Our Accomplishments:

Affordable Housing:

LAC’s Affordable Housing Task Force has organized a broad affordable housing campaign over the last few years that has successfully made affordable housing a major issue in the 32^nd, 43^rd and 44^th Wards.  The campaign, named “Room For All,” is broad in scope to allow us to build a large affordable housing constituency, and has worked mainly through two avenues:

•  Preservation of Affordable Housing through Section 8

Over the past five years LAC has organized for the preservation and creation of affordable homes for more than 1,200 low and moderate-income households. LAC campaigns have saved five apartment buildings and created new affordable housing for seniors.

In 2000-2001, LAC organized a massive interfaith campaign that won the preservation of Rienzi Plaza, a 300 unit mixed-use building with over 150 project-based Section 8 units, through a five-year extension of their contract.  Our campaign at Rienzi also worked to pass Class S, legislation geared toward preserving buildings like Rienzi across the City.  Last year, we won a 16 year extension at Webster House, a mixed-use project based Section 8 building (similar to Rienzi Plaza) that is the first building of its kind in the nation to test a new HUD ruling to allow owners to opt out of there contract early if they refinance their mortgage.  We also collaborated with the Jane Addams Senior Caucus (JASC) to ensure the passage of the Federally Assisted Housing Preservation Act, which gives Section 8 tenants more control over the sale of their property and opportunity to buy it themselves or ensure that a new owner will keep it affordable.  

• Creation of Affordable Housing through Set-Asides

As a founding member of the citywide Balanced Development Coalition we have been extremely active in the campaign to pass a citywide set-aside ordinance.  The ordinance calls for all new residential developments, substantial rehabs, and condo conversions of 10 or more units to designate 15% of the units as affordable to low-income families.

In June 2003 we organized a Citizens’ Action Assembly on affordable housing with over 450 leaders in attendance from our three wards.  We won specific housing policy commitments from two Aldermen, focusing on affordable set-asides, which enabled us to secure Alderman Tunney’s sponsorship of the city-wide set-aside ordinance in 2004.  In addition, we have since secured commitments from Aldermen Tunney, Daley and Matlak (all the aldermen in our wards) to enforce set-aside policies in their wards.

Affordable Health Care:

Health Care has always been an important issue for LAC. In the last three years, LAC has built or renewed relationships with area legislators, many of whom serve on key health committees in Springfield.  As part of United Power for Action & Justice, LAC leaders played a front-line role in the campaign to insure 200,000 low-income parents by expanding the state’s KidCare program into “FamilyCare.”

In the last year, clergy from several of our United Church of Christ (UCC) and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) congregations have worked with “debtor” patients to lead the effort through LAC to reform unjust discriminatory pricing and predatory debt collection practices at Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital in Lakeview.  Discriminatory pricing is the practice of charging people without insurance (and the least ability to pay) higher sticker prices than those with insurance.  Predatory debt collection is when hospitals aggressively seek the payments of debts, often at the expense of a family’s livelihood. 

These practices, while common by most hospitals, are practiced more aggressively within the Advocate system, most notably at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center (IMMC).  For example, in Cook County, hospitals sue patients for an average of 4% of the amount of outstanding bad debt owed to the hospital.  At Advocate North side, which includes Masonic and Ravenswood Hospital, they sued for nearly 42% of the bad debt on its books, or more than ten times the average.  In the last year we have:

• Organized Lutheran and UCC clergy to work with debtors at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center;

• Won major reforms including: revised charity care policy (system-wide change), informal moratorium on all lawsuits at IMMC, creation of guidelines for the new policy, better signage and training for staff at Illinois Masonic, and at least one seat for an LAC clergy on IMMC’s charity care committee;

• Held a Health Care Assembly in April 2004 with IMMC’s CEO and over 200 community leaders;

• Won commitments from Advocate officials and local political allies to work with us on addressing local specific community healthcare needs;

• Identified specific common healthcare issues through house meetings and created out of that a Healthcare Task Force of leaders from our member institutions.  
  

  ---