Cherie Travis

Cherie Travis is a Chicago-based attorney and activist who is passionate about issues related to housing, jobs, animals and the environment.

A tireless advocate, she has promoted programs that enable young people to pursue their passions, whether in athletics, music or the arts, as it is her belief that structure, expectations, accountability and positive role models can make all the difference. She has also advanced the idea of Chicago’s homeless being sheltered in the many abandoned buildings owned by the city’s Housing Authority.

“I just feel like there’s so much that can be better in the world,” she said.

Owner of several rental properties in the city, Cherie Travis concluded during the pandemic that in those instances where tenants found themselves out of work and lacking the means to pay their rent, the best solution was not the amnesty offered in many municipalities, but rather mediation. To that end she reached out to a nonprofit that offered such services, in the hope that landlords and tenants could find common ground.

“That, I thought, was the best solution – try to get people to talk to each other,” she said.

Cherie Travis served as the assistant general counsel for the Cook County Sheriff’s Department from 2013-16, and from 2009-12 was the executive director of the Commission on Animal Care and Control in Chicago. In the latter position, she made it her mission to pair animals with owners as quickly as possible by staging various events and forging partnerships with organizations like the Chicago White Sox baseball club and Chicago Wolves hockey team.

Significantly, she also spearheaded an initiative that enabled nonviolent inmates from the Cook County Jail to work early each morning within the facility, which she called a “phenomenal program” and “one of (her) proudest accomplishments.”

Her efforts at Animal Care and Control caught the attention of no less a public figure than Oprah Winfrey, who invited Cherie Travis to be a guest on her popular television show in 2010.

Cherie Travis, an Illinois native, also served as an adjunct law professor at Northwestern University from 2007-10, and at DePaul University from 2005-11. She earned her law degree from DePaul, and at the University of Illinois earned an undergrad degree in economics and a masters in advertising and marketing.