The first efforts to legalize homebased business in Chicago
began in late 1982 and were primarily spurred by public officials,
remembers Coralee Kern, president of the National Association for
the Cottage Industry. "We wrote and rewrote the zoning
ordinances and sent away to other cities to find out what they were
doing, but nobody really paid attention to us," says Kern.
"It also started out as an issue with the Chicago Advisory
Council on Women [established by then-Mayor Harold
Washington]," explains Hedy Ratner, Executive director of the
Women's Business Development Center. "At that time, zoning
regulations in Chicago did not allow homebased business, so women
[who made up most homebased business owners] were functioning
illegally. This meant they could not get business loans,
couldn't get certified as woman-owned businesses and
couldn't get licenses."
They also couldn't get city contracts, grants or credit card
merchant status, and were simply not taken seriously, adds Ida
Bialik, owner and publisher of the Women In Business Yellow
Pages and another early advocate of legalization.
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Despite the commission's efforts, Ratner says, they spent
years going back and forth between the city administration and the
Chicago aldermen trying to get someone to introduce the
legislation. No one would.
"It was a classic land use issue," says Chicago zoning
administrator Paul Woznicki. "People's biggest investment
is their homes, and they want to maintain the integrity of the
residential area."
In addition, Bialik says, unions-most notably the International
Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Amalgamated Clothing and
Textile Workers Union-were concerned that legalizing homebased
businesses would enable unscrupulous employers to create abusive,
"sweatshop" work environments.
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