General Legal Aid
Phone: 888-995-4673
Offer assistance to those preparing to be homeowners, reverse mortages, offer alternatives to foreclosures, and have resources for foreclosure prevention scams, rental counseling, mortage modification support.
Beverly Chicago Landlord Eviction Lawyer
Phone: (312) 973-3755
Location: 10231 South Western Avenue, 1st Floor, Chicago, IL 60643
Offer assistance with residental closings, commercial closings, landlord evictions and foreclosure.
Location: 6 S Clark St., Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60603
Phone: (312) 738-2452
To request legal assistance apply for help here, they offer services for housing stability.
Legal Aid Hotline: (312) 738-9200
Location: 17 N. State Street, Chicago, Illinois
Daytime Hours: Monday – Friday, 9AM to 4:30PM
Evening Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays until 7:30PM
To book an appointment refer to this page.
For more information on Illinois Covid Housing, & Economic Loss Prevention program refer to this page.
CARPLS offers assistance with landlord-tenant, foreclosure, and property damage issues. While they do not represent individuals in court, their attorneys give free legal advice.
COVID H.E.L.P. (Housing and Economic Loss Prevention)
This program can help those who are experiencing eviction, foreclosure and housing issues (including rental assistance).
For their full list of resources visit this page.
Location: 33 North Dearborn Street, Suite 400, Chicago, Illinois 60602
Phone: (312) 332-1624
CVLS has 24 legal clinics across Chicago, for a detailed list of all their locations, hours of operation and phone numbers please refer to this page.
CVLS offers assistance with landloard disputes, tenant evictions, mortage foreclosure, and title and property claims.
Call the Early Resolution Program (ERP) to speak with a lawyer and get connected to other resources for eviction or foreclosure cases. This program is available to all residents of Cook County free of charge. You do not need to have a case in court to get help.
Services included: free legal aid, mediation services, and connections to other resources including rental assistance.
Phone: 855-956-5763
Offer help in English, Spanish and Polish.
Lawyers Committee for Better Housing
Phone: (312) 347-7600
If you’re living in a foreclosure building you can call their Tenants in Foreclosure Helpline (312) 784-3507
Location: 33 North LaSalle, Suite 900, Chicago, IL 60602
They provide services related to foreclosure, house discrimination, unsafe living/apartment conditions and unresponsive landloards.
Other useful links:
Includes a questionnaire and brief advice from a volunteer attorney.
Phone: (312)423-5938
Apply online here for legal services.
(Legal Aid Chicago operates several legal clinics across the city, but they are currently suspended due to COVID-19.) If you’d like to see a full list of their legal clinics, visit this page.
Staff speaks several languages, including Spanish.
Their free services include: preventing eviction or termination from subsidized housing and the Housing Choice Voucher Program, challenging discrimination, and enforcing rights for tenants in subsidized housing or with special legal needs, foreclosure defense, among other services.
Includes a questionnaire and brief advice from a volunteer attorney.
Eviction
A landlord must give a tenant a written eviction notice (formally known as a “Notice to Terminate Tenancy”) before starting an eviction case in court. There are different types of notices that a landlord must give a tenant, depending on each case: there are 5 day-notice, 10-day notice and 30-day notice.
For a detailed description on the difference between each notifice please refer to Illlinois Legal Aid Online page.
Illinois Legal Aid Online has two programs that aid landlords in Cook County.
Evict a Tenant Program: To use this program to help landlords prepare the proper documentation, individuals must be 1) seeking to evict a tenant from a property located in Cook County; and 2) have given the tenant a lease termination notice and the notice period has ended.
Lease termination Notice: To us ethis program landlords one of the two mus tbe true: 1) you want to end a tenant’s lease due to non-payment of rent or other lease violations; or 2) you want to end a tenant’s month-to-month lease for any reason.
If you have received an eviction notifice please refer to this page (English/Spanish). They provide free help for Chicago renters (tenants).
This is a state-funded network of 16 non-profit organizations providing free legal aid, mediation services, and connections to other resources including rental assistance in response to the eviction crisis. These services are funded via a partnership between the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation.
You can text “Eviction Help” to:
(844) 938-4280 (English)
(844) 938-4289 (Spanish)
Fair Housing/Housing Discrimination
Location: 115 West Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60654
Voice: (312) 640-2100
Toll Free: (800) 613-8549
You can fill out this in-take form to recive assistance. The organization offers help to people with all kinds of disabilities including intellectual, psychiatric, physical and sensory disabilities.
Chicago’s Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
Phone: (312) 630-9744
Email: info@clccrul.org
Location: 100 North LaSalle Street, Suite 600, Chicago, IL, 60602
Housing Opportunity Project’s intake clinic: Helps with housing discrimination. Please RSVP via phone at (312) 888-4192 or via email at intakes@clccrul.org.
