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CFR Investigation Team
Chicago Flips Red's founder Zoe Leigh grew up in Auburn Gresham. The city demolished her family's home — the house her mother planned to pass down — to make way for an affordable housing project. Her mother fought the demolition in court long enough to shift the project across the street. They are currently homeless. The property went to the developer. The house is gone.
This investigation is not about Zoe's home. It is about the system that took it — a system funded almost entirely by taxpayers, operated by private developers, and brokered by community organizations that collect millions for providing access. We traced that system through a single address.
A search of Chicago's public contracts database for vendors registered at 666 Dundee Road, Suite 1102, Northbrook, Illinois returns twelve separate entities. Together, they have collected approximately $60 million in direct city contracts — for affordable housing developments, public housing redevelopments, energy retrofits, and commercial projects spanning nearly three decades.
That $60 million in city contracts is the visible layer. When you add federal tax credit allocations, TIF subsidies, land write-downs, donation credits, and state loans, the documented public subsidy flowing through this single address exceeds $148 million.
The address belongs to Brinshore Development, LLC, founded in 1994 by David Brint and Richard Sciortino. Brinshore is one of the largest affordable housing developers in the United States, with $4.8 billion in assets under management across 16 states. What follows is not an indictment of Brinshore — the company operated within a legal system designed to work this way. It is an anatomy of that system, using one address to show how the pieces fit together.
Affordable housing in the United States is not built by the government. It is built by private developers using a patchwork of public subsidies, each requiring its own legal structure.
Tax credits are the engine. The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, created in 1986, gives developers federal tax credits for building affordable units. Think of a tax credit as a gift card for federal taxes — if you owe the IRS $1 million and you have $1 million in tax credits, you owe nothing. Developers typically don't have enough tax liability to use the credits themselves, so they sell them to banks and large corporations who do — the same way someone might sell a $100 gift card for $80 cash, or sell their SNAP benefits at a discount (except it's legal in this case). A bank like Chase or U.S. Bank buys the credits at around 85 cents on the dollar and uses them to reduce its own federal tax bill. The developer gets upfront cash to build the project. The middlemen who broker these sales are called syndicators (firms like Enterprise, National Equity Fund, or Richman Group).
The credits come in two varieties: 9% credits (competitive, awarded by state housing agencies like IHDA, covering up to 70% of project costs — these are the big ones) and 4% credits (available automatically with tax-exempt bonds, covering roughly 30% of costs). The distinction matters: 9% credits are worth far more money, and getting one is a political process — state agencies decide who wins.
TIF districts (Tax Increment Financing) are the most misunderstood piece of the machine. Here's how they actually work:
The city designates a "blighted" neighborhood as a TIF district. The moment it does, it freezes the property tax revenue from that area at its current level — the base. Schools, parks, libraries, CPS — they keep getting the base amount, and only the base amount, for the next 23 years.
As property values in the district rise — from new development, rehabs, or just the neighborhood improving — the property tax revenue goes up. But the schools don't see that increase. The difference between the new, higher revenue and the frozen base is called the increment, and it flows into a special fund controlled by the city — bypassing every other taxing body that would normally receive it.
The city then uses that fund to subsidize developers — reimbursing construction costs, buying land, or issuing notes payable over years from future increment.
Here's what that means concretely: In Washington Park — one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods — the city created a TIF district, then used that district's fund to pay Brinshore $6.35 million for the Brin Life Center. Two more Brinshore entities (Park Apartments, South Park Apartments) also draw from the same Washington Park TIF. Every dollar in that fund is a dollar that would have gone to Washington Park's schools, Washington Park's parks, Washington Park's library — the institutions that serve the residents of one of the most underserved neighborhoods in the city. Instead, it went to a developer headquartered 20 miles away in Northbrook.
The stated logic is that blighted neighborhoods need development incentives. The actual mechanism takes tax revenue away from the neighborhoods that need public services most and hands it to private developers. The worse the neighborhood, the more it needs those services — and the TIF takes them away for 23 years.
