CHICAGO COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS

As a systemic advocacy nonprofit, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless leads campaigns to address the causes of homelessness, including lack of affordable housing, fair wage jobs, health care access, and equal opportunity for systemically marginalized communities. We combine organizing, policy advocacy, and legal aid to build power and make change.

Our goals include:

--Through community organizing, provide opportunities for people with lived experience of homelessness to understand and advocate on the issues that impact their lives
--Through community outreach, educate individuals and families on their rights and options and connect legal aid to those who need it
--Preserve core services, such as public schooling, emergency shelter and housing resources, and increase access to human services
--Promote development and preservation of affordable housing and services for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness

Community organizers develop grassroots leaders who have experienced homelessness to guide CCH advocacy: They help decide strategy, speak to the media and government officials, and serve on leadership committees. Our policy team leverages the expertise of people with lived experience to drive local and statewide initiatives that support those impacted by poverty. The Law Project provides free legal aid to people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Together, we champion affordable housing and protect access to schools, health care, and human services.

Through outreach at shelters, schools, and on the street, CCH’s community organizers and legal aid attorneys educate people experiencing homelessness on their rights and options and engage those interested in advocacy. Our Bring Chicago Home campaign advocates for a dedicated revenue stream to create housing and services for people experiencing homelessness. A Speakers Bureau reaches about 2,000 people annually. The Reentry Project addresses housing and job barriers for people impacted by the criminal justice system. The State Network advocates for equitable budgeting and improvements to statewide housing programs and policies. CCH works to implement an annual legislative agenda that advances statewide policy solutions for housing, education, public benefits, and other issues relevant to people impacted by poverty.

The Homeless Youth Committee mobilizes 30+ organizational partners, young people, and advocates to address the unique challenges of unaccompanied youth. A CPS Focus Group works to increase resources and improve services for students who attend Chicago Public Schools. Our creative writing program, Horizons, is offered on-site in shelters. CCH’s legal aid program, the Law Project, runs Youth Futures, a mobile clinic for youth ages 14 – 24. CCH manages Streetlight Chicago, a free app and website with resources for unstably housed young people. A college scholarship program provides renewable awards of $4,000 to students who have been homeless. A Mutual Aid Fund provides $500 cash grants to Illinoisans experiencing or at risk of homelessness. CCH conducts an annual homeless estimate using a methodology that includes people temporarily staying with others due to economic hardship. CCH also co-leads a Homelessness Data Project which advocates for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to amend its definition of homelessness to include people living doubled-up to determine eligibility for services, in alignment with nine other federal agencies.

CCH was organized in 1980 by social service providers who saw impoverished Chicagoans increasingly living on the street, in part due to the rapid loss of single-room occupancy (SRO) housing. Now in its 43rd year, CCH remains the only nonprofit in Illinois solely dedicated to advocating with and for people impacted by homelessness.

Our track record of organizing and shared advocacy is an effective one. In response to the 1983 murder of an unsheltered youth in Uptown, CCH launched its Youth Committee, now a network of 38 homeless youth service providers across Illinois. The committee’s No Youth Alone campaign helped secure funding in 1989 for the first five shelters serving homeless youth in the state. Over the years, we’ve led many wins for affordable housing, including securing funding from HUD to provide 165 units for homeless families in the government-subsidized Presidential Towers complex (1994), establishing the statewide Homeless Prevention Program (2000) and Rental Housing Support Program (2005), and allocating funds for affordable housing in the Illinois capital budget for the first time (2009). CCH also secured increased funding for Chicago’s TIF Purchase-Rehab program (2014) and helped launch the city-run Families in Transition (FIT) program, which provides permanent supportive housing for 100 formerly sheltered and doubled-up families from six South and West Side elementary schools (2018).

The Law Project’s major advocacy wins include obtaining a court order requiring the creation of a central homeless education office in Chicago Public Schools (2000), securing impartial hearing officers to decide students’ homeless disputes (2005), passing a state law that allows unaccompanied minors ages 14 to 18 to consent to their own non-emergency care (2014), and persuading CPS to adopt a homeless education policy that mandates transportation assistance for homeless students (2016).

BRING CHICAGO HOME (BCH): Endorsed by 80+ organizations, and co-led by a steering committee of CCH, Chicago Teachers Union, Communities United, Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, Not Me We, ONE Northside, SEIU Healthcare IL/IN, and United Working Families, BCH advocates for a dedicated revenue stream to create housing and services for people experiencing homelessness.

STATE LEGISLATION: During the FY23 state legislative session, CCH passed two bills into law.
-- HB 3116: Learning to Support Students Experiencing Homelessness requires Illinois school boards to conduct in-service trainings for all school personnel on how to support students experiencing housing instability.
-- SB 1367: Public Housing Access Bill (PHAB) (with Restoring Rights and Opportunities Coalition of Illinois): Originally passed into law in 2021, PHAB created standards for Illinois Public Housing Authorities to use in the criminal background screening process. SB 1367 amends the bill’s language to ensure the law operates as intended.

STATE BUDGET: CCH’s shared advocacy helped secure $85 million in new funding to support housing and homeless services in the FY24 state budget. These increases are part of Gov. Pritzker’s Home Illinois initiative, which creates a framework for ending homelessness in the state.

IMPROVEMENTS TO TANF: CCH won a small increase to the grant award amount received by families enrolled in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). After CCH-advocated bills to increase TANF grant amounts to 50% of the federal poverty level (from 30%) stalled during the 2022 and 2023 legislative sessions, a 5% increase was included in the state’s budget implementation bill. CCH also led the effort to end a harmful 26-year-old policy of the state intercepting child support paid to Illinois families receiving TANF. This policy change was included as a provision within a supplemental budget implementation bill, which was passed in January 2023 during the state’s lame-duck session.

LEGAL AID: Six Law Project attorneys closed 441 cases for 347 clients in FY23. Legal staff reached 2,774 youth and 2,168 adults during 244 outreach sessions and events, distributed 25,143 pieces of outreach materials and trained 606 service providers and attorneys.

IMPACT LITIGATION: With the Shriver Center and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick Dyme, CCH successfully settled a federal Fair Credit Reporting Act case on behalf of a formerly homeless client who was denied subsidized housing due to an inaccurate and misleading criminal background report. With the ACLU of Illinois and Porter Wright, the Law Project reached a favorable agreement on behalf of a client in a federal civil rights lawsuit. The lawsuit alleged that the plaintiff – then 19 and experiencing homelessness – was physically assaulted, falsely arrested, and detained by the Chicago Police Department while cleaning up property damage at her place of employment in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.