the units and overall building. This department also markets apartment listings to perspective residents and educates clients to ensure that the apartment listings they receive fit their preferences and budget.
The West Cook Homeownership Center works to ensure that people of all races and incomes have access to homeownership. Programs include financial fitness, downpayment assistance, employer-assisted housing, and first-time homebuyer seminars. The West Cook Homeownership Center is also a part of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, allowing the agency to rehab and market homes within communities of West Suburban Cook County.
The Housing Center recognizes that fair housing connects to all other facets of society. Therefore, the Housing Center works closely with the Village of Oak Park and numerous local agencies to promote sustainable and racially integrated community initiatives. In 2012, the Oak Park Regional Housing Center launched the Young Integration Leaders Alliance (YILA) in partnership with Oak Park River Forest High School and the Minority Student Achievement Network. The alliance is a hands-on, discussion based education program offered to high school students that ends with a summer internship. The group focuses on racial integration and provide opportunities for leadership within the high school and larger community.
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is a Cabinet department in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government. Although its beginnings were in the House and Home Financing Agency, it was founded as a Cabinet department in 1965, as part of the "Great Society" program of President Lyndon B. Johnson, to develop and execute policies on housing and metropolises.
Oak Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois adjacent to Chicago. It is the 29th-most populous municipality in Illinois with a population of 54,583 as of the 2020 U.S. Census estimate. Oak Park was first settled in 1835 and later incorporated in 1902, when it separated from Cicero. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife settled in Oak Park in 1889, and his work heavily influenced local architecture and design, including the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio. Over the years, rapid development was spurred by railroads and street cars connecting the village to jobs in nearby Chicago. In 1968, Oak Park passed the Open Housing Ordinance, which helped devise strategies to integrate the village rather than resegregate.
Henry Gabriel Cisneros is an American politician and businessman. He served as the mayor of San Antonio, Texas, from 1981 to 1989, the second Latino mayor of a major American city and the city's first since 1842. A Democrat, Cisneros served as the 10th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the administration of President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. As HUD Secretary, Cisneros was credited with initiating the revitalization of many public housing developments and with formulating policies that contributed to achieving the nation's highest ever rate of home ownership. In his role as the President's chief representative to the cities, Cisneros personally worked in more than two hundred cities spread over all fifty states. Cisneros's decision to leave the HUD position and not serve a second term was overshadowed by controversy involving payments to his former mistress.
The Civil Rights Act of 1968 is a landmark law in the United States signed into law by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during the King assassination riots.
Section 8 of the Housing Act of 1937, often called Section 8, as repeatedly amended, authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of low-income households in the United States. Fort Lauderdale, Florida Housing Authority Director William H. Lindsey, upon the advice of Housing Authority attorney J. Richard Smith, initially developed 11(b) financing in the early 1970s to accommodate a local savings and loan interested in assisting with urban renewal projects Lindsey eventually brought to fruition. This was the initial impetus for the subsequent development of the now well known Section 8 Program. Of the 5.2 million American Households that received rental assistance in 2018, approximately 2.2 million of those households received a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher. 68% of total rental assistance in the United States goes to seniors, children, and those with disabilities. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development manages Section 8 programs.
Supportive housing is a combination of housing and services intended as a cost-effective way to help people live more stable, productive lives, and is an active "community services and funding" stream across the United States. It was developed by different professional academics and US governmental departments that supported housing. Supportive housing is widely believed to work well for those who face the most complex challenges—individuals and families confronted with homelessness and who also have very low incomes and/or serious, persistent issues that may include substance use disorders, mental health, HIV/AIDS, chronic illness, diverse disabilities or other serious challenges to stable housing.
HOPE VI is a program of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. It is intended to revitalize the worst public housing projects in the United States into mixed-income developments. Its philosophy is largely based on New Urbanism and the concept of defensible space.
The term "sustainable communities" has various definitions, but in essence refers to communities planned, built, or modified to promote sustainable living. Sustainable communities tend to focus on environmental and economic sustainability, urban infrastructure, social equity, and municipal government. The term is sometimes used synonymously with "green cities," "eco-communities," "livable cities" and "sustainable cities."
The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights is a consortium of American law firms in Chicago that provides legal services in civil rights cases
The Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse (RBC) collects, processes, assembles, and disseminates information on existing barriers that inhibit the production and conservation of affordable housing. RBC is part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD's) Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) overall effort to help create cohesive, economically viable, and healthy communities. It was created in response to the American Homeownership and Economic Opportunity Act of 2000 and in recognition that as much as a third of the cost of a new home is driven by state and local regulations.
Residential segregation in the United States is the physical separation of two or more groups into different neighborhoods—a form of segregation that "sorts population groups into various neighborhood contexts and shapes the living environment at the neighborhood level". While it has traditionally been associated with racial segregation, it generally refers to the separation of populations based on some criteria.
Housing segregation in the United States is the practice of denying African Americans and other minority groups equal access to housing through the process of misinformation, denial of realty and financing services, and racial steering. Housing policy in the United States has influenced housing segregation trends throughout history. Key legislation include the National Housing Act of 1934, the G.I. Bill, and the Fair Housing Act. Factors such as socioeconomic status, spatial assimilation, and immigration contribute to perpetuating housing segregation. The effects of housing segregation include relocation, unequal living standards, and poverty. However, there have been initiatives to combat housing segregation, such as the Section 8 housing program.
Subsidized housing in the United States is administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized rental assistance for low-income households. Public housing is priced much below the market rate, allowing people to live in more convenient locations rather than move away from the city in search of lower rents. In most federally-funded rental assistance programs, the tenants' monthly rent is set at 30% of their household income. Now increasingly provided in a variety of settings and formats, originally public housing in the U.S. consisted primarily of one or more concentrated blocks of low-rise and/or high-rise apartment buildings. These complexes are operated by state and local housing authorities which are authorized and funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 2020, there were 1.0 million public housing units.
Housing discrimination in the United States refers to the historical and current barriers, policies, and biases that prevent equitable access to housing. Housing discrimination became more pronounced after the abolition of slavery, typically as part of Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation. The federal government began to take action against these laws in 1917, when the Supreme Court struck down ordinances prohibiting blacks from occupying or owning buildings in majority-white neighborhoods in Buchanan v. Warley. However, the federal government as well as local governments continued to be directly responsible for housing discrimination through redlining and race-restricted covenants until the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
Discrimination in awarding Section 8 housing describes alleged or confirmed cases of illegal discrimination in the housing market of the United States of America, "Section 8" being a portion of a 1937 law that provides financial assistance for housing costs of several million low-income Americans.
Howard County Housing is the umbrella organization for the Howard County Department of Housing and Community Development and the Howard County Housing Commission. The Department is Howard County Government’s housing agency and the Commission is a public housing authority and non-profit. Both have boards that meet monthly.
Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) is a provision of the 1968 federal Fair Housing Act signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The law requires that "All executive departments and agencies shall administer their programs and activities relating to housing and urban development in a manner affirmatively to further the purposes of" the Fair Housing Act. The law also requires the Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to administer all HUD programs in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing.
Roberta Lee Raymond, néeRoberta Wolin, also known as Bobbie Raymond, was an American actress, sociologist, civil rights worker, artist, and writer. She was married to mathematician Richard Gustavus Larson, PhD and had one son Charles D. Raymond, and a grandson Trevor William Raymond.
Eviction in the United States refers to the removal of tenants from the location in which they are residing. Within the United States, eviction rates vary heavily by locality. However, historically, there have been trends in domestic eviction patterns during certain time periods such as during the Great Depression and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scott R. Britton is an elected American local government official in Cook County, Illinois.
