Housing Forward is partnering with Interfaith Housing Development Corporation to open an affordable housing development on Madison Street called “Keystone Apartments.”
The goal is to open in 2026.
The apartments will be located at 1106 Madison St., which is now the location of Fellowship Christian Church. IHDC President Perry Vietti said the development is planned to have five stories and 36 units, 12 of which would be studios. The rest are expected to be one-bedroom apartments.
Housing Forward is a social services organization that provides programs including homelessness prevention, medical respite, interim housing, emergency overnight shelter and wraparound services.
“How do we create opportunities for people of very low incomes to stay in the community that they were raised in?” asked Lynda Schueler, chief executive officer at Housing Forward.
Developments like this one could be part of the answer.
IHDC typically develops affordable rental housing for persons earning 30% or less of the area median income. That’s who Keystone Apartments will serve, Vietti said, as a location of permanent supportive housing. Today, a qualifying income in the Chicago metro area would be $23,550 a year, according to Erin Hebert, a developer at IHDC.
To be eligible for housing at Keystone, Schueler said, the individual must also have a disability. That could be a physical disability, mental health concern, history of long-term substance abuse, AIDS/HIV or a developmental disability, she said. Housing Forward will provide case management services to lend support for tenants, Schueler said.
There’s no limitation to how long residents can stay at Keystone, either. Once they sign a lease, as long as they don’t violate it, they can stay, Schueler said. The apartment will also have a front desk, Vietti said, with 24/7 coverage.
Housing as healthcare
The emergency shelter, interim housing program and medical respite will likely all be feeders into this new development, Schueler said.
“It’s really a situation where housing is healthcare,” Vietti said. “The best way to keep people healthy is to have them housed.”
Housing Forward will decide who will live at Keystone through an application process, Schueler said. With other organizations IDHC has worked with, Vietti said, there is typically a process of first determining an individual’s need for permanent housing, and then their “readiness.”
“A lot of people need housing,” he said. “But some folks may not be ready for independent living.”
The project is still in the fundraising stage, he said. For this kind of development, there needs to be money for acquisition and renovation, operating expenses and social services, Schueler said.
In January, the IHDC applied to the Illinois Housing Development Authority for additional funding for this project, Vietti said. By the end of April, the developers should know the outcome, he said.
Housing Forward intends to apply for other grants to help finance this project including IDHA operating support programs and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Continuum of Care program.
Out of the 36 units planned for Keystone, 20 of them will have a rental subsidy paid by a BlueCross BlueShield grant for five years. Those 20 individuals will also need to be Medicaid eligible and served by Housing Forward, Vietti said. Tenants are then expected to pay 30% of their gross income.
Rental subsidies for the other 16 units could come from housing choice vouchers or IDHA funding, Schueler said.
Parking and zoning
Next, the developers will have to get certain zoning releases approved before starting construction. There are four restrictions Keystone needs bent, and the IHDC is scheduled to meet with Oak Park’s plan commission in June to discuss relief in those areas.
The first is a requirement to set the building back 3 to 5 feet. IHDC plans to ask to not have to set the building back any feet.
Second is the requirement to have one parking spot per unit. Most of the individuals living at Keystone will likely not have cars, Vietti pointed out.
“If you can afford to live in the building and meet the income targets, you cannot afford to have a car,” he said.
If approved, the IHDC would build a smaller amount of parking spaces for Keystone, something like one space per six units, Vietti said. But, if the parking requirement stands, Vietti said the IHDC has met with the RUSH Oak Park Hospital president to discuss utilizing the hospital’s parking garage to meet that stipulation. The hospital is across the street from where Keystone would be built.
Third is height restriction. Zoning ordinances would require the building to be no more than 50 feet tall. Keystone is expected to be 56 feet and 4 inches tall, according to a document from Hebert.
Last is a density requirement. The zoning requirement states there must be 750 square feet per dwelling unit. The IHDC wants to ask for 248 square feet per dwelling unit.
If approved, construction would ideally start in 2025, with the building hopefully opening in 2026. But it could take longer.
The IHDC was also responsible for developing Grove Apartments, affordable housing located above the Sugar Beet Food Co-Op at 812 Madison St. Some residents were concerned property values would decrease in the neighborhood because of this development, along with other concerns that did not come to fruition, according to an opinion article Vietti wrote in 2016.
“We said it [Grove Apartments] would cause no problems to the community,” Vietti said in an interview with Wednesday Journal. “In fact, it would add value and pay property taxes and it’s done all those things.”
In the past, Schueler said Housing Forward has had scattered site arrangements with private landlords to get clients in permanent housing. But this development paves the way for lower-income individuals to stay in Oak Park, if that’s what they want, Schueler said.
