Habitat on the Hill Spotlights Rockford Area Habitat’s RAFT Initiative

Congratulations to Rockford Area Habitat for Humanity, whose advocacy work was highlighted at the Habitat on the Hill 2025 Poster Presentations. This annual session offers affiliates and affiliate support organizations an opportunity to share state and local advocacy strategies and successes with the Habitat network.

Rockford Habitat’s poster outlined their efforts to develop a policy solution to the problem of increasing property insurance costs resulting from changing flood patterns. As FEMA updates their flood zone maps to reflect these changes, homeowners whose properties were not in flood zones when they were built are now finding themselves in Special Flood Hazard Areas. Through no fault of their own, these homeowners now face substantially higher insurance costs.  

This happened in Rockford’s Beverly Park neighborhood and currently affects 44 Habitat homeowners. Through a Targeted Advocacy Grant from HFHI, Rockford Habitat was able to engage a local planning agency to assess the broader potential impact and found that this issue could affect over 200,000 low/moderate-income homeowners across Illinois.

In response, Rockford Habitat worked with State Rep. Maurice West, State Senator Steve Stadelman, and key stakeholders to develop the Residential Affordability in Flood-Threatened Areas (RAFT) legislation. RAFT would create a property tax exemption to help offset increased insurance costs for income-qualified homeowners whose homes were not originally in flood zones but have been remapped into a Special Flood Hazard Area. While the House and Senate bills did not pass in the 2024 state legislative session, Habitat will advocate for reintroduction.