College Scholarships

2011 CCH scholarship winners

Each summer, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless awards several renewable college scholarships to graduating seniors who experienced homelessness while in high school. The freshman year award is $2,000, with at least $1,000 awarded yearly to students as they progress through college.

Eligible to apply are students who were homeless at some point while attending Chicago Public high schools, or homeless students living anywhere in Illinois who were formerly clients of the CCH Law Project. The deadline to submit an application for the 2012 scholarships, including two letters of reference, was May 1. The finalists will be announced in mid-June.  The 2012 scholarships will be awarded at Loyola University Law School on Thursday, June 28. The hour-long event begins at 6 p.m.

To showcase the promise and tenacity of aspiring college students who lived with homelessness while in high school, the CCH Law Project created the scholarship program in 2004. The program was the next step for a legal aid program that focuses its casework on helping homeless children and youth access public school. Patricia Rivera, then the director of the Chicago Public Schools’ Homeless Education Program, collaborated with CCH in creating the scholarship, and was the first of the private donors to fund the scholarships.

In eight years, through 2011, 29 homeless or recently homeless students have received renewable scholarships – and 62% have earned their degrees or are progressing through college with our help. Five scholarship recipients have graduated with bachelor’s degrees – from Dominican University, Kendall College, Northern Illinois University, and the University of Illinois-Champaign. A fifth student transferred from college to finish her studies at a nurse’s training program. Fourteen scholarship recipients are still in college, attending schools in Illinois, Arkansas, and South Carolina, including four freshman winners in 2011. The program is also assisting the first of its graduates to prepare for her post-graduate degree in nursing.

Affiliated with Dollars for Scholars, the CCH scholarship program is funded by private donations and several foundations – the Osa Foundation and Robin Lavin, Alvin H. Baum Family Fund, the Chicago Teachers Union, and the Student Alliance for Homeless Youth, a organization led by teens from eight North Shore high schools. The program also benefited from $10,000 challenge grant from Elaine’s Hope, administered by educator Rhonda Purwin. CCH donates its staff time and the costs of an annual summer event at which the students and donors meet to present the newest scholarship winners.

For more information, contact CCH scholarship coordinator Barbara Chasnoff at barbarac@chicagohomeless.org