Brendan Sanders of Open Communities and Kyle Smith of the Center for Neighborhood Technology note that Sunset Village, a manufactured home community (MHC) in Glenview has infrequent bus service. The only route is on nearby Waukegan Road, and it runs only during peak hours and never on weekends. A mile away, a housing development called The Glen is much more transportation oriented. “From The Glen, a worker could get to 209,000 jobs within a 30-minute transit ride,” says Smith. “From Sunset Village, the number is less than half that.”
For years, massive housing projects for blacks were far removed from white neighborhoods, often restricted to particular zip codes. Similarly, a report by Sanders and Smith suggests that affordable housing in the Chicago area is not always near transit, which can be crucial to potential employment.
“In the northern suburbs, mixed-income housing and TOD (transit oriented development) have not often occurred together,” the report states, arguing that the trend cuts both ways. “In some places, station areas added market-rate condominiums, which put market pressure on existing rental housing and may have pushed some families to leave those areas. In other towns, affordable housing production occurred outside of station areas.”
Since 1968, HUD has required recipients to “affirmatively further fair housing.” Sanders and Smith have extended that mandate to include TOD, as MHProNews has learned.
“Affordable housing is often delivered in the place that it’s easiest to do — not the places with the highest amount of opportunity,” Smith says. ##
(Photo credit: sunsetvillagehomes–Glenview, Illinois)
