Cynthia Cornelius is Director of Support Programs at Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA) where she oversees the delivery of legal support services and wrap-around social services for civil, criminal defense, and criminal and juvenile records relief programs. Cynthia began her engagement with CGLA as a law student intern in the criminal records program in 2009. She has been employed with CGLA since 2012 following her graduation from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Cynthia was a “non-traditional” law student, having accumulated over 30 years of professional and managerial experience in diverse fields, including information technology, process reengineering, and consumer advocacy before enrolling in law school.

Niya Kelly attended Loyola University Chicago, receiving her Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Juris Doctor degrees. She is currently the Director of State Legislative, Equity and Transformation at the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness. Her work focuses on the Illinois state budget, homeless education, public benefits, youth homelessness, and housing insecurity policies. In her work, she has written and advocated several pieces of legislation including providing new housing opportunities for minors experiencing homelessness; access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for community college students experiencing food insecurity; access to free birth certificates for people experiencing homelessness; an increase to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) grant for families; changing the child support system to ensure families receive all funds paid, and broadening mental health services for minors in need.

Ron Hochbaum is an Associate Clinical Professor of Law at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law where he directs the Buccola Family Homeless Advocacy Clinic and teaches Poverty Law. Before joining the faculty at McGeorge, Professor Hochbaum was an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law and a clinical teaching fellow at both Loyola University Chicago and Cornell University. In practice, Professor Hochbaum worked first as a Staff Attorney and then a Supervising Attorney at the Homeless Action Center in Berkeley and Oakland, California. 

Professor Hochbaum’s research explores the criminalization of homelessness, situating it at the intersection of scholarship on the criminalization of poverty and critical outsider jurisprudence. His work examines the interplay between the criminalization of poverty and the ever-evolving nature of segregation. In the process, he demonstrates that anti-homeless bias and the intersections of homelessness and race, gender, disability and LGBTQIA+ identity drive our expanding definition of crime and the effort to equate homelessness with danger and criminality.

State Representative Kevin John Olickal is the son of immigrants and lifelong resident of Skokie. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from The Ohio State University and is currently pursuing his Juris Doctor from the School of Law at Loyola University Chicago. Before serving in the Illinois General Assembly, Rep. Olickal worked on the House Democratic Staff and as a Cook County COVID-19 Recovery Specialist for Small Businesses. In addition to being a full-time State Representative for Illinois’ 16th District and a part-time law student, he serves as President of the Indo-American Democratic Organization. Rep. Olickal has a passion and a proven record in fighting for working families, progressive criminal justice reform, reproductive rights, and public education.

Stephen Brown, MSW LCSW, Director of Preventive Emergency Medicine, Senior Director, Business Development, Institute of Healthcare Delivery Design (IHDD), University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System (UI Health) has split appointments between the Department of Emergency Medicine and the Institute for Healthcare Delivery Design (IHDD) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He leads the Better Health Through Housing program, UI Health’s housing program for the chronically homeless. It is the longest running healthcare-to-housing program (since 2015) and has housed more homeless persons than any other single hospital in the country. He also runs ComPAcT, a team-based care program that works to better coordinate the care for healthcare super-utilizers.

Christian Diaz is the Director of Equitable Community Development at Palenque LSNA, formerly Logan Square Neighborhood Association, a community organization that has been developing leaders and advancing racial equity in Chicago for 60 years. Previously, he served as executive director of Chicago Votes where he designed models of civic innovation with young people in Chicago Public Schools, City Colleges of Chicago and helped steer a coalition to pass Automatic Voter Registration in Illinois. Born in Mexico, Christian identifies as queer, latino and immigrant. He brings 10+ years of experience in nonprofit management, community engagement and racial equity advocacy, having worked in coalitions to win driver’s licenses for undocumented residents, to require data transparency on student arrests in publicly-funded schools, and to ban 10-day suspensions of high school students in Illinois. Christian graduated with a B.A. in Global Studies at Warren Wilson College in 2012. In earlier lives, Christian volunteered at a home for children with disabilities in northern India, worked at a wolf sanctuary in Rural New Mexico and taught English at a monastery in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Michelle J. Gilbert became Legal and Policy Director at Law Center for Better Housing in Fall 2020. In that role, she has advocated regarding emergency rental assistance programs and eviction court reform, helped create the eviction court Early Resolution Program, and manages the Chicago Right to Counsel Pilot Project.