Illinois Department of Human Rights
Fair Housing Division: The Illinois Department of Human Rights takes and investigates charges od discrcimination involving real estate transactions (rentals, sales, and other transactions) involving residential and commercial real property.
Foreclosures
Illinois Housing Development Authority
Location: 111 E. Wacker Drive, Suite 1000 Chicago, IL 60601
Phone: (312) 836-5200
Hours: 8:30AM – 5:00PM
All forclosure assistance is free. To find a counselor visit this page.
To send them an email or to view their detailed contact list visit this page.
Homelessness
They offer an emergency financial assistance program (Emergency Fund) that provides critical financial assistance to people experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness or another serious emergency.
Flexible Financial Fund: Offers short-term assistance, you can call 311
State Homelessness Prevention Fund: Provides assistance for security deposits, rent, mortgages, and utilities. You can call 311 or refer to this page to locate a community service center near you.
Student Emergency Fund: Assists Chicago college students experiencing a crisis or transition by distributing critical and timely financial assistance via a network of partner organizations and schools.
Rapid Re-Housing Program: Provides rent and utility assistance for people experiencing homelessness, living in shelters or on the street. You can call 311.
The Law Project: community service centers that help families in need
Location: 70 East Lake Street | Suite 720, Chicago, Illinois 60601
Phone: (312) 641-4140
The Law Project helpline: (800) 940-1119
Englewood Community Service Center
Location: 1140 West 79th Street, Chicago, IL 60620
Phone: (312) 747-0200
Garfield Community Service Center
Location: 10 South Kedzie Avenue, Chicago, IL 60612
Phone: (312) 746-5400
Dr. Martin Luther King Community Service Center
Location: 4314 South Cottage Grove, Chicago, IL 60653
Phone: (312) 747-2300
North Area Community Service Center
Location: 845 West Wilson Avenue, Chicago, IL 60640
Phone: (312) 744-2580
South Chicago Community Service Center
Location: 8650 South Commercial Avenue, Chicago, IL 60617
Phone: (312) 747-0500
Trina Davila Community Service Center
Location: 4312 West North Avenue, Chicago, IL 60639
Phone: (312) 744-2014
This program provides rental/mortgage assistance, utility assistance, approved case management and approved supportive services directly related to the prevention of homelessness to eligible individuals and families who are in danger of eviction, foreclosure or homelessness or are currently homeless.
IDHS’s list of providers can be found here.
Mortgage/Lender
Phone: (312) 744-0281
Offers programs and services for prospective home buyers.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
List of HUD approved counseling agencies; provide advice on buying a home, renting, defaults, foreclosures, and credit issues.
For their resource page on mortage refer to this link.
Phone: (202) 708-1112
Free or low-cost counseling services for buying, renting, defaults, foreclosures, credit issues, and reverse mortgages.
To search for a house counselor refer to this page or this voice system (800) 569-4287.
Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation
Phone: (877) 793-3470
Reporting deceitful or fraudulent lending practices.
Illinois Housing Development Authority
Location: 111 E. Wacker Drive, Suite 1000 Chicago, IL 60601
Phone: (312) 836-5200
Hours: 8:30AM – 5:00PM
Helps people with home-ownership through mortgage loans, repair grants, and foreclosure prevention assistance, as well as supporting multifamily rental housing and community building.
Phone: (888) 995-4673
Website is available in English, Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese, Korean, and Russian.
Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago
Location: 1279 N. Milwaukee Avenue, 4th Floor, Chicago, Illinois 60622
Phone: (773) 329-4111
Mortgage Assistance Grant Program:
The Mortgage Assistance Program, provides assistance to low-to moderate-income Chicago homeowners who have suffered an economic impact due to the COVID-19 pandemic and are having difficulty paying their mortgage.
The maximum amount of assistance available is $3,300.
Real Estate Closings, Rent/Landlord Issues
Demand Letter: A sample letter that you can fill out to give proper notice to your landlord about the repairs that need to be made in order to comply with Municipal Code. After sending this letter, the landlord will have 14 days to fix the problems.
What do if your landlord does not make repairs: Provides information on the steps to take when a landlord refuses to make repairs, does not repair the damages within a given period of time or the tenant is being evicted.
Illinois Rental Payment Program
The ILRP program is an emergency rental assistance program that helps households that are unable to pay rent due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Eligible households may receive up to 15 months of assistance; the maximum grant amount is $25,000. The grant will be paid to the landlord in the form of a check.
Security Deposit
Getting Back a Security Deposit: ILAO provides a step-by-step description on how to follow through this process.
For more inofrmation on the Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance (RLTO) regulations concerning security deposits visit this page.
