CCH builds community power and advances racial equity through organizing, advocacy, legal assistance, and education to prevent and end homelessness because housing is a human right.
CCH is proud of all we have accomplished as a coalition over the past 40+ years. Together, we can achieve so much.
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2023
- During the 2023 legislative session, CCH passed legislation to ensure all school staff are trained to identify and support unstably housed students through in-service trainings implemented by Illinois school boards.
- With the Restoring Rights and Opportunities Coalition of Illinois (RROCI), CCH passed legislation that will improve access to housing for people with criminal records by creating standards in the background screening process used by public housing authorities.
- CCH led the effort to end a harmful 26-year-old policy of the state intercepting child support paid to Illinois families receiving TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). Families enrolled in TANF will now receive the full amount of child support paid by the noncustodial parent.
- With our Homeless Prevention Coalition allies, we helped secure $85 million in new money to support housing and homeless services in the FY 24 state budget. We also won a small increase to TANF grant amounts received by families impacted by poverty.
- CCH and the Inclusive Economy Lab completed a 6-month qualitative research project on the Edrika Fulford Mutual Aid Fund. The full report of findings and policy recommendations is available online at chicagohomeless.org/MAF-ImpactReport.
- With Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP and the ACLU of Illinois, the CCH Law Project secured a favorable settlement in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed on behalf of a client who was physically assaulted, falsely arrested, and detained by the Chicago Police Department.
- In November 2023, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution to put the Bring Chicago Home (BCH) referendum question on the March 2024 primary ballot. Efforts to bring the BCH proposal to voters spanned five years and three mayoral administrations. This successful council vote was the result of years of organizing and coalition building by partners and grassroots volunteers across Chicago.
2022
- CCH passed legislation that requires charter schools to waive fees and fines for low-income and families experiencing homelessness, creating parity with public institutions where these waivers are already in place.
- With the Illinois Coalition for Fair Housing, CCH passed legislation that makes it illegal to deny housing based solely on an applicant’s source of income.
- With Start Early, Children’s Home and Aid, and Illinois Action for Children, CCH passed a law that ensures access to childcare for expectant or parenting youth in the care of the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).
- Shared advocacy helped secure increases to the Homeless Youth and Homelessness Prevention line-items in the Fiscal Year 2023 state budget. The General Assembly also allocated $150 million in Covid-relief funding to supportive housing, reentry housing, and other housing programs.
- A series of town halls, escalating direct actions, and increased media presence raised the profile of the Bring Chicago Home campaign and elevated homelessness as a critical issue during the municipal election season. Every televised debate included a question about homelessness, with CCH’s homeless estimate cited by several participants.
- With Baker McKenzie law firm, the Law Project updated and published the third version of the Homeless Youth Handbook, an online legal resource for young people ages 14 – 24. It is available at homelessyouth.org/Illinois.
- With Heartland Alliance, CCH completed a 3-year participatory research project that examines inequities in accessing Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in Illinois. Work was led by a research advisory board of five women with lived experience. An executive summary, report, and webinar outlining key findings and recommendations are available online.
- CCH successfully advocated for 35 units of housing to be targeted for households living doubled-up as part of permanent supportive housing funds included in the Chicago Recovery Plan.
2021
- Shared advocacy with CCH and the Bring Chicago Home and Right to Recovery coalitions resulted in $117 million in new funding from Local Fiscal Recovery discretionary dollars and local bond funds to combat homelessness in Chicago’s FY22 budget.
- During the 2021 legislative session, CCH passed SB 190, which creates a liaison at Illinois colleges and universities to provide support and resources to students experiencing housing instability.
- With Heartland Alliance and the Shriver Center, CCH passed HB 88, which removes the eligibility restriction that bars people with drug-related felony convictions from receiving TANF. This law restores justice for an estimated 7,400 people who have served their time and yet remained barred from assistance.
