Batavia Township GOP former chair McNaul on Pritzker housing proposal: ‘Stand up for our own homeowners’

Rose McNaul, former chair of the Batavia Township Republican Central Committee, said Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s push to expand subsidized housing across Illinois puts developers and state mandates ahead of the hardworking homeowners and taxpayers who make communities like Batavia work.

“Section 8 is available to U.S. citizens and eligible non-citizens such as permanent legal residents, green card holders, refugees, and asylees,” McNaul told the Kane County Reporter. “HUD Secretary Scott Turner just announced a new proposed rule, finally putting American citizens first. Batavia has a choice: we can either keep funneling our local tax dollars into developer subsidies and state mandates, or we can stand up for our own homeowners.”

Pritzker’s proposal would require Illinois communities to make virtually every residential lot available for unlimited taxpayer-subsidized Section 8 and low-income apartment buildings, overriding zoning protections that local residents have long relied on to shape their neighborhoods. 

The plan would also inject an additional $100 million in taxpayer funding into the Illinois Housing Development Authority for subsidized apartment construction, require communities to accept state-placed residents with serious mental illness, and shift zoning authority away from local governments and into the hands of Springfield. 

While the governor’s allies frame the effort as progress, those who oppose it call it a “Chicago-style” move to bulldoze suburban self-governance and force a state-driven housing agenda onto communities that never asked for it.

McNaul said every taxpayer-funded unit in Batavia must be reserved for those who are here legally and who respect the laws of the community.

“Every taxpayer-funded unit at the riverfront must be reserved for legal citizens who follow our laws,” she said. “Ensuring that the hardworking families of this community are never again pushed to the back of the line by government-subsidized programs that bypass our local vision.”

The concerns around who qualifies for subsidized housing programs are not new. Recent federal HUD audits uncovered billions of dollars in housing assistance paid to ineligible recipients, including deceased individuals and non-citizens.

Under existing federal rules, mixed-status households that include illegal immigrants remain eligible for subsidized housing benefits, a policy that has drawn growing scrutiny from housing reformers and local officials alike, according to the New York Post.

Illinois homeowners already shoulder the highest property tax burden in the nation, and those who oppose the plan contend it is less about housing affordability than about imposing a taxpayer-funded ideological agenda from the top down on communities that have no say in the matter. 

The Heritage Foundation has long cautioned that funneling federally subsidized housing into areas not built to handle it drives up costs for local taxpayers and brings the strains of urban housing markets into communities that were never intended to absorb them.

McNaul said she has little confidence that local Democratic leadership will prioritize the interests of Batavia residents over broader political agendas.

“I certainly don’t trust a Democrat majority mayor’s office and council to be working for the betterment of the people,” she said. “We can’t get businesses invested downtown. The Tri-Cities slowly becoming Aurora helps no one.”

The proposal has also drawn attention to the developers positioned to benefit from expanded subsidized housing. Full Circle Communities, which acquired land from the Village of Glen Ellyn for a subsidized housing project on Roosevelt Road, has centered its programming on “health equity,” “racial equity” and “trauma-informed services,” with a particular focus on LGBT youth and young adults of color. 

That project has the active backing of U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., a self-described democratic socialist and Squad member who has made expanding Section 8 and public housing into suburban communities a central part of her agenda. Ramirez represents Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District, which covers several suburban areas.

Some observers point to New York City as a cautionary example of where aggressive state and municipal housing intervention can lead. Cea Weaver, appointed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani to head the city’s Office to Protect Tenants, has declared private property a “weapon of white supremacy” and called for transferring control of buildings away from their owners. 

In the wake of that appointment, New York City has moved to impose sharp property tax increases, freeze rents, and give certain nonprofits priority purchase rights over private residential buildings, moves that critics say threaten to drive small property owners into foreclosure or bankruptcy.

Those opposed to the measure contend that pressing forward with Pritzker’s plan would give the state unchecked power over local zoning, putting property values at risk and eroding the neighborhood stability that residents of suburbs and small towns across Illinois have worked hard to build.

McNaul is the former chair of the Batavia Township Republican Central Committee and a Kane County resident. A film producer with 15 years of experience, formerly based in Los Angeles, she ran for the Batavia 101 School Board and received more than 2,000 votes.