CHICAGO COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : m*****l@c*************s.o*g
Mission Statement
Since 1980, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) has followed a clear mission: "We organize and advocate to prevent and end homelessness, because we believe housing is a human right in a just society.”
About This Cause
We are the only non-profit in Illinois dedicated to advocating for public policies that curb and can ultimately end homelessness. Our organization leads strategic campaigns, community outreach, and public policy initiatives that target the lack of affordable housing in metropolitan Chicago and across Illinois. In addition, CCH presses for access to jobs, training, and public schools. Our community organizers, policy specialists, and public interest attorneys advocate with people hurt by homelessness, including mothers with children, students, unaccompanied youth, ex-offenders, prostitution survivors, and low-wage workers. To preserve our independent voice, CCH does not accept government funding. Instead, we advocate for funds to create housing and improve services and opportunities for people who are homeless or at-risk, and to support the programs that serve homeless families, youths and adults. Homelessness is caused by many factors that include less affordable housing, too few living wage jobs, and too few resources for those trying to restore their lives after incarceration or unemployment. Our non-profit uses community organizing, advocacy and legal aid to press for measures that help homeless people get back on their feet. CCH counters public complacency about people left homeless and without options due to extreme poverty. By example, CCH mobilized homeless moms to ask Illinois legislators to create Homeless Prevention grants. More than 105,000 Illinois households have been assisted since 2000. Administered by community providers, the state provides small, one-time grants to help families avoid foreclosure or eviction. Follow-up studies show that 88% remained housed. Unfortunately, state support for homeless prevention yo-yos over the years, so CCH must advocate every year for its funding. Illinois increased prevention funding to $11 million in FY 2007 and FY 2008. But by FY 2012, funding was less than $1.5 million and federal stimulus for prevention grants was running out. Working with our homeless leaders, community supporters and Housing Action Illinois, CCH persuaded legislators to restore $4 million for FY 2013 through FY 2015. CCH works in these key areas: • Community organizing trains homeless people to advocate on key issues. In FY15, more than 6,500 people participated in weekly to monthly outreach programs at shelters, transitional housing and street programs across Chicago, and through CCH’s Statewide Network in nine suburbs and downstate cities. Hundreds of shelter residents work with us at rallies, meetings and trips to City Hall or Springfield. • Advocacy and public policy works to preserve the shelter safety net, develop affordable housing, and improve the supply of transitional and living wage jobs. We press for access to support services and public schools. CCH also pursues re-entry options in housing and employment for people who were formerly incarcerated. • The Law Project offers no-charge legal aid services. In FY 2015, four attorneys represented 407 clients in Chicago and the suburbs, 93% of them homeless students and unaccompanied youth. It is the only legal aid program in Illinois dedicated solely to serving people who are homeless or at-risk.