Housing Action Illinois fills a unique need in our field: we work across the entire affordable housing ecosystem throughout Illinois, and our coalition has successfully led the movement to expand and protect affordable housing since 1987.

In 2024, we were excited to grow our coalition to 190+ member organizations, amplifying our collective voice and broadening our reach. We bring organizations together to advance local and state-based solutions that will expand housing opportunities for low- to moderate-income homeowners, renters, and people experiencing homelessness. We focus on improving systems, passing better policies, securing resources, and strengthening our field.

This past year, we expanded some of our programs into new states and regions. Our focus remains on Illinois, our home state, but we know that our communities’ fates are intertwined, and impactful change means partnering with allies near and far.

As the year draws to a close and we look ahead, we know there will be significant challenges and uncertainty in 2025, but we are resolved to stay the course. Whatever comes next, we will continue the foundational work we’ve always done to expand access to housing opportunities for all. 

Our work would not be possible without the support and engagement of our members, allies, and other partners. We hope you will consider donating today to help us protect and sustain our accomplishments in 2025 and beyond.

Thank you to everyone who has provided partnership and support in this past year.

In 2024, through our newly rebranded Capacity Building program, we provided training, consulting, and resources to help housing organizations—especially housing counseling agencies—better serve our communities. This included:

• • Supporting 34 agencies across 6 states through our work as a HUD-approved housing counseling Intermediary. We celebrated the 10th anniversary of our Housing Action Counseling Network, which has helped more than 99,800 households navigate their housing options over the past decade.
  • Facilitating more than 25 nationwide trainings through the Housing Action Training Center to help housing counselors build their skills and knowledge.
  • Providing individual guidance and site visits for 13 housing counseling agencies going through the HUD review process.
  • Beta testing My Path to Home, a platform to help housing counselors and potential counseling clients find each other more easily.

We raised our voice to achieve  a number of advocacy successes, including:

• Securing a new record investment in ending homelessness in our state budget to support court-based rent assistance to prevent evictions, as well as funding specifically to address the injustice that Illinois’ Black residents are eight times more likely to be homeless than white residents.
• Getting ready to put the Illinois Community Reinvestment Act into action by organizing comments to the implementing rules. This new state law requires financial institutions to invest meaningfully in our communities. We also helped pass a law requiring research on discriminatory effects in who can access financial products and services, which we expect will be used in IL CRA exams to assess how well financial institutions are serving those that benefit least from our financial system.
• Previously, Housing Action successfully advocated for the creation of a state task force to review the Cook County tax sale process, which erodes homeownership among low-income households, especially among homeowners of color. This year, we served on the task force, which completed a report with recommendations to create property tax payment plan options for at-risk homeowners and other taxpayers, and supported the Cook County Treasurer in launching these resources, such as a payment plan calculator and reminder system for taxpayers to provide partial payments and keep their homes.

We rebranded our Housing Action Corps program, which connects AmeriCorps members with community organizations to address local challenges with local solutions. This year, our program:

• Placed 38 full-year AmeriCorps VISTA Members with host organizations around Illinois and in 6 additional states nationwide to help them do more and do it better. Seven of these members have re-enrolled to continue serving with Housing Action Corps in the coming year!
• In addition to many other kinds of capacity building projects, these AmeriCorps Members recruited and managed 4,071 volunteers (who racked up 16,095 volunteer hours) and raised more than $200,000 in cash donations, nearly $10,000 in in-kind funds, and more than $1,000,000 through grant applications.

We worked in many other ways to advance our issues, including—but not limited to!—the following:

• Conducting community engagement sessions with residents and stakeholders of Cairo, Illinois and publishing a Cairo Housing Needs Action Plan, which we presented to the City Council and a local task force.
• Amplifying the voices of people with lived experience by providing subgrants to create stipends for participants joining Continuum of Care councils to inform the operations and coordination of homeless service providers
  
• Bringing together nearly 350 housing professionals for our annual Housing Matters Conference, including AmeriCorps VISTA members serving in our Housing Action Corps program.
  

Thank you to everyone who has provided partnership and support in this past year.