December 1 - 9, 2025 by StreetWise_CHI

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Arts & Entertainment

Event highlights of the week!

SportsWise

The SportsWise team discusses players who gamble.

Cover Story: the costs of renting

The U.S. doesn't have a housing shortage as much as it has a lack of units affordable to low-income households. What would help is cash subsidies capped so that these households pay no more than 30% of their income in rent.

From the Streets

Historian Michelle Duster and artist Chris Devins have established a Go Fund Me to raise $5,500 by December 16 for a mural in Hyde Park to honor sculptor Richard Hunt and to answer questions of "erasure."

Local School Councils (LSCs) are open to the public as a means of securing student achievement at the grassroots level. Nominations are open until Jan. 20, 2026.

Annual federal funding against homelessness is up in the air, as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issues an alternative call for service bids that will come due after existing contracts expire.

The Playground

THIS PAGE: Cash subsidies would improve rentat access all over Chicago. DISCLAIMER: The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of StreetWise.

Dave Hamilton, Creative Director/Publisher dhamilton@streetwise.org

Suzanne Hanney, Editor-In-Chief suzannestreetwise@yahoo.com

Julie Youngquist, Executive director jyoungquist@streetwise.org

Ph: 773-334-6600 Office: 2009 S. State St., Chicago, IL, 60616

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT RECOMMENDATIONS

Compiled by Dave Hamilton

Remembering Who We Have Lost

World AIDS Day Commemoration: Joffrey Ballet & Wrightwood 365 Wrightwood 659 and The Joffrey Ballet present a special World AIDS Day commemoration honoring those lost to the epidemic at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, December 4 at Wrightwood 659, 659 Wrightwood Ave. World AIDS Day, officially December 1, is a global movement to unite people in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Since 1988, communities have stood together on World AIDS Day to show strength and solidarity against HIV stigma and to remember lives lost. The Joffrey Ballet was deeply affected during this period, losing several remarkable artists, including Company Founder Robert Joffrey at age 59 and his protégé Edward Stierle at just 23. Following Joffrey’s passing, Stierle choreographed “Lacrymosa” and, while on his own deathbed, completed “Empyrean.” This public program will feature opening remarks by Greg Cameron, Joffrey Ballet President & CEO; a screening of “Empyrean” and discussion; and a memorial segment inviting attendees to share reflections and memories of those lost to AIDS. Tickets for this special program are complimentary with paid admission ($20) to Wrightwood 659.

Nova Linea Musica!

Catalyst Quartet

GRAMMY Award-winning Catalyst Quartet, praised for its “invariably energetic and finely burnished” performances and “earthly vigor,” present a stirring exploration of resilience, identity, and hope through a powerful and wide-ranging program. The evening features two world premieres commissioned by Nova Linea Musica: Derrick Skye’s “Flare and Answer,” a vibrant dialogue of rhythmic textures, and Andrea Casarrubios’ “Unsaying,” a deeply expressive exploration of memory and silence. The performance will begin at 6:30 p.m., with a pre-concert panel discussion at 5:45 p.m., and a catered post-concert reception where audiences can mingle with artists, December 3 at Guarneri Hall, 11 E. Adams St. Tickets are $40 at novalineamusica.org

A Place to Learn & Grow

Lillstreet Art Center 50th Anniversary Holiday Party

Lillstreet Art Center, 4401 N. Ravenswood Ave., celebrates its 50th year as a creative workspace for artists of all levels with a 50th Anniversary Holiday Party on Friday, December 5, from 5-8 p.m. with complimentary food and drinks, live music, open studios on the second floor, workshops, a free art demo, and a gallery show of functional ceramics for the dining table. Guests are invited to enjoy a screening of the new documentary, “Dream a Lill: 50 Years of Molding Makers” by Chicago filmmaker Gabriel Cuillier of MXXD Media, providing a fascinating look back at Lillstreet’s origin story. This festive, family-friendly event is open to the public; no reservations necessary. More information at lillstreet.com

A Chicago Institution!