- CCH and its Restoring Rights and Opportunities Coalition of Illinois (RROCI) partners passed The Employee Background Fairness Act, which provides standards for employers to consider conviction records in an individual’s background. We also passed The Public Housing Access Bill, which creates standards for Illinois Public Housing Authorities in the criminal background screening process.
- With the National Consumer Law Center, the Law Project successfully obtained a settlement in a class action lawsuit challenging a debt collector’s practice of unlawfully charging Chicago tenants attorney’s fees in connection to their evictions.
- A federal lawsuit co-counseled by attorneys for the CCH Law Project, the ACLU of Illinois, and Schiff Hardin law firm reached a favorable conclusion when a Chicago judge struck down a state law prohibiting panhandling in public streets and medians and ordered Illinois State Police not to enforce it.
- A paper on the doubled-up homelessness measure developed by CCH, Vanderbilt University, and Heartland Alliance was accepted for publication by Housing Policy Debate.
2020
- Responding to urgent needs at the beginning of the pandemic, CCH successfully pressed city officials to provide COVID-19 testing at shelters, hotel rooms for high-risk individuals to safely quarantine, and portable toilets and hand sanitizing stations at encampments.
- CCH advocated for a significant allocation of the state’s federal CARES Act funding to support homeless prevention, securing $396 million for rental assistance, mortgage relief, and other housing services.
- CCH established a Mutual Aid Fund providing emergency grants of $500 to more than 400 Illinois households impacted by homelessness. The fund received more than 6,000 applications during its 5-day application period. A committee of five grassroots leaders managed the fund, distributing more than $200,000.
- A newly formed Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Focus Group secured 12,000 mobile hotspot devices and 100,000 laptops for low-income and homeless CPS families through their advocacy. The Focus Group also drafted a guidance document for schools and districts – adapted and distributed by the Illinois State Board of Education – on how to best support homeless students during the 2020-21 school year.
2019
- During the state legislative session, CCH passed laws to strengthen the Homelessness Prevention Program (HB 3331), to require higher education institutions to notify students if they may be eligible for SNAP benefits (SB 1641), and to create a youth homelessness prevention task force (HB 2983). We also passed HB 3343, which established a restaurant meals program to permit individuals who are elderly, disabled, or experiencing homelessness to use SNAP benefits to purchase prepared meals at stores and restaurants that opt into the program.
- Passed with Heartland Alliance and the Shriver Center, HB 3129 amended TANF policy to include a child-only benefit portion (75%) that is barred from being sanctioned. It created “good cause” exemptions if a parent can demonstrate mitigating circumstances for not meeting participant requirements. This legislation also mandated that benefit levels be adjusted annually to remain equal to at least 30% of federal poverty guidelines.
- The Reentry Project and its RROCI coalition partners successfully advocated a housing amendment to the Illinois Human Rights Act. It will now be a civil rights violation to discriminate during a real estate transaction based either on a juvenile record, an individual’s arrest record that did not lead to conviction, or a record that was sealed/expunged.
- As part of the national “Housing Not Handcuffs” campaign, the CCH Law Project and the ACLU have persuaded 12 other Illinois municipalities to drop unconstitutional bans on panhandling.
- CCH’s Law Project and Hughes Socol law firm secured a favorable settlement on behalf of two clients who lived on Lower Wacker Drive while experiencing homelessness. This is the third settlement CCH has reached with the City of Chicago over its mistreatment of people experiencing street homelessness, in violation of the Illinois Homeless Bill of Rights.
2018
- In fall 2018, CCH launched Bring Chicago Home, a housing campaign that seeks to secure a dedicated funding stream to address homelessness at scale in Chicago.
- The Law Project, with co-counsel Hughes Socol law firm, secured a significant settlement in 2018 on behalf of our client in the first substantive case filed under the CCH-advocated Illinois Bill of Rights for the Homeless Act. Plaintiff Robert Henderson secured a personal settlement of more than $25,000 after all of his belongings were thrown away in an illegal viaduct sweep.