She came to LCBH with 30 years' experience at Legal Aid Chicago. She had been a Supervisory Attorney in the Housing Practice Group since its inception in 2011. Previously, she was Supervisory Attorney and Project Director of Legal Assistance Foundation’s HIV Project. In 2021, she received the Chicago Bar Foundation Thomas Morsch Award for Public Service. Previously, she received the 2003 Legal Assistance Foundation Equal Justice Award for enforcing the due process rights of tenants and 2006 and 2012 AIDS Foundation of Chicago awards for advocacy for housing rights of people with HIV.

Prior to her career in legal aid, she was associated with Jenner & Block and Rikvin, Radler, Dunn, & Bayh. Michelle graduated magna cum laude from the University of Illinois College of Law, where she served as Note Editor of the University of Illinois Law Review and received the Rickert Award for academic excellence, and has since served on its Alumni Board.

Dontay Lockett experienced homelessness throughout his childhood, spending his teen years commuting more than an hour each way from a shelter to his high school. His precarious living situation made staying on top of his studies extremely difficult. Dontay’s track coach later became his legal guardian, providing him with more stability to pursue his dreams. “My guardian inspired me to think about and want to go to college,” Dontay recalls. “Having a mentor like that pushed me on different paths, whether academics, sports, or art.” Dontay won a renewable college scholarship from the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness (CCH) in 2016, earning a bachelor’s degree in Illustration in 2020. Dontay continues to advocate for families like his. In 2019, he spoke at a CCH-led press conference at Chicago City Hall, sharing the challenges he faced growing up and urging elected officials to invest more funds to ending homelessness. 

Dontay works as a special education paraprofessional at Chicago Public Schools, supporting students with disabilities in the classroom. He also coaches basketball, track, and cross country. He is also an active Board member of Red Line Service, the only arts organization in Chicago - and one of the few world-wide - led by people with lived experience of homelessness. 

RedLine Service is a community of artists and art lovers with a lived experience of houselessness working together with professionals in the arts to reduce barriers to the arts for all. We insist - as unhoused or housing & food insecure artists and art lovers - that we lead, uplift and sustain the community, with support from professionals in the arts, as co-producers. Some of us want access to arts programming that we can consume and enjoy. Others of us, strive for careers and recognition in the arts. We all acknowledge that the lack of fulfilling cultural experiences, precarious wages, food insecurity and high cost of transportation hinder our success and our ability to live enriching cultural lives. Through art programming, art-making and forging social bonds, we cultivate abundant collective care. 

Bob Palmer (he/him), Policy Director for Housing Action Illinois, has more than 30 years of experience in housing organizing, advocacy, training, and finance. He joined Housing Action in September 2002. He has been a leader on successful campaigns to create and fund a state rental subsidy program for extremely low-income households, secure money for affordable housing in Illinois’ capital budget for the first time, pass state legislation protecting homeowners and renters during the foreclosure process, and increase state funding to prevent and end homelessness. Recent wins include new rules and funding protecting children in Illinois from lead poisoning, state law protections for homebuyers considering rent-to-own contracts, getting more than $300 million in federal funding dedicated in the state budget for COVID-19-related emergency rent and mortgage assistance, and working with partners to pass statewide “source of income” fair housing protections.

Bob was on the board of the National Low Income Housing Coalition between 2013 and 2022. He holds a certificate in Urban Housing Development and a Masters Degree in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He earned his B.A. in Psychology from Beloit College.

Sherri Allen-Reeves, Executive Director of Phoenix Foundation, NFP (PHX-NFP), has passionately worked in the service of others for over 30 years and is a vocal advocate for homeless and other disenfranchised people. Under her leadership, PHX-NFP opened Phoenix Rising Emergency Triage Shelter, an 85-bed non-congregant shelter for single men and women, an Access Point for the Coordinated Entry System, created 38 units of Rapid Rehousing, and partnering with the Center for Housing and Health, providing Case Management for 40 families in Permanent Supportive Housing.