Hyde Park Arts Center ‘Mutuality: The Center Program Biennial Exhibition’

A professional development program for artists who are ready to raise their practice to the next level, The Center Program offers the unique opportunity to develop new work, receive feedback from art professionals in the field, and work towards an exhibition at the Art Center. For the 2025 edition of the Center Program, the cohort focuses on “Mutuality” as the guiding principle for discussion and discourse toward new works. Defined as “demonstrating mutual care and interest as artists and people,” this core value challenges Center Program artists, as people living in the United States, to think about how intentions, works, and practices impact our world. On display at Hyde Park Arts Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave., December 13 - March 8, 2026.

Facing the Holidays!

South Chicago Dance Theatre’s ‘Lamentations for Peace’

The brand new holiday show by breakout artist Kia S. Smith features her acclaimed and versatile South Chicago Dance Theatre troupe along with live musical guests, Chicago’s own The Bourné Family. South Chicago Dance Theatre explores the ups and downs the journey through the holidays can take: the sorrow or grief many feel alongside joy, celebration and hope. This world premiere invites audiences of all ages to see themselves in the story and feel more connected to one another as a path toward enjoying the holiday season. Saturday, December 6, 2 & 7:30 p.m., at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, 1306 S. Michigan Ave. Tickets are $30 at dance.colum.edu

Chicago Youth!

Uniting Voices Chicago Presents ‘Winter Glow’

Uniting Voices Chicago performs the festive “Winter Glow” concert at Chicago Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave, on Saturday, Dec. 6 for two shows only, 10:30 a.m. & 2 p.m. – featuring Uniting Voices, singers from across Chicago, harmonizing an enchanting mix of holiday classics, choral tunes, and seasonal music from around the globe! Uniting Voices’ after-school Neighborhood Choirs will perform “My Joy,” “Luminous: the Symphony of Us,” “You’re a Mean, One Mr. Grinch” and many more. Reserved seats are $30 and benefit Uniting Voices music education programs serving 4000 CPS and Chicago-area students at unitingvoiceschicago.org/winter-glow

Sounds of the Season!

‘Porchlight Sings the Season’ “Porchlight Sings the Season” celebrates the holidays with music from Broadway and Hollywood as Porchlight luminaries perform songs from “Mame,” “Meet Me in St. Louis,” “Holiday Inn” and others. This premiere offers a musical respite from holiday stress with an unforgettable evening of festive entertainment and a salute to Chicago holidays past. There's also warm cookies, an ugly Christmas sweater contest and more. December 8 & 9, 7:30 p.m., at Rhapsody Theater, 1328 W. Morse Ave. Tickets are $65 at porchlightmusictheatre.org

Tomorrow, Tomorrow!

‘Annie’

For more than 100 years, the beloved story of a spunky, red-headed orphan who lands a holiday stay with Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks, a billionaire trying to do good, has delighted and inspired audiences around the world. Perfect for the holidays and the whole family, “Annie,” winner of seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. December 18 - Jan. 4, 2026, Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m.; Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. at the North Shore Center, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie. Tickets are $19.50 - $89 at musictheaterworks.com

A Beautiful Sight!

Chicago Tap Theater ‘Winter Wonderland’

Audiences will enjoy an amazing afternoon of rhythm and dance for all with the Chicago Tap Allstars at “Winter Wonderland.” The festive event will feature stars of Chicago's tap dance community, including M.A.D.D. Rhythms, Chicago Tap Theatre, brand new collaborations between Chicago's premiere tap choreographers, and performances by the youth following in their footsteps. Held at the Harold Washington Cultural Center, 4701 S. Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, December 6 at noon. Tickets are $25-$35 at chicagotaptheatre.com

Shop 'til You Drop!

Driehaus Museum Santa Saturday and Drie-cember Market

Join Santa in the Driehaus Museum’s Front Parlor, 50 E. Erie St., to share your Christmas wish list and snap selfies with jolly old St. Nick. In addition to photos with Santa, families can enjoy festive activities for kids. 9 a.m.-noon. Tickets are $25/$13 children (17 and under) at driehausemuseum.org. After, shop local at the museum’s annual Drie-cember Market, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., featuring dozens of vendors from the Chicagoland area. Visitors can find unique gifts, vintage jewelry, handmade crafts, and local art in addition to a selection of special holiday-themed products from the Driehaus Museum Store. FREE admission.