- With Heartland Alliance and the Shriver Center, the passage of SB 3115 increased TANF cash grant amounts to 30% of the federal poverty level (from 25%), its first increase in a decade. SB 3115 also standardized grant amounts so that rural counties no longer receive smaller payments.
- With Heartland Alliance and the Shriver Center, CCH passed the College Hunger Bill (SB 351), which ensures that low-income, vocational-track community college students can apply for SNAP, guaranteeing access to food assistance for an estimated 40,000 Illinois students. This measure was previously created via a rule change by the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS). Legislation was pursued to make sure this assistance could not be easily rescinded by another rule change.
- With the Restoring Rights and Opportunities Coalition of Illinois (RROCI), CCH’s Reentry Project passed the Fair Access to Employment bill (HB 5341), which prohibits judges from refusing to seal a record until all fines or fees are paid, though the debts are not erased.
2017
- CCH developed a new analysis tool using census data to better assess the size of Chicago’s homeless population. CCH’s methodology includes people temporarily staying with others due to economic hardship or housing loss, also known as “doubling up.”
- CCH’s HomeWorks campaign persuaded the City of Chicago to pilot a housing program called Housing Support for CPS Families in Transition (FIT). It offers permanent housing and support services for 100 families experiencing homelessness at six elementary schools. This marks the first time that doubled-up families are eligible for Chicago-funded housing.
- With the Youth Committee, CCH enacted its three-bill homeless youth initiative, “Three Steps Home.” The first bill lets unaccompanied 16- and 17-year-olds live in licensed transitional housing. The second allows youth ages 12 – 17 to get eight counseling sessions without requiring parent/guardian approval, an otherwise significant difficulty for unaccompanied youth. The third measure, the College Hunger Bill, faced an amendatory veto by the governor. Later, a rule change adopted by the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) enacted the bill’s intent: to allow low-income vocational students at community colleges to apply for SNAP benefits.
- CCH proposed successful measures to offer free birth records for people experiencing homelessness in Cook County and statewide.
- As part of the Restoring Rights and Opportunities Coalition of Illinois (RROCI), the Reentry Project helped pass a state bill to enact record-sealing for most felonies, three years after completion of a sentence. Before, only nine felonies were eligible for sealing.
- In a two-year collaboration, CCH convened a team with court officials that opened a Cook County homeless specialty court in spring of 2017.
2016
- The CCH Law Project and our Education Committee succeeded in persuading Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to adopt a strong homeless education policy in spring of 2016. This included pressing CPS to drop a provision that would have barred students from appealing if denied enrollment or school services. CCH’s advocacy also removed a provision that would have denied transportation to students living within 1.5 miles from their school.
- With the promise of dedicated funding, our HomeWorks campaign advocated with alderpeople to support the Airbnb ordinance enacted in 2016. The city’s 4% surcharge is projected to earn about $2 million yearly, with the funds to be dedicated to homeless services and housing needs.
- As part of the Restoring Rights and Opportunities Coalition of Illinois (RROCI), CCH’s Reentry Project successfully advocated four job-access bills signed into law in 2016. The measures end lifetime hiring bans in schools, park districts and healthcare facilities.
- Our State Network co-founded the DuPage Homeless Alliance, working to reduce housing discrimination in west suburban Naperville. The coalition succeeded in persuading Naperville’s City Council to ban landlords from discriminating against tenants who use government housing vouchers.
2015
- The Law Project persuaded state officials to clarify Illinois policy regarding unaccompanied youth who seek Medicaid and public benefits. Announced in 2015, the policy makes clear that unaccompanied youth can apply on their own and do not need parental/guardian permission to be removed from a parent or guardian’s benefits.
- A lawsuit filed in Lake County challenged collecting funds for the Illinois Rental Housing Support Program, created by CCH. With other advocates, CCH assisted in defending the program in court, with the judge dismissing the suit after four years of litigation.
- CCH was a partner in a six-group coalition that persuaded the Chicago City Council to strengthen its Affordable Requirements Ordinance (ARO). Adopted in 2015, the regulations govern what housing developers must do to provide affordable housing on projects that require a zoning change, a planned development designation, use of city land or a city subsidy.
