SPRINGFIELD — Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday announced $156 million for housing to tackle a shortage his own office pegs at about 142,000 homes, and, as your man at the statehouse, I am pleased to report that the press release has already been built and is move-in ready.

Let me walk you through the floor plan, because Stan reads the whole release so you don't have to.

Of the $156 million, $103 million is new money in the state budget, according to the governor's office and reporting by WAND and Fox Illinois. The rest is existing Illinois Housing Development Authority money, which in Springfield counts as "new" if you announce it in a fresh font.

The headline program, Opening Doors, gets $25 million and gives buyers $9,000 in down payment or closing cost help, forgiven after five years. It's expected to help about 3,000 people. That is a real number and a real check, and I'm happy for those 3,000 folks. I'd just note that the median Illinois home price is up almost 8 percent from last year, per Illinois Realtors, which means $9,000 is a lovely down payment on the increase.

Then there's Permanent Supportive Housing: a $50 million funding round for 187 units. I did the math on a napkin at the Capitol cafeteria, and it comes out to about $267,000 a unit. That's before anybody's built anything. In parts of downstate, $267,000 buys you a house, a pole barn, and a riding mower with a cup holder.

SmartBuy, another $25 million, will pay off up to $40,000 in student loans for people buying a home. It's projected to help more than 550 buyers, and it launches in spring 2027. So if you're young, in debt and house hunting, hang in there. Help is coming, right after the next election, and the one after that.

Now the numbers that matter. The state says Illinois needs more than 225,000 new homes over five years. The flagship programs in this announcement reach, by the governor's own estimates, a few thousand households, plus 187 supportive units, plus whatever the starter-home pilot produces. That's not closing a gap. That's waving at it from the car.

And then, buried at the bottom of the governor's own quote, the confession. "Public investment alone cannot produce all the housing Illinois needs," Pritzker said. "Looking forward, we must also confront the regulations that make it harder and more expensive to build housing."

Governor. Sir. You've been in charge since 2019. Your party has run the General Assembly the whole time. Those regulations didn't sneak in through a basement window. They were passed, signed and printed on the very letterhead this press release came on. Saying "we must confront the regulations" in Illinois is like a guy standing in his own driveway vowing to confront whoever parked that car there. It's your car. You have the keys.

ABC7 Chicago reports the broader BUILD package, which would ease approvals for duplexes, triplexes and granny flats, is expected to face opposition. Fair enough. Springfield has never met a granny flat it couldn't zone into a committee hearing.

So here's the Stan scorecard. Money announced: $156 million. Homes needed: 225,000. Regulations blamed: yes. Regulators named: none. Press releases built: one, on time and under budget, which in Illinois makes it the most successful housing project of the year.

The Demorat is a satire publication. This article is a comedy roast built on real reported events; jokes, exaggerations and fictional characters are not real news.

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