WHen Players Gamble

John: Former Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, current Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA player/Lakers assistant coach Damon Jones were all indicted on various gambling charges by the FBI. In 2023, when Rozier was a member of the Charlotte Hornets, he took himself out of a game and let the New York Mafia know. Billups and Jones were charged with being “Face Cards” that drew victims into rigged poker games allegedly run by the Mafia. The Feds also allege Jones texted a co-conspirator to bet on the Milwaukee Bucks because Lakers' star LeBron James was injured -- insider information. My question to you Russell – if any of your idols were caught in such a scandal, would you still idolize them?

Russell: I am sorry to hear about the scandal, that’s shocking news. Cheating undermines the fairness of the competition. Supporting a cheater is a bad idea, the players are trying to win

the game. I wouldn’t support players like that. Michael Jordan played to win. Why you got to cheat? You making all these millions of dollars.

Allen: A cheater on the team is a disgrace, it goes against the whole spirit. Here they are playing to win, like Russell said, and you are holding back and selling the whole team out. As far as a hero, mine is Muhammad Ali and I don’t think he would sell himself out. The team would be willing to whip on him if they find out he is selling them out and they are trying to win a championship and here you are trying to lose. I would not get behind a person like that. That’s a disgrace to the individual, to the team, to the league.

John: Luckily, I have not had that. Dr. J. and Roger Staubach are my idols. Pete Rose, back in 1989, they found out

about the betting scandal. That devastated not only Major League Baseball but everyone in Cincinnati who wanted to name everything after him. He was the alltime hit leader and won a couple of World Series for Cincinnati. The difference between Pete Rose and Terry Rozier is, Rose would bet on the Reds to win. It also gives a bad name to the gaming industry. In Nevada, they keep an eye on that. They see a bet is too high and they take the game off the board.

Cheating not only destroys players children idolize, but also the betting industry.

Russell: You talk about Pete Rose. He could turn a single into a triple, a double into an inside-the-park homer. Charlie Hustle. The man should have been in the Hall of Fame. He did things in baseball nobody else could do. He changed the game.

Allen: He played to win. Whether he bet on the side is something totally different. As far as Muhammad Ali, there was some talk about a phantom punch in the 1965 world heavyweight rematch with Sonny Liston. No one saw it, but Muhammad Ali was so fast you might have missed it. But denying the team points when you could have scored, that is unacceptable. When you are playing against another team, you don’t need nobody on your team playing against you.

John: Regarding Pete Rose, you might not let him back on the field, but the Hall of Fame is not about being a goody two-shoes, it’s about performance on the field.

Any comments, suggestions or topic ideas for the SportsWise team? Email StreetWise Editor Suzanne Hanney at suzannestreetwise@yahoo.com

Vendors John Hagan, Russell Adams, and A. Allen chat about the world of sports.

What if Universal Rent Assistance were implemented to deal with the housing crisis?

by Alex Schwartz & Kirk McClure

If there’s one thing that U.S. politicians and activists from across the political spectrum can agree on, it’s that rents are far too high.

Many experts believe that this crisis is fueled by a shortage of housing, caused principally by restrictive regulations. Rents and home prices would fall, the argument goes, if rules such as minimum lot- and house-size requirements and prohibitions against apartment complexes were relaxed. This, in turn, would make it easier to build more housing.

As experts on housing policy, we’re concerned about housing affordability. But our research shows little connection between a shortfall of housing and rental affordability problems. Even a massive infusion of new housing would not shrink housing costs enough to solve the crisis, as rents would likely remain out of reach for many households.

However, there are already subsidies in place that ensure that some renters in the U.S. pay no more than 30% of their income on housing costs. The most effective solution, in our view, is to make these subsidies much more widely available.

A financial sinkhole

Just how expensive are rents in the U.S.?

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a household that spends more than 30% of its income on housing is deemed to be cost-burdened. If it spends more than 50%, it’s considered severely burdened. In 2023, 54% of all renters spent more than 30% of their pretax income on housing. That’s up from 43% of renters in 1999. And 28% of all renters spent more than half their income on housing in 2023.