- In 2015, CCH reached an out-of-court agreement with the City of Chicago in our two-year “city sweeps” case. Co-counseled with Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the law firm of Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, the new policy requires 24-hour notice before off-street cleaning, allowing people to avoid disposal of vital belongings. Confiscated items must be tagged, with seven days to reclaim possessions.
- With Baker & McKenzie law firm, the Law Project created a resources guidebook for youth experiencing homelessness in Illinois. It is available at homelessyouth.org/Illinois.
2014
- CCH authored and advocated a change in state law so that unaccompanied minors can consent to their own non-emergency medical care from school and neighborhood clinics. CCH proposed it after Chicago Public Schools and clinic officials shared that they were required to turn away minors younger than 18 – for easily treated needs such as strep throat – because the teens lacked a parent/guardian to sign a consent form.
- Sweet Home Chicago, managed by CCH, prodded the City of Chicago to increase funding for its TIF Purchase-Rehab program. After months of advocacy by our 10-group coalition, the Chicago City Council committed $35 million in the new five-year housing plan adopted in 2014. It was seven times what the city first proposed for the low-income rental housing rehab program, created through Sweet Home advocacy.
- The Reentry Project persuaded Chicago and Cook County housing authorities to adopt a pilot program it designed, allowing select formerly incarcerated people to access housing.
- CCH partnered in Chicago For All, advocating a new city ordinance to preserve single-room occupancy (SRO) housing, passed in 2014.
- CCH organizes the Concerned Providers, a group of 15 Chicago shelter providers that advocates for city shelters when key issues arise. Providers were hard hit by a $3.3 million cutback in pass-through HUD funds for supportive services, triggering FY15 closures impacting 4,000 people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. CCH wrote an October study detailing the impact, getting coverage from the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ – after which the mayor’s FY15 budget included $500,000 allocated to family engagements services
2013
- CCH is among six lead groups that partnered on Keep Chicago Renting, led by the Albany Park Neighborhood Council. The city ordinance took effect in September 2013, protecting tenants who keep up their rents yet face sudden eviction after a lender forecloses on the building owner/landlord. Tenants forced to move must be paid $10,600 by the lender to cover relocation costs.
- CCH mobilized support for the Illinois Bill of Rights for the Homeless, signed into law in 2013. It bars discrimination and criminalization based on a person’s housing status. Illinois became the second state in the nation – preceded by Rhode Island and followed by Connecticut – to enact such a measure.
- In the spring, through community organizing, legal pressure and media coverage by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown, CCH pushed the city to drop an ordinance that would have closed two cubicle hotels in Uptown and the South Loop. Even though both hotels were up-to-code, the 325 men who lived in the hotels faced the loss of the only home most of them could afford.
- Women survivors in our Survivor Advocacy Group Empowered (SAGE) secured legislative support for a new law that ends felony-level charges for prostitution in Illinois.
- CCH worked with the Responsible Budget Coalition on the launch of a new campaign: A Better Illinois promotes moving to a graduated state income tax.
2012
- Chicago’s City Council amended the 2011 TIF Vacant Building Ordinance, approving changes recommended by CCH and the Sweet Home Chicago Coalition. Now, developers can bundle several smaller nearby buildings (two- to four-flats) into a larger development that can be rehabbed for rental housing. It also allows the Department of Housing and Economic Development, in consultation with a local alderperson, to fund projects with a tax-increment financing (TIF) subsidy that is greater than 50% of the project cost.
- CCH persuaded legislators to drop a 52 percent cutback to state funding of emergency shelters and transitional housing across Illinois. It was the second time, within six months, that CCH helped reverse a proposed $4.7 million cutback to shelters.
