When Lissette Castañeda sat before aldermen Friday to lay out her vision for renters and homeowners in Chicago, she started by looking to her past.
Castañeda was born in a rented home in Lincoln Park, she told the council’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate. But when her parents decided to buy a home, they couldn’t afford to live in the then-changing neighborhood.
So they moved to Logan Square, a neighborhood now at its own similar crossroads. In her young life, the housing change came with a new church and earlier wake-up time to get to school, she recalled.
But after 20 years as an affordable housing activist, the woman appointed to serve by Mayor Brandon Johnson as the Department of Housing’s commissioner makes sense of her childhood with words she didn’t have then.
“My story can now be recognized as one of gentrification and displacement,” Castañeda told aldermen.
The anecdote she introduced herself with flashed the progressive tone she’ll bring to the office that will soon be hers. The committee’s aldermen voted unanimously to recommend her appointment, and the full City Council is set to vote on her appointment Wednesday.
Housing commissioner is a key appointment for any mayor, helping run point on City Hall’s agenda to promote and control residential development.
It’s likely to be a particularly important focus of the Johnson administration in the upcoming year with the mayor-backed Bring Chicago Home referendum set to appear on the March ballot. The policy would increase taxes on real estate transfer values above $1 million, which backers say would raise $100 million each year to address homelessness.
Castañeda said she hopes to slash red tape to speed up housing construction and talked about using tools such as subsidies to facilitate more home ownership as she answered aldermen’s questions.
The Johnson appointee most recently was executive director of LUCHA, an affordable housing advocacy and housing counseling organization that also owns and manages a handful of residential buildings in Chicago. Her record fighting for affordable housing on the Northwest Side garnered support from close mayoral allies Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st, and Ald. Jessie Fuentes, 26th.
She also touted her background as an activist who marched in support of guarantees for more affordable housing.
“I understand well from personal and professional experience what a difference it makes to have stable, affordable housing and how hard it can be to maintain that stability and affordability,” Castañeda said. “Everyone deserves a safe, decent, affordable home and should have a right to make the best housing choice for themselves and their family without being limited by a lack of opportunity or resources.”
Nodding to Castañeda’s progressive bona fides, Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, asked why the appointee didn’t opt to take a gig as a developer, and instead left the activist space to enter City Hall.
“This was the final frontier, to come into the inside,” Castañeda said.
The appointee discussed the “disinvestment” in many neighborhoods when asked about how she would spur new housing creation on the South and West sides, arguing “housing is just one of the factors in a person’s life.”
The city needs to invest in shoring up what communities offer in areas that struggle to attract new housing with transportation access, schools, green spaces, grocery stores and more, she said.
But pushed further by Ald. David Moore, 17th, she added that tools such as subsidies, bonds and tax credits can be used “to look at the developer and say, ‘We’re going to help you make this change, we’re going to help you do these things.’”
At times in the city’s history, investment in poorer areas has led to displacement, she added.
“What I want to do is work in communities that have had that disinvestment for generations, for decades, and make sure that when we make investment in the communities, it does not lead to displacement, it simply leads to greater choice, greater access,” she said.
Making development move faster through “streamlining” is a primary goal, she told the Tribune.
“I want to leave this place knowing that we have built more affordable housing, that there are more units, and that more people are not suffering from homelessness or instability and housing insecurity,” she said.
Castañeda would likely play an essential role in spending the money that comes in if Bring Chicago Home passes. She declined to answer questions about the referendum, but told the Tribune she stands behind the administration’s vision of housing “across the spectrum.”
“From homelessness all the way to home ownership,” she said.
