Don't start any tag days for seniors - they've become among the most prosperous groups in our society. And, they've replaced farmers as the biggest whiners, braying for benefits they haven't earned.

How do rising mortgage payments affect people whose mortgage is paid off? And aren't these folks getting various tax subsidies and now free transit benefits, etc, etc, etc?

And let's not forget that concentrations of them are slow-moving targets for gangbangers and street thugs, drawing crime into the areas where they reside.

Give us a rest from this sort of claptrap.

Since seniors vote in huge numbers, politicians can't help but pander to them. The rest of us should take a cue from seniors in this regard.

I agree. If you're irresponsible enough to spend 45 years in the workforce and never save for retirement, then you haven't earned the right to retire. I wish people would stop acting like adults become helpless as soon as they turn 65 and we have to protect them from inflation so they never have to work again. The amount in my paycheck doesn't change from month to month, so if we're giving handouts to everyone on a "fixed income," sign me up. If you don't work full time and you can't afford your property tax bill, then maybe it's time to move or consider bagging groceries a few days a week.

Just keep in mind we'll all be seniors some day - I have the feeling the grass looks a bit different from that side of the fence.

That said, I am definitely getting sick and tired of the old folks who at this point in the season have 2 or 3 inches of ice on their sidewalks - if you're too old to shovel, hire a kid or someone to do it. If you can't do that, you should move, I had a bit of a revelation the other day trying to push a stroller 3/4 of a mile, and it was just patently absurd how pedestrian/stroller-unfriendly a large part of my neighborhood is. Some of it may be people who just use the garage, or the chronically selfish, but there's an old guy right down my block who had no problem shoveling out a parking spot - and putting some ugly crap in it - but can't seem to be bothered to shovel his walk.

It's a law for a reason.

What is this dump on the elderly day?

You folks are ranting.

Hey, since the elderly are targets for street criminals should we "deport" the elderly? This article wasn't "claptrap".

I always read the "Chicago Reporter" and most often disagree with their clearly left of center take on things. This article did point out some legitimate issues. Possible abuse of building codes or city inspectors to force people to sell. Seems to me I read that was happening on certain industrial properties in Bridgeport until the Feds started asking questions. I have no doubt it happens on a smaller scale too.

Then it mentioned the situation with porches and inspections. The city overreacted after the last Lincoln Park porch collapse. You can't legislate good judgement. If you overload a porch with 80+ people and kegs you are asking for trouble. How do we solve that? Change the codes! Post warning signs! Spend thousands of dollars on every porch in the city……..etc etc etc. Do whatever it takes to prevent any possible embarrassment to hizzoner.

Carter,

Avondale must be going to hell. In the 90's one of my friends lived just south of Addison and west of the Expressway and those folks shoveled their snow and maintained their lawns.

You must be a bad influence.

Carter, there are no "kids" who will do that for a few bucks these days. Just talk to people who have a hard time finding a babysitter… Back in the day, MY day, there were gangs of kids wandering with shovels offering to shovel walks for a few dollars, no more…

But seriously, we need to send seniors to Carousel before they become burdens to the rest of us.

I'll chime in to say something nice about one senior citizen - Ald. Vito Marzullo, deceased.

His senior constituents could call the ward office and request that someone come out and shovel. Vito would fish around in the wad of cash in his desk drawer, pull out a bill and dispatch a kid to get the job done. I've sat in offices where other old school aldermen did the same thing.

No self-disrespecting North Shore kid would pick up a shovel to earn a buck. But, when it snows in Wilmette bands of roving Mexicans magically appear and shovel your drive at a reasonable price. You'd almost swear they're kept in underground storage bins that are levered to the surface by snow of a sufficient weight. Like the Chinese who appear out of nowhere in New York peddling umbrellas at the first raindrop.

Well if you want to complain about non shoveling take a look at the more expensive areas or SFH. I do a tremendous amount of walking this time of year largely through Uptown, Lake View, Ravenswood and Lincoln Park(in the warmer months I also bike) and the worst offenders are the multiple million dollar homes in Lincoln Park or in other locations. I can think of one at around Fullerton and Ashland that has a heated driveway but the sidewalks NEVER get touched. My experience is the more expensive the area the less likely the sidewalks are to be shoveled and the more expensive the house the same thing.

