Housing

An Uptown housing project, a Fulton Market mixed-used development and a Brighton Park community venue also were approved by the city's Plan Commission.

The Chicago Fire team is building a practice facility on land long reserved for public housing. Activists speaking over bulldozers say the mayor could still get new homes built there instead.

The housing agency plans to approve projects that will add 357 new apartments around the city, but housing advocates say more needs to be done.

Other North Side neighborhoods like West Town, Uptown and Rogers Park also are losing more low-cost apartments. Two- and four-flat buildings also are continuing to vanish throughout the city.

The organization's Prairie District Apartments plan includes new apartments on Michigan Avenue and renovated single-room occupancy units at 18th and Wabash.

The $26.6 million project, called The Regenerator, received City Council backing Wednesday. A coalition of Englewood organizers is leading the project.

As thousands of asylum seekers seek refuge in Chicago, volunteers across the city are creating community-run shelters, often offering better conditions than overburdened city-run shelters.

The Go Green On Racine team began their work 10 years ago to build the $26.6 million project dubbed the Regenerator in the Woods Elementary, which closed in 2013.

Worried the city could lose 800 affordable units as the arm of Heartland Alliance failed to pay its bills, city officials asked a judge to transfer control of the properties to another company.

The lawsuit alleges local and federal housing officials didn't conduct a proper civil rights review ahead of the controversial deal.

The city wants to convert the motel into housing with services for unhoused Chicagoans. While most neighbors appeared to support it, a small group disrupted the meeting before it could start.

The Woodlawn Social project was selected this month as the winning proposal to redevelop land on East 63rd Street, bringing 60 affordable apartments and 10 townhomes to the area.

Advocates also want a meeting with Mayor Brandon Johnson and a moratorium on land sales. "When someone else can come in and take housing we're still waiting on, that's not right," one resident said.

Kamau Murray's plan to build 39 two-flats and townhomes for tennis employees on the former Robert Taylor Homes awaits federal approval. Housing activists say they won't let it happen.

The motel could be turned into 40 rooms of special housing where residents get housing assistance and mental health and medical care.

All of the residents — about 35 — were matched with housing thanks to an interagency effort. The outcome shows what can be done with more funding for homelessness, advocates say.

The buildings feature 72 panels by artist Kathryn Eli, whose work can be found around the Northwest Side and suburbs.

More than 1,600 apartments are slated to come to the financial corridor.

The building would bring a sizable investment into an area that has struggled with safety, but some neighbors say the area already has a high concentration of affordable housing.