South Suburban Housing Center

Comprehensive fair Housing enforcement program: substantially funded by three hud fair Housing initiatives program (fhip) grants. Encompasses the following activities: complaint intake and investigation; formal complaint processing and filing; informal dispute resolution, fair Housing advocacy for Housing distressed protected class families; fair Housing stability assistance for covid-19 affected families, and a host of education, outreach, and training activities. For program year 2022, the organization processed 200 complaint intakes, conducted 151 test part investigations; continued to litigate 5 formal administrative and federal court actions alleging violations of the fair Housing act; provided fair Housing stability assistance to 266 covid-19 distressed renters and homeowners, and successfully resolved 10 pending enforcement actions. Education and outreach program accomplishments include: conducting 16 large group virtual fair housing/lending workshop sessions attended by 920 individuals; mass distribution of print and digital information materials to 172,244 recipients; attracting 52,166 fair Housing or lending information visits to our website; and implementing an outdoor multi-media interstate billboard and mass transit bus fair Housing advertisement campaign creating 10,518,252 impressions.

Inclusive community grant program: substantially funded by a 2013 conciliation agreement. Phase two of the grant program, which provides grants to existing homeowners in mortgage distress in targeted communities hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis, was launched in the 1st quarter of 2016. Five (5) grants were provided to distressed homeowners in five (5) targeted communities in 2022, for a total of 48,822.61, allowing the grant recipients to avoid losing their home to foreclosure or property tax sales.

Housing counseling program: primarily funded by multiple small dollar grants and fundraising activities. Includes the provision of the following comprehensive hud-certified Housing counseling activities: individual one-on-one rental and homeless referrals; pre- and post-purchase homeownership counseling; mortgage delinquency and foreclosure counseling; as well as group counseling activities including home buyer workshops, financial literacy workshops and foreclosure assistance and mortgage fraud awareness workshops. For fiscal year 2022, counseling services were provided to 1,366 families, of which 351 were facing foreclosure, 473 seeking rental/homeless referrals and 182 seeking to purchase a home, resulting in 36 new homeowners and 22 homes saved through mortgage modifications and resolutions. Over 360 individuals attended 24 workshops and webinars. In addition to the individual counseling services provided, as a partner agency for both the Illinois Housing development authority's (ihda) rental payment program (rpp) and homeowner's assistance fund (haf) and cook county's emergency rental assistance program, we directly assisted 414 renters and 365 homeowners apply for these emergency assistance grants. Approximately 5,471 print flyers were distributed at multiple events and municipal locations throughout the 34 plus communities that comprise our primary service area and thousands of clients were informed of these rental and homeowner assistance programs through ongoing outreach emails and social media posts.