“This pandemic has been hard on landlords as well, and (I) wanted to make sure that both parties could benefit from affordable housing. It is my hope that this legislation paves the way for a new standard in the Illinois Housing industry if passed,” she added.

Under the proposed bill, developers would qualify for a state tax credit if they agree to set aside at least 20 percent of units in a property for low-income renters in areas with low affordability, or, at least 15 percent of a multifamily building’s units are occupied by households with low or extremely low incomes for a period of 10 years. 

According to the advocacy group Housing Action Illinois, the bill would allocate $35 million annually via federal tax credits that are currently “left on the table,” and is expected to result in over $875 million in affordable housing investments and an additional 3,500 affordable housing units per year.

Bob Palmer, policy director for Housing Action Illinois, said that if passed, the new bill would be “the most significant” housing legislation to pass the General Assembly in recent years.

“The lack of affordable housing is a long-standing problem, and we’re not going to solve it tomorrow, but we need more actual affordable housing rental units to meet the supply in the shortage,” Palmer said.

According to data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Illinois is facing a shortage of approximately 268,000 housing units for renters at or below the poverty line, and there are only 39 available units for every 100 renters at “extremely low income” levels, designated as earning less than 50 percent of their area median income.