Matthew Brewer Appointed Operating Chairman of CHA

Matthew Brewer made headlines last week for asking the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to review possible conflicts of interest of the next potential head of the Chicago Housing Authority.

Not only did Brewer hold up Mayor Brandon Johnson’s nominee for the position, longtime 27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett Jr., but Brewer himself was tapped as the agency’s interim head on Tuesday, with the title of operating chairman.

The last minute delay was a blow to Burnett Jr., who stepped down from his seat at City Hall after Johnson announced he would appoint him CEO of the CHA, pending approval from its board. In July, the Chicago Tribune reported that the CHA’s resident advisory board was against Burnett’s appointment.

So who is Brewer, the CHA’s leader until further notice?

The Chicago native is a graduate of Mount Carmel High School, a private all-boys Catholic school in Woodland, and of Stanford University, Harvard Business School’s MBA program and Yale Law School. He is the founder of Future Leaders of Chicago, a group that encourages civic engagement among high school students in Chicago.

Brewer has been a commissioner on the CHA’s board since 2013 and was named vice chairman in November 2021. He has served as interim chairman since October 2024 but in his new role as “operating chairman,” he has taken over the agency’s top executive spot for now.

Burnett’s appointment to CEO isn’t entirely off the table, however. A statement from the CHA issued Tuesday stated Brewer will serve in the role “until a Chief Executive Officer is approved by the board.”

Outside of his role at the CHA, Brewer has represented several major corporations with the law firm, Barlit Beck. He represented Monsanto, now Bayer, in a lawsuit filed by the city of St. Louis that accused the company’s herbicide of causing cancer. He also defended Walgreens in a series of lawsuits filed by hundreds of government agencies over the distribution of opioids. His areas of legal expertise include intellectual property, antitrust, false advertising and product liability, among others.

Brewer has made several lists of notable Chicago executives including Crain’s 2020 Notable Minority Executives in Accounting, Consulting & Law, and Crain’s 2017 list of Most Influential Minority Lawyers.

The commercial litigation attorney is also a business owner himself. He runs the city’s first Black-owned, family-run marijuana dispensary along with his brother, Chuck, and mother Dianne. The trio opened Grasshopper Club in Logan Square in 2023 with Matthew Brewer overseeing the businesses, while Chuck runs the daily operations and Dianne handles the accounting. It has since expanded to a second location in the South Loop.

Brewer’s brother was once arrested for cannabis possession and later the family applied for a social equity license from the state to open the dispensary. The program was created to address the harms of the national War on Drugs campaign that led to high incarceration rates among Black Illinoisians for drug offenses that are no longer considered crimes.

“It was this opportunity for wealth creation, generational for my mother and my brother,” Brewer told Block Club Chicago when the dispensary opened in 2023.

Whether Brewer will remain in CHA’s top spot is unclear. At a meeting Sept. 2 the CHA delayed voting on Burnett’s appointment to the agency’s top position, which Brewer said was done at HUD’s request.

HUD is the main funder of the $1.3 billion agency, however, it generally operates independently from any other government agency and is managed by its own board of directors. The Mayor’s Office last week questioned whether HUD had the authority to weigh in on the appointment process, the Tribune reported.

Brewer’s letter to HUD sent the prior week highlighted Burnett’s 30-year tenure as an alderman and his “ownership interest in” three properties rented by CHA housing voucher holders as potential conflicts of interest, the Tribune reported.

The letter from Brewer asked for clarification if the CHA would need to request special waivers from HUD to excuse the conflicts. It also noted that Burnett was in the process of transferring the vouchers from the CHA’s purview to the Cook County Housing Authority’s purview which would eliminate the conflict.

“It’s an unusual and unfortunate situation that we find ourselves in during this time of transition,” Brewer said at the Sept. 2 meeting. “We are working with the city still and hope to … have a CEO announcement in the next couple of weeks.”

CHA has not had a permanent leader since November, after Tracey Scott resigned from the CEO position after being appointed by former mayor Lori Lightfoot. Angela Hurlock was initially named its interim CEO.