Staying in Pilsen: Resistance and Challenges of the Mexican Community to Preserve Their Homes

Diane Sandoval, a homeowner in Pilsen, has seen her annual property taxes rise from $6,000 to $11,000 a year, which she considers excessive. At 58 years old, Sandoval was born and raised in Pilsen and has lived there her entire life. But in recent years, she has seen her taxes increase dramatically. This situation, which affects many other homeowners in Pilsen, generates fear of not being able to pay and being displaced from their homes.

Sandoval pointed out that the most vulnerable to the sharp tax increases are the elderly, military veterans, and low-income individuals.

Brígida Franco is another homeowner in Pilsen. She is 65 years old and has owned her home for the past 23 years. She told La Raza that her taxes increased by 64% from one year to the next. Her property, a two-story building for which she used to pay $5,000 a year in property taxes, now faces taxes that have risen to $8,000.

“For a person with a fixed income that doesn’t increase, having your taxes raised by two, three, or five thousand a year is unmanageable,” said Franco. “I think the tax increase in Pilsen is outrageous,” she stated. “Who would have believed that taxes would be raised so high?” Franco also stressed that it is intolerable how the elderly and fixed-income individuals can be affected by high property taxes.

These enormous property tax increases are the result of rising real estate valuations in Pilsen, an area where increases in home and building prices, as well as rents, have put homeowners at risk of not being able to pay and losing their homes, and tenants at risk of having to move out due to increasingly unaffordable rents.

In this context, a flyer from the organization El Pueblo Manda calls on “community residents to join us in a sensible and well-intentioned call to action to help us find relief from high property taxes in Pilsen. We feel that taxes should be based on income rather than on area property values.”

“Please help us find a solution that preserves the Hispanic character of Pilsen and keeps it a community of families where individuals and organizations work together to maintain Pilsen as a vibrant part of our just city,” stated El Pueblo Manda.

History of Pilsen

The Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago was inhabited by Irish, German, Polish, and Czechoslovakian immigrants from 1870 to 1960. In the 1960s, this neighborhood, full of labor and cultural history, began to be inhabited by new immigrants: Mexicans who came to Chicago following jobs in industrial factories, the hospitality industry, and restaurants.

In 1961, then-mayor Richard J. Daley announced that the city decided to build a new campus for the University of Illinois in Chicago near Harrison and Halsted streets, which would take 105 acres of land in that area. This caused the displacement of thousands of Mexicans who resided in that area and moved south to Pilsen, where affordable housing was available.

Over time, Pilsen, close to downtown, became the first community in Chicago’s history with a majority of Mexican-origin residents, leading to the flourishing of Mexican culture. There, Mexican activists organized to demand a new high school, a new library named after the slain leader Rudy Lozano, new elementary schools, a Mexican art museum, political representation, and jobs for Mexicans and Hispanics in all city government departments.

Additionally, Pilsen saw struggles for community control, control of schools, and control of public health and recreation resources by the people living there. These changes came in the context of the fight against the Vietnam War, the African American civil rights movement, the women’s fight for emancipation from white patriarchy, the Native American struggle for their rights, and César Chávez’s fight to organize farmworkers.

All this led to the rise of cultural diversity and the inclusion of minorities in the fabric of society. A new sun had risen to give its light.

The “White Flight”

Two factors have impacted Pilsen since it became a predominantly Mexican neighborhood. One is the city’s creation of Plan 21, and the other is the phenomenon of “white flight” from the city.

Following racial disturbances and confrontations in Watts, Detroit, Chicago, and other cities, the city of Chicago created a plan to develop new high-cost housing projects, called condominiums, to attract well-off middle-class white people. This was the purpose of Plan 21 in 1973, with which the city intended to build a new zone of condominiums to function as a buffer around the South Loop and serve as a “fortification” against future riots that might occur in the downtown area.

When Martin Luther King Jr., the leader of the African American civil rights movement, was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, dozens of urban riots broke out in many cities across the country. In Chicago, King’s death caused three days of riots on the west side near Madison and Kedzie streets, resulting in 11 deaths, 500 injuries, and 3,000 arrests. These riots engulfed several blocks of Madison Street on the city’s west side in flames. It was then that Mayor Richard J. Daley gave his order to “shoot to kill arsonists and shoot to maim looters.”

These disturbances led to the phenomenon known as “white flight,” where a large number of white people left the central area of cities like Chicago and moved to the suburbs. Additionally, another large number of white residents left neighborhoods like Pilsen (and later La Villita) because racist ideas made whites unwilling to live next to Mexicans.

