Housing Initiative Transactional Clinic Recent Work

Cabrini Green LAC Community Development Corporation

The Housing Initiative Clinic has closed on several phases of the Cabrini Green public housing redevelopment under the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation.  Under the Plan, the CHA is replacing former public housing high-rises with new, mixed-income, low- and mid-rise developments.  The clinic’s client, Cabrini Green LAC Community Development Corporation, is a 501(c)(3) led by public housing residents.  The CDC was organized by the clinic years ago to provide a development vehicle for resident participation in the rebuilding of Cabrini Green, pursuant to a consent decree negotiated by co-counsel at the Legal Assistance Foundation.

• CHA gives Texas developer green light to build homes on Cabrini-Green site — Chicago Tribune
• New Cabrini-Green Building At Oak And Larrabee Gets Developer — DNAinfo
• Housing Initiative Clinic Closes on $42 million Clybourn 1200 Deal — University of Chicago Law School

Community Male Empowerment Project

Housing Initiative Clinic Collaborates on A New Model for Neighborhood Revitalization — University of Chicago Law School

Housing Initiative Clinic Closes on CMEP Rehab and Acquisition in the Hyde Park Neighborhood — University of Chicago Law School

Limited Equity Housing Cooperatives

The clinic works with a number of limited equity housing cooperatives, in which low and moderate income residents collectively own and manage the buildings that they live in.  The clinic’s work has included counseling on governance, nonprofit law and tax issues, and closing on refinancing and property rehabilitation transactions.

• Housing Initiative Clinic Closes on Two Limited Equity Housing Cooperative Transactions — University of Chicago Law School
• Students Assist Limited Equity Co-ops at Cooperative Housing Summit — University of Chicago Law School

Rental Assistance Demonstration Program

On the policy front, the clinic in collaboration with the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law investigated the Chicago Housing Authority’s implementation of a major new source of public housing redevelopment financing: the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program.  Several features of the CHA’s rollout of the program were reviewed for their effects on public housing residents’ rights regarding relocation assistance and rights to return to sites undergoing development, among other issues.  The overlay of the RAD program notices, fair housing regulations, public housing regulations, site-specific consent decrees and the CHA’s regulatory waivers from HUD as a Moving to Opportunity jurisdiction result in a thicket of regulation that clinic students helped to untangle to assist with advocacy to ensure public housing residents’ rights and benefits under the RAD program are implemented properly.

Garfield Park Community Council

The Clinic represented the Garfield Park Community Council (GPCC), a community-based organization made up of residents of the Garfield Park neighborhood and program partners, with a mission to revitalize Garfield Park and develop programs that support the Garfield Park community in the areas of housing, business development, public safety, and wellness.  With the assistance of the Clinic, GPCC successfully negotiated a lease agreement for new office space allowing for better administrative efficiency as well as increased community engagement.  The project included understanding the GPCC’s governance role within the partnership entity that served as landlord, the landlord-tenant relationship between GPCC and its building management partner, reviewing and revising a lease for the office space, and counseling the client in negotiating specific lease provisions.