The Chicago Neighborhoods Where Landlords Get Cited for No Heat Most Often (2026 Ranking)

Chicago’s heat ordinance requires landlords to keep rental units at 68 degrees during the day and 66 degrees at night from September 15 to June 1. When a tenant complains and an inspector confirms the building is too cold, the city records a violation under Municipal Code 13-196-410 (or 13-196-400 for some ‘heat habitable room’ citations).

We analyzed every one of those violations, 13,679 records dating back to January 2006, and mapped the 2,032 issued over the last five heating seasons (September 15, 2021 to June 1, 2026) to the city’s 77 community areas. We then compared each neighborhood’s total to its number of renter households, so a large neighborhood with many rentals is not penalized simply for its size.

The result is the first neighborhood-by-neighborhood ranking of where Chicago’s no-heat enforcement actually lands. The gap is wide: a renter in Chatham lives in a neighborhood cited 27 times as often, per household, as a renter in the Near North Side.

Key findings

Chatham has the highest rate of no-heat citations in Chicago: 12.08 per 1,000 renter households over five heating seasons, nearly four times the citywide rate of 3.25.
South Shore alone accounts for 1 in 9 no-heat citations in the city. Its 227 citations are more than double any other neighborhood, and its 72 citations in the 2024-25 season were the most any community area recorded in a single winter in the study period.
The top 10 neighborhoods are all on the South and West Sides and together account for 41% of all citations, despite holding just 13% of Chicago’s renter households.
January is no-heat month. 38% of the last five seasons’ citations were issued in January, and 61% fell in December and January combined. October through January covers 83%.
The 2024-25 winter produced the most citations of any season in the study period: 477, up 26% from 2021-22.
332 buildings were cited at least twice in five seasons, and those repeat buildings account for 37% of all citations. Three buildings were cited six times each.
The Near North Side, with 44,000 renter households (the most in the city), recorded just 20 citations, a rate of 0.45 per 1,000. Edison Park recorded none.

Full ranking: all 77 community areas

Citations are heat violations (codes CN132016 and CN132026) issued September 15, 2021 through June 1, 2026. Renter households are U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2020-2024 estimates via CMAP. The last two columns show citations in the first and most recent season of the study window.

Rank	Community area	Citations (5 seasons)	Renter households	Citations per 1,000 renter HH	Citations by season
Rank	Community area	Citations (5 seasons)	Renter households	Citations per 1,000 renter HH	2021-22	2025-26
1	Chatham	110	9,103	12.08	21	22
2	South Shore	227	19,648	11.55	38	30
3	Englewood	72	6,432	11.19	12	9
4	Auburn Gresham	96	8,718	11.01	23	20
5	West Englewood	51	4,734	10.77	6	14
6	Greater Grand Crossing	85	8,187	10.38	16	17
7	West Pullman	35	3,617	9.68	13	1
8	West Garfield Park	33	4,033	8.18	3	7
9	South Chicago	51	6,248	8.16	14	8
10	Chicago Lawn	67	8,224	8.15	18	15
11	Roseland	50	6,363	7.86	11	7
12	Beverly	9	1,146	7.85	2	0
13	Washington Park	34	4,630	7.34	6	9
14	Woodlawn	57	7,940	7.18	13	7
15	North Lawndale	63	9,030	6.98	6	15
16	Washington Heights	16	2,555	6.26	4	6
17	Morgan Park	13	2,430	5.35	1	5
18	Fuller Park	4	751	5.32	0	0
19	Kenwood	33	6,198	5.32	4	5
20	Austin	107	20,466	5.23	22	28
21	McKinley Park	8	1,697	4.71	1	2
22	Oakland	11	2,404	4.58	2	1
23	South Deering	11	2,480	4.44	3	3
24	Hyde Park	43	9,845	4.37	2	9
25	Calumet Heights	7	1,610	4.35	2	1
26	East Garfield Park	23	5,349	4.30	1	8
27	Grand Boulevard	36	8,441	4.26	3	8
28	Burnside	2	485	4.12	0	0
29	Ashburn	8	2,047	3.91	2	0
30	New City	30	8,394	3.57	11	3
31	Clearing	8	2,405	3.33	3	1
32	Douglas	27	8,385	3.22	0	9
33	West Ridge	41	13,137	3.12	7	9
34	Pullman	4	1,318	3.03	1	2
35	Avalon Park	4	1,324	3.02	1	1
36	Dunning	10	3,326	3.01	3	1
37	Belmont Cragin	31	10,766	2.88	4	5
38	Avondale	23	8,425	2.73	4	2
39	West Lawn	6	2,262	2.65	1	1
40	Mount Greenwood	3	1,139	2.63	0	1
41	Archer Heights	4	1,606	2.49	0	1
42	Riverdale	6	2,548	2.35	0	0
43	Edgewater	44	19,089	2.31	13	5
44	Montclare	5	2,213	2.26	0	0
45	South Lawndale	25	11,127	2.25	9	5
46	Albany Park	22	9,811	2.24	3	5
47	Rogers Park	41	18,814	2.18	9	9
48	Portage Park	17	9,267	1.83	1	6
49	North Park	6	3,542	1.69	2	1
50	Brighton Park	10	5,919	1.69	3	1
51	Jefferson Park	6	3,704	1.62	0	3
52	Lincoln Square	19	11,779	1.61	3	5
53	Gage Park	7	4,393	1.59	2	3
54	East Side	4	2,587	1.55	0	1
55	Humboldt Park	17	11,369	1.50	3	5
56	Logan Square	30	20,255	1.48	1	1
57	Bridgeport	10	7,007	1.43	1	2
58	Norwood Park	4	2,930	1.37	2	0
59	Irving Park	14	10,816	1.29	5	1
60	Hermosa	5	3,879	1.29	1	1
61	Uptown	29	23,263	1.25	6	4
62	Lincoln Park	23	18,655	1.23	4	4
63	Forest Glen	1	845	1.18	0	0
64	Lake View	43	36,478	1.18	12	8
65	North Center	7	6,413	1.09	2	0
66	Near South Side	8	8,587	0.93	0	4
67	Hegewisch	1	1,201	0.83	0	0
68	O'Hare	3	3,885	0.77	0	2
69	Near West Side	18	23,774	0.76	2	7
70	West Elsdon	1	1,580	0.63	0	0
71	West Town	16	25,438	0.63	6	1
72	Loop	10	16,913	0.59	1	5
73	Lower West Side	5	10,006	0.50	0	3
74	Garfield Ridge	1	2,109	0.47	0	0
75	Near North Side	20	44,142	0.45	4	7
76	Armour Square	1	3,582	0.28	1	0
77	Edison Park	0	880	0.00	0	0

