Community organizing paired with advocacy has long proven effective for CCH. An example is the decade-long campaign of public protests at Presidential Towers. The government-subsidized complex of high-rent apartments was built on the site of a West Loop skid row. By 1994, CCH pressured the developers to set aside 165 units for low-income residents and the funding that launched the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund. In 2009 CCH concluded its 10-year, statewide campaign, It Takes a Home to Raise a Child. Its final victory was persuading state leaders to include affordable housing, for the first time, in an Illinois capital budget, $134 million secured. In its first victory, in 2000, Illinois created homeless prevention grants for struggling households. More than 91,000 households have been helped so far. In 2005, we succeeded in creating a rent subsidy program that assists 3,000 low-wage families. CCH continues to advocate adequate state funding for housing programs, opposing efforts to cut housing and services due to the budget crisis. In 2008-09, CCH mobilized a city-based housing campaign, Sweet Home Chicago. It is building support for a Chicago ordinance, introduced March 2010, to dedicate 20% of tax-increment financing funds to housing for low-wage families. CCH legal aid focuses on students and unaccompanied youth. It secured a sweeping court order in 2000 that required Chicago Public Schools develop homeless services that last year served 12,525 students.

Founded in 1980 and incorporated in 1982, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless leads strategic campaigns, community outreach, and policy initiatives that push for change in public and private sectors. CCH has a clear mission: "We organize and advocate to prevent and end homelessness because we believe housing is a human right in a just society."

CCH addresses the root causes of homelessness, pushing for access to affordable housing, jobs, and public schools. Policy specialists, public interest attorneys, and community organizers work with people impacted by homelessness mothers with children, unaccompanied youth, prostitution survivors, ex-offenders, and low-wage workers. Regular outreach at 30 shelters, transitional housing and street programs across Chicago reaches more than 4,500 people a year. From this, 250 to 300 homeless, at-risk and recently homeless people are mobilized every year to work as leaders who advocate on the issues that affect their lives. The most active 15 to 20 leaders work with the CCH Speakers Bureau, which builds community support through speaking engagements at more than 65 school, civic and religious venues a year. Steering committees made up of homeless leaders, providers, advocates and academics help decide and support the work of CCH projects. CCH collaborates with other organizations on all initiatives, including groups it helped launch, such as the Grassroots Collaborative and Housing Action Illinois. A city-based housing campaign, Sweet Home Chicago (launched 2009), advocates the city create affordable housing for low-wage families by dedicating 20% of yearly tax-increment financing funds. Eleven community and labor groups partner on the campaign. A statewide campaign, No Youth Alone, advocates for resources to serve the growing number of unaccompanied youth. Staffed by the policy and legal staffs, it is supported by the CCH Youth Committee (1983), an active group of 32 youth providers from across Illinois. Three community organizers offer monthly outreach at 25 shelters and housing facilities across Chicago. Horizons (2007) is a creative writing program that runs outreach in three family shelters and an adult SRO. The Re-Entry Project (2006) works with ex-offenders who struggle with housing and job barriers. It runs outreach at eight facilities, guided by a Steering Committee of ex-offenders, advocates and academics. Womens Empowerment Project (1991) offers outreach at family shelters and womens facilities. A fourth organizer staffs the Speakers Bureau (2007), which secures venues at which homeless people can interact with the community and mobilize an outside base of volunteers. The Law Project (1997) offers legal aid to homeless families and individuals, with focus on students. A youth attorney runs Youth Futures (2004), a mobile legal clinic that runs outreach through shelter and street programs. The Jobs Project (1999) organizes low-wage workers and providers, pressing for access to jobs, training, and health care. Prostitution Alternatives Round Table, or PART (2001), advocates for jobs, housing and incarceration alternatives for sex trade survivors.