South Suburban Housing Center Executive Director John Petruszak joined SSMMA on June 14 at the Chicago Southland Housing and Community Development Collaborative Steering Committee meeting to discuss how the Cook County Assessor’s practices have adversely affected South Suburban homeowners. He provided a summary of the Housing Center’s civil rights lawsuit against County Assessor Joseph Berrios alleging racially and ethnically discriminatory and unfair residential property taxes assessment practices. Click here to see their press release or here for a related story in the Tribune.
Even if homeowners wanted to find tax relief by moving to new communities, many can’t afford to do so.
As written in a recent Crain’s article, “In the south suburbs, ‘we have found a lot of people aren’t able to move,’ said Petruszak. “Adding to the mortgage debt on their devalued homes are sharp increases in property taxes as local governments try to gather the same amount of tax from a shrinking base.” Read more of the story, “A third of Chicago home borrowers can’t afford to move,” here. Phil Kadner weighs-in here with the story “You can’t invent a property tax system more discriminatory than in Cook County.” More photos are here.