Progress Illinois

After the Cook County Board of Commissioners finally agreed yesterday to fund foreclosure mediation services, housing advocates are celebrating the move as "a huge step" towards stemming the problem.

As regular readers know, it's been a tough slog for those community activists -- led by the group Action Now -- who've been pushing the county to devote more resources to mediation -- a proven method of staving off foreclosure. By a vote of 16 to 1, the board approved a $3 million budget amendment introduced by Comm. Earlene Collins (D) at the behest of Board President Todd Stroger and Cook County's Chief circuit court Judge Tim Evans (Republican Comm. Tony Peraica was the lone dissenter).

Like elsewhere in the state, foreclosures continue to pile up in Cook County.  During a roundtable on WTTW's Chicago Tonight yesterday,  MB Bank Vice President Thomas FitzGibbon noted that one of the biggest challenges in enabling mortgage modifications is getting through the daunting paperwork. "Having a neutral third party helping that consumer, helping that household, fill out the documents is an extremely important part of this whole process," said FitzGibbon, who also sits on the board of the non-profit Neigborhood Housing Services. "Seventy percent of the applications for this service -- for this help that we send out to consumers who we know are in trouble -- never comes back." Watch his remarks (full video here):

Once up and running, Cook County's program will help fill this void.

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Just because the House passed a health care reform package on Saturday night doesn't mean the "debate" about the bill's provisions is complete. First, the Senate has to pass its own version. Then both chambers will have to approve whatever legislation emerges from the conference committee. In other words, there's a lot of work yet to be done.

As such, Republican opponents are still on the attack.

On WTTW's Chicago Tonight this evening, Carol Marin will host a panel discussion on health care featuring GOP Rep. Peter Roskam and Democrat Jan Schakowsky. Roskam can be expected to take a number of predictable swipes at the House bill.  He may also treat viewers to his new argument that the individual mandate represents the "criminalization" of everyday citizens who don't want to buy publicly-funded insurance. Watch him whip out a pair of handcuffs during his floor statement on Saturday (via Hot Air):

So is Roskam correct in asserting that those who don't comply with the individual mandate can be subject to five years in prison and $250,ooo in fines?  In fact, that's a gross oversimplification.

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Back in July, The Chicago Reporter exposed one of the Prairie State's dirtiest secrets. Not only are dozens of Illinois nursing homes ranked among the worst in the nation (PDF), but African-Americans are increasingly likely to receive sub-standard medical care and be housed in facilities with dangerous criminals.

Social service providers were not surprised. For years, they've witnessed firsthand the way the poor have been dumped into these homes simply because affordable housing, drug treatment programs, and mental health facilities are in increasingly short supply. The private nursing home industry has been more than eager to fill this void (and, of course, cash in on the flow of Medicaid reimbursements).

In a subsequent investigation, the Tribune revealed how lax state regulation paved the way for the current situation. More from the Trib's investigation:

Mentally ill patients now constitute more than 15 percent of the state's total nursing home population of 92,225, government records show, and the number of residents convicted of serious felonies has increased to 3,000. Among them are 82 convicted murderers, 179 sex offenders and 185 armed robbers [...]

Just 50 nursing homes in Illinois house more than half of the 3,000 offenders, according to the Tribune's analysis. In Chicago, many of those homes are clustered in a few ZIP codes in Uptown and on the South Side.

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This morning we flagged an ominous warning from State Sen. Donnie Trotter (D-Chicago), who predicted that "drastic cuts" to state services are on the horizon. With the backlog of bills already topping $3.7 billion and an estimated $11 billion shortfall looming over next year, there's no question that Illinois is running on fumes at the moment.  During a roundtable on WTTW's Chicago Tonight yesterday, Chicago Democratic Reps. Art Turner and Greg Harris pointed out the backdoor cuts that are already occurring across the state as a result of the General Assembly's failure to pass a responsible budget this year.  To illustrate the ripple effect, Turner reported that there is a severe shortage of amenities -- such as walkers -- at Stroger Hospital in Cook County, spurring some local residents to search for donations.

