State-funded housing program includes Chicago Heights, South Holland

Six suburban communities stand to benefit from The Illinois Building Blocks Pilot Program, a $40 million state-funded initiative that Gov. Pat Quinn announced at a news conference earlier this month in Berwyn.

The program is designed to help communities through the foreclosure crisis by providing aid to homeowners to prevent foreclosures and by creating affordable housing out of vacant properties.

It also was announced that Cook County will contribute an additional $10 million to the Building Blocks program for which Berwyn, Chicago Heights, Maywood, Park Forest, Riverdale and South Holland were selected for participation.

Chicago Heights Mayor David Gonzalez said the new state and county incentive program practically mirrors the FIND Chicago Heights program that was started under former Mayor Alex Lopez and ran from 2009 to 2010.

Under the FIND program, Chicago Heights provided 67 people $5,000 to $10,000 in down payment assistance to encourage home ownership in the city.

Gonzalez said that an added component of the Building Blocks program is that the state will help qualified buyers to obtain loans.

"The idea there is for the buyer to get a loan at 30 years at 4 percent," he said.

Gonzalez said foreclosures affect not only those who lose their homes, but also those whose property values decrease due to the presence of foreclosed and vacant homes on their blocks.

Chicago Heights Chief of Staff Lisa Aprati said the city has about 300 homes in foreclosure.

Gonzalez said he believes Chicago Heights was chosen for the program because of the work the city has done in terms of job creation.

He said recent announcement that the Ford Stamping Plant in Chicago Heights has started a third shift will create hundreds of jobs in the city.

"You have to have jobs for people to buy these homes, and I think that's one of the reasons why Chicago Heights was selected," Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez believes solving the foreclosure problem will create safer neighborhoods.

"By us attacking these vacant homes and these foreclosed homes, it also will start decreasing the criminal activity that happens, whether people are trying to go in there and strip the copper and the pipes out of these homes, or at the same time they're being used for criminal activities because they are abandoned and people tend to break into them," he said.

South Holland Village President Don De Graff said he thinks South Holland may have been selected for the program because of past successful dealings with the state and county, including his village's involvement in the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

"Under Governor Quinn, there was like $58 million in NSP funding to restore nearly 450 foreclosed or vacant housing units in Illinois, and we participated in that program, as well, to help not just our residents, but the whole south suburban area," De Graff said.

South Holland could not have been chosen based on having a high number of foreclosures, according to De Graff.

"Percentage-wise, we are one of the lowest in the whole region," he said. "I think we have approximately 350 foreclosures out of about 8,000 homes."

De Graff sees the Building Blocks program as a chance to put properties back on the tax rolls.

"It's an opportunity to put people in homes and do so in an affordable fashion," De Graff said.