Why Didn't Chicago 'Bring Chicago Home'?
Why Didn't Chicago 'Bring Chicago Home'?
People were mostly just confused.
As I was walking to my voting precinct on Tuesday, a bubbly woman shouted to me, “I can tell by those boots you’re gonna vote YES on ‘Bring Chicago Home!’” “Hell yes!” I yelled back, before we both got hushed by a poll worker standing at the door, who then also affirmed that my boots were, in fact, pretty awesome (no one here was wrong).
I, too, felt quite bubbly, walking in with the “Girl, I Guess” progressive voting guide pulled up on my phone, fully prepared with a choice for every race. Everyone I knew was planning to write-in “Gaza” in the presidential primary (we don’t have an uncommitted option) and vote yes on Bring Chicago Home — a referendum meant to raise money to help the unhoused by amending the city’s Real Estate Transfer Tax so that if someone bought a property for over a million dollars, they would pay a slightly increased marginal tax on it. So like, normally someone buying a property that cost $1.5 million would pay a RETT of $11,250, but with this in place they would pay $16,000, and the extra money would go towards programs meant to get people housed. It also would have reduced the tax for properties under $1 million.
Alas, while a few of the people I voted for actually did make it (yay!) and it seems like there were likely a lot of “Gaza” write-ins (they were not specifically calculated, though we do know that about 14.4 percent of Chicago Dems voted blank or write-in, which is way more than usual), the Bring Them Home referendum did not go so well.
You would think, given that it was such a small tax and the potential combined votes of those who care about the unhoused and those who don’t want to have to look at poor people, it would have done well. It didn’t, and not because we were outnumbered by realtors and people who own properties worth more than $1 million.
Rather, it seems confusion played more of a role than anything else.
Firstly, there were tons of ads on various streaming services telling people to vote against the bill while not mentioning what it was for, only that it would mean that they would pay more in rent if it passed.
But, admittedly, a much bigger issue was that it was not at all clear exactly how the money would be used to house people. There were a lot of people who were fine with the idea of imposing a mansion tax to help the unhoused, but were skeptical of this specific referendum because they wanted more information.
Crystal Chiang cared deeply about homelessness, too, and said she wanted to “see homeless people in the city cared for.”
But she was wary of Bring Chicago Home because “the language is so vague and confusing, I had to read it like six times to really understand the question,” Chiang said as she headed into her polling place at the Talcott Fine Arts and Museum Academy in West Town Tuesday morning.
“How will you use that money?" Chiang asked. "What are you actually going to do to help homelessness? Will the city create more housing? Help people with jobs? It just seems like it’s all talking points."
Scott Wahrenbrock, an Old Town resident, was another voter looking for more information on his choices. He said it was hard to really know the candidates he had to pick from as he exited the polls at the Chicago Public Library North Town branch. […]
He also said he wanted to support Bring Chicago Home but didn’t “trust the city to get a block of money without deciding what to do with it.”
It’s tough to hear because, yeah, I was excited about stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, but they’re not totally wrong. It wasn’t clear what the actual program would entail, and while I absolutely do believe in “throwing money at problems” like this, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t need to be thrown in a specific direction.
There are a whole lot of things that people who are comfortable enough think would help those who are not — but that are not actually all that helpful. We don’t want things to be both expensive and ineffective, because all that does is make people who aren’t affected by it either way feel like they can check something off of their “I’m a good person” list and give people who don’t think we should help people the ammo they need to claim that these programs are a waste of money. There are so many things that need to be considered when actually doing things to help the unhoused and if we end up with half-assed programs that are ineffective, we’ll never get a chance to implement the full-assed programs that would be.
I’m not saying I don’t trust Mayor Brandon Johnson to use the money well, just that it helps us all to be specific. It’s still a good and important idea and I hope it can be retooled in a way that ensures that people know what it is they’re voting for.
PREVIOUSLY:
i voted 'yes' but only because i hate rich fucks who live next door to me and i want them to pay all the taxes when my delightful little 115 year old house is sold for a tear down.
also, robyn i hope you were in graciela's state sen district (i'm just to the east of her). i worked with her for many years and she rocks. that lady is GOING places.
Well, "Bring Home Chgo" tanked 'cuz MOST of the burden of the $1.5M and above "McMansion Tax" would be born by commercial real estate-office buildings and (yes, renters) apartment buildings, and not McMansions. Commercial R. E. vacancies are generally sky high, thus they're tanking and can ill-afvord the tax; and most apartment building owners I know aren't really making Cayman Islands laundering-type bank, so they're gonna vote for a tax increase? Find a way to make actual rich fucks pay. Then it'll get passed.