I've always liked neighborhoods full of immigrants or new home owners of any variety because you can count on the sidewalks being shoveled and the lawns cut. Those folks have pride and a work ethic.

Back in my youth I used to shovel my whole block with a spoon……….and I was happy to have a spoon.

One good thing about my area of Uptown, besides the lack of Joe Zekas as a neighbor, is that it is dominated by small condo buildings. Virtually every building has one or more dedicated shovelers and the larger buildings have employees who do it.

Now there is one 6 flat around 4345 Kenmore that doesn't bother. Imagonna git em'. Right now it is snow covering ice covering snow. No pride at all.

This post has devolved into a rant, but there are some serious issues that need to be addressed regarding seniors and the city.

THE CITY AS LIFESTYLE CENTER

Many parts of the city, mainly the North Side, have transformed to a life-style center for young professionals (and now, young affluent families with pre-school age children or children in private or magnet schools). If this is the direction the entire city is going to take, this doesn't bode well for seniors, who aren't (i) interested in the bars, cafes, and restaurants popping up, or (ii) able to afford them.

THE CITY AS REVENUE CENTER

Property taxes in Chicago and Chicago's North Shore are incredibly high. Even for seniors who have paid off their home, if property taxes exceed their retirement income (something very possible in the 32nd Ward, or in any North Shore Community), they can't afford to live there. If property values continue to rise in Chicago, you can expect seniors to migrate to areas with lower costs in Cook and the collar counties.

SAFETY AND MAINTENANCE OF URBAN PROPERTIES

Unlike the two issues above, this isn't a new issue brought about by the subprime mortgage market, it's actually an old issue that's been with Chicago since the 1970's during the worst parts of white-flight and urban decay. Seniors have a limited ability to maintain the older urban properties, and in areas with crime, are more at risk. The city is doing the right thing by working to keep crime down and safety up. Paradoxically, the more successful they are, the more likely seniors are to be priced out of the area, or to wake up with hordes of recent college-grads living next to them.

SENIORS AND FRAUD

Finally, seniors are at risk from fraudsters, but this isn't an urban-specific problem. Instead, it's a regulatory problem, primarily the responsibility of the Federal Government. If the FTC and the Banking Commission cracked down on financial fraud, this would dry up. A perfect example is the investigation into Wachovia Bank– Wachovia was making millions from telemarketing fraud, much of it aimed at seniors. A more agressive regulatory approach would help.

Hope you liked that essay. I like oldsters. My wife accuses me of being one in spirit all the time.

Chach,

Perhaps this has devolved into a rant because it started with a rant - the biased, misleading mishmash from the Chicago Reporter.

Patrick may find it "always impressive" but I find it to be boring, predictable, superficial and almost always incoherent. There are the - unnamed - "housing experts," the property in the 4400 block of N Racine that's in West Town, the anecdotes that are meant to support far more than they do, the slippery uses of statistics (125% increase in condos may mean nothing more than 9 instead of 4), the utter shock that more people want cheap rent than there are cheap rentals, the post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning, the grotesque assumption that seniors only move for negative reasons, etc.

So tell me what "the Banking Commission" is - I'm not familiar with that federal agency or the scope of its regulatory authority. Enlighten me also as to how the FTC has jurisdiction to crack down on financial fraud. Do you have any familiarity with our government?

And when did we scrap our federal system and make law enforcement no longer primarily a state and local responsibility?

I just got back from about 75 minutes shoveling - and while, yes, I would agree that by and large neighborhoods like Avondale are well kept, not 5 minutes had I finished shoveling out the parking spot in front of my house - just so I wouldn't have to be annoyed by some piece of garbage in it - my next door senior neighbor was out there putting a chair in it, as well as another spot in front of her house.