Donation tax credits add another layer. When a city sells land to a nonprofit below market value, the nonprofit can transfer that land to a developer, and the "donated" value generates Illinois Affordable Housing Tax Credits — a state-level benefit on top of the federal LIHTC.
Each project gets its own LLC or LP — a legal requirement of the tax credit program, not a choice by the developer. The investor (a bank or fund) becomes the limited partner or investor member, the developer's entity becomes the general partner or managing member, and the structure locks in for 15 to 30 years of compliance.
This is how affordable housing gets built in America. The system is standard. What varies is who operates within it, how they connect to each other, and how much public money concentrates in one network.
| Entity | Amount | Project | Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dearborn Root, LP | $9,480,000 | Robert Taylor Homes | 2006–2025 |
| Paseo Boricua Arts LLC | $8,440,000 | Artist Housing | 2021–2061 |
| Ogden North LLC | $8,290,000 | Park Douglas Phase I | 2010–2052 |
| Westhaven Park Phase-IIB | $7,250,000 | ABLA Homes site | 2006–2025 |
| Brinshore Development | $6,690,000 | Park Place Family | 2015–2045 |
| Brin Life Center | $6,350,000 | (No description) | 2017–2049 |
| Hairpin Lofts LLC | $5,940,000 | 2800 N. Milwaukee | 2010–2024 |
| McCrory Senior Apts | $4,100,000 | Mayfair Commons | 2017–2042 |
| WHP Homes, LLC | $2,500,000 | Redevelopment Agreement | 2005–2024 |
| Hairpin Retail LLC | $1,210,000 | 2800 N. Milwaukee Retail | 2010–2024 |
| Park Apartments LP | $180,000 | Energy Retrofit | 2009–2010 |
| South Park Apartments LP | $63,000 | Energy Retrofit | 2009 |
| Total | $60,493,000 |
Source: Chicago Data Portal. All entities registered at 666 Dundee Road, Northbrook, IL — corporate headquarters of Brinshore Development.
The twelve entities at 666 Dundee Road have collected $60.5 million in city contracts across projects totaling more than $200 million in development costs. They have produced approximately 1,040 housing units across Chicago's South Side, West Side, and North Side — from former public housing sites to historic landmark rehabilitations.
Six of the twelve entities sit on land that was once Chicago public housing — Robert Taylor Homes, Henry Horner Homes, and the Park Douglas site in North Lawndale. Four are joint ventures with The Michaels Organization, the largest affordable housing developer in the United States. Seven partnered with local community nonprofits. The connections between these entities, their community partners, and the subsidy programs that fund them are not visible in the city's contracting data unless you search by address.
Brinshore does not build alone. Seven of twelve projects at 666 Dundee Road involve a local community organization as a partner — sometimes as a co-owner, sometimes as a general partner, sometimes as a land conduit.
This isn't optional. Under the Community Reinvestment Act, banks are required to invest in low-income communities — and community organizations have the power to file CRA comments that can complicate bank mergers and expansions. That gives these organizations significant leverage over the banks financing affordable housing deals. A developer like Brinshore needs the community partner to deliver two things no outsider can: aldermanic support for zoning, and a stamp of local approval that keeps residents from fighting the project. The community org, in turn, gets an ownership stake, management fees, or contracts — a cut of the deal they helped unlock.
The pattern is consistent: Brinshore provides the development expertise and financial structuring. The community partner provides political cover and regulatory leverage. The banks get CRA credit. The neighborhood gets the building. And the people who brokered the arrangement get paid.
In 2017, Mayor Rahm Emanuel sponsored Ordinance O2017-6806 — a redevelopment agreement for the Brin Life Center, a 58-unit housing project in Washington Park.
The city owned two parcels at 63 E Garfield Blvd and 5510 S Michigan Ave, appraised at $925,000. It sold them for $2 — one dollar per parcel. But not to the developer. The land was sold to K.L.E.O. Community Family Life Center, a South Side nonprofit. KLEO's IRS Form 990 for 2022 shows $43,739 in cash and negative net assets of $388,895.
