Seniors 'Squeezed Out' Of Elmhurst: Candidates

ELMHURST, IL – Most Elmhurst alderman candidates said last week the city had no easy answers for the problem of housing affordability.

A median-valued housing unit in Elmhurst is priced at $532,000, according to the U.S. Census.

At a forum last week, the League of Women Voters asked candidates how they would address the struggle of local senior citizens who want to downsize to find affordable housing.

Ward 2 Alderman Jacob Hill said he was for the city looking into allowing "accessory dwelling units," commonly known as "granny flats."

Accessory dwelling units come with a full kitchen and bathroom. They can be within a house, attached to a house or detached.

The issue of affordable housing, Hill said, was a "complex question."

Last July, Ward 5 candidate Dan Virgil spoke at a City Council meeting in favor of allowing accessory dwelling units, or ADUs. He said such an addition would be a good option to address the affordable housing crisis.

At the forum, Virgil said local seniors are feeling "squeezed out."

"It may be a bit controversial, but one option I think we need to look at is accessory dwelling units," he said. "These can provide more affordable housing."

The other Ward 5 candidate, Adam Park, said seniors are not the only ones affected. So too are younger adults. He noted his 24-year-old daughter got married the day before the forum, saying she would like to move to Elmhurst.

"There's not affordable housing for young people either," Park said. "There is no easy solution."

Alderman's Hill's Ward 2 opponent, Kevin Kirby, said Elmhurst's real estate market is a "gift and a curse."

"It's a gift that when one of us wants to go sell our home, we're probably going to make a profit on it," Kirby said. "It's a curse that when we want to buy back into this market, we're going to pay an elevated cost."

Through no fault of their own, he said, seniors feel as though they're being pushed out of the community as costs go up while they are on fixed incomes.

Ward 4 candidate Mike Baker also acknowledged the problem. Rising values benefit residents, but make it difficult or impossible for seniors looking to downsize to stay in Elmhurst, he said.

"For years, seniors have had few options to stay local after choosing it was time to sell the family home," he said. "New developments in the downtown area have had a good number of seniors who have chosen to downsize in one of these buildings."

In 2023, a state report showed that Elmhurst had 103 more affordable units than it did a decade earlier.

Elmhurst had 1,550 affordable housing units out of a total of 16,475 units, according to the report. That works out to 9.4 percent, up from 9.3 percent in 2013.

Elmhurst has nearly 1,000 more total units than it did a decade ago.

Of more than 1,300 towns in Illinois, Elmhurst ranked as the 47th least affordable for housing in 2023, the state report said.