[TIF Statement] [Action Center] [TIF Illumination Project] [COVID19 Response] [Sign Petition to Support COVID19 Response] [CivicLab Home]
Dear Friends,
On behalf of the CivicLab, our constituents, staff, board and, community leaders I am excited to offer an incredible opportunity for you to be part of a very important campaign to end this racist, unjust slush fund, the Tax Increment Fund, otherwise known as TIFs. The CivicLab and our core allies and supporters are fundamentally opposed to TIFs and are demanding a complete shut down, with the $1.5 billion dollars in this slush fund to be immediately returned to the units of government that have and continue to serve all of our communities. Those local units of government are the Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Park District, the Chicago Public Libraries and the essential Chicago city services which need to be fully funded to be effective.
Over the past several years we at the CivicLab have illuminated TIFs and exposed this massive corrupt scheme cloaked in benign rhetoric of helping marginalized and blighted communities. We see this program as a strategic and calculated and targeted attack to displace hundreds of thousands of African Americans out of Chicago all while enriching the extremely wealthy developers and the businesses and affluent movers and shakers of this city. A critical result of this has been the public subsidization of the hyper affluent Northside and Loop communities.
For the past three years in a row Chicago has been ranked #1 big city to visit and live in by Condé Nast readers in a recent poll of 600,000 people. The media has loudly trumpeted this announcement. But it must be noted that more than 14,000 black residents left Cook County between 2016 and 2017. Chicago has seen 61,000 residents leave annually, a population dwindle that has the Windy City on the brink of dropping from third- to fourth-largest U.S. city (Houston is expected to best Chicago’s population by 2025). Chicago’s Black population is on track to shrink to 665,000 by 2030 — down from a peak of about 1.2 million, according to the Urban Institute.
The contrast couldn’t be more stark and shameful.
We celebrate our #1 status all while displacing hundreds of thousands of our fellow Chicagoans. Less we forget that we are also #1 as the most corrupt city in the nation. We continue to be at the top of the list on all sorts of critical issues. In the realm of housing, we have over 125,000 homes combined in near negative to negative equity. Only about 43 percent of Blacks own their homes here, compared with 72 percent of whites. According to recent statistics, 15 percent of African-Americans in Chicago are part of the labor force, compared with 57 percent of whites. Statewide, things aren’t any better — the Black unemployment rate in Illinois hovers around 9 percent, among the highest in the nation.
As a city we have over 86,000 homeless according to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH). CCH informs us that “In 2018 in Chicago, a household must earn $22.69 an hour or $47,200 in order to comfortably afford a two-bedroom apartment. Because the housing wage in Chicago is so high compared to the current minimum wage of $13 an hour, many homeless people work, but still can’t afford their own housing. In fact, among those experiencing homelessness in Chicago in 2017, 13,929 or 21% of those over 18 are working. “
These are just a few grim and dire highlights of the situation that many of our fellow Chicagoans face on the daily. We at the CivicLab say enough is enough and the racist unjust slush fund, known as TIFs must be shut down immediately. We call for the $1.5 billion sitting in TIF accounts to be reinvested back to the public service institutions of our local government so that we can address our most salient challenges that we face.
Now more than ever we need to stand up as a city of neighborhoods, as Chicagoans from all diverse backgrounds and demand equity and justice in how this city is being managed by the current Mayor and Chicago City Council.
We face a $838 million deficit in our city budget, we face three massive strikes totaling 35,000 Chicagoans. We face ongoing political and moral deficits of corrupt police and politicians resulting in a massive loss in trust in our system of government, a staggering loss of lives, and more displacement of our fellow Chicagoans out of the city and state and millions of dollars wasted and misused. In the midst of all of this tragedy the CivicLab has remained vigilante and focused at de-cloaking corrupt and racist policies and practices by our elected and appointed governmental officials. We remain focused on lighting the path for everyone to walk and see for themselves how the racist unjust slush fund TIFs work and the horrific impact it visits on Black and Brown communities across the city.
After years of analyzing and illuminating TIFS, and conducting over 200 community engagements with thousands of Chicagoans and reaching over 200,000 people through our grassroots media efforts across Chicago Metro, we have come to this conclusion. We declare that the racist unjust slush fund known as Tax Increment Financing has been and continues to be a major causal factor in this severe displacement of African Americans through persistent negligence and disinvestment of Black and Brown neighborhoods.
We declare that the siphoning off billions of dollars to support the hyper development of affluent neighborhoods and the downtown district through this racist unjust slush fund TIFs damages and undermines the very public institutions that are of service to the hundreds of thousands of Black and Brown children, youth and families. The results have been decimation of Black and Brown children’s education with over 200 school closings and the sustained efforts at segregating and locking out African Americans and LatinX in housing, economic development and job creation.
This concerted attack has directly resulted in the Chicago reverse Great Migration, the greatest migration out of a major U.S city in over 100 years.
Please join us and sign our petition at https://tinyurl.com/End-TIFs-Now. Please also check out our End Racist TIFs Campaign Action Center at https://tinyurl.com/End-TIFs-Action-Center and become fully engaged by volunteering to commit to certain actions.
As the President and Chief Executive Officer of the CivicLab I am fully committed to re-imagining this city, working with all of you and with our allies and changing it to the city that we all deserve!
I pledge to you that we will continue to speak truth to power and will do everything possible to shut down this racist unjust slush fund called TIFS! Join us in this worthy endeavor and together we can create a more fair and just city for all of our children, youth and families.
Respectfully,
Jonathan Peck
President & CEO
The CivicLab
