The Chicago City Council passed an ordinance on March 19 that will establish a working group to develop a system for proactively inspecting rental housing across the city. The measure, known as the Proactive Rental Inspection Working Group Ordinance, aims to ensure safety and proper maintenance of the city’s more than 614,000 rental units.
The ordinance is intended to address longstanding concerns about unsafe housing conditions faced by many renters, particularly in neighborhoods with high rates of building code violations and health hazards. The working group will include representatives from various city departments, tenants, landlords, and experts. Over the next six months, it will hold meetings throughout Chicago to gather input from residents affected by substandard housing.
Recommendations from the group are expected to guide the creation of a proactive inspection program and rental registry. These recommendations will also help improve enforcement protocols and prevent exposure to hazards such as carbon monoxide, mold, leaks, and other dangers.
Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd), who introduced the ordinance, said Wednesday: “What we want to do is to make sure that when people, particularly low-income people, rent an apartment, they have the peace of mind that that place that they’re providing for their family is not going to cause their kids to end up with asthma, lead poisoning, pests, mold.” Rodriguez-Sanchez described the measure as a way to guarantee safety for individuals and families renting in Chicago.
Recent investigations have highlighted persistent problems in many rental properties—especially in majority-Black neighborhoods on the South and West sides—such as flooding, sewage backup, insects, rodents, lead paint and structural defects. Sam Barth of the Law Center for Better Housing said: “You have these properties that have been disinvested in for decades, where landlords know that the tenants won’t complain about the issues and if the tenants do complain you can just try and evict them.”
Ivan Ortiz of Garfield Park Community Council added: “A lot of the houses on the West Side are deteriorating and a lot of issues revolve around conditions of the home.” Ortiz said these housing issues contribute to significant life-expectancy gaps between neighborhoods.
Rodriguez-Sanchez concluded at a recent committee meeting: “At the core of it all what we are trying to do is protect people. Right now inspections for rental units are not proactive. You have to wait until something happens — a child is sick. There is a consequence to the lack of maintenance to those units.”
Other cities such as Seattle, Denver and New Orleans have implemented similar protections through legislation.
