• A woman in Chicago was approved for affordable housing nearly 3 decades after she applied. 
  • Jeanette Taylor, an alderwoman, shared the news on Twitter and said she had "no words."
  • Calling affordable housing a "basic right," Taylor said no should have to wait 29 years to get it. 

A Chicago woman said she was approved for affordable housing nearly three decades after she initially applied. 

Jeanette Taylor, an alderwoman for the city's 20th ward, posted an image of the acceptance letter on Tuesday

The later from the Chicago Housing Authority, dated May 20, 2022, was a reply to an application she said she made in 1993.

"Today in 2022 I finally got a letter telling me I made it to the top of the waiting list," she said.

In an interview with Chicago local radio station WBBM, Taylor said she was a 19-year-old with three kids when she first applied for affordable housing.

She said she ultimately had five children and raised them in her one-bed apartment.

Taylor told WBBM that she was offered a different place to live in 2004, but turned it down. She said she did so because it was too far from her kids' school, and that the authority wouldn't let her son be on the lease since he had just graduated high school.

CHA told the radio station that it would not comment on individual cases. The agency said it needed more federal government money to improve the situation.

The CHA's website lists wait times for specific housing projects, where as of Friday the most common time was "over 25 years."

The CHA also operates a voucher program, which appears to be what Taylor was approved for, whereby families find rental units privately and the government heavily subsidizes the cost. The waitlist for that program was closed.

In later tweets, Taylor said she had I have no words for how this system continues to fail our communities and those in need of stable, AFFORDABLE housing."

"This is my lived experience this is what keeps me in this fight," she added. No one, she said, "should have to wait 29 years to get what should be a basic right in the richest country in the world."

Taylor posted her latter not long after President Joe Biden unveiled a new plan to tackle rising housing costs by boosting housing supply and enticing cities to construct more affordable housing, Insider previously reported. 

Citing a 2021 Moody's analysis, the Biden administration shared that the housing shortfall amounts to 1.5 million homes, the largest shortfall in nearly a half century.

Taylor and the Chicago Housing Authority did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment. 

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