In 2024 Sherri was appointed to the Illinois Community Advisory Council on Homelessness, by Governor JB Pritzker. As a member of the Illinois Racial Equity Roundtable on Black Homelessness, Sherri significantly influenced the University of Illinois at Chicago report, "Black Homelessness in Illinois: Structural Drivers of Inequality. Her commitment to service includes Board Member roles for the Chicago Continuum of Care, Supportive Housing Providers Association, Legal Council for Health Justice, and the Darren B. Easterling Center for Restorative Practices. She is also a member of the National Alliance to End Homelessness BIPOC Collective and Leadership Council, the Collaborative on Child Homelessness Illinois Leadership Committee, Rotary Club Chicago Southeast, and founder of the Renaissance Bronzeville Toastmasters Club. Sherri holds a BA in Counseling from Midwest Theological Institute.

April Harris first experienced homelessness with her husband and two young children in 2014. Originally from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, they were forced to relocate to Chicago for safety reasons. Navigating their way through the shelter system in Chicago was not an easy task. April and her family experienced homelessness for two years before finally securing housing through LUCHA. April has worked with the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness and as a grassroots organizer on the Bring Chicago Home Campaign. April’s family is her strength and fuel to continue her advocacy work for those experiencing homelessness.

Lauren Hersch (she/they) is an LCSW and Co-Founder of Rayo Counseling and Community Co-op, Illinois' first worker-led, democratically organized Community Mental Health Center. Lauren provides psychoanalytic psychotherapy, as well as case management, advocacy and community support services. She is a passionate mental health activist, and is engaged in several associated projects including The 606 Project, which works to increase access to psychoanalytic treatments for psychosis in Chicago, and the Mental Health Autonomy Alliance, dedicated to promoting mental health autonomy in Illinois through legislation, education and practice. 

She came to LCBH with 30 years' experience at Legal Aid Chicago. She had been a Supervisory Attorney in the Housing Practice Group since its inception in 2011. Previously, she was Supervisory Attorney and Project Director of Legal Assistance Foundation’s HIV Project. In 2021, she received the Chicago Bar Foundation Thomas Morsch Award for Public Service. Previously, she received the 2003 Legal Assistance Foundation Equal Justice Award for enforcing the due process rights of tenants and 2006 and 2012 AIDS Foundation of Chicago awards for advocacy for housing rights of people with HIV.

Prior to her career in legal aid, she was associated with Jenner & Block and Rikvin, Radler, Dunn, & Bayh. Michelle graduated magna cum laude from the University of Illinois College of Law, where she served as Note Editor of the University of Illinois Law Review and received the Rickert Award for academic excellence, and has since served on its Alumni Board.

Dana Madigan is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health, where she leads several projects related to homelessness, precarious employment, and occupational health. She is co-lead on the Illinois Statewide Morbidity and Mortality Report of Persons Experiencing Homelessness, the first statewide report using both morbidity and mortality data in the nation.

Gwynne Kizer Mashon is an Associate Director in the Public Benefits Practice Group at Legal Aid Chicago. She joined Legal Aid Chicago in 2020 after nine years in legal services in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, LA. Prior to joining Legal Aid Chicago, she served as the Director of Development and Advocacy at Southeast Louisiana Legal Services (SLLS). In that role, she advocated for systemic solutions to end homelessness and hunger and to ensure low-income people can access vital medical care; represented clients in cases related to benefits such as SNAP, Medicaid, and disability benefits from the Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs; developed projects to prevent homelessness for people impacted by the criminal justice system; and participated in the city of New Orleans' Interagency Council to End Homelessness.  In her current role, she oversees programs that help clients obtain, maintain, and maximize benefits from the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Social Security Administration, leads systemic advocacy projects to ensure vulnerable populations can access the food, cash, and medical assistance, and represents clients in administrative and judicial proceedings. Gwynne also leads Legal Aid Chicago's Homeless Services Task Force, which works to increase access to justice for people living in homelessness and at risk of homelessness. She holds a B.A. from Grinnell College and is a cum laude graduate of Chicago-Kent College of Law.