Pilsen in Numbers

Based on numbers and statistics published by professors John J. Betancur and Alexander Linares in the report “Who Lives in Pilsen: The Trajectory of Gentrification from 2000 to 2020,” published by the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC) on May 23, 2023, we can affirm the following:

Pilsen’s population declined to 33,751 people in 2020 from a total of 45,654 people in 1990, a 26% loss of its inhabitants. Latinos, mostly of Mexican origin, in Pilsen were 88.9% of the population in 2000, but by 2020, they had dropped to 71%, a reduction of nearly 18 points. Both Latino residents and Latino businesses have reduced their numbers there.

In terms of numbers, Pilsen (or the Lower West Side area) lost 16,253 Latinos between 1990 and 2020, according to Betancur and Linares’ report mentioned above. The number of white residents in Pilsen increased from 3,486 in 2000 to 6,377 in 2020. Still, the number of white residents has not reached the figure they had in 1980 when the census counted 9,223 white residents in Pilsen. The African American population has also grown in Pilsen, but not substantially. In 1980, the African American population was only 403 people, and by 2020, the census counted 1,544 residents who identified as African American.

In more recent times, in terms of the Hispanic population in Pilsen, there was a decline of 5,512 people between 2010 and 2020. This indicates, Betancur and Linares point out, that in this new century, Pilsen is no longer the recognized “gateway” for new immigrants, something that characterized it for a century between the 1870s and 1970s.

Another significant factor regarding Pilsen’s population is that the number of residents under 18 has also declined. The Hispanic population under 18 years old went from 9,161 youths in 2010 to 5,133 youths in 2020, a 44% loss. This indicates that several Hispanic families have moved out of the Pilsen community.

Another point of interest for those concerned about this community might be the number of housing units in Pilsen. In 2000, there were 14,410 housing units in Pilsen, but in 2020, there were a total of 15,649 housing units. There are two significant data points about housing in Pilsen: rental prices and the percentage of household spending on housing.

The first is that the number of housing units with monthly rents above $1,000 increased from 32.5% in the 2005-2009 period to 51.5% in 2016-2020. In other words, the rental market in Pilsen is significantly more expensive than in previous years.

The other point is the number of households in Pilsen considered “burdened” by food and rent costs. If a family or household spends more than 30% of their weekly income on food, it is considered a “burdened household,” according to Betancur and Linares’ report. Betancur and Linares say in their report that in the 2005-2009 period, 45.6% of households in Pilsen were considered “burdened.” During the 2016-2020 period, that figure dropped to 35.9%.

Another piece of data to analyze the housing composition in Pilsen: family households in Pilsen dropped from 7,867 in the 2005-2009 period to 6,775 in the 2016-2020 period. Now, according to Betancur and Linares’ report, there are more homes occupied by one or two people.}

The Struggle to Stay in Pilsen

El Pueblo Manda is an organization of Pilsen residents founded in 2022 and fights for Mexicans to remain in that neighborhood. Additionally, it seeks a moratorium on property tax increases and is demanding that elected city and state officials allow the use of funds collected under the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) program to help residents pay their taxes and make home repairs.

Although Pilsen is still predominantly Mexican, it has more American businesses, more fast-food places, more cafés, and more high-cost housing units built in recent years every day.

El Pueblo Manda has declared on several occasions to the media and the community that Mexican-origin residents are being forced out of Pilsen due to high property taxes. Many residents of this neighborhood, a substantial number, bought their homes there in the 1970s and 1980s. Now, due to the high taxes they have to pay, many residents fear losing their heritage and being forced to leave their Pilsen community, also known as La 18.

With property valuations in the area rising to high levels, homeowners now have to pay double and sometimes triple the property taxes. El Pueblo Manda has called on the authorities in Chicago, Cook County, and the state of Illinois to base property taxes in Pilsen on each homeowner’s income. For the past two years, they have been holding community meetings, organizing protests, including at City Hall, and conducting workshops to seek tax relief and solutions against displacement.

Another focus of El Pueblo Manda is how to address the phenomenon of gentrification and displacement in an increasingly expensive real estate market that forces lower-income residents to leave this neighborhood. Betancur and Linares, in their report, define gentrification as “the social, cultural, and economic changes that occur in a place when a larger number of wealthier residents move in. The process of a neighborhood’s gentrification is related to the reduction of affordable housing, increased property taxes, loss of cultural identity, and displacement of its previous residents. The displacement process usually involves middle-class professionals moving to neighborhoods close to downtown jobs, which then push out low- and moderate-income minority families due to increased property values.”

Through protests, press conferences, and a referendum in the last municipal elections, El Pueblo Manda has fought for the political class to listen to them and act to stop displacement and high property taxes in Pilsen.

“When we talk about Pilsen, we are using the word Mexicans,” said Laura Paz of El Pueblo Manda. “We have a stance that this is the community being evicted; it’s a matter of justice.”

