01/08/2025
Christine Haley, Chief Homelessness Officer for the State of Illinois, will be the keynote speaker at the 2025 Martin Luther King Freedom March and Commemorative Service. Christine Haley leads the Illinois Office to Prevent and End Homelessness. In her role, Christine works with 16 state agencies to implement a strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness, called Home Illinois. Christine chairs of the Illinois Interagency Task Force on Homelessness and co-chairs the Community Advisory Council on Homelessness.
Before joining the State, Christine was the Director of Housing for Cook County Health (CCH), one of the nation’s largest public safety-net health systems. Together with Housing Forward, she was the clinical administrator of a 19-bed medical respite center in
Oak Park. Before joining CCH, Christine worked as an administrator in the housing sector with the CSH, Housing Opportunities for Women and Heartland Alliance. She previously served in health equity positions within the Massachusetts and Cleveland Departments of Public Health. She was the founding Executive Director of the Chicago Torture Justice Center, which provided healing services to survivors of police violence.
Christine Haley also has connections to Peoria. In her youth, she attended a Peoria elementary school and learned about volunteering at the Buehler Home. Both of her parents and two of her grandparents were born in Peoria. Her father, Ronald Haley, was active in Peoria civic life, before moving to Chicago in the mid-1970s. He was on the boards of the George Washington Carver Center, the Urban League and the Peoria Citizens Committee for Economic Opportunity. He was also the first Black principal at Spalding Academy.
Christine holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Science in Social Administration from Case Western Reserve University. Christine lives in Chicago with her husband Peter and three children.