Host Carol Marin later asked the panel -- which included GOP Reps. Jim Durkin (Western Springs) and Suzie Bassi (Palatine) -- "Does it feel like the state's on fire and nobody can find the hose?" Watch an excerpt from their conversation:

TURNER: Absolutely. I have a relative that was just admitted to the hospital who informed me that he did not get a wash cloth, toothbrush, or any welcome to the hospital kit. And here was there for three days. It wasn't until they found out that his parents were there that they brought out the gowns and things. I went by to visit him and the nurse told me that the vendor has not been paid. So they're not dispensing walkers, slippers. My neighbor is a physical therapist and she's actually collecting walkers in the community to take to the hospital.

MARIN: Do you hear this from other constituents, Rep. Harris?

HARRIS: We hear service organizations are not able to pay their employees and take holidays because the state is not able to pay its bills. And they're behind in paying people in a timely manner who are doing the after-school programs for our children. It's only going to get worse until all of us take responsibility for what we need to do and bite the bullet.

"The numbers keep getting worse," Turner said elsewhere in the segment. "We have not seen a baseline for how bad it is." 

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Yesterday evening, Carol Marin convened a roundtable of state legislators on WTTW's Chicago Tonight to talk about the latest developments in the fall veto session. Not surprisingly, the conversation quickly turned to an item that's conspicuously absent from Springfield's legislative agenda: the looming budget crisis. Per usual, the Republican members of the bipartisan panel tried to pin the state's budget problems on wasteful spending.Thankfully, Marin did her homework.

"Illinois is the fifth most populous ... state and it is in thebottom five for spending on state government," Marin said at one point. "By those metrics, we're not throwing tons of money into programs. Arewe?" Indeed, in 2007, Illinois ranked 39th in the nation in per capita state spending.  But State Sen. Randy Hultgren (R-Wheaton) still tried to take issue with her characterization.  "It's amazing how you can work those numbers," he said, before going on to complain that higher tax rates would purportedly drive business away from the state -- a theory that Marin also questioned.

Chicago Democrat Rep. Will Burns appeared on the panel as well, where he continued to make his case for restructuring the state's income tax to generate the sort of revenue required to fund education, health, and human services adequately and pay off the state's mounting debts. "Even if we do increase our revenues, we're going to have to continue to make substantial cuts to the budget," Burns said referring to the coming year's gaping budget hole. "The question is what kind of cuts do we make?" Watch:

Here's the transcript for the clip excerpted above:

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As we noted in our daily email digest yesterday afternoon (which you can subscribe to here), I appeared on WTTW last night where I discussed the state budget with the Illinois Policy Institute's John Tillman and Sheila Weinberg of the Institute for Truth in Accounting. As you'll notice in the videos below, Tillman apparently believes that more Wal-Marts in Chicago represents the solution to our $10 billion-plus state budget deficit. Here's part one: 

Part two:

On the program, I talked a great deal about the need to meet our outstanding obligations -- to both the pension system and those who do business with the state.  On the latter point, the Peoria Journal-Star editorial board today highlights the struggle faced by one social service agency that is owed over $100,000 from our state government:

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While the national recession has hit middle-income and poor families hardest, many folks that were once financially secure are also dealing with the daily sacrifices required to stay afloat in an increasingly stratified country. WTTW's Chicago Tonight profiled one such family on Monday night.  After losing well-paying jobs in the last decade, this Arlington Heights couple is living hand to mouth, relying almost entirely on unemployment insurance to cover their bills. Here is an excerpt from their story (you can watch the full segment here):

Additional help from Washington might be on the way shortly. While the details still need to be worked out, aides told Reuters yesterday that the Senate could vote on an unemployment insurance extension within days. Meanwhile, the White House pushed lawmakers yesterday to strike a deal that press secretary Robert Gibbs said would "ensure that those that have fallen on hard times and have lost their job have the benefits they need to provide for their families."