Notable findings

Chatham : the highest rate in the city

Chatham recorded 110 citations against roughly 9,100 renter households, a rate of 12.08 per 1,000. Its count has barely moved in five years (21, 21, 25, 21 and 22 citations per season), which points to a persistent stock of buildings that fail every winter rather than a single bad year. Chatham’s rate is 3.7 times the citywide figure and more than 10 times that of Lake View, the North Side neighborhood with the most renters after the Near North Side.

South Shore: the largest raw count, and a record 2024-25 winter

South Shore ranks second by rate (11.55) but first by volume. Its 227 citations are 11% of the city total. The 2024-25 season was its worst: 72 citations, nearly double the 38 recorded in 2021-22 and the highest single-season count for any community area in the study window. Two South Shore buildings, 6700 S Oglesby Ave and 7219 S Yates Blvd, were each cited five or more times. Over the full 2006-2026 dataset South Shore leads the city with 1,120 citations.

The South and West Side concentration

Every one of the 10 highest-rate neighborhoods is on the South or West Side: Chatham, South Shore, Englewood, Auburn Gresham, West Englewood, Greater Grand Crossing, West Pullman, West Garfield Park, South Chicago and Chicago Lawn. Together they recorded 827 citations, 41% of the city total. The 20 highest-rate neighborhoods account for 60%. At the other end, 12 community areas recorded fewer than 1 citation per 1,000 renter households. That list includes the Loop, West Town, the Near West Side and the Near North Side, which together hold more than 110,000 renter households but recorded 64 citations in five winters.

January: when the complaints land

Of the 2,032 citations in the study window, 770 were issued in January, 464 in December, 278 in November and 168 in October. February drops to 187 and March to 83. The pattern holds across the full 20-year dataset, where January accounts for 24% of all citations. The first sustained stretch of sub-freezing nights, not the September 15 ordinance start, is what drives enforcement.

Repeat buildings

1,605 distinct addresses were cited in the five-season window. 332 of them, one in five, were cited more than once, and those repeat addresses generated 759 citations, 37% of the total. The buildings cited most often:

#	Address	Community area	Citations (5 seasons)
1	8045 S Carpenter St	Auburn Gresham	6
2	8519 S Paulina St	Auburn Gresham	6
3	6700 S Oglesby Ave	South Shore	6
4	4180 N Marine Dr	Uptown	5
5	7906 S Wabash Ave	Chatham	5
6	709 W 71st St	Englewood	5
7	5110 S Kenwood Ave	Hyde Park	5
8	7219 S Yates Blvd	South Shore	5
9	7039 S Wentworth Ave	Greater Grand Crossing	4
10	6110 S Vernon Ave	Woodlawn	4

The long view: enforcement is a third of what it was

Chicago issued 1,507 no-heat citations in 2006 and 1,729 in 2007. The annual count fell below 1,000 by 2010 and has averaged 414 a year from 2021 through 2025, about a third of the 2006-2010 average of 1,139. The 2020 count (253) was the lowest in the dataset. Whether the decline reflects better-maintained buildings, fewer complaints, or fewer inspections is not something the violation data alone can answer.

