Accomplishments
35 Years of Positive Change
Since 1986, Housing Action Illinois has been working to expand and protect affordable housing and end homelessness in Illinois.
We’ve brought people and organizations together, advocated for equitable laws and new resources, created better rules, overcame opposition, and created systemic change. Our work has led to tens of thousands of new homes being built, hundreds of thousands of people going from housing insecurity or homelessness to having stable homes, and millions of renters gaining better protections. Working with our members and allies, we’ve created access and housing opportunities in every community throughout Illinois.
And we’re not finished. Every day, on our own and through coalition work with partners, we continue to help low- to moderate-income homeowners, renters, and people experiencing homelessness. Support our work to build a brighter future »
We believe that housing is a human right and understand expanding affordable housing as a matter of racial and economic justice. We want to see all communities thrive, and we will continue our work until we have created an Illinois where everyone has a good, stable place to call home.
Diane Nilan, Co-Chair of Housing Action Illinois (then known as Statewide Housing Action Coalition), introduces Governor Thompson at the signing ceremony for the Illinois Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 1990
Recent Accomplishments
In just the past few years, we’ve secured historic wins for housing policy in Springfield and Washington, D.C. and supported thousands of nonprofit housing professionals through trainings, peer-to-peer learning opportunities, and individual coaching. We now manage $1.3 million in HUD housing counseling funds for 33 affiliate agencies and manage an AmeriCorps VISTA Network of 25+ full-year AmeriCorps members and 30+ AmeriCorps Summer Associates.
Annual Reports
End of Year Reflections
History
1986-1987 – Our Founding
01/01/1986
Recognizing the need to tackle affordable housing at the state level in Illinois, 46 organizations joined together in 1986 and decide to campaign for a state housing trust fund. Our founders formally incorporated as the Statewide Housing Action Coalition (SHAC) in 1987.
Read more1990 – Illinois Affordable Housing Trust Fund
01/01/1990
Our first major win was the establishment of the Illinois Affordable Housing Trust Fund. It facilitates nearly all public, private, and nonprofit affordable housing activity in Illinois by providing grants and loans to home developers and rehabbers. As of 2022, the fund has distributed more than $939 million in funding,…
Read more1990s – Training & Technical Assistance for Developers
01/02/1990
In the early 1990s, seeing a need within the state, we expanded our services to include comprehensive training for developers and assisting organizations in securing Community Housing Development Organization (CHDO) status with HUD to access HOME funds for real estate development projects.
Read more1993 – Federal Policy Advocacy
01/01/1993
We started engaging in advocacy at the federal level by becoming a state partner of the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), a relationship that endures through today. Together, we campaigned for tenant representation on Public Housing Authority Boards, property tax exemptions for affordable housing owned by nonprofits, and minimum…
Read more1999 – Homeless Prevention Program
01/01/1999
We co-led the It Takes a Home to Raise a Child campaign with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, successfully advocating to create the state Homeless Prevention Program. This fund provides rent and utility assistance to individuals and families at risk for homelessness and has prevented homelessness for more than…
Read more1999 – TIF Reform
01/02/1999
After a multi-year coalition campaign, we successfully saw Tax Increment Financing (TIF) reform legislation signed into law by Governor George Ryan to increase transparency, require impact studies, and mandate compensation for displaced households. We then began outreach to educate community members about how to make use of the new law’s…
Read more2000s – Illinois Assisted Housing Research Action Project (IHARP)
01/01/2000
Seeing a need for data-driven state housing policy, we began partnering with UIC Voorhees Center and different peer organizations, including Latino Policy Forum and the Shriver Center, to research affordable housing issues affecting Illinois and publish our findings. IHARP also created the first comprehensive digital database of assisted housing units…
Read more2002 – Governor’s Housing Task Force
01/01/2002
We mobilized over 500 advocates to call for statewide hearings, which lead to the creation of the Governor’s Housing Task Force, an annual state housing plan, and committees on housing in the state House and Senate. We also secured a $4 million increase in the Homeless Prevention Program budget.
