Can mayor’s good intentions fix Chicago housing or move on?

Edgewater Beach neighborhood. Photo: Gerald Farinas.

If you walk down pretty much any block in this town right now, you can feel it. It doesn't matter if you're over on the South Side, up north off the Red Line where I am at Edgewater Beach, or out west, it's the exact same story. When that lease renewal lands in your mailbox and your rent jumps another hundred or two hundred bucks a month, it sucks. For regular folks trying to make it in Chicago, that's what this whole upcoming mayor's race is really about.

I actually like Mayor Brandon Johnson. I like that he genuinely gives a damn about working-class neighborhoods that got ignored for decades, and you've got to respect someone who isn't afraid to stand up and swing big for everyday people.

He's out here making his case for four more years, and he's talking up his housing record big time. He'll tell you all about his massive billion-dollar bond deal, cutting red tape down at City Hall, and greenlighting all sorts of affordable projects on the South and West sides.

Look, on paper, that ain't nothing. The city did put real money on the table, and you can see the blueprints moving along.

But if you're watching your buddy get priced out of their neighborhood, or seeing another classic brick two-flat get gutted and turned into a million-dollar mansion, that talk feels pretty out of touch.

A new affordable-rent building that won't even open its doors until two years from now doesn't help pay next month's rent. The city's still short well over a hundred thousand affordable places to live, and voters already shot down his big "Bring Chicago Home" tax plan at the ballot box.

So people are looking around asking, "Where's the actual relief?"

That's the million-dollar question. Are the Mayor’s struggles enough for me to move on to someone else?

Do you stick by a guy whose heart is in the right place, or do you admit that good intentions don't fix leaky pipes and sky-high rent?

That's why this race is turning into a total street fight.

You've got some real political heavyweights jumping in. Alexi Giannoulias is jumping in with a giant war chest, basically saying he knows how to run a clean ship, fix the bureaucracy, and actually get stuff built without all the endless drama.

Then you've got Susana Mendoza running on her record as state comptroller, pitching herself as the grown-up in the room who can balance a checkbook while City Hall keeps blowing through cash.

And then there's wild-card energy in the mix, too, like Matt Brewer, who not only put in years running the show over at the Chicago Housing Authority board, but also happens to co-own The Wiener's Circle up in Lincoln Park. You know somebody who deals with late-night dogs and beef and City Hall red tape has a few things to say about how this town gets run.

So where does that leave somebody like me who's still on the fence?

It's tough. Do you cut Brandon Johnson some slack because setting up big funding deals takes time to show up on the street, and nobody turns an ocean liner around overnight?

Or has his front office proven that they just can't get the job done fast enough to stop the bleeding?

Every single one of these candidates is gonna tell you they've got the secret sauce to keep Chicago livable for everyday people. But by the time we head into the voting booth, it's not gonna be about who's got the loudest megaphone or the smoothest pitch. It's gonna be about who can convince us our rent isn't gonna keep going through the roof while City Hall just spins its wheels.