Citations by heating season, 2021-22 to 2025-26

Season	Citations
2021-22	380
2022-23	359
2023-24	418
2024-25	477
2025-26	392

Citations by month, five-season total

Month	Citations	Share
October	168	8.3%
November	278	13.7%
December	464	22.8%
January	770	37.9%
February	187	9.2%
March	83	4.1%
April	52	2.6%
May	17	0.8%
June to September	13	0.6%

Expert commentary

“Most of the no-heat calls we take in January are not mysteries. They are furnaces that limped through November and December with a dirty flame sensor, a cracked igniter or a failing inducer motor, and then quit on the first night the temperature stays below 15 degrees. A fall inspection catches almost all of those for a fraction of what an emergency call costs,” said a spokesperson for Premier Comfort Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc., which services furnaces and boilers across the Chicago area.

“For landlords, the pattern in this data is the useful part. If a building gets cited once, it will very likely be cited again unless the equipment is replaced or put on a maintenance schedule. One in five cited buildings in the last five winters was cited more than once.”

About Premier Comfort Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc.

Premier Comfort Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc. is a family-owned HVAC company based in Elgin, Illinois, with a second location in Streamwood, providing furnace, boiler, air conditioning, heat pump and indoor air quality service to homes and light commercial buildings across the greater Chicago area. https://premierheatac.com/

Methodology

This study combines three public datasets.

City of Chicago Building Violations. Publisher: City of Chicago Department of Buildings, via the Chicago Data Portal (dataset ID 22u3-xenr). Link: https://data.cityofchicago.org/Buildings/Building-Violations/22u3-xenr. Timeframe: January 2, 2006 to May 19, 2026 (the latest record at retrieval). Fields used: id, violation_date, violation_code, violation_description, violation_status, address, latitude, longitude. Filter: violation_code equal to CN132016 (“Heat unit adequately”, 13,510 records) or CN132026 (“Heat habitable room”, 169 records). CN132016 cites Municipal Code 13-196-410; CN132026 cites Municipal Code 13-196-400. Retrieved September 23, 2026.
City of Chicago Community Area Boundaries. Publisher: City of Chicago, via the Chicago Data Portal (dataset ID cauq-8yn6). Link: https://data.cityofchicago.org/Facilities-Geographic-Boundaries/Boundaries-Community-Areas/cauq-8yn6. 77 polygons with area number and name. Retrieved September 23, 2026.
CMAP Community Data Snapshots 2026, Chicago Community Areas table. Publisher: Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. Link: https://datahub.cmap.illinois.gov/maps/97e9fe4ef14c42da9d26e6fc31bee5e0. Underlying source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year estimates, aggregated by CMAP from census tracts to community areas. Fields used: GEOID, GEOG, TOT_HH (total households), RENT_OCC_HU (renter-occupied housing units). Retrieved September 23, 2026.
How the sources were combined. Each violation was assigned to a community area by testing its latitude and longitude against the official boundary polygons (point-in-polygon). Four of 13,679 records have no coordinates and were excluded from the neighborhood ranking; they remain in the citywide year and month totals. Violations were then counted per community area for the study window of September 15, 2021 through June 1, 2026, which covers the five most recent complete heating seasons under the ordinance. Each count was divided by the community area’s renter-occupied households and multiplied by 1,000. Community areas were ranked by that rate, highest first. Renter households were chosen as the denominator because the ordinance governs heat supplied by landlords to tenants.
Season and month definitions. A citation dated September 15 or later is assigned to the heating season beginning that year; a citation dated June 1 or earlier is assigned to the season that began the previous year. Citations dated June 2 to September 14 (49 in the full dataset, 6 in the study window) are counted in totals but not assigned to a season. Months are calendar months.
Repeat buildings. Counted by exact address string as recorded by the city, within the study window.
Limitations. Violation records measure enforcement outcomes, not every cold apartment. A neighborhood with few citations may have fewer heating failures, fewer complaints, or both. Renter household figures are survey estimates with sampling error that is larger in small community areas; ranks for areas with fewer than 1,000 renter households (Fuller Park, Burnside, Forest Glen, Edison Park) should be read with that in mind. The 2025-26 season ended June 1, 2026, but the city may add late entries after our retrieval date.

Full methodology, raw data, and analysis available on request.