Obama CBA Coalition

The program will be piloted in a Crandon Avenue building to make repairs and stabilize the homeowner association’s finances. But Obama CBA organizers have criticized the move.

If passed, the fund would direct $5 million of affordable housing funds per year toward loans and grants for struggling homeowners associations and residents of shared-ownership housing.

South Siders have pushed city leaders to act faster to safeguard affordable housing near the massive project in Jackson Park. "We cannot wait on IOUs ... for more affordable housing to come later."

City Bureau's new zine, "Will That New Development Benefit Your Community?," explores community benefits agreements and other ways to hold developers accountable.

Officials proposed redeveloping 13 vacant lots on 63rd Street into five buildings with about 100 affordable apartments, with each building similar in scale to the Park Station project approved last fall.

The coalition's proposal would create up to 1,000 units of affordable housing in Woodlawn. They estimate that would allow about 3,000 residents to remain in the neighborhood.

Organizers are calling on the city to invest at least $63.3 million in programs that assist South Shore renters and homeowners with repairs, housing costs, home purchases and more.

Thursday's town hall was the Obama CBA Coalition's first with a South Shore focus, as organizers sought residents' visions around housing, culture, development and other concerns.

Organizers and aldermen have a laundry list of protections they want to ensure before the Obama Center's planned opening in Jackson Park.

As more than 50 vacant lots in Woodlawn are redeveloped, 30 percent of the units will be reserved for "very low-income" renters.

With an affordable housing ordinance in place for Woodlawn, South Side organizers say they also want to help lower-income residents in nearby neighborhoods. "This is a small step in the right direction," an alderman said.

Attendees set up tents for an all-day protest at a vacant, city-owned lot. Community leaders from across the city called for affordable housing protections for Woodlawn that go beyond the city's recent proposal.

Neighbors at Tuesday's meeting on the city's affordable housing proposal for Woodlawn held a variety of opinions, but many agreed a plan of action needs to be decided soon.

Woodlawn Ald. Jeanette Taylor said the mayor’s proposal does not do enough to protect residents from being pushed out.

"I’m going to fight [the Mayor] and everybody else on making sure that this doesn’t pass," Ald. Jeanette Taylor said. "It is either get right, or get right out of office.”

A draft report reviewing 11 plans for Woodlawn over a 15-year span was released Thursday, but residents wondered why some community groups weren't included.

"I don't want to kill [the city's plan], but if that's what needs to happen to make sure we're not displaced, then that's what's got to happen," Ald. Jeanette Taylor said.

Woodlawn would be included in the plan, but most of South Shore and Washington Park would not.

With the complicated Obama Center CBA stalled, the city is taking a smaller step to preserve housing affordability in Woodlawn by purchasing the vacant properties.