Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School honored five sisters who took what they learned during their four years at the school and launched successful careers in a variety of fields. During the school’s Celebration Gala on Feb. 1, the Gainer sisters were presented with the Catherine McAuley Leadership Award. Bridget Gainer ’86, Nora Gainer ’88, Maureen Gainer Reilly ’93, Mary Gainer MD ’96 and Sheila Gainer ’99 grew up in Beverly and attended St. Barnabas Elementary School before enrolling at Mother McAuley.

Just ahead of a new year’s deadline before a statewide law takes effect, the Cook County Board on Thursday unanimously approved a new paid leave mandate that applies to all suburban municipalities.

The changes replicate and slightly expand on the Jan. 1 state law, which will require most employers to provide up to 40 hours of paid leave per year. Statewide, time off will be accrued one hour at a time for every 40 hours worked, or employers could front-load that time off. Those standards would be enshrined at Cook County businesses starting in 2024 whether or not the County Board took any action.

“Vacancy becomes a disease, and it’s contagious,” said Bridget Gainer, a Cook County Commissioner and chair of the Cook County Land Bank Authority. The land bank has helped put around 865 vacant lots and more than 1,100 abandoned buildings back on tax rolls since it formed in 2013, a goal pursued by other cities.

Today, the Cook County Land Bank Authority has generated significant community wealth. And because more than 90% of properties sold by the Land Bank are for homeownership, that money remains in the community. With nearly 1,700 homes redeveloped and twice that number in the pipeline, the impact is real. The Land Bank didn’t make this happen on its own; its mission of reclaiming the land’s potential is shared by residents, community organizations, civic leaders, elected officials, artists, activists and more.

An astounding 30,000 Cook County properties await scavenger sale. The Cook County Land Bank has had success in recent years using its government powers to acquire tax-delinquent buildings in depressed areas and linking them up with new owners. But Land Bank Chairperson Bridget Gainer, a Cook County commissioner, said buildings usually sit vacant for seven to 10 years before the agency can acquire control. Gainer said the legislation, if signed by Pritzker, can shorten the time by half.

During the hearing, Gainer noted that the company “returns back to the same court system to then collect money when people can’t pay for SCRAM,” adding that this has turned the publicly funded court system into a tool for private profit. “It’s not right. We have to be mindful that private profit has no place (in the criminal justice system),” she said.

Following the hearing, Gainer introduced a resolution calling for a full audit of CAM Systems’ finances pertaining to its Cook County clients and an independent study of the efficacy of SCRAM. The criminal justice committee and full county board will vote next month on whether to approve the audit.

We are in a time when employers and government are investing in the financial and workplace resilience of people in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is imperative that the criminal justice system mandates solutions that keep people safe and address and rehabilitate the root causes of issues such as addiction. However, creating private profit is not the job of the court system.

Cook County Board Commissioner Bridget Gainer, Cook County Land Bank Authority Executive Director Eleanor Gorski, Commissioner of the City of Chicago Department of Housing Marisa Novara and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and West Woodlawn Pointe developers are about to break ground during the launch of the Buy Back the Block initiative at 6314 S. Evans Ave. in the West Woodlawn neighborhood Tuesday morning. Through the Cook County Land Bank Authority, five developers bought 11 vacant lots on the 6300 block of South Evans Avenue to build West Woodlawn Pointe, which will consist of 11 three-flat residential buildings.

Commissioner Gainer tells us about the work of the Cook County Land Bank Authority, which addresses the large inventory of vacant residential, industrial and commercial property in Cook County. Bridget and David want to raise awareness of the work that the CCLBA does and how people can take advantage of the program to build homes.

Nearly 1,000 people gathered at this year’s Scavenger Sale auction, aiming to nab one of the more than 30,000 local properties up for sale. The sale is the first step in a complicated process of trying to take over a tax-delinquent property so it can be restored, benefitting its community while returning it to the tax rolls. But many of the lots that go up are snapped up by hedge funds and large institutional buyers, or they stay unused for years, if not decades, while going through the sale again and again.

But Land Bank Chairwoman and Cook County Commissioner Bridget Gainer says the Illinois Constitution and the property tax system has made it almost impossible to redevelop property, and the Land Bank steps in to be a consistent pipeline of property for small developers.

“People can plan a business knowing that there’s going to be a consistent pipeline of this property,” Gainer said. “If I’m a developer, I can say, ‘OK, I know that I can get five houses every year from the Land Bank, because I know that they’re filling this pipeline. The Land Bank will still be a very active buyer in the scavenger sale because we have been the most effective mechanism to get property out of the scavenger sale into development and paying taxes than anyone else in the last 20 years.”