On the Job: Dan Burke is working hard to preserve housing for low-income families in and around Chicago. File 2008/Staff

Dan Burke, a longtime Oak Park resident and an affordable housing developer, has accepted a new post with Preservation of Affordable Housing, a national not-for-profit organization that has, as its mission, to preserve housing for low-income families.

Burke, who has over 20 years of experience in acquiring and restructuring affordable housing, took on the role as director of the organization's Chicago office in September.

As the previous vice president for development of the Chicago Community Development Corporation, Burke worked to acquire and rehabilitate 2,150 apartments, more than 1,500 of which were rent-subsidized through Section 8.

This summer he got his feet wet with POAH when he came in as a consultant for the organization's current sizable project of redeveloping Grove Parc Plaza Apartments on the South Side of Chicago. The $100 million project that will demolition and rebuild 26 buildings on its current site is located at Cottage Grove Avenue, between 61st and 63rd streets.

"This is breaking new ground for me in terms of rebuilding a whole new community instead of fixing up buildings," said Burke, who specializes in the preservation of at-risk HUD-assisted housing. "Personally, I'm excited about it. It's a new platform, to work with a non-profit on a project of this magnitude, with a group that has the ability to carry it out."

Burke, who is also an attorney, has worked as a development consultant to community-based purchasers of 20 different affordable rental properties, totaling 5,000 apartments in Illinois and Wisconsin under the Housing and Urban Development Preservation Program. Before joining CCDC, Burke was the chief of staff for Chicago Alderman Luis V. Gutierrez.

Preservation of Affordable Housing, a Boston-based national housing preservation organization, is a private group of developers that recruits investors to finance its projects. In the Grove Parc project, the office will own the property in conjunction with a series of partners. The not-for-profit differs from the Chicago Housing Authority in that it is privately owned and seeks to develop new property, said Burke. With its new offices here, POAH will also be undertaking other city projects.

To begin the Grove Parc project, the office will receive $1 million from the MacArthur Foundation's "Windows of Opportunity." Nationally, about seven non-profits are receiving funds under the MacArthur program, which has earmarked $150 million in an effort to support affordable housing.

Grove Parc residents contacted POAH because they were being threatened with home displacements. The office of Housing and Urban Development had scored the building in such a way that it was in danger of losing its government assistance, which could have led to the buildings being demolished.

"The residents pursued POAH because they were threatened with displacement," said Burke. "What we did was to come in and work with the city and other government agencies.

"We've designed a new community that will be a mixed income, mixed used facility," he added.

Under the new development plan, the 26 buildings will be demolished and replaced with about 20 new buildings. Burke said a combination of age and the site design led to the decision to tear down the buildings.

"The way the buildings are designed there's not a strong since of security for an urban environment. The buildings have outlived their systems. It's not sustainable, and it just doesn't seem to be prudent to keep them," said Burke. "The entire interior of the buildings, with such poor piping and mechanics, are over 40 years old and would need to be replaced."

When POAH came on board there were 504 families residing on the site. Currently there are 380 families. The new plan includes mixed-income occupancy with about 210 Section 8 tenants returning, and about 230 market renters moving into the new buildings. The remaining families will be relocated throughout the immediate community.

Currently, the project is in the planning and financing stage. Developers will break ground on Phase I of the project in the spring, and it's slated to be completed in 2013. Preservation of Affordable Housing made its first Illinois purchase in Kankakee, successfully rescuing Crestview Village from bankruptcy and restoring it as an affordable housing property.

Burke transitioned into affordable housing in 1987 during a high-profile legal housing case of Chicago's Uptown community. He shifted his career from suing owners to fighting for the rights of tenants. Burke was working as a service attorney for the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago when an owner of a large Uptown building decided to exercise a clause in his HUD mortgage. The contract stated that the owner could end his HUD-assisted mortgage after 20 years instead of 40, and the owner elected to exercise that right. He then terminated the contract and raised rents by 50 percent. Burke took part in renegotiating the deal.

In the litigation, tenants were protected for one year, but eventually were forced to move, he said.

"He [the building owner] exercised his right to opt out and it lead to a lot of litigation," said Burke. That experience led Burke to change direction.

"It's how you make a life choice based on an experience," he said, "I changed to fight for residents in a new way. I preferred that to the law and I've been doing it ever since."

Burke, who also served as a commissioner of the Oak Park Housing Authority and as an elected member of the Oak Park School District 97, has lived in Oak Park with his family since 1988. He says that there are many housing professionals from Oak Park that work in the areas of lending, private equity and architectural design.

"One of the things I found in my work is that there are a tremendous amount of people from Oak Park working in affordable housing. Affordable housing takes a village," he added.

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