The statistics are startling. The challenges are numerous. As reasonably priced housing units are becoming scarce, residents of Chicago and surrounding communities are confronting situations such as these:

• Being unable to find affordable apartments within a two-hour commute from their jobs.
• Paying more than half of their income just for a roof over their heads (one in five local renters do this).
• Living on fixed incomes and watching their property taxes become more expensive than their groceries.
• Experiencing being denied access to certain neighborhoods or certain kinds of housing because of age, race, or disability.

In the Spring of 2002, CHICAGO MATTERS: INSIDE HOUSING examined the forces that have shaped our region's current housing troubles, as well as the issues of race and class with which housing and residential patterns are inextricably linked.