I don't blame seniors so much as I blame our cowardly lion Mayor, who doesn't have the cajones or common sense to send a message that this practice is antisocial and in fact reduces the number of spots on the streets - most people don't even shovel, they pull out of the spot and throw their crappy target chair or bucket in it (and no imagination, either). by the logic of this dumb practice I should be abe to claim the sidewalk I shoveled, it's also public property.

but my personally annoying neighbors (who are actually quite charming people I get along with outside of this practice) aside, the sidewalks thing is a safety issue for pedestrians, many of whom, zing, are seniors, and in this neighborhood, parents with strollers.

Can't find a kid who will shovel? Try harder. I was one of those kids going around shoveling when I was a young lad, these days you might actually have to make a few phone calls, talk to your local community groups or a school, whatever - it's still your responsibility to clear the sidewalk if you own property, no ifs, ands or buts.

Joe, sorry, I just didn't feel like looking up the applicable section of the CFR to name the body that administers the Truth in Lending Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, or the other applicable statutes. I think it's the treasury department, but what do I know. I'm not the lawyer here.

Before assisting seniors, it would be nice if there were a way to identify those that fought the good fight as opposed to those that were slovenly lazy selfish knuckleheads that supported the culture of graft that's been passed on.

"Dibs" for parking spots is a whole rant in itself.

Maybe 4 weeks ago or so I saw "dibs" at around Belmont and Greenview after a light dusting of snow.

I hate "dibs" in any case, but for that I was amused. It was ridiculous. I was hoping to see the idiot on my walk back.

Chach,

If you refer to "the feds" you're on safer ground.

The unshoveled sidewalks around our office in River North border parking lots owned / leased by the Board of Education. It's for certain that the Board of Ed doesn't know where to find a kid.

When I complained about a threatening note left on a friend's car after I moved a piece of trash to park it–this was long after the snow had all melted–the police officer said, "Yes it is illegal, but Mayrdaley says it's okay."

Anyway, on seniors: there are whiny seniors and then there are seniors who are actually harmed by gentrification in a way that we should probably be paying attention to. I have no sympathy for neighborhood anti-everything loudmouths, but poor seniors are always the hardest hit by gentrification because they're the ones who rely the most on their social networks and the ones who have the hardest time adjusting to a new neighborhood of strangers.

Now, free rides on the CTA for a group that is wealthier than the population average, that is another matter…

if we could the damned state to pick up their constitutionally-required fair share of education costs, we could move to some sort of acquisition-based property tax system, and that would be of huge benefit to seniors, and people living on moderately fixed incomes (ie, the service industry, non for profits, the arts, etc).

Daley has yet another bald-faced lie in the Trib's editorials today, when he sputters for nonsense about how property taxes have gone up at half the rate of inflation every year on his watch.

You have to have been thrown from the still-moving turnip truck to buy that. Nobody cares how Daley wants to white-wash property tax RATE increases with assessment-caused increases, etc. - if your property tax bill went up more than inflation every year (which is pretty much a given), Daley;s a liar.

I find small condo buildings are the absolute worst at/for snow removal. There is a corner building near me that does their front walk but totally, utterly and completely ignores their long side sidewalk.

I remember the question being asked of Ashley over on LP Trixie years ago, of which chair would be appropriate to hold the parking space, that would suit their status. But what it all boiled down to was; they couldn't afford a garage….

Carter,

it doesn't matter if one particular assessment has gone up every year more than inflation. It matters if the various government budgets have gone up more than inflation. It also matters how many properties are paying the overall costs.

I don't know what the answer is and some group that specializes in government budgets would need to do a study and factor in TIF's.

you are correct regarding the levy required, but that doesn't refute the point that Daley is lying, as Daley sets those City budgets.

the big lie is that our taxes are going to down if we continue "growing the tax base" (which makes my grammatical senses cringe), I'd like to see an example of this ever happening, in the sense that person A got their property tax bill and it was lower than it was 3 years prior.

the bottom line remains the amount of taxes person A pays for their property - the economic/formulaic mumbo-jumbo that allows Daley to point fingers at the Assessor, and vv, is meaningless to the homeowner.

Call me Person A. Just don't call me Individual A. Little federal prosecutorial joke there. Just kidding, Feds…….I luv you guys.

My last tax bill was lower than the one prior. I'd have to look but it likely was similar to the one three years before.

