Three ordinances introduced at City Council in the last four weeks would change the zoning rules for single room occupancy (SRO) buildings, shelters, and community homes. One of them makes it easier to build these kinds of housing. The other two ordinances would add new requirements that would make it more expensive to build them, extend approval timelines, and reduce the number of eligible locations for building them.
The ordinances arrive during a housing shortage that is most severe at the bottom of the market but only one would make a positive impact. Let’s review the latest information on housing supply in Chicago:
- The Chicago metro area is short about 224,000 rental homes that are affordable and available to extremely low-income renters (households earning 30 percent or less of the area median income, or $25,200 for one person), according to a March 2026 report from Housing Action Illinois and the National Low Income Housing Coalition.There are only 31 such homes for every 100 of those households.
- Chicago permitted 3,916 new homes in 2025, last among U.S. jurisdictions with at least a million residents, according to Census Bureau building permit data.
- The city’s point-in-time count on January 22, 2026, found about 6,527 people who are staying in shelters or outside, down 12 percent from 2025 but near an all-time high.
- The number of people sleeping outside rose almost 25 percent, to about 1,641, even though the count happened on one of the coldest nights in recent memory.
- People are sleeping in parks and under viaducts. For several years, news media have reported on tent encampments along the North Branch of the Chicago River and in Ronan Park in Albany Park, and the city cleared one at Legion Park in March after two fires there. At Gompers Park in North Mayfair, the city matched about 30 encampment residents with housing at a March 2025 “Accelerated Moving Event.” The Park District removed the remaining tents in May 2025 to build a nature play space, and many of the people still living there moved across the street to Eugene Field Park. Park District Superintendent Carlos Ramirez-Rosa has said there are about 60 encampments in the city, mostly in parks, that residents of a cleared encampment generally move to another park, and that Chicago lacks enough housing for people experiencing street homelessness.
- In the 34th Ward, people set up tents under the Metra viaducts on Lake Street near Clinton Street, next to Ogilvie Transportation Center. When the city cleared that encampment in December 2023, seven people accepted rehousing help from the Department of Family and Support Services and 15 declined. Ald. Bill Conway said at the time that many might return.
The three ordinances take different approaches in light of the situation.
- Ald. Anthony Quezada’s ordinance would allow SROs and shelters by right on most commercial streets and downtown.
- Ald. Pat Dowell’s would require a special use hearing for any new SRO in a residential district, when currently that is not required.
- Ald. Ronnie Mosley’s would add new notification requirements for community homes, transitional residences, and transitional shelters, as well as minimum spacing rules between existing and new uses in those categories. This ordinance would drastically reduce the number of eligible locations for these housing types.
| Ordinance | Sponsor | Introduced | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| O2026-0029459 | Ald. Anthony Quezada (35th Ward) + 11 others | October 14, 2026 | Allows SROs and shelters by right in most business, commercial, and downtown districts |
| O2026-0027579 | Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd Ward) | September 23, 2026 | Requires a special use for new SROs in RT-4 and all RM districts, when currently that is not required |
| O2026-0029477 | Ald. Ronnie Mosley (21st Ward) + 30 others | October 14, 2026 | Adds 1,000-foot spacing rules, notifying the local alderperson and police district commander, as well as a bigger notice radius to property owners for proposed community homes, transitional residences, and transitional shelters |
A quick glossary
The zoning code has its own vocabulary for these housing types, so here’s what each one means in plain language:
- Single room occupancy (SRO): a building of small, private rooms, often with shared kitchens or bathrooms. Historically these were residential hotels and for young men moving to the city for the first time looking for work.
- Temporary overnight shelter and transitional shelter: places for people experiencing homelessness to sleep, either night-to-night or for a longer stay while they find permanent housing.
- Transitional residence: a temporary, supervised living arrangement, such as housing for people undergoing substance use treatment or reentering society after being incarcerated.
- Community home: a group home where people with disabilities live together as one household, sometimes with staff. A “family” community home is smaller; a “group” community home is larger.
- Special use: a use the zoning code doesn’t allow by right. The applicant has to notify owners of nearby property owners, hire (usually) an attorney, and win approval at a public hearing of the Zoning Board of Appeals.
It’s the experience of every person or organization who has to obtain a special use that their project costs more, is approved later than expected, requires hiring consultants, and pays additional city application fees. These applicants are constantly working under the possibility of being denied after the applicant has already bought or leased the property.
For these types of housing, specifically, applicants and the people who they would house are often subjected to vile NIMBYism and bigotry during this process. Housing delayed is housing denied.
