Building Housing Stability in Chicago: What We’re Learning and Funding

A new report from Housing Action Illinois and the National Low Income Housing Coalition finds our region is short 225,000 affordable rental units for low-income households, with only 31 available rental homes for every 100 extremely low-income renters (about $35,000 a year for Chicago family of four). These statistics show that the lack of affordable housing is a large driver of increasing evictions and homelessness. The bleakest part of the story is that this is a longstanding problem that we as a country have not had the will to change.

It takes me back to my time as a youth advocate in the homeless services sector and reminds me how relevant those lessons still are. At the Safe House, we offered just 21 days of emergency shelter to youth experiencing homelessness — a brief window shaped by government funding that still operates this way today. Despite that constraint, I learned the value of building genuine trust and providing the basics of food and shelter and wraparound support like case management and safe storage. I also saw early on how the work differed for my mentor, “Annie,” whose lived experience of homelessness gave her an insight no training could replicate.

Sustainable Solutions for Housing Stability is The Chicago Community Trust’s funding initiative supporting direct service organizations working to prevent and end homelessness. The title reflects our belief that homelessness is solvable. At the same time, we recognize that homelessness is driven by systemic inequities, including a lack of affordable housing, wages that have not kept pace with costs, and a frayed social safety net that leaves many without access to ongoing and preventative healthcare, education, and livable wage jobs. These intersecting challenges mean too many individuals and families are just one paycheck or one crisis away from losing their housing.

Yet we also see the impact of promising solutions. From August 2024 to August 2025, our 24 grant partners reported that 75 percent of households they served transitioned into stable, permanent housing, while 63 percent of households at risk of homelessness were able to remain in stable housing.

At the Trust we address Chicago’s housing shortage in many parts of our strategy—through our Policy Change, Critical Needs, and Homeownership and Home Equity work. Through this continuum approach, we address different aspects of this larger systemic issue. But the foundation is our consistent support for organizations that are working to prevent and end homelessness.

With so much uncertainty and funding shifts for nonprofit homelessness service providers, the flexibility and consistency of multi-year, general operating support like Sustainable Solutions for Housing Stability is needed now more than ever. This kind of support is essential for organizations to weather the storms of change. It also enables them time to respond and plan ahead for policy changes while also doing the day-to-day work of preventing evictions, providing emergency shelter, and creating pathways to permanent housing.