HOUSING ACTION ILLINOIS

Home is the foundation upon which we build our lives. It affects our access to education, our health, our ability to find employment, nurture our children, save money, and create a better future. Our vision for Illinois is to create an environment where all residents, including people with the lowest incomes, have a voice in housing policy and community development. Housing Action Illinois seeks to unite community stakeholders, such as residents, businesses, and government to work together to increase the supply and availability of affordable housing across the state. We won't rest until everyone in our state has a good, affordable place to call home.

As a statewide coalition, we unite a network of 160+ member organizations to protect and expand the availability of quality, affordable housing throughout Illinois. Together we empower communities to thrive through three program areas: Capacity Building, Public Education and Organizing, and Policy Advocacy.

To build capacity of nonprofit agencies, we help nonprofit housing counseling agencies and developers serve their communities through skill-building workshops and one-on-one guidance to create new programs and keep up with new technology, changing trends, and complicated regulations. We facilitate the distribution of HUD housing counseling funds and place about 60 full-time and summer AmeriCorps VISTAs with our member organizations. We also unite our members to advocate for state, and federal policy changes that will protect renters and homeowners from housing discrimination, increase opportunities for people with disabilities, and end homelessness.

Our coalition is rooted in the rural, urban, and suburban communities our members serve, which means our programs and initiatives are developed directly in response to the ever-changing needs expressed by our partners throughout all regions of Illinois. These conversations have led to programmatic expansions, such as becoming a HUD-Approved Housing Counseling Intermediary in 2014 and an AmeriCorps VISTA Program Sponsor in 2010, introducing new trainings for housing counselors (such as for rental housing and financial planning for higher education) in the past couple of years, and bringing innovative workshops to our annual conference. With three decades of knowledge and experience, we channel the collective power of our members and allies to better influence public policy and expand service across the state.

Working collaboratively with and for our members, we have accomplished a great deal in 30+ years. Our first major milestone was establishing of the Illinois Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 1990, which now facilitates nearly all public, private, and nonprofit affordable housing activity in IL and has helped to build and preserve 69,000+ affordable units. We advocated to create the Homeless Prevention Program in 1999, which has prevented 109,000+ households from homelessness, and to create the Rental Housing Support Program in 2005, which assists 2,500 extremely low-income households each year.

In 2017, we released reports on the cost of housing and eviction in Illinois and secured protections for would-be homebuyers from predatory rent-to-own contracts. In FY18, we will distribute $1.26M in HUD funds, continue to manage a strong AmeriCorps VISTA network, and pursue a robust policy agenda. For more information, please visit: http://housingactionil.org/who-we-are/accomplishments