Quezada’s ordinance: SROs and shelters by right in business and downtown districts
Ald. Quezada’s ordinance, co-sponsored by 11 colleagues, would expand where SROs and shelters are allowed without having to get a special use, to the business, commercial, and downtown zoning districts. B and C districts line most of Chicago’s commercial streets, often near transit. D districts are only in downtown, including River North, South Loop, and part of West Loop.
| Use | Districts going from special use to permitted |
|---|---|
| Single room occupancy | B1, B3, C1, C2, DC, DX (already permitted in B2 and DR) |
| Temporary overnight shelter | B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, C3, DX, DR |
| Transitional shelter | B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, C3, DX, DR |
| Transitional residence | No change; still a special use |
Dowell’s ordinance: special use for SROs in residential districts
Ald. Dowell’s ordinance would amend one line in the zoning code’s residential use table (Section 17-2-0207). Today, SROs are permitted by right in RT-4, RM-4.5, RM-5, RM-5.5, RM-6, and RM-6.5 districts. The ordinance strikes the “P” and replaces it with “S” in all six, which would thus require new SROs and some renovations of existing SROs to obtain costly special use approval from the Zoning Board of Appeals.
Those districts are where Chicago allows apartments and condo buildings. (SROs already aren’t allowed in districts that mandate detached single family housing and don’t allow multifamily housing.) There would be no residential district in Chicago where someone can build an SRO with only a building permit.
This doesn’t change the city’s 2014 SRO Preservation Ordinance, which protects existing SRO tenants when a building is sold or converted.
Mosley’s ordinance: spacing, notification, and a bigger notice radius
Ald. Mosley’s ordinance has 30 co-sponsors, including Ald. Dowell. It adds four new requirements:
- 1,000-foot spacing for community homes. A community home would be prohibited within 1,000 feet of another community home (new 17-9-0104.2).
- 1,000-foot spacing for transitional residences and shelters. Either one would be prohibited within 1,000 feet of another transitional residence or transitional shelter (new 17-9-0115-E).
- Notification before opening. Community homes that are permitted by right, and therefore don’t need a special use, would still have to notify the alderman’s office at least 30 days before they start operating (new 17-9-0104.1). Transitional residences and shelters would have to notify the Chicago Police Department district commander when they file for a special use (new 17-9-0115-D).
- Four times the notice radius. Special use applications for community homes, transitional residences, or transitional shelters would have to mail notice to every property owner within 1,000 feet, instead of the standard 250 feet. That’s twice the 500-foot radius the code requires for landfills, incinerators, and waste transfer stations.
A 1,000-foot radius is about a block and a half in every direction (a standard Chicago block is 660 feet). Mailing to every owner in that circle costs more and reaches more people. The spacing rules mean that once one group home or shelter opens, the surrounding area is off-limits to the next one. And the proposed ordinance offers no variation or other relief from the 1,000-foot spacing rules. This increases the number of letters that have to be sent by about seven times.
It’s my understanding that community homes house people with disabilities, and the federal Fair Housing Act prohibits zoning rules that discriminate against them. Spacing rules for group homes have been challenged before. In 1996, a federal appeals court ruled that the Fair Housing Act preempts Michigan’s spacing and notice requirements for adult foster care homes, which included a review of similar facilities within 1,500 feet (Larkin v. Michigan Department of Social Services). Other court rulings have found that refusing an exception, or reasonable accommodation, from spacing requirements violates the law. In 2022, a federal jury ordered Springfield, Illinois, to pay $293,000 after the city tried to close a group home under its 600-foot spacing ordinance.
What the Metropolitan Planning Council recommends
The Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC) published At What Cost?, an honest assessment of Chicago’s zoning and land use regulations, earlier this month, after a three-year study that gathered input from more than 700 people (including yours truly). Timing between their report and the three proposed ordinances is coincidental!
MPC recommends removing the requirement that “single-room occupancy buildings, shelters, and other group living quarters” get special use approval in many zoning districts, because it “delays or blocks a necessary housing option.” More broadly, MPC recommends permitting most current special uses by right, with use standards, and reserving Zoning Board of Appeals review for uses with likely health and safety impacts, such as heavy manufacturing, waste processing, and adult uses. MPC’s analysis of ZBA decisions from 2011 to 2023 found that the board approves 92 percent of applications and explicitly denies only 3 to 4 percent, but that the process is complex and lengthy, often requires an attorney, and depends heavily on the local alderperson’s support.