- Working with 30 providers on our Youth Committee, CCH helped restore some of the 33 percent ($1.6 million) in yearly state funding cuts to homeless youth programs since FY08, securing $900,000 (28 percent) more than a year earlier ($4.1 million total). CCH also worked to restore $2.5 million, to $4 million total, for homeless prevention grants to Illinois households.
- CCH launched its Statewide Network, organizing shelter providers and residents from nine suburban and downstate cities to advocate on shared issues.
- Our Prostitution Alternatives Round Table (PART) led Springfield-based advocacy, helping create a new law in 2012 that strengthens the state’s anti-trafficking laws. PART also passed laws that allow those who can prove they were trafficked to apply for court dismissal of prostitution-related convictions (2011) and requiring that underage minors arrested for prostitution be referred to child welfare as abuse victims (2010).
2011
- With the Sweet Home Chicago coalition, CCH enacted a key amendment to Mayor Daley’s TIF Vacant Building Ordinance. With the original ordinance focused on more affluent home buyers, we advocated for an ordinance that also helps redevelop vacant apartments if 30 percent to 50 percent of the units are dedicated to households earning 30 percent to 50 percent of Area Median Income.
- An unhoused youth group co-led by a CCH attorney met with then-Mayor Daley to ask that Chicago pilot an overnight, low-service youth shelter. Opened for just four months in 2011, further advocacy by CCH and The Night Ministry persuaded the city to resume its funding and add a 20-bed second youth shelter in 2012. This increased the number of youth shelter beds in Chicago by 17 percent (to 273 beds).
- Working with Cook County Chief Criminal Court Judge Paul Biebel, CCH’s Prostitution Alternatives Round Table co-led planning for the first felony prostitution court in the Midwest. Opened in January, the WINGS Project targets women who were trafficked in prostitution, connecting them to probation and rehab services in lieu of imprisonment.
2010
- CCH’s Jobs Project proposed Put Illinois to Work to state officials in early 2010, using a national model for which it had advocated. The jobs program employed 27,393 people for nine months, until Jan. 15, 2011. Funded by federal and state stimulus grants, CCH also helped design and promote the program in partnership with state agencies and another non-profit.
- In a class action case, the Law Project co-counseled with Kirkland & Ellis to preserve services for state wards who are pregnant or parenting teens. Though covered by a 1994 consent decree (Hill v. Erickson), state officials threatened 2009 budget cutbacks that would have ended all services to 602 pregnant and parenting youth and 130 of their children. We secured a mediated resolution, with fee settlement, that protects their right to school, childcare, medical and other services, and instituted a class monitor.
- Because of shared advocacy in 2010, two “low threshold” youth shelters were piloted for four months in winter 2011. Twenty-five youth met with the mayor, explaining that some youth who need shelter are not ready to work with a case manager and be involved in services.
2009
- CCH worked with several allies for a new capital budget that, for the first time in Illinois, included $200 million for affordable housing.
- CCH worked 18 months to develop and launch a new affordable housing campaign, led by a partnership of 12 community organizations and labor unions. On July 30, Sweet Home Chicago launched at a City Hall rally that drew 250 people.
- Kirkland & Ellis law firm, working with CCH attorneys, offered pro bono representation to a man experiencing homelessness who was removed from the April ballot by village officials in Oak Park. Seeking to run for village trustee, the 47-year-old man had lived in the west suburb for more than 30 years.
2008
- Working with our No Youth Alone campaign, the CCH Law Project secured a significant victory: Illinois allocated $3 million to help fund school services to students experiencing homelessness in FY09.
- CCH attorneys successfully litigated the re-opened Salazar v. Edwards class action case that represented 225 Chicago Public Schools students affected by the closure or relocation of three elementary schools.
- A new CCH study, Needs of Unaccompanied Youth in Illinois, showed cash-strapped youth service providers had to turn away 52% of youth who sought help in FY 2007.
- The Speakers Bureau ran 77 engagements in its first year, bringing together grassroots leaders with lived experience of homelessness and civic, religious and student groups in the city and suburbs.
