Niya Kelly is the State Legislative Director at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. She joined the organization in 2015 as a policy specialist. Her work focuses on the Illinois state budget and 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; and broadening mental health services for minors in need.
Niya works in coalition with state partners on budget related advocacy, CCH’s advocacy helped restore millions to homeless shelters, the homelessness prevention fund and other safety net programs, preventing significant cuts to vital programs in the state budget.
She is currently working on creating a youth homelessness prevention taskforce in the Governor’s office and creating an anti-racist training for people who have experienced homelessness.
