On Thursday, October 16th, JCUA Community Organizer Jimmy Rothschild gave public comment before Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget address to City Council. As a member of the People’s Unity Platform, JCUA is advocating for a suite of progressive revenue solutions to fund public goods and services like housing, schools, and childcare. Jimmy’s testimony is below:

My name is Jimmy Rothschild. I live in the 33rd Ward and I work as a community organizer with the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs.

Every day in my work I see that people are struggling — to stay housed, to make ends meet, to get the health care they need. These struggles are only getting worse with Trump’s cuts to funding and his violent occupation of the city by ICE.

I come from a family of refugees and immigrants who fled persecution and genocide to come to the greatest city in the world. I’m now raising my daughter as the sixth generation in my family to call this city home. In that city nobody should be struggling to find a place to live in their neighborhood, to put food on the table, or to send their kids to daycare. No one should be afraid to leave their homes because a fascist militia is terrorizing their neighborhood.

What our elected officials should do now is invest in mental health, invest in public safety, invest in housing, invest in childcare. Expand the investments we have already made. Currently Chicago’s mental health first response teams only operate only in some wards and only during business hours. We know that people have mental health crises at night, too. We need more investment in affordable housing to stem the flow of displacement, so people in every neighborhood can thrive.

And there are common sense ways we can get the money we need to achieve these goals.

First, reinstate the Corporate Head Tax, so major corporations are paying their fair share once again. At $40/employee, which would be in line with an inflation-adjusted rate from when the original tax was implemented, we could bring in nearly half a billion dollars.

Next, implement a Data Mining Tax, so if Big Tech corporations are going to use our data to enrich themselves, they have to pay us for it.

Also, let’s make sure we’re getting money back in the corporate fund from expiring and surplus TIFs. These funds have been siphoning millions of dollars from public institutions like schools and libraries for too long.

Finally, we can eliminate the thousand vacant police positions in the budget. Instead of paying for ghost positions that do nothing to keep our neighbors safe, we can invest that money in enduring solutions for safety.

Together these measures could bring a billion dollars back to our communities.

JCUA and our coalition partners believe that a city budget is a moral document. We have a historic opportunity to create a budget that finally reflects our values and allows everyone in our city to live with dignity and freedom. We urge the City Council to take this opportunity.