Maura E. McCauley is a government and non-profit leader with more than 25 years of experience driving transformative change in human services. Maura excels at developing stakeholder relationships, building organizational capacity, and transforming ambitious ideas into actionable strategies that generate meaningful community impact. Most recently, she served as Acting Commissioner of the City of Chicago's Department of Family and Support Services, which improved outcomes for 400,000 of the city’s most vulnerable residents across program areas including early learning, youth services, homelessness, gender-based violence, workforce development, new arrivals, social services, and senior services.

Maura joined DFSS in 2012 to lead the implementation of Chicago’s Plan to Prevent and Homelessness 2.0 along with the Chicago Continuum of Care. She then served as Deputy Commissioner of Homeless and Gender-Based Services, leading operations, strategy, and procurement before moving into executive leadership roles at DFSS. During her tenure, Maura also directed policy development and legislative advocacy at the city, state, and federal levels on funding and policy issues related to homelessness.

Prior to joining DFSS, Maura served in a range of leadership positions at Heartland Human Care Services, Inc. (HHCS), related to homelessness and violence prevention, culminating as senior director of the HHCS Housing Division where she led the strategic direction, planning, and operations for the organization’s portfolio of services. Maura holds a Master of Social Work from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Notre Dame.