December 7, 2009

Families celebrate holidays with special meals, presents, and cozy nights watching favorite movies. But this year, the holidays mean uncertainty and stress for homeless families, pushed into crisis by circumstances beyond their control.

Homeless student enrollment numbers in local schools has increased dramatically in the last year, as mentioned in the Chicago Tribune on October 28th 2009, "It's a storage unit, but they call it a home." Many families in crisis have a working parent and were able to afford a home… until recently.

What can we do to help?

• Reach Out
• Collect Supplies
• Provide Homes & Healing
• Make Lasting Change

Reach Out

No matter where they are, we connect homeless families to vital resources. In the schools, in the community, on the streets, we're reaching out to as many homeless families as possible and wrapping services around them, to create a complete support system.

In Chicago's Englewood neighborhood, a new program works with local schools to identify children from homeless families. The Student and Family Support Initiative encourages families to set their own goals. Working with a case manager, the family connects with the resources needed to accomplish those goals. At the top on the list of requests are housing, counseling, and employment.

Often headed by a single working mom, the average family includes 2 to 3 elementary school-aged children. Families who were current on their rent found themselves suddenly without a home when landlords across the Englewood area defaulted on their mortgages. Additionally, many families lost their security deposits to absent landlords and are struggling to gather the security deposit and first month's rent for a new apartment. They are now living "doubled-up" with a friend or family member.

A young single homeless mother with a small child can face enormous challenges, but we're there to help. As part of a coalition piloting a unique model, our Family Assertive Community Treatment program is reaching out to the neediest young families (mothers under age 25 with children under age 5) and wrapping services around them, including employment, housing, case management, health care and substance use treatment. These young mothers and children receive the support they need to move out of harm's way and towards self-sufficiency.

Collect Supplies

Every winter, the same requests come to us via phone calls and email from case managers: families need winter coats, warm bedding, baby care items like diapers and bottles, long underwear, and small items to give to children on Christmas Day.

You can help answer the call. Get together with family and friends and hold a donation drive. Heartland Alliance will distribute your items. Your pile of new or gently used coats or long underwear or baby items will help boost a family in a time of crisis.

To learn more about holding a donation drive, contact Cherrell Jackson at cjackson@heartlandalliance.org or 312.660.1310.

Provide Homes & Healing

After responding to an initial crisis, a family has significant needs like an affordable home or healing for the body and mind.

Children living in unstable environments or experiencing homelessness have greater emotional and learning challenges in school which can divert school and personal financial resources to help them cope. Our affordable housing buildings such as San Miguel Apartments and Jazz on the Boulevard are located around Chicago, and are available to families and individuals in need. With our help, a family can find a safe, clean, affordable apartment, leaving enough in their budget to buy groceries, winter clothes, and personal care supplies. In some cases, we can also offer a temporary subsidy to augment incomes and help a family avoid a housing crisis and homelessness.

Adults and children can find quality, affordable health care through our community and school-based health centers. In Rogers Park, Lincoln Square, Albany Park, and Edgewater, patients can receive primary care, oral health care, and mental health care at Heartland International Health Centers. Harder to serve, chronically homeless people can receive medical, dental and mental health care at our recently expanded Health Care for the Homeless clinic in Uptown. These vital services save lives and revenue by preventing emergency room visits.

Make Lasting Change

Analyzing the data and working with policymakers, our research and policy teams uncover the root causes of poverty and homelessness, and set in motion the changes needed to protect families.

The Social IMPACT Research Center (IMPACT), a highly respected research team, advises public and private decision makers in Illinois and across the Midwest, helping them determine which people in their communities are living in poverty and hardship, what their needs are, and in which solutions to invest government and foundation resources.

IMPACT's data analysis reveals startling facts:

• Chicago Public Schools recorded a 28 percent increase in homeless students from November 2007 to November 2008.
• The recession has likely pushed an additional 132,000 Illinois children into poverty since 2007.
• In Chicago, the child poverty rate is 30.1%.
• In Illinois, 234,147 children live in extreme poverty.
• In the U.S. in 2008, 14.1 million children were living in poverty.
  
  
  
• Over 680,000 people in Illinois live in extreme poverty. That's less than $11,025 of income for 4 people per year. The From Poverty to Opportunity Campaign engages people to advocate for human rights and end poverty in Illinois. The campaign takes a comprehensive approach to eradicating poverty, choosing to treat the whole person, not just the symptom. Thanks to the hard work of the campaign, the Illinois legislature and the Governor's office have established the Commission on the Elimination of Poverty to develop a plan to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015.

Support These Programs

As families struggle to find housing, health care, legal protections or economic security, our doors are open and our programs running, available to help more than 200,000 people every year. Your donation can help a family move out of crisis and into stability.

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