Illinois HB 4408 marks a tangible, local step toward a harm-reduction solution for the addiction crisis

addictions and incentivizing drug abuse. For example, in 2022, information about safe-smoking kits was deliberately misconstrued as “federal spending on crack pipes.” Opponents, often conservative politicians and pundits, either misunderstand or obfuscate the aims of these policies, guiding a perspective that misses the forest for the trees when it comes to the aims of harm-reduction policies and initiatives. Harm-reduction endeavors aim to mitigate the death and destruction of the already present addiction crisis, in lock-step with other treatment programs as individual mechanics to combat the crisis.

A Texas A&M Economics study on the effects of naloxone access pol- icy on opioid abuse, mortality, and crime reinforces the harm-reduction potential of policy such as HB 4408. The study finds that increased naloxone access has no association with increased mortality, only opioid-related theft and emergency-room visits. Both of these consequences are the result of increased survival of overdose victims–who obviously remain addicts without further action, and at the most basic level, do not deserve to be denied help because they struggle with addiction. Simultaneously, the study finds no net reduction in opioid mortality, acknowledging that naloxone access is only one key part of a harm-reduction approach towards addressing the opioid epidemic. Simply surviving an overdose does not treat addiction, but it is an important step in ensuring that more suffering Americans have a chance to be treated. providing recommendations for how new legislation could protect renters of color. Based on these recommendations, the Chicago City Council approved a new ARO that expanded affordable housing requirements for developers in April 2021. Just a year later, UChicago Urban Labs’s November 2022 data warned that formal eviction filings are starting to approach pre-pandemic levels, concentrated in Black and brown neighborhoods like South Shore and Woodlawn. For communities of color being forced from their homes, they’re looking to the ARO, wondering if it will continue to be an ineffective policy or finally provide a solution to this decades-old crisis. It is important to acknowledge that the ARO will never be—nor was it created to be—a panacea. There is no single policy that will solve Chicago’s housing affordability crisis. Any evaluation of the efficacy of the ARO must be contextualized within the scope and goals of the ARO. When the Inclusionary Housing Task Force amended the ARO, they acknowledged its limitations and redesigned the policy to build a more equitable housing stock. While these changes are commendable in their aim, they are unlikely to meaningfully impact the housing crisis, especially for renters of color. The new ARO suffers from the same problems that plagued the old one: it aggravates gentrification, especially in neighborhoods like Hyde Park, it lacks sufficient enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance from developers, and it is not expansive enough to contribute to a housing surplus.

The ARO is of particular import for Hyde Park, a site of long-standing gentrification pressures that have resulted in the displacement of lower-income communities of color. The ARO, as currently structured, may incentivize developers to build more luxury housing to make up for profits lost from its policies, thereby displacing lower-income communities of color and exacerbating the gentrification that has been present in the neighborhood for decades. Furthermore, developers may be more likely to engage in housing discrimination to protect their profits. By using profits as punishment, the ARO is intensifying the construction of single-unit, luxury housing which has become the linchpin of the gentrification devastating Chicago’s historic neighborhoods. thority needs dedicated investigatory and enforcement services to ensure developer compliance. On expansiveness, the CLCCR again provides some clarity. There is no centralized system from which to market, lease, or sell ARO units. If it wants to contribute to Chicago’s housing stock, the ARO needs to partner with housing counseling agencies, eliminate unnecessary fees that block access to affordable units, and centralize a system by which both developers and prospective tenants can access relevant ARO information. An especially pernicious pitfall has been housing discrimination, in which landlords and developers exclude renters of color. Even amended, the ARO is not doing enough to prevent such discrimination. Building on required demographic reporting from ARO development projects, Chicago’s Housing Authority must ensure the city’s fair housing laws are being respected, especially if they want to protect Black and brown residents.

The Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights (CLCCR) deftly identified these problems and even offered solutions. The city lacks a framework from which to enforce compliance with fair housing policy. With hundreds of developers in Cook County alone, it is difficult for the city to identify, track, and enforce the ARO. The Chicago Department of Housing’s public data portal is a great measure for improving transparency, but there is a long way to go. As the CLCCR noted, the Chicago Housing Au-

Recent amendments to the ARO are a step in the right direction for addressing Chicago’s housing crisis and ensuring equitable housing markets. But as Crain’s Chicago Business reminds: Chicago remains last in homebuilding for America’s top 10 metro areas. Despite growing overall, Chicago’s black population is decreasing, with 85,000 Black people leaving since 2010, as per WTTW. The ARO is but one tool in an arsenal the city has to combat unaffordable housing, and it can still be honed. It iss a monumental public policy effort, but as long as the city remembers its goals, helping and working with underserved communities, it can build a future everyone can afford to live in.