As polls in the March primary closed Tuesday evening, the Bring Chicago Home campaign backed by Mayor Brandon Johnson awaited results in the ballot referendum that was the culmination of a years-long drive by homeless advocates to increase taxes on more expensive city property purchases.
The measure, which seeks to raise the city’s real estate transfer tax for property purchases above $1 million, has taken a bumpy and winding road to voting booths across the city, including an eleventh-hour legal fight that threatened to toss it out. A coalition of homeless advocacy organizations, labor unions and other progressive groups who christened themselves the “Bring Chicago Home” campaign first mobilized behind the idea in 2018.
The grassroots movement backed by Johnson has long argued the city must address its dearth of affordable housing by raising its levy on higher-end property purchases, betting on the one-time real estate transfer tax to be more politically viable than other proposals such as raising the annual property tax.
In making the case for Bring Chicago Home, Johnson as both candidate and mayor has evoked the personal story of his brother, Leon.
“My brother had untreated trauma, and died addicted and unhoused,” the mayor said during a visit to the Jesse Brown Veterans Affairs Medical Center earlier this month. “I mean, this is something that touches every aspect of our city, and it cuts across multiple communities. … People have an opportunity to show up and vote on March 19, to tell the story to the rest of the world that we actually care about the unhoused.”
Johnson’s predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, championed the idea of hiking the real estate transfer tax but grew reluctant after taking office in 2019 and presiding over a pandemic. She said the campaign’s proposal was faulty. That conflict came to a head in 2022, when a special City Council hearing on the issue failed to establish a quorum by just one alderman — despite several members being present just outside chambers.
Ald. Maria Hadden, the lead sponsor in the council, said at the time: “Right now, we’re kind of out of runway.”
But that was not so.
At the same time, Johnson’s campaign to unseat Lightfoot the next year was quietly gaining momentum with his progressive labor base — and Bring Chicago Home emerged as a central plank of his agenda. He knocked the incumbent out of the running in the February 2023 election before proceeding to defeat the more-conservative Paul Vallas in the runoff.
In September, Hadden stood victorious with Johnson allies as they introduced a new, amended version of the Bring Chicago Home question that would end up on the March primary ballot.
“The resolution that we are submitting today has been hard-fought and hard-compromised,” Hadden said. “It is a good plan. It’s going to get us the money that we need, and it’s going to not burden everyday Chicagoans.”
The City Council approved the measure in November with a 32-17 vote, setting up a citywide referendum for the March 19 primary.
Bring Chicago Home centers on a levy hike tied to the purchase of all properties that sell for above $1 million, paid once by the buyer. The city currently charges a flat 0.75% rate on property purchases.
The measure is not a property tax increase, which Johnson as a candidate had vowed not to enact.
Tiered changes to levy structures such as the real estate transfer tax cannot be enacted by the Chicago City Council alone, only via a voter referendum or through the Illinois General Assembly.
Whereas the original proposal called for two rates — the same 0.75% on home sales below $1 million, and 2.65% on properties above $1 million — Johnson’s team last summer devised a new version that instead establishes three tax brackets. It also deploys a so-called marginal rate, which means only the additional dollars above that bracket are subject to the higher tax rate.
Under the new proposal, properties purchased at less than $1 million would actually see their tax rate cut to 0.6%. Purchases between $1 million and $1.5 million would have a 0.6% levy on the first $999,999 of the price and 2% on the rest. Properties above $1.5 million would be taxed 0.6% on the first $999,999, 2% on the next $500,000 and 3% on the rest.
It was that very revamp by the Johnson administration that ended up causing an explosive, weeks-long legal battle for the referendum.
In January, opponents including the Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago, the Chicagoland Apartment Association and the Neighborhood Building Owners Alliance filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court against the Chicago Board of Elections. The referendum’s three-part question combining a tax increase with a decrease was the basis of the suit, which argued that was logrolling: bundling a unpopular proposal with an popular one to garner voter support.
The escalation was no surprise. The groups have long argued that if the referendum passes, it will dampen sales in an already-fragile market, hurt mom-and-pop residential landlords and not adequately address the homelessness crisis.
The $4.9 million-plus that has flowed into campaigns for and against the question is roughly split between both sides. The leading opposition campaign funds have raised $2.3 million, while the sole political fund supporting the referendum has received $2.6 million.
