What you need to know about the 'Bring Chicago Home' referendum

The "Bring Chicago Home" referendum has survived a court challenge and so, for now, votes cast for or against the ballot question will be counted. And despite all the news coverage of the proposal, some voters may still wonder exactly what it is and what it could mean.

Here are some answers.

What it would do

Voters are being asked to authorize the Chicago City Council to change the real estate transfer tax. That tax rate is currently 0.75%. The proposed changes that would raise the tax rate on property transactions valued at under $1 million, while increasing it on sales of $1 million or more.

Going down: Properties sold for under $1 million that currently account for 94% of all sales will see a decrease in the real estate transaction tax owed. The new tax rate would be 0.60%, down from 0.75% — a 20% cut.

Going up: Sales of $1 million or over, but under $1.5 million, will pay a 2% tax rate — more than two-and-a-half times what they pay now.

And the tax rate on sales of $1.5 million and higher will pay 3% — four times the current rate.

If a simple majority of Chicago voters then approve the binding ballot referendum in March, the Council will be asked to approve another ordinance enacting the new tax structure and establishing a special fund dedicated to addressing homelessness.

Opponents won a brief victory in court last month, when Cook County Circuit Judge Kathleen Burke put the referendum on hold. It was too late to remove it from the ballot, but votes weren't going to be counted.

However, earlier this month, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled the votes could be counted.

What critics say

The court challenge to the referendum argued that it was improperly combining a request for a tax decrease with a request for a tax increase. It's a tactic known as "log rolling" — combining a popular item with a potentially unpopular one to ease its approval.

The Civic Federation has argued the city hasn't explained how exactly it would spend the tax proceeds. It also cited what it said was a lack of “oversight and accountability to ensure that funds will be effectively and efficiently utilized for the intended purpose."

Another skeptic was Greg Goldner, a veteran political consultant who spearheaded the multi-media campaign to stop Bring Chicago Home through a political action committee, “Keep Chicago Affordable. ”With roughly 68,000 unhoused Chicagoans and an average cost-per-affordable unit of $519,000," Goldner told the Sun-Times, "it would “take them 50 years to build 10,000 units." And that assumes, Goldner added, that the tax increase generates the $100 million City Hall is hoping for, something he considers unlikely.

What supporters say

The referendum's biggest supporter is Mayor Brandon Johnson. A key campaign promise was creating a dedicated fund to help the estimated 68,000 Chicagoans who are homeless, and he has talked about his own brother dying “addicted and unhoused.”

One of Johnson's biggest supporters, in turn, is the Chicago Teachers Union — Johnson was once a paid organizer for the CTU, and CTU president Stacy Davis Gates says helping homeless students is “part of what we went on strike for” in 2019.

“It’s an abomination that, in this city with this much wealth, we have almost 20,000 students attending public schools who are classified as unhoused,” Davis Gates says. If Bring Chicago Home “provides the revenue necessary to get those young people into actual homes with the stability and consistency that provides, then we are all in.

“If you vote ‘yes’ on this referendum, you are voting for 20,000 unhoused students in the Chicago Public Schools to be in a safe, warm home,” Davis Gates says. “I like our odds.”