From the redevelopment agreement:
"K.L.E.O. Community Family Life Center...desires to purchase certain vacant, City-owned parcels...for the sum of Two and 00/100 Dollars ($2.00)..."
"KLEO proposes to immediately reconvey the City Property to the Developer, or an affiliate thereof"
KLEO bought the land for $2 and immediately transferred it to Brin Life Center LLC — a Brinshore entity registered at 666 Dundee Road. This structure — in which a community partner receives land and transfers it to the developer — is standard in tax credit developments, because the transfer generates additional donation tax credits. In this case, an estimated $255,000–$270,000 in Illinois Donation Tax Credits on top of $6,350,000 in TIF subsidies from the Washington Park TIF district.
KLEO's role did not end with the land transfer. Torrey Barrett, KLEO's principal, became a member of the project's general partner — Brin Life Center Manager LLC — alongside Brinshore's Brint and Sciortino. Community partner principals routinely take GP positions in LIHTC deals. Barrett sits on the GP of a project that received $6.35 million in TIF funds from the same city that awarded KLEO's other contracts.
KLEO's broader contract history — including $139.7 million in migrant shelter contracts since 2022 — falls outside the scope of this investigation but is documented in public contracting records.
Paseo Boricua Arts LLC is the only Brinshore entity at 666 Dundee Road structured as an equal partnership with a community organization. The managing member — Paseo Boricua Arts Manager LLC — is owned 50% by Brinshore Development and 50% by PRCC Paseo Boricua LLC, a subsidiary of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center.
The $14.4 million project at 2709–2715 W Division Street — 24 artist live/work units with a black box theater — was approved by City Council 50–0 on December 16, 2020 via Ordinance O2020-5748. The contract carries a 40-year term (2021–2061). Brinshore and PRCC split a $925,560 developer fee.
The project sits in the 26th Ward, then represented by Alderman Roberto Maldonado. PRCC named the building after Maldonado's late wife, Nancy Franco Maldonado.
The Puerto Rican Cultural Center appears in the city's contracting system under four separate vendor IDs — corresponding to different program areas — with $46.7 million in total contracts, 71% designated for HIV services.
PRCC's full contract history, property network, and political connections are examined in a forthcoming investigation.
The Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council partnered with Brinshore on Park Place Family Housing — 78 affordable units at 5001 S Lawndale Avenue in West Elsdon. The $26.7 million project received $6.46 million from the city's Affordable Housing Opportunity Fund, $17.4 million in LIHTC equity from U.S. Bank, and a $1 million grant from Bank of America.
The project was in the 14th Ward, then represented by Alderman Edward Burke. Burke's law firm represented the property seller in the transaction, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Burke was later convicted on federal corruption charges unrelated to this project.
The Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council was founded in 1939 by Saul Alinsky — the radical organizer whose Rules for Radicals became the playbook for the modern American left. Alinsky built BYNC to mobilize poor neighborhoods against institutional power. Eighty-five years later, his organization is the institutional power — partnering with a suburban developer on a $26.7 million tax credit deal in a convicted alderman's ward, with that alderman's law firm collecting fees on the other side of the table. Alinsky's revolution didn't overthrow the machine. It became the machine.
The Lester and Rosalie Anixter Center, a disability services nonprofit, owns 25% of Hairpin Lofts Manager LLC — the managing member of Hairpin Lofts LLC, the residential component of the landmark Sachs Building rehab at 2800 N Milwaukee Avenue. Brinshore owns the other 75%.
The project illustrates how multiple subsidy mechanisms stack on a single building. The city sold the property — appraised at $4 million — for $1, generating $1.5 million in Illinois Donation Tax Credits from the write-down. The $12.2 million residential development cost was then funded through 4% LIHTC credits ($2.5 million in equity from Richman Group), $5.9 million in TIF from the Fullerton/Milwaukee district, $2.2 million in Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits, and $653,000 in New Markets Tax Credits. Including the land acquisition, total public investment in the project exceeded $16.7 million. Anixter Center's 25% ownership stake in the manager entity was acquired for a nominal amount.
