(The Center Square) – Illinois landlords will soon be required to rent or sell property to undocumented migrants.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2024, protections go into place in the Illinois Human Rights Act for housing regarding immigration status and discriminatory advertising. The law will add immigration status as a protected class.
In all, more than 11,000 migrants, most of them from Central and South America, have arrived in Illinois since August of last year. Many of the migrants have been bused to Illinois from Texas after crossing the southern U.S. border.
Research has shown that mass immigration has driven up housing costs.
U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, has brought attention to mass immigration’s impact on housing costs.
“Think about what this does for housing prices when you have to house 10 million people that shouldn’t be here, that drives up the costs of housing when interest rates are already through the roof,” said Vance to Breitbart News.
But Michael Glasser, president of the Illinois-based Neighborhood Building Owner’s Alliance, doesn’t see it as a problem.
“There’s always been a large number of refugees coming into this country before this particular crisis, and in the past, the capacity has been there to absorb these folks, so I’m not so worried that this will be a single factor that is going to create a huge increase in rent,” said Glasser to The Center Square.
The average monthly price for rent in Illinois is $1,795, but is closer to $2,000 in the Chicago area.
Glasser said a possible way to address the immigrant crisis and housing issues is to put them to work in the housing industry.
“There’s extreme interest by many of us in the industry in having labor and skilled labor who can take care of some of our maintenance and painting and landscaping,” said Glasser.