Read more2004 – Community Housing Developers Institute
01/01/2004
We launched the Community Housing Developers Institute (CDHI), a workshop series that helped hundreds of housing developers throughout Illinois enhance their skills and knowledge.
Read more2005 – Rental Housing Support Program
01/01/2005
After a three-year campaign, we successfully advocated for the Rental Housing Support Program, which was established with a dedicated funding stream of $25 million in its first year. This rent subsidy program continues to assist 2,500 extremely low-income households afford their homes each year.
Read more2006 – Becoming Housing Action Illinois & Expanding Support for Housing Counselors
01/01/2006
2006 was a transformative year for us; we changed our name from Statewide Housing Action Coalition (SHAC) to Housing Action Illinois. This was also the year that we again expanded our Capacity Building services, this time to provide education to housing counselors.
Read more2007 – Safe Homes Act
01/01/2007
With allies, we secured $11 million in funding for the Homeless Prevention Program and campaigned with the Shriver Center to pass the Safe Homes Act, which protects the rights of renters experiencing domestic violence and sexual assault.
Read more2008 – Addressing the Foreclosure Crisis
01/01/2008
In response to the 2008 financial crisis, we increased our housing counselor trainings to ensure consumers facing mortgage delinquency and default could turn to trusted, knowledgeable sources of assistance. In the next few years, we expanded our support of housing counseling agencies as co-facilitator of the Home Ownership Counseling and…
Read more2009 – Affordable Housing as Infrastructure
01/01/2009
We successfully advocated for a $130 million allocation to affordable housing in the state capital budget, the first time that affordable housing was included in an Illinois capital budget.
Read more2010 – AmeriCorps VISTA Program Sponsor
01/01/2010
Hearing a need from member organizations, we became an AmeriCorps VISTA Program Sponsor in 2010 to help our members build sustainable capacity with full-time, one-year VISTAs. Since this program’s beginning, our VISTAs have raised more than $3.5 million in cash and in-kind donations, recruited and managed thousands of volunteers, and…
Read more2012 – Federal Funding Advocacy & Foreclosure Prevention
01/01/2012
By advocating with allies after funding cuts, we secured $45 million in federal funding for HUD-certified housing counseling agencies and restored $4.7 million to the Emergency and Transitional Housing Program in Illinois’ budget. We also began providing statewide training and programmatic assistance for foreclosure prevention efforts.
Read more2013 – Foreclosure Protections for Tenants
01/01/2013
In the wake of the foreclosure crisis, we helped pass legislation that protects tenants living in foreclosed properties from being forced out of their homes because their landlords have fallen into foreclosure.
Read more2014 – HUD Housing Counseling Intermediary
01/01/2014
To enhance our capacity building efforts and assist our housing counseling members, we became a HUD Housing Counseling Intermediary in 2014. We now secure and distribute pass-through funds from HUD to an affiliate network of HUD-approved housing counseling agencies, growing from an initial award of $307,000 for 26 agencies, to…
Read more2015 – Protections Against Reverse Mortgage Scams
01/01/2015
We helped to pass a state bill creating consumer protections for senior citizens considering reverse mortgages in response to scams targeting elderly African-American residents in Chicago.
Read more2016 – State Budget Advocacy
01/01/2016
We worked to pass the stopgap state budget, which rejected previously proposed cuts and included $77.4 million for programs to create affordable housing and end homelessness. We mobilized supporters to call for an end to Illinois’ state budget impasse.
Read more2016 – National Housing Trust Fund
01/01/2016
We worked with partners for more than a decade to advocate for the National Housing Trust Fund, which created a dedicated funding stream for building, preserving, and maintaining affordable rental housing. Since 2016, Illinois has received significant allocations from the NHTF, including $33.7 million in FY22.
Read more2016 – Reviewing Client Management Systems for Housing Counselors
01/01/2016
To help housing counselors choose from among Client Management Systems (CMSs), which they rely to track outcomes with helping households make informed home purchases or rental decisions, repair credit, and budget for the future, we published the first-ever comprehensive review of HUD-approved CMSs.