Johnson’s campaign fund contributed $100,000 to the pro-referendum organization in the week before the primary, according to the state Board of Elections.
In the campaign’s final weeks, opponents have tied the referendum to Johnson’s trustworthiness as the city’s leader, capitalizing on other crises gripping the city.
“Mayor Johnson wants you to vote for his big new tax. Now’s a good time to ask: Is Chicago on the right track? How’s the mayor doing on crime? Do you feel safe? Happy with how the mayor’s handling the migrant crisis? Now he wants a big new tax,” blared an ad from the group Keep Chicago Affordable, which is largely dark-money funded. “Trust Mayor Johnson with more taxes? Just vote no.”
On Feb. 23, Cook County Judge Kathleen Burke ruled in BOMA’s favor in the lawsuit and invalidated the question, meaning that while the question remained on the physical ballot that was already printed, votes would not be counted or reported out. The Bring Chicago Home campaign continued to encourage Chicagoans to vote “yes” in the hopes of a successful appeal, but concerns over damage to turnout — and accusations of voter suppression hurled at the judicial system — swirled.
The coalition’s wishes were heard.
Earlier this month, the Illinois Appellate Court tossed out Burke’s judgment, arguing state courts have declined to exercise jurisdiction over matters that are a step in the legislative process and not fully enacted.
The Illinois Supreme Court then rejected a petition filed by BOMA to appeal that ruling last week, clearing the way for votes to be counted.
The final ruling on the “flimsy” legal effort drew praise from Doug Schenkelberg, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless that has been a longtime quarterback of Bring Chicago Home.
“Voters now have the power to set Chicago on a new path: where big corporate landlords pay their fair share, where there is legally dedicated local funding for affordable housing and support services, and where 68,000 homeless Chicagoans have a place to call home,” Schenkelberg wrote in a statement.
Farzin Parang, executive director of the lead plaintiff BOMA, said it was nonetheless important to contest the “misleading and manipulative” referendum.
“This back-door property tax hike would hurt our downtown and local neighborhoods alike, impacting homeowners, renters, union workers and businessowners large and small,” Parang said after the most recent court decision. “What is especially troubling is that Mayor Johnson’s transfer tax hike would give the city a blank check with no accountability for improving our housing and migrant shelter crises.”
The ballot question laid out the following use for the additional revenue: “The purpose of addressing homelessness, including providing permanent affordable housing and the services necessary to obtain and maintain permanent housing in the City of Chicago.”
The mayor has declined to elaborate on the breakdown beyond that, telling reporters earlier this month that it would be incumbent on City Council to gin up the specifics. Johnson’s 2024 budget allocates more than $250 million on homelessness services.
In 2023, the Department of Family and Support Services tallied more than 6,100 homeless Chicagoans at one point in time, with most residing in shelters and just under 1,000 on the street. The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, the nonprofit torchbearer of the Bring Chicago Home drive, has argued the city’s homeless count is actually more than 68,400 because it also counts those couch-surfing with relatives or friends.
The Johnson administration estimates the rate change would yield an average of $100 million annually, but the one-time transaction tax has historically been quite volatile.
Revenues from the tax since 2003 have followed fluctuations in the real estate market, spiking at $242 million in 2006 and tumbling to $62 million at the height of the Great Recession in 2009. Property sales have recently dipped because of higher interest rates, inflation and a distressed commercial market.
Backers estimate 93% of sales would be subject to the lower tax rate, while larger commercial properties such as offices, large apartment buildings, stores and industrial sites would shoulder a much bigger burden. Properties with agreements to provide affordable housing would be exempt from the increases.
When passing what would be her final budget, Lightfoot counted on $221 million in receipts from that levy by the end of 2023, but Johnson’s administration later predicted the city will end the year with 37% less “due to a slowdown of activity in the real estate market.” His budget team has declined to provide a final analysis of 2023’s revenue total before the March primary.
Johnson officials have said their projections are especially conservative for that reason and are based both on historical data and broader market forces.
Earlier this year, Los Angeles hiked a transfer tax imposed on pricey real estate purchases, a move also designed to generate revenue to fund homeless services. It has so far failed to fill the second-largest city’s coffers. Johnson’s team has acknowledged that so far but said the Chicago proposal has critical adjustments, including a tax cut for many property buyers.
The Tribune’s A.D. Quig contributed reporting.
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