🏡💚 Chicago's green social housing inside-outside strategy
March 21, 2025
Last month, I wrote about the monumental green social housing win in Seattle — and if you joined this month’s coalition call, you got to hear from some of the lead organizers in that campaign. One of the things that really struck me from their presentation was their clear-eyed strategic commitment to an outside strategy. Tiffani McCoy, co-Executive Director of House Our Neighbors, said, “For us, it was never a question of ‘do we do an inside strategy, an outside strategy? Do we do a combination of both?’ We knew as a group that we were going to go directly to the people.”
One reason that stood out to me is because Seattle wasn’t the only city with a green social housing win in February. Last month, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson introduced an ordinance to City Council that would allow the city to establish an independent Green Social Housing developer. Already, you will notice a contrast with Seattle’s campaign, with this ordinance coming directly from the Mayor to the City Council, rather than a public appeal through a ballot proposition.
But that isn’t to say Chicago’s path was a purely inside strategy to convince policymakers and negotiate behind closed doors. The roots of this most recent ordinance goes all the way back to Brandon Johnson’s mayoral campaign in 2023, where he ran as a staunch progressive with grassroots support from labor, community groups, and environmental justice organizations. Johnson ran on an explicit promise of a Green New Deal for housing, education, clean air and clean water. This was their outside strategy, a direct appeal to the people of Chicago through a trusted progressive candidate.
In the lead up to the election, and after his victory, Johnson established a transition committee called Chicago for the People. This also marked the transition from inside to outside strategy. A few months after he was elected, the committee released a transition report titled A Blueprint for Creating a More Just and Vibrant City for All. Within this report lay the seeds of last month’s green social housing ordinance: in the Environmental Justice section, they call for the new mayor to “support the development of permanently affordable green social housing.”
This is not just a happy coincidence. One of the co-chairs of the transition team’s Environmental Justice subcommittee was Jung Yoon, who at the time served as the campaign director of Grassroots Collaborative, and the convener of the Illinois Green New Deal Coalition. Just to reiterate — there is another statewide Green New Deal Coalition, and (surprise, surprise) they have also chosen green social housing as their top campaign priority. (As an aside, there are actually even more Green New Deal Coalitions that have prioritized green social housing, including Green New Deal for DC). Jung Yoon is now the Assistant Director of Policy in the Mayor’s Office.
So although the recent green social housing ordinance may appear like the fruits of a pure inside strategy, the longer view shows the full inside-outside strategy at work. The Illinois Green New Deal Coalition, through its members, built grassroots momentum for this vision for green social housing. This had enough influence to make it a pillar in the campaign of a promising progressive mayoral candidate, whose commitment to co-governance gave community groups direct access to policy levers within city hall.
Last year, Mayor Johnson helped champion a $1.25 billion housing bond that passed through City Council. This 5-year bond included a commitment to a Green Social Housing Revolving Fund that would create affordable, publicly-owned, mixed-income housing. That revolving fund will be controlled by a nonprofit developer arm of Chicago’s Department of Housing — the thing that last month’s ordinance is set to create.
You can see how this has been a years-long and intentional process, with the pieces still being put into place for green social housing to become a reality in Chicago. There is still a ways to go, but these milestones should serve as moments of celebration and inspiration, as well as key stepping stones for us to keep in mind for our own green social housing campaign.
Lastly, I can’t help but also say that it is very cool to see the term ‘green social housing’ being used in Chicago’s ordinance, bond language, and news reporting. It’s been part of our work as the California Green New Deal Coalition to make the connection between social housing, climate action, and environmental justice (something that I think Aki from 350 Seattle articulated really well on our coalition call). While these are just words, I think it makes a real difference in terms of the commitments of the program, as well as the public perception of what the program seeks to accomplish. So I ask you all to keep saying ‘green social housing’ and know that our friends across the country are saying it too. 🏡💚
Image from the Illinois Green New Deal’s website. Hmm.. polluter’s pay… reminds me of something else happening in California…
WHAT WE’RE READING
Seattle Has Voted to Build Social Housing (Jacobin) — recent interview with Tiffani McCoy of House Our Neighbors!
Supply and the Housing Crisis: A Debate (Dissent) — highly recommend, very interesting read
They tried to pay their overdue rent. Their landlord wouldn’t accept it (CalMatters) — related to a bill introduced this year (SB 436, Wahab) about the right for tenants to pay overdue rent
Feel free to reply any time! I always enjoy hearing from people and getting any feedback/questions/additional thoughts.
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