- CCH partnered with Cook County Clerk David Orr’s office to register people experiencing homelessness to vote in the 2008 presidential election. More than 725 people were registered to vote in Chicago and suburbs through this non-partisan effort, including 250 registered by CCH staff.
2007
- It Takes a Home to Raise a Child unveils an initiative to increase the state’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Among other uses, the state trust fund allocates money for prevention grants. Housing Action Illinois and Business and Professional People for the Public Interest partner with CCH in the research and launch of this initiative.
- CCH mobilizes 30 shelter providers to push for an evaluation of Chicago’s 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness. By April, the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness agrees to our request for a thorough evaluation, including our recommendation that no more shelter beds be cut until a study is done.
- Leaders in the Reentry Project and the Prostitution Alternatives Round Table persuade state officials to enact “first offender probation,” called the SMART Act. This law allows judges to offer probation with rehab services to those charged with felony prostitution, a charge that was possible after two prior misdemeanors.
2006
- CCH leaders work with the Grassroots Collaborative to lobby the Chicago City Council to pass the “Big Box” living wage ordinance by a 34-15 vote. Though the ordinance was eventually derailed by a mayoral veto seven weeks later, CCH leaders then rallied to boost the Illinois minimum wage; it rose to $7.50 per hour in July 2007.
- CCH and the Survey Research Lab at the University of Illinois-Chicago publish How Many People are Homeless in Chicago? Among the findings: In 2006, there were 21,078 people experiencing homelessness on a typical night, three times the city’s last official count.
- CCH organizers mobilize 84 men living at the New Ritz Hotel. The city was finalizing plans to buy a run-down South Loop facility where these elderly, disabled and low-wage workers lived. Days before the move, CCH organized the men to negotiate a 42-month rent subsidy far better than the $475 the City first offered.
- Thirteen survivors active in CCH’s Prostitution Alternatives Round Table (PART) work with a documentary filmmaker to tell their stories in the one-hour film, Turning the Corner.
- PART proposes and advocates for the Illinois Predator Accountability Act. This state law allows survivors to sue the people and organizations that trafficked them.
- CCH persuades the governor’s office to double state funding of homeless prevention grants, a program created because of our advocacy.
2005
- It Takes a Home to Raise a Child passes legislation to create the Rental Housing Support program. Initially, it provides $30 million in rental subsidies to 5,500 families in Illinois that earn less than $20,000 a year, the largest state-funded rental subsidy in the U.S. The program is funded through a $10 state surcharge on real estate recordings.
- CCH completes a survey of patrons of One-Stop employment centers to learn how well people with multiple barriers are being served.
- CCH joins the Coalition to Protect Public Housing to initiate the Human Right to Housing campaign to save the Cabrini Green housing projects. Miloon Khotari, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on adequate housing, accepts our invitation to tour Chicago public housing.
2004
- CCH helps to pass Senate Bill 3007. It allows people who have been convicted of felony prostitution or low-level drug offenses to have their records sealed if they have been out of prison for four years without recidivism.
- The Women’s Empowerment Project registers 2,100 people to vote.
2003
- CCH’s Youth Committee and the Law Project passes legislation to amend the Illinois Emancipation of Mature Minors Act. It qualifies 16- and 17-year-olds who are unaccompanied (without parent or guardian) to provide their own consent to access services in transitional housing programs.
- CCH successfully advocates for $5 million in family homeless prevention funding. A state study shows 80 percent of households remain housed six to 18 months after receiving assistance.
- The CCH Law Project helps a woman experiencing homelessness win a record judgment in Sellers v. Outland, a lawsuit against a landlord who sexually harassed his tenant, a mother of six.
2002
- It Takes a Home to Raise a Child increases state funding for the Illinois Family Homelessness Prevention Program from $1 million to $4.5 million.
- CCH successfully advocates for the passage of House Bill 1961, a bill that provides Cook County Judges with the authority to sentence women who are convicted of certain nonviolent felony offenses to a pilot residential treatment and transition center rather than state prison.
