Last week’s headline [Oak Park seeks to cut Housing Center funding, News, Oct. 11] did a disservice to our community and to our village government. It suggested that “the village” was looking to materially reduce funding for the Housing Center, regardless of the impact to its operations and to the unique, national-model diversity achievements of our community. WJ well understands (as evidenced by your own editorial) that any material reduction in support for the Housing Center would rightfully result in a firestorm of criticism and opposition from residents.
But there was nothing in the article itself suggesting that the village board or staff favor such reductions. In fact, I’m sure they don’t. How can I be sure? Because they understand better than anyone that the Housing Center is a tremendous bargain for Oak Park. In fact it is a screaming deal for our community, and specifically for all of us as taxpayers.
While our elected and appointed officials know this, I’m concerned that many of our residents, particularly newer residents, may not. And while our community is by no means perfect, it’s easy to conclude that we have achieved a degree of racial integration stability that could never be unwoven. Looking at the numbers, however, that’s very clearly not the case.
Worse, this misperception is really our own fault, and I’m certainly at least partly to blame. Our community has become complacent and we’ve allowed the necessary discussion and ongoing evaluation of our diversity status to wane. We all need to fix that because there’s a lot at stake for each one of us.
Historically, we have too often focused on the social policy objectives of the village’s diversity initiatives. What we don’t talk about nearly enough is the fact that Oak Park and Oak Parkers receive a higher rate of financial return from our investment in the Housing Center than from any other government program. Per the WJ article, we’ll spend $425,000 on the Housing Center next year (apparently a reduction of $50,000 from 2015). It’s fair to ask, “What are we getting in return?” I think some will be surprised to learn that the answer is over $1 billion in housing value. Yes, that’s right, “Billion.” With a “B.”
How is that possible? Well, let’s walk through it.
For three decades, surveys have consistently shown there are four primary factors causing people to choose Oak Park. In no particular order, they are:
1) Oak Park’s proximity to Chicago, transportation, and jobs;
2) our neighborhood character;
3) our quality schools, public and private; and
4) the integrated diversity of our population.
The first three arguably all exist elsewhere. The last one does not.
Oak Park is statistically the most successfully diverse municipality in the United States. That objective fact results from an evaluation of all U.S. cities using the following four critical lenses:
1) the municipality approaches the broad diversity of the U.S.;
2) the municipality closely matches the racial/ethnic composition of its metropolitan area;
3) the municipality is truly integrated — meaning all racial/ethnic groups are geographically “mixed up” within the municipality’s boundaries down to the block level; and
4) the municipality’s diversity and integration are stable and maintained over time.
Those last two criteria often get left out. In turn, Oak Park is often compared with places like Evanston which, though “diverse” overall, is dramatically more segregated than Oak Park (with negative social and economic consequences). Alternatively, Oak Park is also compared to city neighborhoods and suburban communities undergoing racial change, but at just a single point in time, ignoring that even communities undergoing substantial “white flight” or rapid “gentrification,” by definition, will experience a brief period of being statistically “diverse.” Just as a broken clock is nonetheless correct twice a day, such transitory communities are not successfully diverse or integrated. They are “transitioning.” This segregated/segregating behavior is what the Housing Center was established to help combat.
And up to now, they’ve succeeded tremendously. No municipality in the U.S. even approaches Oak Park’s record in achieving diversity and successful integration. Are we perfect in this regard? No. We’re simply better than everywhere else. And in virtually every case we are far, far better.
Further, this successful diversity has become Oak Park’s core competitive advantage. There are far more people who want to live in a place that looks like the world than there are places that look like the world. Oak Park, because of its successful diversity, looks like the world — or at least looks closer to the type of integrated world that many would like to see. In turn, that motivation (from people of all backgrounds, races, and ethnicities) increases market demand, strengthens Oak Park’s real estate values, and supports our tax base. To the tune of over a billion dollars in value.
But regardless of what we might wish, Oak Park’s integrated diversity won’t be supported and maintained by the market alone. In fact, the opposite is true. Left to its own devices, the market will result in our community re-segregating. Even today. Even here in Oak Park. The unfettered market works against integrated diversity.
How do we know? Simple. Compare where people move when they have Housing Center assistance vs. where they move when they don’t. The difference is stark.
Housing Center facilitated moves (which account for over 40% of all moves into Oak Park) are 4-5 times more likely to be “Pro-Diverse” than general market-driven moves (across apartment-seekers of all races/ethnicities). The fact is that, without the Housing Center’s counseling and assistance services, the overwhelming majority of people “choose” to live near or among people who are racially and ethnically similar to themselves. This behavior undermines integration and results in segregation.
Such segregation in Oak Park would undermine current levels of market demand. It would eliminate the “premium” that the market has built into all Oak Park housing stock based on higher demand, thereby decreasing values across the board. In addition, areas that would re-segregate as predominantly African-American or predominantly Latino would face further declines in value of 25 to 35 percent of original home value.
Modeling out market-driven changes in settlement patterns shows that the eastern portion of the village would become predominantly African-American over time, and southern Oak Park would become largely Latino. The models show school populations throughout changing correspondingly, spurring a self-reinforcing cycle of market-driven self-segregation.
In such an environment, it’s pretty easy to see how one arrives at the conservative calculation of $1 billion in lost property value (of Oak Park’s cumulative $5 billion in current valuation). Incidentally, that $1 billion savings equates to a 12,500% rate of return on the village’s support for the Housing Center (based on the capital commitment required to generate $425,000 annually — factored at a rate of 5.3%).
You’re not going to find a 12,500% return anywhere else in local government. That’s for certain.
That fact alone ensures that “the village” won’t de-fund the Housing Center. But here’s another reason: Following the spring 2014 release of the HOPE Fair Housing Center’s report finding continued racially discriminatory leasing behavior among some Oak Park landlords, the village rightly committed to support building owner education and additional steps to proactively support diversity and residential rental access within our community. I’m certain that one of those “steps” is not going to be to gut the Housing Center budget as your misguided headline suggested.
The article itself was fine. It essentially said that the board thinks partner agencies and, specifically, the Housing Center, should be as efficient as possible in conducting their important work (just as the board and staff ensure the same commitment to efficiency in the village’s own operations). Would anyone ever disagree with that? Of course not. But that doesn’t warrant scaremongering headlines.
Having worked in varying capacities with Mayor Abu-Taleb, all of the village trustees, and Village Manager Pavlicek, I know them to be smart, thoughtful, and deeply committed to the long-term welfare of our community. In turn, I’m 100% confident that none of them are going to do anything that would put the Housing Center at risk, and I think your headline in last week’s paper did them a real disservice.
David Pope is the former Oak Park village president.
