Our Team

  • Julie Dworkin spent 27 years on the policy staff at the Chicago Coalition to End  Homelessness (CCH), with 17 as the Director of Policy. In her role, she worked on policy research, policy development, advocacy strategy, coalition building and facilitation, and legislative and administrative advocacy. In close collaboration with the organizing department, she worked on a broad range of strategies to address homelessness, poverty, and racial justice including affordable housing, health care, public benefits, criminal justice reform, education, and living wages. Julie led the It Takes a Home to Raise a Child campaign which resulted in the passage of the state’s Homelessness Prevention program, the Rental Housing Support Program statewide rental subsidy program, and the first funding for housing in the state’s capital budget. She also led an effort at the city level to create dedicated funding for homelessness through an Airbnb surcharge which led to the city’s first program dedicating local resources to housing doubled-up families experiencing homelessness.  She also supervised the work to pass the city council resolution to put the Bring Chicago Home ballot measure on the ballot. Since leaving CCH in 2023, she has worked on political campaigns and supported organizational functions of the United Working Families organization during a time of staff transition.

  • Ishan is the Co-Executive Director of the Institute for the Public Good. He started his career as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, working on agricultural development, food security, and business model innovation. He then spent nine years as co-founder and Co-CEO of Crafty, building it from an idea into a 300+ person company across technology, operations, and hospitality. He left with the vision that in order to have the largest scale change, change that could shift the conditions that his family and communities existed in, it would require more than building a good business, it would require building the public infrastructure a community needs to thrive.

    For the last 6 years he’s worked at the intersection of organizing and policy. As co-lead of the Collaborative for Community Wellness and the Treatment Not Trauma campaign, he helped win a public referendum that passed with over 90% support, secured permanent city mental health funding that re-opened 2 public mental health centers and helped establish and scale the non-police crisis response, and continues to fight for universal public mental health care in Chicago. Over the last years, he has also helped lead the Uncommitted National Movement which pushed to shift federal funding from weapons and war into our schools and healthcare, and has run multiple municipal budget campaigns for progressive revenue to fund services that expand the public good for everyone in Chicago.

  • Tanya is a licensed attorney in the State of Illinois who oversees all the operations, strategic direction and vision for the Westside Justice Center, and a holistic legal aid clinic in Chicago. She has served as the Executive Director for the Westside Justice Center almost since its inception in 2016. She is a certified Mediator and Trainer at the Center for Conflict Resolution and volunteers as a mediator in the most underserved courtrooms in the Circuit Court of Cook County. Once a public school Reading Specialist and Librarian, Tanya is now an Adjunct Professor at Loyola University, School of Law. As a seasoned professional, and before her career in the law, Tanya enjoyed successful tenures in higher education, government, tech, and non-profit sectors. As an active steward in her professional community, Tanya is a member of and leader in several bar associations, legal societies, boards, African-American civic organizations and a former Chicago Public Schools Local School Council Chair. Tanya is a proud alumna of Trinity High School, Northwestern University and Loyola University School of Law.

    To date, she counts her most valuable contribution as that of a widowed mother of two adult children: both products of the Chicago Public School system and now socially conscious trailblazers in their chosen professions.

    For the last 6 years he’s worked at the intersection of organizing and policy. As co-lead of the Collaborative for Community Wellness and the Treatment Not Trauma campaign, he helped win a public referendum that passed with over 90% support, secured permanent city mental health funding, and continues to fight for universal public mental health care in Chicago. Over the last years, he has also helped lead the Uncommitted National Movement which pushed to shift federal funding from weapons and war into our schools and healthcare, and has run multiple municipal budget campaigns for progressive revenue and funding services for working class families.

  • Glenance Green is a writer, researcher, community organizer, filmmaker, and content creator who uses various art forms and strategies as tools of healing and liberation for systemic change. She is the Co-Founder of the Black Researchers Collective, a collective of Black researchers equipping communities with research tools to be more civically engaged and policy informed. Glenance is the author of Shades of Green, an anthology of poetry and prose, and has written, directed, and/or produced over 10 films. Keenly focused on institutionalizing racial equity, she serves on the Equity Advisory Council for the City of Chicago.

    To date, she counts her most valuable contribution as that of a widowed mother of two adult children: both products of the Chicago Public School system and now socially conscious trailblazers in their chosen professions.

    For the last 6 years he’s worked at the intersection of organizing and policy. As co-lead of the Collaborative for Community Wellness and the Treatment Not Trauma campaign, he helped win a public referendum that passed with over 90% support, secured permanent city mental health funding, and continues to fight for universal public mental health care in Chicago. Over the last years, he has also helped lead the Uncommitted National Movement which pushed to shift federal funding from weapons and war into our schools and healthcare, and has run multiple municipal budget campaigns for progressive revenue and funding services for working class families.

  • Emma Tai is a Chicago-based organizer and strategist. She is currently the Lead Campaign Organizer at Organizing Resilience, a national strategy hub for climate disaster organizing. She previously served as the Executive Director of United Working Families, a multi-racial, working-class independent political organization that has elected over 20 members to city, state, county, and federal office.

  • Brendan Shiller is an accomplished Chicago-based lawyer and strategic advisor whose career spans nearly three decades of litigation, advocacy, government-relations, political consulting, policy development and community justice work. His legal career is more than two decades old and focused on civil rights, criminal defense, police-misconduct matters, regulatory and licensing issues, and public-policy impact.

    Brendan has leveraged his legal expertise into active work in advocacy and government relations. He has advised and represented clients and communities on matters relating to policing reform, licensing and regulatory oversight, zoning and land-use interventions, as well as engaged in strategic public-policy initiatives addressing justice-system reform.

    In addition, Brendan co-founded and still serves on the board of the West Side Justice Center in Chicago. He also manages the 601 Hub, a collaborative legal and advocacy hub that brings law firms, solo practitioners and nonprofits together to serve underserved communities. He is also a board member of Kuumba Lynx, and Chicago Black Voter Project.