Cook County commissioner pitches a property tax relief fund for struggling homeowners

Cook County Board Commissioner Bridget Gainer is leading an effort to create a property tax relief fund as residents across the region struggle to pay their bills and risk losing their homes.

Gainer told WBEZ the county would fill the fund with about $15 million dollars from interest fees people pay when they’re late on their property tax bills. That’s a piece of an estimated $100 million in late interest fees the county expects to reach this year — higher than the $35 million the county budgeted for.

Research shows low-income older adults are especially struggling. Last year in suburbs south of North Avenue, the median tax bill climbed nearly 20% — the largest increase for any area reassessed in Cook County in almost 30 years, according to the county treasurer’s office.

“If you’re forcing people to move before they’re ready, they lose the generational wealth,” Gainer said. “They destabilize from the place they know.”

It’s not just that bills are going up, Gainer said Wednesday during a public hearing she led downtown in the county board room about the proposed fund. Bills are going up in ways people don’t expect, and they’re rising faster than their ability to pay.

Gainer acknowledged the potential relief fund is a short-term fix. She said the program would help people stay in their homes this year and potentially next year, but added that the need is urgent, as lawmakers also work on long-term property tax reform.

During the hearing, homeowners detailed their heartbreak over being forced to pay rising property tax bills, sell their homes or risk losing them. One woman said she sometimes has to choose between eating or paying taxes.

Asiaha Butler, co-founder and CEO of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood, said she’s owned a home in the South Side neighborhood since 2002. She said at one point she lost a home to “tax burdens.”

Because Englewood is filled with vacant lots, homeowners have been able to buy land for $1.

‘’Guess what’s happening now with some of those folks who invested in that land to make it productive, to have a garden, to have a peaceful oasis?” Butler said. “They’re getting tax bills,’’ and they’re afraid they’re not going to be able to afford the land, she said.

Diane Limas, a longtime volunteer with Communities United, owns a two-to-four flat building in Albany Park on the North Side, where she has lived for more than 30 years. She described her love of her diverse neighborhood, where she fishes near Ronan Park and gets margaritas at Garcia’s on Friday nights. Her sister is a renter and the sole caretaker of her husband, who had a stroke.

But she said as an older adult it’s hard to financially keep up. In 2020, she said she paid about $6,000 in property taxes, which roughly doubled the following year. She said she gets at least three or four offers in the mail every month to buy her property, and now people are calling with offers.

“I don’t want to be forced out of my home,” Limas said.

In an interview after the hearing, Gainer said the drumbeat from struggling residents is constant. She cited research from the University of Chicago that found people who are struggling the most fall into a few categories: They live in gentrifying neighborhoods where their property values are skyrocketing but not their incomes. They are older adults, or they live in communities where their property values might be lower, but their taxes are disproportionately higher. This happens a lot in the south suburbs.

Gainer said she plans to introduce an ordinance that would lay out more details of who would be eligible for the fund. But she said the program would focus on homeowners who have had property tax hikes in the last year they could not have predicted, and those who pay a substantial portion of their annual household income on property taxes. There would likely be a cap on someone’s total income to be eligible.

“This is really about targeting that working middle-class community, Gainer said.

Commissioners would likely debate the potential property tax relief fund and potentially vote as soon as next month.

Kristen Schorsch covers public health and Cook County government for WBEZ.