Renters with low incomes are especially unlikely to afford their housing: 81% of renters making less than $30,000 spent more than 30% of their income on housing, and 60% spent more than 50%.

Hey, StreetWise Vendors!

Estimates of the nation’s housing shortage vary widely, reaching up to 20 million units, depending on analytic approach and the time period covered. Yet our research, which compares growth in the housing stock from 2000 to

What amount of money would help you pay monthly rent in Chicago?

Percy Butler Let’s say $900. I just want a studio for me and I could afford up to $700 a month.

Debbie Booker I had to move out of my building in Uptown, which was sold to a developer. I paid $610 with a private bathroom and now I pay $650 with a shared bathroom. Everything I have been looking at is $1100 to $1500, so I would need another $900. I have been on a Chicago Housing Authority waiting list for two years and there’s still six people ahead of me.

Paula Holmes I found a one-bedroom apartment for $2,000 in Humboldt Park. Lee Holmes We saw $1500 for a one-bedroom on the South and West Sides, $750 for a studio. We would need $750 to $1300 to make it.

Keith Hardiman It costs me $1,800 a month to keep a roof over my head and transportationbecause I am paying a nightly rate at a hotel. If I had $1,000 a month I could get a studio or 1-bedroom apartment, something more affordable.

John Taylor I pay $455 for a room - I could use $500 because that is what I pay and I can use that money to find a better place, maybe a 1-bedroom apartment with more space. Living in an apartment is my goal.

the present, finds no evidence of an overall shortage of housing units. Rather, we see a gap between the number of low-income households and the number of affordable housing units available to them; more affluent renters face no such shortage. This is true in the nation as a whole and in nearly all large and small metropolitan areas.

Would lower rents help? Certainly. But they wouldn’t fix everything.

We ran a simulation to test an admittedly unlikely scenario: What if rents dropped 25% across the board? We found it would reduce the number of cost-burdened renters – but not by as much as you might think.

Even with the reduction, nearly one-third of all renters would still spend more than 30% of their income on housing. Moreover, reducing rents would help affluent renters much more than those with lower incomes –the households that face the most severe affordability challenges.

The proportion of cost-burdened renters earning more than $75,000 would fall from 16% to 4%, while the share of similarly burdened renters earning less than $15,000 would drop from 89% to just 80%. Even with a rent rollback of 25%, the majority of renters earning less than $30,000 would remain cost-burdened.

Vouchers offer more breathing room

Meanwhile, there’s a proven way of making housing more affordable: rental subsidies.

In 2024, the U.S. provided what are known as “deep” housing subsidies to about 5 million households, meaning that rent payments are capped at 30% of their income.

These subsidies take three forms: Housing Choice Vouchers that enable people to rent homes in the private market; public housing; and project-based rental assistance, in which the federal government subsidizes the rents for all or some of the units in properties under private and nonprofit ownership.

The number of households participating in these three programs has increased by less than 2% since 2014, and they constitute only 25% of all eligible households. Households earning less than 50% of their area’s median family income are eligible for rental assistance. But unlike Social Security, Medicare or food stamps, rental assistance is not an entitlement available to all who qualify. The number of recipients is limited by the amount of funding appropriated

Apartment rents in Chicago as of

November 2025

The average rent in Chicago is $1,950 a month, according to both Zillow.com and Apartments.com

Zillow cites studios at an average of $1,450; one-bedroom units at $1,761 and two-bedrooms for $2,000.

According to Apartments.com, Chicago’s $1,950 per month average rent is “20% higher than the national average rent price of $1,631/month, making Chicago one of the most expensive cities in the U.S.” Using the guideline of 30% of income spent on housing costs, “you’ll want to make about $6,500 per month or $78,000 per year.”

The Apartments.com website cited studio (440-squarefoot) prices of $1,573; one-bedroom (661-sq. ft) prices of $1,950 and two-bedroom (918-sq. ft.) of $2,463.