- CCH completes the first-ever survey of women in Cook County Jail. It shows that many of the women were homeless before entering jail or thought they would be when they got out.
- CCH’s Law Project secures compensatory damages for a youth pushed out of school by his suburban school district because he was homeless.
2001
- The Day Labor Project, working through the Sweatshop Task Force, triggers audits that result in the refund of more than $200,000 to more than 5,000 day laborers who were overcharged for transportation by agencies, in violation of the Day Labor Services Act.
- CCH passes a Day Labor Ordinance through the Chicago City Council, regulating the industry that employs many adults experiencing and at risk of homelessness.
- CCH’s Latino Task Force Against Homelessness helps create the Latino Jobs Action Group to discuss the issue of discrimination against undocumented workers.
- CCH plays a crucial role in Congressional reauthorization of the federal McKinney-Vento Act, which protects the educational rights of children experiencing homelessness.
2000
- From its 1999 Salazar v. Edwards lawsuit, the Law Project obtains a sweeping court order to force Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to serve children experiencing homelessness, including requiring a trained liaison working in every school and a new CPS office overseeing homeless education services.
- The CCH Law Project successfully brings the first lawsuit enforcing the Cook County Human Rights Ordinance prohibition on discriminating against people experiencing homelessness. The case involves a man who was fired from his 12-year position at a public library when he revealed he was homeless.
- CCH completes a study, in coordination with the Children’s Defense Fund, on the effects of welfare reform on homelessness.
1999
- It Takes a Home to Raise a Child campaign passes its first state legislation – securing $1 million to create the Family Homelessness Prevention Program to provide small emergency assistance grants to families at risk of homelessness.
1998
- Working with other community organizations, CCH helps win the Jobs and Living Wage Campaign. It requires companies receiving city subsidies or contracts to pay their workers at least $7.60 an hour. This precedent-setting decision made Chicago the 20th locale in the nation to establish a living wage policy.
- CCH’s Statewide Homeless Youth Initiative works with the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) to increase funding for homeless youth programs from $2 million to $4 million.
- CCH launches It Takes a Home to Raise a Child, a housing campaign to create statewide programs to help homeless and at-risk programs.
1997
- CCH’s Latino Task Force, along with other organizations, works to secure $10 million in the Illinois State Budget for immigrant populations losing their public benefits.
1996
- CCH’s South Loop Campaign for Development without Displacement secures a commitment from the City of Chicago to build two new single room occupancy hotels (SROs) with supportive services for people experiencing homelessness in the South Loop and stops, for a while, the destruction of six other SRO buildings in the South Loop.
- CCH works with the state of Illinois in order to prevent the transfer of the Homeless Youth Services Division of DCFS to the Department of Corrections.
- CCH and public housing residents found the Coalition to Protect Public Housing. With leadership centered in the Cabrini-Green housing complex, its mission is to protect the rights of public housing residents and to ensure the continued existence of public housing.
- CCH launches Growing Home. The independent non-profit offers job training in organic and urban farming, originally focused on job training for people experiencing homelessness and low-wage workers.
- CCH works to secure passage of the Illinois Education for Homeless Children Act.
1995
- CCH launches the South Loop Campaign for Development without Displacement (SLCDD). SLCDD’s goal is to create a truly mixed income community in the South Loop by preserving and expanding the number of single room occupancy hotels (SROs) and by requesting that any housing development in the South Loop receiving tax increments financing (TIF) subsidies from the City of Chicago set aside 20 percent of units for low-income people.
- The Women’s Empowerment Project acquires a 24-unit building from the Chicago Abandoned Property Program (CAPP). An independent new non-profit, Brand New Beginnings, converts the South Side building in 2001 into transitional housing for mothers with children experiencing homelessness.
- CCH activists succeed in closing a homeless shelter where male administrators sexually harass women. It is the first legal case in the nation requiring shelters to abide by the Fair Housing Act.
