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Housing Action Illinois has a list of resources for mortgage assistance.

CCH defines homelessness as a state when someone does not have a permanent home and stays in a shelter, on the streets, temporarily with others, and/or in other places that are not meant for living.

Researchers at CCH, Vanderbilt University, and the Heartland Alliance Social IMPACT Research Center developed a census-based model to estimate people experiencing homelessness that incorporates children, family, and adults living temporarily with others due to economic hardship, or doubled-up.

Learn more about our methodology for quantifying doubled-up homelessness here. More details are available in a 2021 research article published in Housing Policy Debate.

In January 2026, CCH released its annual homeless estimate report showing that 58,625 people experienced homelessness in Chicago in 2024. This includes 19,317 people staying at shelters or outdoor locations and 39,308 living doubled up.

Whether facing homelessness for two days, two months, or two years, all Chicagoans deserve a place to call home.

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) identified 22,438 students experiencing homelessness during the 2024-25 school year. The CPS Students in Temporary Living Situations (STLS) identifies and provides services to students without stable housing. This represents a 16% decrease from the previous year’s high of 26,800 students. During the 2024-25 school year, students experiencing homelessness comprised 6.9% of the total CPS student population compared to the 2023-24 school year where homeless students enrolled in CPS comprised 8.3% of total enrollment.    

CPS data shows that 80% of students enrolled in the STLS program live doubled –up in the homes of others due to economic hardship. Federal law recognizes that doubled-up students should be counted as experiencing homeless, with rights protected under the federal McKinney-Vento Act and the Illinois Education for Homeless Students Act.  

4,239 students, representing 19% of STLS students, lived in shelters. This is a 45% decrease from the 2023-24 school year. 250 students lived in motels, a car, or other public place – a 76% decrease from the 2023-24 school year.    

Homelessness among students disproportionately impacts students of color, with 97% of STLS students being students of color. Black students represent 47% of the STLS population while only accounting for 34% of the CPS student population. Other CPS data shows that 804 students were “unaccompanied youth,” defined as students who are homeless and living on their own, without a parent or guardian. Another 19% of STLS students were students with disabilities or developmental delays. 

Homeless estimates are limited to what is documented. Any estimates of people experiencing homelessness should be observed as homelessness that is captured in data, and no one data source is a complete reflection of all homelessness.   

• Point-in-Time: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports 25,832 Illinois residents were unsheltered, staying in an emergency shelter, or living in transitional housing on a single night of the year in 2024. The traditional Point-in-Time (PIT) method for enumerating homelessness tallies people experiencing street and shelter homelessness on a designated night of the year, but it does not account for those temporarily staying with others. Because the PIT uses a narrow definition of homelessness that does not include the way most people experience homelessness, it is a dramatic undercount that can lead to wrong policy solutions. Without a full understanding of the scope of the problem, it is hard to develop the right solutions. 

• Accessing Homeless Services: The Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) tallied people receiving homeless services in FY 2024: 33,159 received Emergency and Transitional Housing services, 13,539 received Supportive Housing services, and 15,202 people received Homeless Prevention services. 

• School Enrollment: In a preliminary report, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) reported 73,119 students experiencing homelessness during the 2023-24 school year. This represents a 20% increase in students experiencing homelessness in Illinois since the 2022-23 school year. This is the highest number of students experiencing homelessness that ISBE has ever identified. 

Temporarily Staying with Others (or “doubling-up”): Using data from the American Community Survey, administered by the U.S. Census, CCH estimates that 118,241 people experienced doubled-up homelessness in Illinois in 2023. 

Unaccompanied youth are young people through age 24 who are living without a parent or legal guardian and lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. 

In 2024, 10,340 unaccompanied youth experienced doubled-up homelessness, temporarily staying with others. In addition, 1,298 single youth under 25 experienced street and shelter homelessness, with another 215 parenting youth experiencing street and shelter homelessness as the head of their household. 

The Chicago Point-in-Time (PIT) survey asks if the person is fleeing a violent relationship or being threatened or harmed by someone they know. In 2025, 34.2% of sheltered people and 24.9% of unsheltered people reported experiencing domestic violence.  

Homelessness disproportionately affects people of color, and in particular Black people, due to systemic racism and white supremacy. 

About 94%* of people experiencing homelessness in Chicago in 2024 were people of color. Chicagoans identifying as Black/African American, Asian, Pacific Islander, American/Alaskan Indigenous, or two or more races accounted for about 39,476 people experiencing homelessness. 15,438 people identified as Hispanic or Latine. 

