Board Membership Opportunity with Center for Housing and Health

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The Mission: Center for Housing and Health (CHH) honors every person’s right to a home and healthcare, by bridging the housing and health care systems, to improve the lives of Chicagoans experiencing homelessness.

The Vision: Every person has a place to call home that helps them reach their full potential.

Center for Housing and Health is seeking candidates for board membership.We’re looking for individuals who can help us achieve our goals of bridging the gap between housing and health care to improve the lives of Chicagoans experiencing homelessness by serving on the Board of Directors for Center for Housing and Health (CHH).

CHH is particularly seeking board members with expertise in finance, philanthropy, experience working within or with a Managed Care Organization, affordable housing development; and experience working with the communities CHH serves. Previous board experience is helpful, but not necessary.

What does it mean to be a board member?
Board membership goes beyond traditional volunteering and into the highest level of visionary leadership for the organization, assuming legal and financial responsibilities while serving as a community ambassador for CHH’s mission. Serving as a board member provides a unique opportunity to put your passion for a social cause into action by applying your experience and expertise to advance an organization’s impact. It's a rewarding way to serve your community, while learning new skills that can enhance your own career and grow your own personal and professional networks. As CHH is a supporting organization of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, there is not a fundraising commitment for CHH board members.

More about Center for Housing and Health
The origins of the Center for Housing and Health (CHH) are connected to the Chicago Housing for Health Partnership (CHHP) research study, a randomized control trial testing the Housing First model of permanent supportive housing and intensive case management for people who were experiencing homelessness and hospitalized. The results from CHHP project were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and inspired the creation of the Center in order to pursue similar innovations to address the barriers that people experiencing chronic homelessness face. This pursuit evolved into the establishment of CHH as a separate 501(c)(3) supporting organization of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago in February 2010 to extend its work beyond HIV/AIDS by promoting effective housing options for people experiencing homelessness and living with a wide range of chronic illnesses.

In 2014, CHH established the Better Health through Housing (BHH) Collaborative, an alliance of 28 supportive housing agencies across Chicago and Cook County dedicated to bridging the gap between the housing and health care sectors. By 2017, CHH grew to having a budget of $5 million from a $100,000 budget six years earlier, while continuing to support Chicago and Cook County residents experiencing homelessness to find better housing solutions.

Beginning in 2019, CHH began serving as the administrator for Chicago and Cook County’s Flexible Housing Pool. The Flexible Housing Pool is a public/private collaboration focused on making communities healthier by creating more permanent housing and ensuring that all the sectors that impact homeless are part of the solution. CHH coordinates with health care systems and community-based organizations throughout Chicagoland to provide housing, health care and supportive services to Flexible Housing Pool participants.

In 2020 the City of Chicago committed $5 million to the Flexible Housing Pool to serve at least 200 youth ages 18-24 who are experiencing homelessness. The FHP youth expansion will build on existing relationships to continue strengthening multi-sector partnerships.

CHH is committed to diversity and ensuring an appropriate balance of skills and experience on our Board and committees. Our Board is comprised of people of different experiences, backgrounds, and opinions. We believe creating an inclusive and diverse culture improves the effectiveness of our Board and better reflects the diverse populations that we serve. We especially encourage people of color (i.e. Black, Latinx, Native American), those who identify as LGBTQ+, and those early in their career to apply for a position on the Board.

If you are interested, please email Janice Homekingkeo, at janice@mortengroup.com with your resume and a brief letter of interest!