Press Room

Where we once built “housing of last resort” we are now building such iconic sustainable structures as architect Helmut Jahn’s Near North, a “new urbanism” prototype built for an unusual purpose - housing the homeless in Chicago.

Near North occupies a prominent location on the corner of Division Street and Clybourn Avenue and bridges what was once a no-man’s land between Cabrini-Green, a section notorious for its problematic public housing, and the affluent areas of Old Town and Gold Coast. Because of its unique setting, Mercy Housing Lakefront, owners and managers of Near North, asked Jahn to design the building.

In a March 1st, 2007 article in the Chicago Post Cindy Holler, president of the Chicago based Community Development Corporation (CDC) was quoted as saying “This building was intended to be a stigma-smasher. All of us deserve to live in beautiful spaces and healthy environments.”

Technically the building is what is known as supportive housing, with special services for single occupants with disabilities. “It’s like a hotel with small rooms,” Jahn said of the streamlined, glass and steel building. It contains 96 apartments ranging from 245 to 300 square feet. Half of the units are devoted to people who are homeless and disabled. The other half is available to people on the waiting list of the Chicago Housing Authority. Residents pay 30 percent of their adjusted gross income. Jahn says the project shows that even with simple materials, quality choices for housing can be created.

There has been some negative comment regarding the higher cost of construction of Near North when compared with traditional supportive housing. Mercy Housing Director of Public Affairs Lisa Kuklinski says that without the grants and donations the CDC received for the express purpose of creating a sustainable building they would not have been able to realize this goal. However, this environmentally sensitive complex has features designed to greatly reduce the cost of operation.

The rooftop wind-turbines and solar panels were designed to cut the average cost of heating and cooling by 22%, and a recycling system collects rainwater and graywater to be used to flush toilets. Kuklinski says the building has accomplished the goals Mercy Housing had set out for it. A study done at the end of year one concluded that the building produced a 25% reduction in utility costs when compared with other new construction. She does caution, however, that those who dabble for the first time in these technically complex building need to heed a few words of caution. “They need to understand that payback can be long; training the maintenance staff can be complicated; and that the passive systems seem to work more easily from day one than the active systems, which can come without a helpful manual.”

In a period when gentrification is reclaiming large sections of America’s downtowns, supportive housing is sometimes shunned as being eyesores that bring down the value of surrounding property.

Near North may prove to be the exception to the rule that transforms the way we provide housing for low and moderate income families and individuals.