11% of people experiencing homelessness were white. About 17% identified as another or unknown race. 

2024 Breakdown  

Total # of people experiencing homelessness: 58,625 

Race 

• Black or African American: 41,858 – 55% (12,063 street and shelter; 20,841 temporarily staying with others) 

• Latine/Hispanic**: 15,438 – 26% (2,671 street and shelter; 12,767 temporarily staying with others) 

• White: 6,341 – 10% (1,906 street and shelter; 4,435 temporarily staying with others) 

• Asian and Pacific Islander: 2,225 – 4% (161 street and shelter; 2,064*** temporarily staying with others) 

• American/Alaskan Indigenous: 978 – 2%  (87 street and shelter; 891*** temporarily staying with others) 

• Two or more race: 15,438 – 26% (408 street and shelter; 2,961*** temporarily staying with others) 

• Other/Unknown race:  10,137 – 17% (2,021 street and shelter; 8,116  temporarily staying with others) 

*This figure may include individuals who identify as both white and Latine/Hispanic, as ethnicity and race categories are defined and reported differently across data sources. See footnote below for more information. 

**Note on Race & Ethnic Demographics: In the IPUMS doubled-up data, ethnicity (Hispanic/Latine) is a separate question than race and the counts are not de-duplicated. In the HMIS street/shelter data, ethnicity and race are not separate questions, and the counts are de-duplicated. “Latine/Hispanic” includes people that identify as both “Latine/Hispanic” and “white & Latine/Hispanic.” 

***Use statistic with caution.  

According to the annual Out of Reach study (June 2025) by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and Housing Action Illinois, the Illinois “2-bedroom housing wage” is $29.81 an hour, 19th highest among the states. The “Housing Wage” is the term the Out of Reach study uses to describe how much someone needs to earn to afford an apartment at fair market rent in a given area. For Illinois, this amount is based on fair market monthly rent of $1,550 for a 2-bedroom apartment and assumes a 40-hour work week for 52 weeks a year. The Illinois minimum wage is only $15.00 an hour. 

In Chicago and the five-county suburban area, the housing wage is $33.87 an hour for a 2-bedroom apartment at fair market rent. The minimum wage in Chicago is $16.60 an hour for employers with four or more employees, and $16.50 an hour for youth workers. 

The primary cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing coupled with economic precarity and an inadequate social safety net. In Chicago, you must earn $33.87 per hour to afford a typical 2-bedroom apartment, more than twice the current minimum wage. Other intersecting causes include low wages or loss of employment, family disputes (including gender-based violence), lack of access to adequate health care and mental health care, and structural and institutional racism. 

In addition to these factors, unaccompanied youth often face abuse by parents or guardians, an unplanned pregnancy, or family rejection due to gender and/or sexual identity. While they are a contributing factor, neither substance use nor mental health issues on their own are leading causes of homelessness. 

According to Chicago’s 2025 Point-in-Time Count, 30.6% of respondents reported that their loss of housing was due to multiple causes. Other leading causes were family disputes (14%), loss of employment or underemployment (12.3%), abuse or violence in the home (5.7%), and eviction/foreclosure (4.2%). The next highest causes were release from jail or prison (3.7%) and alcohol or substance use (3.3%). 

According to Chicago’s 2025 Point-in-Time Count, 15.5% of people experiencing homelessness reported substance use. 29% of people reported a mental health disorder. These factors are not necessarily the cause of homelessness; in many cases, homelessness causes or exacerbates these circumstances. 

The reasons people are forced into homelessness are varied and complex, but the solution is clear: affordable permanent housing with supportive services. Significant and ongoing funding is needed to build, develop, and maintain safe and permanent housing for people experiencing or at risk of all forms of homelessness – staying on the streets, in shelters, or doubled-up in the homes of others. To do so means we all have to work together to build the public and political will needed to create long-term solutions.

Get Involved:

• Join our email list
• Create a Take Action profile
• Follow our statewide advocacy efforts
• Keep up with Bring Chicago Home, a campaign to secure a dedicated revenue stream to address homelessness at scale in Chicago
• Learn about why all forms of homelessness must be included in policy solutions 
• Donate to support CCH’s organizing, policy advocacy, legal aid services, and community education 

Whether or not to give money to people who ask for it is a personal decision. There is no harm caused by giving money directly to people experiencing homelessness. People need money for a wide range of needs, and it can be difficult for single people in particular to access cash.  Whatever you do, the most important thing is to make eye contact, respond, and treat people with dignity and respect.

CCH supports the civil rights of people experiencing homelessness, including the right to ask for help.