Illinois Association of Community Action Agencies

Iacaa was awarded a grant with the Illinois department of human services to act as the lead grantee to assist individuals across the state of Illinois seeking employment. This program addressed the barriers to employment to those areas hardest hit by the pandemic covid-19. Working with 16 of the Community Action Agencies, awards amount of $2,854,993.67 were provided to individuals for such items as rental assistance, auto repair, utility assistance, transportation, personal hygiene, training, professional clothing, and dental services. The program served just under 2,000 participants in fiscal year 2023 who were all provided some form of assistance to help them seek employment. The maximum benefit provided per individual was $2,000

Iacaa served just under 215 clients with monthly rental assistance during fiscal year 2023. This grant funding is provided by the Illinois department of human services division of mental health. These programs provide rental subsidies to income eligible populations of people with serious mental health disorders, homelessness and institutionalized but who are able to live independently in their Community. A total of $1,379,852 was expended to provide client rental subsidies and other support.

Rental housing support program - the rhsp program provides subsidized rent payments for individuals with income under 30% of the average medium income (ami) living in rural areas. In 2022, an average of 152 households were assisted per quarter in the program. Iacaa sub-grants with eight Agencies; seven are member caa Agencies and one is a non-member agency. These funds are provided by a grant with the Illinois housing development authority.

The energy efficiency kits program is a comed, nicor, norht shore gas, and peoples energy program that provides assistance to low-income households in the forms of energy efficiency kits. These kits assist with basic weatherization to help households in need save on utility costs. In all cases the applicant must provide proof of eligibility through qualifying for other low-income energy assistance programs, such as liheap. With the help of our 7 laas within the comed, nicor, north shore gas, and peoples energy territory, the energy efficiency kits program provided 44,642 kits to eligible households.