The largest percentage (35%) of Chicago rents were between $1,001 and $1,500. Another 23% were above $2,000; 22% were $700-$1,000 a month; 17% were $1,500-$2,000 and just 3% were under $700.

each year by Congress, and this funding has never been sufficient to meet the need.

By expanding rental assistance to all eligible low-income households, the government could make huge headway in solving the rental affordability crisis. The most obvious option would be to expand the existing Housing Choice Voucher program, also known as Section 8.

The program helps pay the rent up to a specified “payment standard” determined by each local public housing authority, which can set this standard at between 80% and 120% of the HUD-designated fair market rent. To be eligible for the program, units must also satisfy HUD’s physical quality standards.

Unfortunately, about 43% of voucher recipients are unable to use it. They are either unable to find an apartment that rents for less than the payment standard, meets the physical quality standard, or has a landlord willing to accept vouchers.

Renters are more likely to find housing using vouchers in cities and states where it’s illegal for landlords to discriminate against voucher holders. Programs that provide housing counseling and landlord outreach and support have also improved outcomes for voucher recipients.

Budget Losses

Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said on housingfinance.com that $532 million is proposed to be cut from special-needs programs, which includes Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS (HOPWA), Continuums of Care (CoC), and Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG).

“I don’t use the word catastrophic very often, but this shift and the related cut would indeed be catastrophic,” Oliva said.

According to Oliva, the budget proposal would mean:

• Loss of 167,000 beds for people with disabling conditions who are living in CoC permanent supportive housing;

• Elimination of the Youth Homeless Demonstration program. HUD has awarded eight rounds of funding to more than 120 communities to help them end youth homelessness. Local CoCs that have received grants included the Alliance to End Homelessness in Suburban Cook County, which received $6 million in 2019 for youth system navigators to integrate systems and develop youth-specific communications and outreach; and All Chicago Making Homelessness History, for $15 million in 2024 for support services.

• Loss of funding for HOPWA: housing and support for 46,000 households;

• Elimination of funding for the annual homeless report to Congress -- the guide to understanding homelessness across the country;

• Loss of technical assistance for about 150 communities and the “crisis response backbone” funded by the CoC program.

However, it might be more effective to forgo the voucher program altogether and simply give eligible households cash to cover their housing costs. The Philadelphia Housing Authority is currently testing out this approach.

The idea is that landlords would be less likely to reject applicants receiving government support if the bureaucratic hurdles were eliminated. The downside of this approach is that it would not prevent landlords from renting out deficient units that the voucher program would normally reject.

Homeowners get subsidies – why not renters?

Expanding rental assistance to all eligible low-income households would be costly.

The Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates it would cost about $118 billion a year.

However, Congress has spent similar sums on housing subsidies before. But they involve tax breaks for homeowners, not low-income renters. Congress forgoes billions of dollars annually in tax revenue it would otherwise collect were it not for tax deductions, credits, exclusions and exemptions. These are known as tax expenditures. A tax not collected is equivalent to a subsidy payment.

For example, from 1998 through 2017 – prior to the tax changes enacted by the first Trump administration in 2017 – the federal government annually sacrificed $187 billion on average, after inflation, in revenue due to mortgage interest deductions, deductions for state and local taxes, and for the exemption of proceeds from the sale of one’s home from capital gains taxes. In fiscal year 2025, these tax expen-

ditures totaled $95.4 billion.

Moreover, tax expenditures on behalf of homeowners flow mostly to higher-income households. In 2024, for example, over 70% of all mortgage-interest tax deductions went to homeowners earning at least $200,000.

Rental Cost Burdens

Broadening the availability of rental subsidies would have other benefits. It would save federal, state and local governments billions of dollars in homeless services. Moreover, automatic provision of rental subsidies would reduce the need for additional subsidies to finance new affordable housing. Universal rental assistance, by guaranteeing sufficient rental income, would allow builders to more easily obtain loans to cover development costs.

Of course, sharply raising federal expenditures for low-income rental assistance flies in the face of the Trump administration’s priorities. Its budget proposal for the next fiscal year calls for a 44% cut of more than $27 billion in rental assistance and public housing.