That really doesn't indicate much overall because my place appreciated less than the rest of the city did on average. In the assessments in the 90's and the first two of our wonderful new century my assessment went up at a faster than average rate. Also the new growth probably had a minor effect on my tax bill going down.

Additional growth can split the tax bills among more people. Daley is right about that. Now Daley likes to blame the assessor……which is WRONG. Ultimately, the issues is the amount of taxes levied and ultimately Daley directly or indirectly influences every property tax levied in the City. The assessor merely apportions the taxes based on fairness, real value, and whether you may have some relationship to him. I kid Assessor Houlihan, really I do. Just like I kid the feds.

Whether you want to call it the "clout" tax or the "corruption" tax or the "nephew of Da Mare" tax there is a tremendous amount of waste and theft in the system. That's what needs to be focused on.

If your own individual property taxes go up faster than average then ultimately you are a financial winner. Although that is hard to see as you pay the bill. If I could double my property taxes and at the same time double the value of my property I would happily do it. Then I would sell and invest my profits in alcohol and hookers. Which now that I think about it is what I am doing now.

Wouldn't your tax bill be lower if it either stayed flat or increased less than inflation?

…which is another reason seniors take a hit more than other groups when property values rise: they have no intention of selling their homes and cashing out. Yeah, you are theoretically a winner, but not if you don't plan on realizing the increase in your property value.

Growth can increase the tax base, but not if the funds that are generated are forever locked away in TIFs that never expire.

"My last tax bill was lower than the one prior. I'd have to look but it likely was similar to the one three years before."

Ahh, interesting- but did the 7% "solution" bill have anything to do with it? I forgot about that.

Carter,

at this point I'm not sure what effect the 7% "solution" had on my own taxes. I've appealed taxes in the past for myself and written the appeals for family members, ain't that difficult once you do it a few times, and I know more about the system than 99% of the public and I'm still confused.

Ultimately the average reassessment went up 41% and mine was below that so my taxes went down a bit. There are thousands of others out there who could say the same thing. I have family members on the south side and up until this most recent reassessment their taxes typically went down each time. That is mostly because their neighborhood underperformed in terms of property appreciation in relation to the city as a whole. This last round their property appreciation overperformed the city average and their taxes took a jump.

It brings joy to my heart to hear them complain about tax bills that now are in the thousands of dollars……..very low thousands. Not too long ago there were tax bills around $900 and they complained then. On average small residential properties in the city pay about 1.1% of value as property tax yearly. I am paying a bit less. My family members are paying slightly less than that.

The idea should be that for example a %300,000 home or condo anywhere in the city should be taxed
similarly before exemptions. Just like in Orwell some taxpayers are more equal than others.

I hear you on the equal issue, but:

"I've appealed taxes in the past for myself and written the appeals for family members, ain't that difficult once you do it a few times"

that wouldn't work if everyone did it, you know?

One nitpick with the article - the building at 4431 N Racine is notorious in the neighborhood for gang and drug activity, and has been a major topic of conversation at the last few CAPS meetings for that beat.

Anyone who lives near there can tell you this is not some sleepy apartment building for seniors, but one of a network of buildings in the neighborhood that the drug dealers work out of. If you don't believe me, ask the 23rd district commander.

Sounds like this reporter got took!

Going back to a previous post about seniors getting free public trans. rides - as the daughter of a senior citizen who stubbornly refused to quit driving, even after failing her annual driver's test, until she was forced into assisted living and had to give up her car, I APPLAUD this incentive for potentially dangerous drivers to consider this alternative! I imagine sombody in the Illinois government did a cost-benefit analysis of free public trans. for seniors vs. costs to both the public and private sector due to accidents caused by incapacitated elderly people.

Obviously, not all old people are bad drivers, and certainly all accidents are not caused by seniors at the wheel, but it happens just enough to make me, among others, breath a sigh of relief that now there's no excuse for a person who should not be on the road to make the excuse that s/he continues to drive because it's "cheaper than the bus."

and Joravsky weighs in, pretty hard to refute the evidence that Daley is lying through his teeth (just astounding he has the audacity to do it in print!)