1994
- CCH wins its 10-year Presidential Towers Campaign, with a commitment from HUD to provide 165 units for families experiencing homelessness in the upscale, government-subsidized West Loop complex, and 1,014 project-based Section 8 certificates for low-income housing.
- CCH develops the Latino Task Force in order to address the hidden problem of homelessness in the Latino community.
- CCH, among other community organizations, works with the City of Chicago to secure a commitment of an additional $520 million over five years for affordable housing in Chicago through the Affordable Housing and Jobs Campaign.
- CCH devises quality of care standards for shelter operators that are adopted as official requirements for Chicago’s Department of Human Services funded homeless shelters.
- CCH leads legal efforts to secure expansion of tuberculosis prevention and treatment services in Cook County, resulting in major improvement of health services.
1993
- CCH releases Alone After Dark , a first-of-its-kind report on homeless youth in Illinois. The report receives significant media attention and gives government officials a credible source of information on youth experiencing homelessness.
- CCH researches and releases its report, Recommended Service Delivery System for Homeless Youth in Illinois.
1992
- CCH creates the Youth Empowerment Project, a leadership group comprised of Chicago area youth.
- CCH receives the Chicago Council on Urban Affairs’ Coalition of the Year Award for its design of the Women’s Empowerment Project, a comprehensive program which empowers women experiencing homelessness to take control of their lives.
- CCH helps pass a law protecting shelter residents from financial exploitation.
1991
- CCH works with the Illinois State Board of Education to allocate needed resources to 26 community-based organizations serving children and youth experiencing homelessness for educational programming.
- CCH successfully works to ensure that people experiencing homelessness have the right to vote in Illinois.
1990
- CCH’s Substance Abuse Task Force, working with the Department of Alcohol and Substance Abuse (DASA), creates demonstration projects to serve the needs of people experiencing homelessness with substance use disorders.
- Through its high-profile Presidential Towers campaign, CCH wins the first funding ($1.6 million) for rent subsidies to be offered by the Chicago Low Income Housing Trust Fund.
- Parents experiencing homelessness, working with CCH, bring a successful lawsuit stopping Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) removal of children from families experiencing homelessness. Norman v. Johnson establishes a multi-million-dollar housing assistance fund at DCFS.
1989
- CCH works successfully to legalize shelters for homeless minors under age 18. Previously, only youth 18 and older could be sheltered.
1988
- CCH works to establish the Chicago Low Income Housing Trust Fund Commission. It will oversee funds to maintain and create affordable housing in Chicago.
1987
- CCH works with the City of Chicago to increase resources for homeless shelters to $3 million.
- CCH helps pass the first national legislative response to homelessness, the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act.
1986
- The Youth Committee successfully brings pressure on state officials to fund the first five shelters serving homeless youth in Illinois.
1985
- CCH lobbies the State of Illinois to increase resources for homeless programs to $1.6 million.
- CCH works with the governor’s office to convene the first ever Governor’s Task Force on Homeless Youth in Illinois. It releases a report that states there are more than 21,000 homeless youth in Illinois.
1984
- CCH hires its first Executive Director and establishes its first independent headquarters.
- CCH starts the Interfaith Council for the Homeless, organizing Chicago’s faith-based community to respond to the crisis of homelessness by developing religious-based resources for people experiencing homelessness.
1983
- CCH launches its Youth Committee, organizing service providers and youth advocates in response to the murder of a youth experiencing homelessness in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.
- CCH hosts the founding convention in Chicago to establish the National Coalition for the Homeless.
- CCH publishes When You Don’t Have Anything, a report that develops an alternative definition for homelessness.
1982
- Under Mayor Jane Byrne’s administration, CCH presses for and wins the first-ever city-funded shelter for people experiencing homelessness in Chicago.
1980
- In response to the growing numbers of people experiencing homelessness, the city of Chicago, Catholic Charities, Travelers and Immigrants Aid, along with a host of other major service providers, establishes the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH).
Chicago Coalition for the Homeless is now Chicago Coalition to end Homelessness (CCH).