On the other hand, if the government supported rental assistance in amounts commensurate with the tax benefits given to homeowners, it would go a long way toward resolving the rental housing affordability crisis.

Alex Schwartz is a professor of Urban Policy at The New School. Since 2019 he has served on New York City's Rent Guidelines Board. Kirk McClure is professor of Urban Planning at the University of Kansas. Courtesy of the Conversation.

About 8.5 million households with very low incomes who received no housing assistance paid more than half their income on rent or lived in severely inadequate housing in 2021, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“Very low income” in Chicago is now $42,000 for a single person ($48,000 for a two-person household), which is 50% of the Area Median Income.

Many of these people are forced to choose between paying rent or meeting other basic needs, like food, while others are forced to live in shelters, cars, or tents. As a result of the wide gap between renters’ incomes and rent costs, homelessness has increased since 2017, rising steeply following the end of pandemic relief measures that curbed housing insecurity and homelessness. Cost burden among renters and homelessness have now reached unprecedented levels.

Mural to honor sculptor richard hunt

by Suzanne Hanney

A Go Fund Me campaign led by artist Chris Devins and historian Michelle Duster has set a goal of raising $5,500 by December 16 for a mural to honor prolific Chicago sculptor Richard Hunt. The intention is to install the mural in Hyde Park by next spring’s opening of the Obama Presidential Center.

December 16 is the second anniversary of Hunt’s death at age 88, but the mural is also an answer to “erasure:” President Trump’s promise to “terminate every diversity, equity and inclusion program across the entire federal government,” Devins and Duster wrote.

They cited Trump’s orders to dismantle DEI programs soon after taking office, including President Trump’s executive order in March that "improper, divisive or anti-American ideology" be removed from the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of African American History.

Meanwhile, less than 5% of public artwork features African Americans, who are also less than 5% of the artists in major art galleries – but Hunt is one of them, Devins and Duster say. Hunt's mural would address this underrepresentation, because his work is in the Art Institute of Chicago and Museum of Contemporary Art and major museums and galleries around the world. He had the first retrospective by an African American in 1971 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

King Cole, Jennifer Hudson, Kanye West, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, writer Lorraine Hansberry, all of which he did from photos in the public domain.

Hunt was born in Chicago in 1935 and educated at the School of the Art Institute and the University of Chicago. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1962, a Cassandra Foundation Fellow in 1970, and a Tamarind Fellow (awarded under the auspices of the Ford Foundation) in 1965.

The three-story mural of Hunt on a building at 54th and Lake Park would have an affinity with other nearby sites, such as the Obama Presidential Center, which will feature a work by Hunt; the DuSable Museum, which houses a Hunt sculpture; and several installed sculptures.

Devins won a 2023 Richard H. Driehaus/Landmarks Illinois Award for the Bronzeville Legends Initiative that included jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong. He has been creating murals of luminaries in Black history since 2014: A. Philip Randolph and the Pullman Porters, pianist and singer Nat

Devins worked with Hunt, however, and shot original photos, which will be the basis of the Hyde Park mural. Hunt is deserving of this recognition, Devins wrote, because he did 160 public sculptures and monuments – more than any other artist in the U.S.

Among Hunt’s most recent is the “Light of Truth:” Ida B. Wells National Monument at 37th and South Langley Avenue, the site of the former Ida B. Wells public housing complex. Duster, who is the great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells, worked with Hunt to accomplish that project. She has had input on national projects, such as honoring Wells among American Women Quarters issued by the U.S. Mint, the national suffrage monument on the Washington, D.C. Mall and the Ida B. Wells Barbie doll, part of Mattel’s Inspiring Women series.

Any amount is welcome, Devins and Duster say. For more information, contact chrisdevinscreative@gmail. com. Or, go to www.GofundMe.com (search Richard Hunt Mural).

Rendering of proposed mural by Christopher Devins.

Local School Councils seek nominations

by Suzanne Hanney

Candidate nominations, open to the public, for Local School Councils (LSCs) in the Chicago Public Schools close Jan. 20, 2026. Elections, also open to the public, will be next March 18. They are held every two years.

