CHICAGO — The Bring Chicago Home referendum, which would have amended the city’s real estate transfer tax to set aside money for homelessness prevention, appears to have failed.
With more than 98 percent of Chicago precincts reporting, about 53.6 percent of voters rejected the proposal and 46.3 percent of voters supported it. As of Wednesday morning, 22,661 votes separated the “yes” and “no” votes.
About 109,000 mail-in ballots remain outstanding, according to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. Typically, about 85 percent of those ballots are expected to be returned and still need to be counted. But elections board spokesperson Max Bever said the board is expecting “more like 70,000” — or about 64 percent — of those ballots to be returned and counted with Tuesday’s low turnout.
The referendum asked Chicagoans if they want to raise the city’s real estate transfer tax on high-end properties to create a revenue stream to fund homelessness programs. The measure would have raised the one-time fee paid on property sales over $1 million while lowering it on cheaper homes and buildings.
The measure’s failure is a major blow to advocates, including Mayor Brandon Johnson, whose campaign touted Bring Chicago Home as a way to fund more housing programs for people experiencing homelessness.
“The Bring Chicago Home campaign exists in the long lineage of past and present struggles for fair housing, civil rights and economic justice,” organizers wrote in an emailed statement late Tuesday. “While tonight’s election results are disappointing, we are nowhere near the end of our journey.”
The Bring Chicago Home group noted there are mail-in ballots that must still be counted, and its supporters will “keep fighting for housing justice.”
The apparent loss comes after a particularly “sleepy” Election Day, where just 20 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot, said Max Bever, a spokesperson for the Chicago Board of Elections. The uncompetitive presidential primary between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is likely to blame for the low turnout, Bever said.
Proponents argued the rate hike was needed to help get people off the streets and into permanent housing. Critics said the change would have hurt landlords and commercial property owners, especially Downtown.
Opponents of the measure said other funds should be explored to reduce homelessness and offer more affordable housing, but the real estate transfer tax was not the way to do it.
The Bring Chicago Home campaign has for years called on the city to increase the tax rate buyers pay on property sales over $1 million, with the additional funds raised going to providing affordable housing and wraparound services for unhoused Chicagoans.
The measure became a key campaign pledge of Johnson’s during last year’s municipal election, and the City Council voted 32-17 to place the Bring Chicago Home referendum on the ballot.
The Building Owners and Managers Association and other plaintiffs sued the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners in January in an attempt to block the ballot question from moving forward. They argued the referendum improperly grouped three separate questions into one, among other issues.
A Cook County judge sided with those groups last month, putting Bring Chicago Home’s future in limbo, but that decision was overturned by the First District Appellate Court earlier this month after an appeal was filed by the city.
The Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago and several other groups against the measure filed an appeal with the Illinois Supreme Court to try and reverse the decision, but the court rejected that challenge and sided with the lower court, ending a prolonged pre-election legal battle.
Michael Glasser, president of the Neighborhood Building Owners Alliance, one of the groups that also sought to block the ballot question, said the groups want to continue working toward a solution for affordable housing in Chicago.
“While the results for this race may not be final, the passion of both sides is clear: We all want to make Chicago a better place to live,” Glasser said in a statement late Tuesday. “As neighborhood housing providers, we are responsible for 70 percent of the city’s affordable housing, and we want to work with the City to find real solutions that benefit neighborhood housing and grow Chicago’s supply of naturally occurring affordable housing.”
Bring Chicago Home supporters had estimated the rate hike would raise about $100 million annually, which would be reserved to build housing and provide outreach services to people experiencing homelessness.
The measure stalled under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration. Johnson supported the plan during his mayoral campaign, and it has become one of his signature efforts under his progressive legislative agenda.
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