Read more2017 – Going Nationwide with Housing Counseling Trainings
01/01/2017
Partnering with the Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC), we expanded our housing counseling training nationwide and conducted the first series in Arizona.
Read more2017 – AmeriCorps Summer Program Launches
01/01/2017
We launched our Summer VISTA Associate program, which places nearly 30 VISTAs with host sites for 8 – 10 weeks to tackle capacity-building and direct service projects.
Read more2017 – Protections for Rent-to-Own Homebuyers
01/02/2017
We secured statewide legislation to protect homebuyers from predatory rent-to-own contracts. With this law, Illinois became a model for strong consumer protections against this often predatory practice that targeted low-income families and, in particular, Black households.
Read more2018 – Protecting Children from Lead Poisoning & Researching Eviction
01/01/2018
We led advocacy for a new law that updates Illinois’ definition of elevated blood lead level for children, bringing it up to CDC standards, and co-authored a report with the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing on how public eviction records in Cook County make it harder for renters to find…
Read more2019 – Going Nationwide with Housing Counselor Trainings
01/01/2019
We were awarded a grant from HUD to provide national housing counseling trainings and began hosting workshops to help housing counselors better serve communities around the country.
Read more2019 – Capital Budget Funding & Homeless Prevention Funding
01/01/2019
We worked to build support for investment in affordable housing—and successfully secured $200 million in the first capital budget in a decade. We also secured a $4 million—more than 80%—increase in funding for the Homeless Prevention Program, resulting in a total of $9 million in available funding.
Read more2019 – Protecting 1M+ People with Records from Housing Discrimination
01/01/2019
We co-led the campaign to pass the Just Housing Amendment, a groundbreaking measure that will ensure housing providers in Cook County do not discriminate against applicants with records.
Read more2020 – COVID-19 Response & Relief Funding
01/01/2020
We helped address immediate shelter needs during the early pandemic days by subgranting $485,000 to 30 homeless service providers across IL. We also advocated for federal relief funding for HUD and successfully urged state lawmakers to dedicate funds to housing. IL committed more than $325M for emergency rent and mortgage…
Read more2020 – Making the 2020 Census Count
01/01/2020
Because of its importance to Illinois communities, in 2020, we joined many partners in a once-every-decade initiative to ensure that all Illinois residents participated in the U.S. Census. Although the COVID-19 pandemic meant shifting outreach strategies, our collective efforts pushed Illinois’ census participation above the national average.
Read more2020 – Renter Protections in Cook County
01/10/2020
As part of the steering committee for a strong coalition of allies, we successfully advocated for the Cook County Residential Tenant Landlord Ordinance, which extends basic renter protections to more than 245,000 suburban households.
Read more2020 – Pivoting to Virtual Trainings
01/10/2020
Housing Action’s trainings, meetings, and annual conference changed significantly in 2020 as we went entirely virtual to comply with safety and public health guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic. We brought 32 online trainings to 3,565 participants, helping them improve their skills and knowledge to better serve their communities. As we…
Read more2021 – Illinois Community Reinvestment Act
01/01/2021
Housing Action joined with Woodstock Institute and other allies to successfully advocate for the Illinois CRA, becoming only the second state with an oversight system to ensure that residents are equitably served by all three major segments of the mortgage lending market: banks, credit unions, and state-licenses mortgage companies. This…
Read more2021 – Getting Housing Counselors Certified
01/01/2021
We helped housing counselors and agencies meet new professional certification standards by an August 2021 deadline by providing online study groups and one-on-one support. Illinois consistently ranked in the top 5 states for HUD-certified housing counselors as the new standards rolled out.
Read more2021 – Landmark State Housing Legislation
01/01/2021
We successfully advocated for the landmark Affordable Housing Omnibus bill, which creates new resources for affordable rental housing and property tax policies to keep rents affordable, and for the COVID-19 Emergency Housing Act, which creates protections for Illinoisans struggling to pay rent or a mortgage and seals all eviction records…
Read more…our work continues. Learn about more recent accomplishments in our latest annual report, 2021 end of year reflection, 2022 year in review and on our program pages.