LSCs were mandated by a 1988 state law that decentralized CPS with the aim of making school achievement a grassroots issue. Each LSC includes six parent representatives, two non-parents, two teachers, one staff member and the principal; schools up to 8th grade include one student and high schools three students.

Officially, LSCs have three duties: creation of a School Improvement Plan, maintaining a discretionary budget; hiring and firing a principal.

It’s not so much judging a principal’s credentials as it is willingness to work with the community, Kendra Snow, a parent organizer with the education advocacy group Raise Your Hand, told StreetWise in 2024. A well-run LSC that encompasses the community can minimize intimidating bureaucracy and the gulf that has widened with increased disparities in income, she said.

Veena Villivalam, a parent representative and LSC chair, partnered with other parent leaders, the Chicago Department of Transportation and the alderperson to get a crossing guard and crosswalk markings to improve safety at her school. School leaders and staff have so much on their plate, but LSCs can network with each other to create better systemwide policy, she said.

“This is about governance: bringing people together with a purpose to ensure transparency and accountability in how schools function, and inclusion of all voices in that process,” Villvalam said.

More information on requirements and deadlines is at https://www.cps.edu/about/local-school-councils/ lsc-elections/

H.U.D. won't renew existing contracts to Aid homeless

by Suzanne Hanney

Nearly $4 billion in federal funding against homelessness is up in the air, with the November 13 notice by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that it will seek a new Notice Of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) rather than renew existing contracts for housing and programs.

The NOFO for Fiscal Year 2025 was not released until the evening of November 13, even though the fiscal year ended on September 30. The deadline to apply is Jan. 14, 2026.

ILLINOIS CONTINUUM OF CARE MAP

“Existing federal grants start to expire early in 2026. At this late date, there is no way the federal government can undertake a brand-new funding competition without causing a monthslong gap between the end of many existing awards and the beginning of new funding,” said Bob Palmer, policy director for Housing Action Illinois (HAI). HAI and Thresholds coordinated a letter to members of Congress and HUD Secretary Scott Turner signed by 286 Illinois entities seeking a 12-month renewal – and sent earlier on November 13.

The NOFO brings to fruition rumors that it would be used to fast-track restructuring of homelessness in line with Trump administration policies. For example, more than 80% of current federal funding to the 19 Continuum of Care (CoC) programs in Illinois goes to permanent supportive housing (PSH). However, the new NOFO puts a 30% cap on funds that can be used for PSH.

“Reducing the portion of CoC funds available for PSH would push people back into homelessness and be counterproductive to ensuring that every American has access to adequate, affordable housing,” according to the Illinois letter.

CoCs are networks in given locales that coordinate annual applications to HUD by government agencies and non-profit organizations for funding against homelessness: more than 330 grants, totaling approximately $182.5 million in Illinois. The Illinois CoCs support more than 21,400 people maintaining permanent housing and more than 27,000 emergency and transitional beds.

“The Chicago Continuum of Care has been prepared for the possibility of a NOFO, even as the situation remained unclear for months,” Hank Sartin, director of communications for the Chicago CoC, known as All Chicago Making Homelessness History, wrote in an email response to StreetWise. “In previous years, the NOFO announcement would happen in late July and be completed in late September. Normal deadlines came and went with no word from HUD.”

All Chicago’s collaborative applicant team had “remained in a state of readiness,” Sartin said, and was already preparing to meet with grantees in the next week. Their assumptions, however, were based on reporting by Politico and The New York Times.

Jennifer Hill, executive director of the Alliance to End Homelessness in Suburban Cook County, the CoC there, noted that expected changes would leave Illinois nonprofits ineligible for funding based on non-cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and other state and local policies noncompliant with Trump administration policies.

“This issue is reflective of what we understand to be the Trump administration's focus on supporting the creation of camps, where people would be forcibly placed to receive mandatory addiction and mental health treatment, such as the State of Utah is planning,” Hill wrote in an email blast seeking signatories to the letter to HUD Secretary Turner.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness noted that $3.918 billion is available from HUD for the NOFO. Projects can be disqualified for using a definition of sex “other than binary” and must show prohibition of camping. “HUD elevates ‘public safety’ as a major scoring factor.”