Paz mentioned that in the last municipal elections, they introduced a referendum in Precinct 9 of the 25th District, in which 89% of voters agreed to ask the city of Chicago, Cook County, and the state of Illinois to authorize the use of TIF funds to help Pilsen families pay their property taxes after these valuations increased substantially. TIF funds are currently for industrial use and to develop economically depressed areas.

The referendum, which appeared on the primary election ballots in Precinct 9 of District 25, located in Pilsen, on March 19, 2024, asked: “In Pilsen, in District 25, we received our 2021 tax bill, which is payable in December 2022, with increases of more than 40 percent. Should the government provide assistance if your bill increased by more than 40 percent to help you pay your property tax bill with TIF funds?”

Paz said that her organization has thoroughly reviewed the TIF program statutes and it appears there are no impediments to using these funds to help stabilize Pilsen residents who fear their homes will be auctioned off to the public if they cannot pay their taxes. The referendum was approved by 89% of voters in Precinct 9 of District 25.

And in June 2024, with the new property valuations announced, El Pueblo Manda has noted new and substantial increases that will mean new property tax hikes. Therefore, the organization is asking that the referendum result be honored to help affected homeowners pay their taxes and to limit property valuation increases to a maximum of 5%.

Pati González, a homeowner in Pilsen, told La Raza that her property taxes went from $8,000 a year to  $17,000 a year. She owns a building that her grandparents bought in 1954 and is in need of repair.

“I’m struggling with what I have to do,” said González, who added that she submitted an appeal to have the authorities reduce her taxes. Paz, of El Pueblo Manda, questioned why this is happening to Mexican residents of Pilsen if, as she says, they are the most hardworking immigrants, the most family-oriented, and also the most Catholic, among others. “The Mexican community has all the values that this society values,” said Paz and questioned why Mexican residents of Pilsen are being affected by high property taxes and displacement.

María Gamboa, another member of El Pueblo Manda, stated that they are trying to meet with elected and city officials to let them know how Hispanic residents of the Pilsen community are being affected. “We want to meet with the mayor,” said Gamboa, who also added that they plan to meet with the new Commissioner of the Department of Housing, Lissette Castañeda, to discuss affordable housing in Pilsen. “We want to seek all the resources we can,” said Gamboa. “Many people, like my father, bought homes in Pilsen as a legacy for their families, and now many Latinos are at risk of losing their homes; that is their fear there.” “This is the result of the city’s Plan 21,” concluded Gamboa. For her part, leader Laura Paz, one of the clearest voices for the Mexican and Spanish-speaking community in Pilsen, said they would fight until the city and state listen to them. “We are still fighting for justice, and we will not stop doing it,” affirmed Paz.

Alderman Sigcho-López Promises to Help

Alderman Byron Sigcho-López of the 25th District, which includes Pilsen, told La Raza that he would do everything in his power to find solutions to the problems facing Mexican residents of Pilsen regarding high taxes and gentrification. To begin with, he said he is willing to investigate whether it is possible to use TIF funds for residential use and help residents pay their high taxes.

He also said that Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi promised to find a way for homeowners to appeal their cases without needing a lawyer. Sigcho-López said this is still pending. Another problem is a state law prohibiting rent control. If rent control existed, it would help prevent sudden rent increases in Pilsen. Sigcho-López said he opposes subsidizing housing projects in his district that will not benefit the community.

“A True Tragedy with Racist Aspects”: Betancur

In a conversation, Professor John Betancur described what is happening in Pilsen as “a true tragedy with racist aspects because this is not done to a white community.” Betancur added that “this will cause many to lose their homes” in Pilsen. Additionally, the academic added that other factors complicate the situation even further. Betancur pointed out that middle-class people know how to appeal their property taxes and have access to lawyers. “Meanwhile, elderly Mexican people don’t know English and have never learned to investigate these things” or take advantage of benefits that can reduce the tax burden, noted Betancur.

“Many elderly Hispanics who can’t pay their taxes, where are they going to get money to pay a 60% increase in their taxes?” asked Betancur. Additionally, this university professor says, in the agencies related to property taxes, sometimes nothing is written in Spanish. Betancur warned that after three years, if someone cannot pay their taxes, in some cases, the process to auction off the property can begin. “Gentrification is a business for housing developers,” concluded Betancur. “In 1970, it was declared in the city that the new economy was developing neighborhoods.” But that has been done, in many ways, at the expense of the original residents.

Contact with Organizations

El Pueblo Manda

www.facebook.com/elpueblomandachicago

elpueblomandachicago@gmail.com

773-453-2009

Great Cities Institute / Universidad de Illinois en Chicago

‘Who Lives in Pilsen: The Trajectory of Gentrification from 2000 to 2020’

greatcities.uic.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Pilsen-May-15-2023-compressed.pdf

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The production and publication of this report by La Raza have been made possible thanks to the support of the Chicago Community Trust through its Cross Community Impact program.