Joliet City Council Does Not Support Veterans

There are a lot of different reasons to vote for or against a specific candidate or incumbent. Some people have very strong views on a particular subject, and cast their vote in support of someone who has come out in agreement with their position. It is often said this is the worst way to vote, on the basis of a single issue. Sometimes, however, there are issues that in and of themselves tell me what I need to know about a candidate.

Recently, there was a decision made by the Joliet City Council that has determined how I will cast my ballot.

On February 4th, at the Joliet City Pre-Council meeting, a decision was made behind closed doors to kill a project that would have served our veterans and our community. Volunteers of America had proposed to build a housing complex on the site of the former Silver Cross Hospital campus. Because it was a closed door meeting, exactly what was said and by whom, what factors were taken into consideration will never be known. Of course, we could simply ask those who were present, but then we would have to believe their answers to be the truth.

That asking and answering has happened, and the truth was not told. Some of the answers given thus far by the participants and other members of the City Council have ranged from the absurd to flat out lies. Whatever the truth is, the decision itself calls into serious question the thinking of our elected officials. Or, it puts that thinking into a clear light.

The original proposal by VOA called for a complex with a housing density of 22 units per acre. When told of the city ordinance that restricts multiunit housing to 10 units per acre, Silver Cross agreed to donate additional land, bringing the proposed density to 12 units per acre. To be clear, these would be 1, 2, and 3 bedroom units on the mostly shuttered grounds of the former hospital. The site was selected and proposed because the VA has just opened a Clinic in the former hospital.

Some of the stated reasons for choosing not to grant a one-time variance in the ordinance –

The ordinance is intended to protect the quality of life for Joliet residents, and for the community at large.

~Right, because providing housing for our veterans and their families and utilizing a now empty space is protecting the community from increases in revenue for local businesses, many of which have closed since the hospital has moved.

The proposed housing site would not only hold veterans, it would also be available to other low income and disabled people.

~Gotcha. Because there aren’t over 80,000 veterans in Will County, meaning they would have to search for otherwise ‘undesirable’ tenants.

This one really leaves a bad taste, but it speaks directly to the true reason for nixing the project.

The Joliet City Council is currently embroiled in a legal battle to take over, and then close down Evergreen Terrace. The City’s primary legal strategy is based on that ordinance of restricting multifamily housing to 10 units per acre. Simply put, if they allowed this veterans’ housing project to move forward with a variance to the ordinance, they would severely undermine their own legal argument in the Evergreen Terrace battle.

At its heart, the desire to close down Evergreen Terrace is not necessarily a bad idea. The place is in a disgraceful state of disrepair; high-rise public housing has been proven to have a negative impact on the residents and the larger community in which they are located; because the facility is owned and run by the Federal government, the City has too little say in how it’s run and maintained. In other words, there are a host of problems with the place, and it would be in everyone’s best interest for the City to take it over, find or build alternate housing for the residents and in general provide for a better quality of life for the community and those in need of public housing.

The real problem, the real insult is how once again, our veterans are paying the price. There is desperate need for affordable housing for our vets, particularly since the unemployment rates among our most recent vets is somewhere between 10-17%, according to veterans rights groups. That number tops 47% when referring to injured vets.

Joliet had an opportunity to directly and positively impact these deplorable statistics and to directly and positively impact the community. Instead, they have chosen to lump veterans who have earned our support and care with ‘others’ as simply another population in need of  ‘entitlements’. This is simply unacceptable.

These men and women have in many cases sacrificed their and their family’s future for us. They have earned those 'entitlements'. They signed on the dotted line to “Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies, foreign and domestic”. I’ll bet none of them ever thought the enemy would include politicians who would sacrifice their interests here at home, in furtherance of other, unrelated agendas and policies and politics that should be unrelated.

Joliet is desperate to shed it’s prison-town image. This was a perfect opportunity to establish Joliet as a leader in veteran’s housing, care and support, the antithesis of a prison-town. Rather than being known as the home of criminals, Joliet could have become known as America’s Veteran City.

Remember to vote tomorrow. Remember to vote accordingly.