Taxing property owners whose rentals sit empty for most of the year and using the money to build housing on vacant land could be part of the solution to Chicago’s affordable housing crisis.

That’s what three University of Chicago undergraduate students argued, during the inaugural Kreisman Initiative Housing Challenge Symposium . The team was chosen as the first-ever winners of the symposium, which the university plans to continue as a thought-exercise for housing-related issues.

While their proposal would only make a small dent in addressing the city’s affordable rental crisis, , it’d be a welcome change from the city’s “status quo” that’s preventing more housing from being built, the students said. And the team — who won the challenge last month — found other cities have implemented si

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