Students Tackle the "How-Tos" of Housing Finance Policy with the Chicago Rehab Network

When Mary Ellen Ball started at the Harris School, she already had an interest in affordable housing issues. Now, with the Chicago Rehab Network (CRN) as a client, she has a greater appreciation for the role of financing in housing policy—a change she attributes to her participation in a Center for Policy Practice practicum, an elective course supervised by a faculty member.

“I had been more focused on the tenant-based advocacy,” Ball said. Now she wants to consider the financing angle in greater depth. “You have to be able to finance any project, any dream, so those tools that I learned in the last ten weeks about the financing aspect have really given my dreams more teeth.”

Wanting to root their advocacy and policy work in hard data is exactly why CRN welcomed the students, said Rachel Johnston, the network’s director of operations.

“In order for us to create the public and private will, we need to have really good, firm data about what is reasonable,” she said. “It’s important for us to scan the environment: Where is the innovation across the country? Where’s the innovation in financing? Which cities or states are coming up with new ideas that really should be adapted here?”

For 10 weeks this winter, four second-year students who took on the CRN practicum did just that scanning. The group examined Chicago’s budgetary commitment to affordable housing and compared it to similar initiatives in New York City, San Francisco, Denver, and Philadelphia.

“I’m learning more about affordable housing then I ever thought I’d know,” said Christine Robinson Wilson. She’s also gained greater confidence in her financial analysis abilities. “I’ve gotten really comfortable digging into city budgets and being able to follow the numbers.”

The hardest thing was getting up to speed quickly. It didn’t help that each city has a different way of dealing with housing in its budget, and there was a lot of new terminology for the students to learn.

“The biggest challenge I think is the fact that it’s only a ten-week class, and I think we all sort of approached it as we would approach a career. You want to learn everything, you want to do it right, and you can’t really do that in ten weeks,” Ball said.

Kristen Van Dyke enjoyed gaining hands-on experience outside of the classroom. “It’s been an excellent experience speaking and working directly with a client and being able to hear what they’re looking for, what their needs are, and how we can address their needs,” she said. “It’s crucial to have had the tangible, hands-on experience of working with a client.”

Along the way, it’s been reassuring to have faculty involvement with the assignment, said Sarah Klerk. In weekly meetings, lecturer Paula R. Worthington has helped the group determine the right approach to their work for the client. “All of us have some experience with reports and analysis, however it’s really valuable to know when we’re doing something on target,” Klerk said. “She’s critical in a very constructive way.”

In the end, students hope they are providing CRN with, as Van Dyke puts it, “a living document that they can continue to build on…so that [Chicago] can remain at the forefront of affordable housing.”

Jenn Q. Goddu

For more information on Chicago Rehab Network, visit www.chicagorehab.org/. For more information about the Center for Policy Practice or practica, visit harrisschool.uchicago.edu/cpp/.