# The Doors I Knocked: What SB 16 Taught Me About Organizing, Democracy, and Listening

Nearly fifteen years ago, I set out on assignment to lobbby for housing bill down in Springfield, Illinois’ capital.

I was young, idealistic, and convinced that government could still be a place where ordinary people changed lives.

I still believe that.

One of the bills I had the privilege to work on was SB 16 of the 97th General Assembly, legislation that became part of Illinois’ response to the foreclosure crisis. Looking back, it remains one of the accomplishments I am proudest of—not because my name appears anywhere on it, but because I know the people whose lives it helped protect.

By then, the foreclosure crisis had become national news. Most of the conversation centered on homeowners, and rightly so. Families were losing everything they had worked for.

But as a community organizer, I kept meeting another group of people whose stories rarely made the headlines: renters.

These were families who had paid every month’s rent on time, only to discover that their landlord had quietly stopped paying the mortgage months earlier.

They had done everything right.

Yet they were the ones facing uncertainty, intimidation, and, too often, unlawful attempts to force them from their homes.

That is where organizing begins.

Not in committee rooms.

Not behind a desk.

At someone’s front door.

My turf was North Lawndale on Chicago’s West Side and Englewood on the South Side. Those two neighborhoods represented some of the most extensive foreclosure damage imaginable.

You could stand on a block and see house after house boarded up with plywood covering the windows and doors.

Sometimes there wasn’t even a boarded-up house anymore.

There was just grass.

A patch of grass.

A house used to stand there.

A family used to live there.

Children used to play there.

There used to be a neighborhood here.

Entire blocks had been systematically hollowed out.

Walking those streets, it was impossible not to think about Chicago’s long history of housing inequality. Just as redlining had left deep scars on these neighborhoods decades earlier, the foreclosure crisis fell disproportionately on many of the same communities. The damage wasn’t simply financial. It fractured neighborhoods, displaced families, and weakened communities that had already endured decades of disinvestment.

For years, I spent my days walking through apartment buildings entering foreclosure, knocking on every door I could, carrying flyers explaining tenants’ rights under Illinois law. We talked with families about what foreclosure actually meant, what protections they still had, and what to do if someone attempted to pressure them into leaving.

Some days we reached families before fear did.

Other days I came back to buildings that had already emptied out.

Fear had moved faster than the truth.

The conversations were remarkably similar.

“I didn’t even know.”

I heard those words over and over again.

People didn’t know their landlord had stopped paying the mortgage months earlier.

They didn’t know the building was already in foreclosure.

They didn’t know they still had rights.

Meanwhile, many landlords had already accepted the foreclosure loss, walked away from the property, and in some cases even moved to another state. Yet tenants continued faithfully paying rent because they believed everything was normal.

That wasn’t just confusing.

It was profoundly unfair.

One lesson every organizer eventually learns is that information is power—but only if it reaches people before misinformation does.

People often picture political organizing as speeches, campaign rallies, television ads, or strategy sessions.

In reality, organizing is far less glamorous.

It is listening.

It is earning enough trust that someone you’ve never met will tell you what is really happening inside their home.

It is hearing the same story enough times to realize it is no longer an isolated incident.

It is a policy problem.

One afternoon still stays with me.

A family’s electricity had suddenly “gone out.”

Nobody needed to explain what was happening.

A group of us walked directly into the responsible agent’s office and made one thing perfectly clear: restore safe and lawful living conditions immediately, or prepare to answer for every violation, every fine, and every legal consequence that followed.

No family should ever be forced from their home through intimidation.

Not in Illinois.

Not anywhere.

Those conversations followed me everywhere—including Springfield.

I found myself sitting in rooms inside the Illinois State Capitol with long conference tables and expensive chairs, where the real work of legislating and lobbying took place. Around those tables sat legislators, attorneys, housing advocates, agency officials, and stakeholders trying to solve an extraordinarily complicated problem.

One thing became clear.

The legislators wanted consistency.

They wanted to know exactly what was happening on the ground.

One point we repeatedly raised was this: in many of the situations we were witnessing, the largest national banks were not necessarily the ones engaging in the day-to-day conduct affecting tenants. More often, the problems arose from smaller firms, servicing companies, property managers, or others involved in the foreclosure process who attempted to cut corners, operated in legal gray areas, or pressured tenants who simply didn’t know their rights.

That distinction mattered.

Good legislation depends on accurately identifying the problem before trying to solve it.

The stories collected from apartment hallways and front porches became part of those conversations.

Those stories helped shape a solution.

That solution became SB 16.

No meaningful legislation is ever the work of one person.

I want to recognize Senator Jacqueline Y. Collins, who sponsored SB 16 and championed the legislation through the Illinois General Assembly. Senator Collins understood that the foreclosure crisis wasn’t just about vacant properties—it was about protecting people and preserving communities.

The legislation also reflected the work of many dedicated public servants and advocates. The Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA), Governor Pat Quinn’s administration, housing counselors, local governments, banking stakeholders, and community organizations all helped shape Illinois’ response to one of the greatest housing crises in our state’s history.

Organizations including Woodstock Institute, Housing Action Illinois, The Resurrection Project, Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago (NHS Chicago), and the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights spent countless hours conducting research, counseling families, advocating for reform, providing legal assistance, and ensuring that the voices of affected communities were heard. Their work made better legislation possible, and families across Illinois benefited because they refused to give up.

I was fortunate to witness those conversations up close.

More importantly, I was fortunate to contribute in the way community organizers often do—by bringing the experiences of ordinary people into rooms where public decisions were being made.

What I carried into Springfield was not a binder full of statistics.

It was stories.

Stories gathered from apartment hallways.

Stories shared around kitchen tables.

Stories from parents worried their children would have to change schools.

Stories from seniors who had faithfully paid rent for years but suddenly feared losing their homes because of someone else’s financial decisions.

Every foreclosure file represented a family.

Every address represented a neighborhood.

Every apartment represented someone’s home.

No spreadsheet can fully capture that.

Looking back, I remember very little about committee schedules or late nights in Springfield.

What I remember are the apartment doors.

I remember the conversations.

I remember the relief on people’s faces when they realized they had rights they did not know existed.

Those moments permanently changed how I think about public service.

Whether serving on Local School Councils, working in neighborhood organizations, building civic technology through Activate, or participating in political campaigns, the lesson has remained the same.

Start by listening.

Go where people are.

Ask questions before offering answers.

Collect stories before proposing solutions.

Then carry those stories into the rooms where decisions are made.

That, to me, is democracy at its best.

Not simply passing legislation.

Not simply winning elections.

But ensuring that the people living through a problem have a voice in creating the solution.

We should never have to fight for rights the law already guarantees.

But when we do, we owe it to one another to stand together until justice catches up.

SB 16 reminded me that meaningful public policy is built one conversation at a time, one neighborhood at a time, and one door at a time.

I remain grateful that, for a chapter of my life, I had the opportunity to knock on those doors, carry those stories to Springfield, and play a small part in an effort that helped protect Illinois renters during one of the most difficult periods in our state’s history.

That experience continues to shape how I think about leadership, organizing, and democracy today.

Yours in the effort,

Daniel Steven Kleinman