As evidenced by our own comments section, there are plenty of people out there searching for information on how to access benefits and other safety net programs. If you're still unsure about how the process works after filtering through our posts, head on over to Benefit Wiki, a new project created by the good folks at Open Congress. Avelino Maestas explains just what the new site has to offer:

Users can find, and more importantly add, information about unemployment benefits in their state. They can also view information about organizations offering assistance and services, different training and education opportunities, and even locations for free health clinics or flu shots.

WTTW's Chicago Tonight devoted a segment on their Monday program to a crucial topic: the erosion of employer-based health insurance. The U.S. Census Bureau's latest jobs report reveals that the percentage of Americans covered through their work dropped in 2008 for the eighth straight year.  Since 2001, the rate has dropped 5.1 percent nationally. Next year's figures, which will reflect the staggering rise in unemployment over the past 12 months, will certainly show further deterioration. In short, more people will be forced to navigate the private insurance market in the coming years, just like Barbara Tomczak, whom reporter Diane Eastabrook profiles:

This is an important story and it's great to see on the local airwaves. But one piece of the puzzle that Eastabrook omits is how the current legislation being debated in Washington would address the very problems outlined in her report.

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Since it was published last week, the Sun-Times has received a lot of publicity for its four-part series on the state's pension system. For instance, the AP picked up the story on the national level and some local editorial boards decried the "golden public pensions" highlighted by the paper. Even Gov. Quinn -- who is waiting to hear back from a pension reform task force -- responded that "we have to do something about it."

While we agree with the governor that some of the "abuses" reported by the Sun-Times need to be addressed, we read the series a bit differently than most.

Particularly we took issue with the articles' sensational style ("Want to retire with a fat pension?" the first piece read. "Get a government job in Illinois") combined with the absence of important context. (While highlighting the 4,000 pensioners who receive more than $100,000 per year, for example, the reporters' never mentioned that the average pension is under $20,000.)  As a result, the series left the general impression that greedy state workers are sucking the state dry.  In fact, only a small minority of retired state employees receive such exorbitant pensions.

The Sun-Times' flawed emphasis was brought home again on Friday when reporter Chris Fusco served as a panelist on WTTW's Chicago Tonight. Asked to comment on his work, Fusco vaguely declared that the pension system is "broken" and will take major reforms to fix. Watch it:

When you look at the system structurally, it is broken and it is going to come at the expense of taxpayers -- road projects, education dollars. And if something isn’t done from this point on to do something about it, it's going to cost us.

By highlighting the sliver of exorbitant pension packages and simultaneously declaring the system broken, readers are left to think that large payouts are the foremost contributor to the state's pension debt. 

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The latest news about the local housing market is bittersweet. According to a report unveiled Thursday by RealtyTrac, home foreclosure filings in Illinois actually dropped 10 percent from July. But the month's activity was still 22 percent higher compared to August of last year. In all, over 13,000 homeowners received a foreclosure notice last month. And that number could grow unless unemployment dips significantly.  "The August report demonstrates that there is still an ample supply of properties filling the foreclosure pipeline," the report stated.

Of course, what's lost in these broad statistics is the financial and emotional toll foreclosures take on families and communities. Yesterday, in the first installment of a series titled "Facing The Mortgage Crisis," WTTW's Chicago Tonight told the story of Chicago resident Richard Mitchell who recently received a foreclosure notice after losing his job and falling behind on his ballooning adjustable-rate mortgage payments. Watch it:

The story has a happy ending in this case, as Mitchell was able to get foreclosure counseling services, find work, and secure a 30-year fixed loan on his home. But that's not a common enough outcome. Only about 50,000 mortgages have been successfully modified by lenders under the Obama administration's Making Homes Affordable program, a fact WTTW reporter Eddie Arruza notes in the piece. That lag has led several powerful Democrats to reconsider Sen. Dick Durbin's judicial mortgage modification proposal, which was defeated in the Senate earlier this year.

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