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Illinois Homelessness Mortality and Morbidity Report 2017-2022
In September 2021, Gov. JB Pritzker signed Executive Order 2021-21, to Fight Homelessness in Illinois. The order established the Illinois Interagency Task Force on Homelessness, a new interagency body for collaboration to prevent and end homelessness, a Community Advisory Council on Homelessness to provide community guidance to the work, the Illinois Office to Prevent and End Homelessness (OPEH) to support the interagency work, and a state homelessness chief to lead it. In July 2023, this Home Illinois structure was codified into law and funded with an initial FY24 budget of more than $200 million. The interagency work of Home Illinois is organized through the Home Illinois plan. To learn more about Home Illinois, visit endhomelessness.illinois.gov.
One of the four pillars of the plan is working to close the mortality gap between people experiencing homelessness and Illinois’ general population. Recognizing a need to understand better the state of health of people experiencing homelessness to inform strategies to improve the population’s health, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health partnered to produce a report, released in July 2024, that utilized data provided by IDPH to describe the mortality and morbidity of persons experiencing homelessness.
To be healthy, all people need affordable, accessible, and safe housing. Across Illinois, many households struggle to afford housing and are forced to make hard choices, such as paying rent or a mortgage instead of buying food or medicine. Families are forced to stay in housing situations that are unsafe or overcrowded. Many households struggle to access any housing, resulting in experiences of homelessness. These burdens are not equally distributed. For example, due to longstanding patterns of structural inequity, Black Illinoisans are eight times more likely to experience homelessness than White Illinoisans.
Health both affects and is affected by homelessness. Having a disability or otherwise struggling with health increases a family’s risk of homelessness, and experiencing homelessness is detrimental to a household’s physical and mental health. The reality is staggering. As this report documents, Illinoisans experiencing homelessness die almost 18 years earlier than their housed counterparts. But this reality is not inevitable. Targeted investments in housing can potentially end homelessness across the state. The expansion of data-driven programs and policies, such as medical respite for people experiencing homelessness, harm reduction, and increased access to safe, accessible, low-barrier shelters, can mitigate the effect of homelessness on health.
This work was shaped by the leadership and guidance of OPEH, a statewide office tasked with coordinating state agencies’ strategies to prevent and end homelessness.
This is the first report in a continuing project. IDPH welcomes the public’s feedback and on the actions that should be taken in response to the health inequities highlighted in the report.