By Atmika Iyer
For Capitol News Illinois
and Medill Illinois News Bureau
atmikaiyer2025@u.northwestern.edu
With homelessness increasing in Illinois, a coalition of shelter providers and advocates is calling for a $100 million increase in state funding to prevent homelessness and provide shelter to people without homes.
That would come on top of the $290 million the state is spending this year on homelessness services.
Advocates hope the new funding can build on lessons the state learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in opening new shelters and accommodations that better meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness.
The coalition known as the Illinois Shelter Alliance sent a letter to Gov. JB Pritzker in December, making the request ahead of the new General Assembly’s January inauguration. But finding new state money for any programs will be a tough sell in Springfield this year, with the state facing a $3.2 billion shortfall for the new fiscal year that begins in July.
“Over the course of every general assembly, we get a lot of letters from advocates. It’s their job, and it’s something that they feel passionately about, asking for more funding for virtually anything you can imagine,” Pritzker said when asked about the funding at a news conference in his office on Wednesday. “But in the context of a more challenging budget, it’s always difficult to meet everybody’s demands.”
Homelessness increasing
The number of people experiencing homelessness in Illinois more than doubled between 2023 and 2024, according to federal data released this month. Most of that increase was a result of migrants who came to Chicago—many of them on buses chartered by Texas state agencies. That influx of newcomers has since subsided.
But the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development notedthat the number of people experiencing homelessness also increased in most of the rest of the state, too. The federal report attributed that growth to a lack of affordable housing, increased shelter capacity, extreme cold that brought people into shelter when the count was conducted last January and a rising cost of living that came while federal pandemic aid ended.
Many shelter providers say lack of affordable housing in the state has kept people from moving from the streets to shelters and then into more permanent housing. Last month, Pritzker created a new position in his administration tasked with increasing the supply of affordable housing in the state. The governor also revived the SmartBuy program, which provides financial assistance for student loan relief and affordable mortgages for home buyers.
Pritzker also noted his administration has increased funding for Home Illinois, a collaboration between state agencies and service providers that aims to end homelessness. It received a $90 million increase in fiscal year 2024 compared to the previous year.
“Governor Pritzker strongly believes growing the state’s economy requires lower housing costs and increasing supply in every community. Home Illinois, the governor’s first-of-its-kind statewide endeavor, brings together state agencies, nonprofit organizations, advocates and people with lived experience to take an aggressive approach to preventing and ending homelessness,” his spokesperson, Alex Gough, said in a statement. “Through this partnership, we will work to find solutions so that every Illinoisan has access to essential housing and support.”
Pandemic-sparked changes
Before the pandemic, there weren’t many permanent homeless shelters in Illinois outside of Chicago, Rockford and Aurora, said Doug Kenshol, executive director of South Suburban Public Action to Deliver Shelter, or PADS. That left the job of providing pop-up shelter for sleeping through the night largely to churches and temples.
But the nature of the pandemic required less congregate and more isolated forms of shelter to mitigate the spread of the virus.
Organizations like PADS used federal funding from the 2021 pandemic relief law known as the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA—as well as other grant funding—to purchase properties themselves and create non-congregate housing across the state.
The new approach improved constituents’ mental and physical health, safety and ability to find resources to help them find employment, job training and more, Kenshol said.
When the federal pandemic money for shelters was about to run out two years ago, the Pritzker administration used state money to continue those services.
“The Pritzker administration stepped up and saved the day by providing an $85 million increase in homeless service funding two years ago,” Kenshol said. “So we didn’t fall off a cliff and lose all of that shelter capacity.”
Last month, though, the coalition of advocates and shelter providers asked Pritzker to include another $100 million in his upcoming budget proposal. They said the money would help address a statewide shortage of 4,236 emergency shelter beds and to prevent people from losing their homes.
“To eliminate this emergency shelter bed deficit will require consistent, annual, significant new state budget investments to support the ETH (emergency and transitional housing) Program for next fiscal year and many years to come,” the advocates from the Illinois Shelter Alliance wrote in their letter. “While $100 million is a substantial investment, it is not nearly as costly as the alternative.”
Atmika Iyer is a graduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and a Fellow in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.