CCH is active at the local, state, national and international levels, with leadership participating on the National Coalition for Homeless and Habitat International, which is made up of national homeless coalitions. The CCH believes that the fundamental causes of contemporary homelessness are the lack of affordable housing and jobs that pay a living wage, and the growing problem of poverty. Over the last decade, more people have come to need low-cost housing and less has been done to create, protect and rehabilitate Chicago 's housing stock. Economic factors, insufficient care for people with mental illness, and cuts in social service programmes for the poor are also significant factors in the explosion of homelessness. The CCH has a professional and ethnically diverse staff of 13, including community organizers, a programme policy specialist, an associate director of programme and policy, a youth co-ordinator, a director of development, an office manager, an administrative assistant and an executive director.
Volunteers are the backbone of the organization.
The Board of Directors is made up of 31 volunteers, five of whom are homeless or formerly homeless. Housing, Women 's Empowerment Project, Jobs, Youth, Mental Health, and Alcohol and Substance Abuse. The chairperson of each committee is also on the board of directors. As the regional caucus, CAHC is composed of all the city members of the statewide coalition. For more than a decade, SHAC has worked to strengthen the role of community organizations in increasing and protecting the supply of affordable housing in Illinois.