Dupage Policy Journal

The Village of Glen Ellyn will sell two vacant village-owned properties to a Chicago-based Section 8, low-income housing developer.

The Glen Ellyn Village board approved the sale of 675-677 Roosevelt Road and 660 Taft Avenue to Full Circle Communities on Mon. Feb 26.

Full Circle has until May 1, 2025 to pay $1.75 million for the properties, upon which it says it plans to build 42 Section 8 apartments.

Students living in the low-income apartments would attend Park View Elementary School and Glen Crest Middle School.

The village will lose $1.1 million on the sale; it paid $2.85 million in taxpayer money for it in Jan. 2022.

The property once housed a Budgetel Inn and Suites.

The plan was supported U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Chicago), who represents part of Glen Ellyn and has been an advocate of building more Section 8 and  other public housing in the suburbs.

In August, Ramirez requested $750,000 in federal funds to build additional Section 8 housing in Glen Ellyn.

A  self-described "Democrat Socialist," Ramirez joined the "Squad" when she was elected to Congress in 2022, a group that includes U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

Section 8 renters receive federal taxpayer rent subsidies, as originally establishd by the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974. 

The subsidies lead to higher rents for landlords, who don't have to worry about payments as they are coming from the federal government.

"Landlords don't have to worry about non-payment, since the government deposits its share of the rent—the lion's share—directly into the property owner's bank account," wrote public housing expert Howard Husock in City Journal. "For properties in precariously respectable neighborhoods, the government-paid rent is more than the market rent. Reason: the Section 8 program allows voucher holders to pay up to the average rent in their entire metropolitan area, and landlords in working-class or lower-middle-class neighborhoods, where rents are below average, simply charge voucher holders exactly that average rent."

In 2021, there were 8,397 Section 8 voucher recipients in DuPage County.