CHICAGO – The Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University will receive $500,000 from the Illinois attorney general’s office to assist statewide efforts to rebuild Illinois communities that have been devastated by the national foreclosure crisis. The award is part of $70 million allotted to efforts in Illinois by the attorney general’s office and stems from a $25 billion national settlement obtained last year. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced today the 54 proposals that would be funded.

IHS will use its award to expand their housing data clearinghouse to include the eight-county Chicago region. Currently, the institute collects an extensive amount of property-level housing data, including data on foreclosure activity, property sales and transfers, mortgages, and property taxes, for Cook County. Using the award from the foreclosure settlement, they will expand this data collection to include data from Lake, Will, Kane, DuPage, DeKalb, McHenry and Kendall counties. This data expansion and other data collection efforts will allow IHS to assist the attorney general’s office and other settlement awardees in guiding their efforts as well as analyzing their impact in affected neighborhoods.

“This award represents not just an opportunity for us to assist the settlement awardees in targeting their efforts toward the hardest hit communities, but it also allows us to expand the areas where we are able produce in-depth research and analysis,” said Geoff Smith, executive director.

“The expansion of our research area to the eight-county Chicago region will allow us to do more comprehensive analysis of issues affecting access to affordable rental housing and the recovery of neighborhood housing markets for the entire Chicago region, not just the city and suburban Cook County,” he said.

The original $25 billion National Foreclosure Settlement with the country’s five largest bank mortgage servicers addressed allegations of widespread robo-signing of documents and other fraudulent practices by banks during foreclosure proceedings.

The Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul is a research center that provides analysis and data to inform affordable housing policy and practice. More at www.housingstudies.org.