2021 State of Rental Housing in Cook County

The newest release of the State of Rental Housing in Cook County updates key data on changing rental demand, the supply of rental housing, and how these dynamics affect access to affordable rental housing for Cook County's lowest income households. The report also includes an in-depth, submarket-level analysis examining changes in the affordable rental housing supply and its implications for lower-income renters, and how these changes vary across the City of Chicago. 

While this analysis does not include data covering the COVID-19 pandemic period, the report uses the most recent data available from the American Community Survey through 2019, and data used in this report can serve as a valuable tool to guide policy discussions and inform strategies during the post-COVID recovery period. This analysis focuses on how conditions have evolved throughout the Great Recession recovery period from 2012 through 2019 and provides an important baseline for understanding housing needs and conditions that have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 economy.