Speaking as the final in-person public comment at Evanston City Council’s April 13 meeting, Meleika Gardner gave one last plea for council members to advance what she described as a lifeline for her neighbors at risk of being priced out.
“Tonight is not abstract for me; this is about whether people who built their lives here get to stay or get pushed out,” said Gardner, an Evanston resident.
“People who did exactly what they were told to do. They worked, they bought homes, they paid their taxes, they built this community, and now they’re sitting at their kitchen tables every month, doing the math, trying to figure out how much longer they can hold on.”
Gardner’s petition was in reference to the proposed circuit breaker pilot program, an initiative co-sponsored by Gardner and Ald. Clare Kelly, 1st, that sought to relieve the burden of high property taxes for long-time homeowners.
The ordinance, which failed to receive the votes necessary in order to move forward for adoption, would have allocated $500,000 from the Affordable Housing Fund for a one-year pilot to supply eligible households with a direct credit equal to 20% of their final property tax bill. Households would receive a maximum credit of $5,000 per year until all funds are exhausted.
Of the $5 million current cash balance in the Affordable Housing Fund’s 2026 budget, approximately half is allocated to “special projects and activities.”
But the proposal narrowly failed in a 4-5 Council member vote, just one vote shy of approval, with Ald. Krissie Harris, 2nd, Ald. Shawn Iles, 3rd, Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma, 4th, Ald. Bobby Burns, 5th, and Ald. Juan Geracaris, 9th, voting against.
In a follow-up email regarding the outcome of the vote, Gardner told the Pioneer Press she would remain steadfast in her work to champion local residents’ efforts to remain in the homes they’ve maintained for generations.
“I will continue to document this process and advocate for residents, but I am also focused on ensuring there is a clear public record of what occurred,” Gardner said. “The need for property tax relief remains urgent. The question now is whether it will be treated as a priority in practice, not just in principle.”
In the same way that traditional circuit breakers protect against electrical overloads, the envisioned pilot program would have worked to assist residents in paying exorbitant property tax bills, notably ones that exceed a significant percentage of their household income.
But program assistance was dependent upon a slew of qualifications.
To be eligible, applicants must have lived in Evanston as their primary residence and in an owner-occupied home that does not exceed 1,800 square feet of “livable area” for at least 15 years.
The homeowner’s income would need to be lower than the area median household income and their annual property tax payments must be greater than or equal to 10% of their household income.
After discussions of the circuit breaker program were stalled last month in the hopes that a time delay would give the ordinance a chance to be considered alongside the Housing4All plan – which was further delayed for a vote at the April 13 meeting – more time didn’t appear to appease Council members’ prior trepidations.
“One of the hardest things we have to do is prioritize what we’re going to do with our very limited funds, and I think that diverting 20% of our available affordable housing funds to this program is a mistake,” Iles told Council members on Monday.
“This circuit breaker [program] doesn’t solve a problem, it’s a new entitlement that continues to subsidize a resident for as long as they live in the house… it’s unsustainable. I just don’t know what a one-year pilot would teach us that we don’t already know,” Ald. Iles said.
Ald. Rodgers’ concerns were more closely tied to a lack of certainty around the total cost of the program.
“Everybody keeps talking about the cost, but there is no cost yet. We’ve identified a funding source to set aside $500,000, [if] we only spend $100,000 of that, that’s $400,000 left over,” Rodgers said. “No one can tell me how many people actually would qualify for this program, and therefore, how much money we would actually be spending?”
“The reason I’m hesitant here is we do not have a cost for staff time or how many people will actually qualify,” Ald. Geracaris argued, reiterating Rodgers’ statement.
“I feel like the way this program has been designed cast way too far of a net… if I were to vote in favor, I would want to see this tract by census tract as a pilot, and maybe use half of the $250,000 and limit it only to 8092, 8102, 8096 and 8037, because if we’re really looking at displacement, those are the census tracts where we’re seeing displacement and population change,” Geracaris said.
But Kelly urged Council members to consider the urgency of the issue and “immediate need” for local residents.
“We have people leaving. We’ve had people moving out. Our demographics have changed in large part due to the high property taxes,” she said. “This is a direct payment to help our residents who live here now. Those are the ones we should first and foremost be serving.”
“We’re not talking about maintaining people in large homes, we’re talking about maintaining neighborhoods and about respecting the struggle that people are going through in our community, about supporting our neighbors and the people that make Evanston special, these long-term residents,” Kelly continued.
Additional counterarguments emphasized that property tax assistance would be better suited as part of the Council’s strategic housing plan, which includes a plethora of housing initiatives the city hopes to fund.
Before Council members began discussing the circuit breaker program, though, they unanimously voted to include a mention of it in the housing ordinance draft as a property tax relief option, in addition to adopting a new list of City Council goals for 2025-29, which includes a section explicitly dedicated to housing affordability and reduced housing cost burdens for Evanston residents.
Prior to voting against the measure, Ald. Burns suggested an amended proposal in the form of a no-interest deferred Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) loan program, where the loan would be secured by the property and paid at the time of sale or transfer.
The loan could be forgiven if the property ends up being transferred to a family member at no cost or low cost, Burns added.
Burns implored Kelly to work with him on the proposal, to bring their ideas together and table an introduction vote until May 11 to further develop the plan, to which Kelly responded she was against delaying an initial vote any longer.
“At some point we all just need to show where we stand on things,” she said.
Only moments later did the proposal fail to garner enough overall support from Council members. But a property tax relief solution may still be on the table.
Burns followed the vote by offering up another alternative: an expanded version of Evanston’s Emergency Assistance Program that would provide residents with up to $2,000 in grants that can be used towards property tax payments. Council members later voted unanimously to further consider the proposal as a special order of business.
Burns’ amended proposal may be discussed at the May 11 City Council meeting.