Three additional community organizations appear as partners across the 666 Dundee Road portfolio:
In every case, the community organization provides local presence and political credibility. Brinshore provides the capital stack, the tax credit structuring, and the development capacity. The nonprofits' ownership stakes — where documented — are nominal. The developer controls the project.
The Brin Life Center — the project that originated with the $2 KLEO land deal — was presented as affordable housing. The $7.275 million in city subsidies ($925,000 in land value plus $6,350,000 in TIF) funded the following:
Across all 58 units, that works out to $125,431 per unit in city subsidy. Across the 49 designated affordable units, $148,469. Both figures are within normal ranges for affordable housing in Chicago. But the redevelopment agreement (Section 8.22) reveals a two-tier affordability structure that complicates the math.
All 49 affordable units must be rented to households earning no more than 60% of Area Median Income at move-in — the standard LIHTC requirement. Rents are capped at 30% of the maximum allowable income for that AMI level. So far, straightforward.
But the RDA includes an escalation clause: if a tenant's income rises above 60% AMI after initial occupancy, the rent cap shifts from 30% of the AMI level to 30% of the tenant's actual income — with no ceiling. The unit continues to count as "affordable." The tenant stays. The rent follows their real earnings.
The binding floor is lower than 49 units. The RDA requires that at least 20% of all units — approximately 12 — carry affordable rents at all times: half at no more than 60% AMI, half at no more than 50% AMI. This is the city's guaranteed affordable output — the number that cannot erode regardless of tenant income changes.
If you allocate the city's $7.275 million investment across the 49 units that start as affordable, the cost is $148,469 per unit. If you allocate it only to the 12 units the city permanently guarantees, the cost is $606,250 per unit — more than the median home price in Chicago.
In practice, incomes in Washington Park — where the median household income is $23,310 — are unlikely to push many tenants above the 60% AMI threshold. The 49 affordable units probably stay functionally affordable. But the legal guarantee written into the city's own contract protects only 12.
The twelve entities at 666 Dundee Road span nearly three decades of affordable housing development across Chicago. A complete project-by-project breakdown — including per-unit taxpayer subsidies, funding sources, community partner relationships, and Street View images — is available on our data dashboard.
Every line on this diagram represents a documented connection — money, contracts, lobbying, property, or personnel. The network links a South Side nonprofit with negative net assets, a suburban developer operating through twelve single-purpose LLCs, and a cultural organization receiving $46.7 million across four program areas. The connections — from the $2 land deal to the 50-0 council vote to the 40-year contract terms — are detailed above. A separate investigation into PRCC is forthcoming.
The system documented in this investigation uses tax revenue — funded in large part by property taxes on homeowners and renters — to build housing that costs more per unit than most Chicagoans will ever pay for a home. The money flows through nonprofits with nominal ownership stakes and limited capacity, into the hands of developers who lock the city into decades-long contracts and then list the portfolio for sale.
This is the system that took Zoe Leigh's home. The city demolished her family's house in Auburn Gresham — the house her mother planned to pass down — for a Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation affordable housing project. Her mother fought the demolition in court long enough to shift the project across the street. They are currently homeless.
Zoe's family is not unique. Across Chicago, the affordable housing machine converts public land and tax revenue into privately controlled housing developments at costs that would be unthinkable in the private market. The people who broker the deals get paid. The people who live in the neighborhoods get buildings. Whether those buildings serve the neighborhood — or just the network that built them — is the question this system was never designed to answer.
Every dollar traced in this investigation is a public dollar. Every record is a public record. No public accounting of the aggregate has been conducted until now.
Source documents:
File a FOIA request with the City of Chicago for any contracts mentioned in this article. You can submit requests through the city's FOIA portal.
Contact your alderman and ask about oversight of these contracts.
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