The women of the Lakefront SRO Auxiliary Board could have decided they were too busy to get involved. They certainly would have had valid excuses. They work long days as the presidents, vice presidents and partners of Chicago companies.
Instead of bowing out gracefully, they raised $150,000 in cash and in-kind donations from more than 90 corporations, foundations and individuals in four months last year. Their efforts filled the 70 empty rooms of Uptown`s Harold Washington SRO Apartments, 4946 N. Sheridan Rd., with many of the comforts of home, including beds, tables, chairs, lamps, dishes, pots and pans.
The apartments, which opened in May 1989, are part of the non-profit Lakefront SRO Corp.`s efforts to put a dent in Chicago`s homeless problem by buying and renovating low-cost permanent housing for single adults.
The auxiliary board`s new goal is to raise the $200,000 needed to furnish the nearby 86-unit Malden Arms Apartments, 4727 N. Malden St., scheduled to open next spring. The board is hoping eventually to set up an endowment fund and a fund that would help finance down payments on available properties.
Women`s involvement in charitable organizations is by no means new, but gathering 20 high-level professional women to help end homelessness is remarkable, said Lois Wolf of Lakefront, which was formed in 1985 and is the only non-profit group working exclusively to save SRO housing in Chicago.
SROs, or single-room-occupancy hotels, were once a common form of low-cost housing for Chicago`s poor; but the city has lost more than 70 percent of this type of housing since the early 1970s. The city may have as few as 8,500 rooms left. Some SROs have been torn down or converted into upscale housing or have deteriorated enough to make them unfit for living.
Homeless advocacy groups link this decrease directly to the increase in homeless people, who may number as many as 40,000 in Chicago.
”I think powerful women ought to exercise their power on behalf of the less fortunate,” said Liz Hollander, a member of the auxiliary board and the Lakefront board of directors.
Hollander was the commissioner of Chicago`s Department of Planning from 1983 to 1989. She is the government assistance project director at the non-profit Chicago Community Trust, a foundation that distributes grants and loans to non-profit organizations.
`Keeper of values`
Women always have played the role of ”keeper of values,” Hollander said. Making it in the working world shouldn`t cause women to abandon this, she said. Women should instead use their power to boost their effectiveness in this role.
”Lining your own pocket is not what it is about,” she said.
The auxiliary board, which began as an ad hoc committee to provide furnishings, now is Lakefront`s fund-raising arm. Lakefront`s board of directors is made up of men and women from the Uptown area, but the auxiliary board is made up of women only.
The 20 members of the auxiliary board are a diverse group of executives, working in Chicago companies ranging in scope from architecture to law to investment to consulting to interior design. What they have in common is The Chicago Network, a group of the city`s leading women executives.
Hollander was contacted by Wolf, who explained that Lakefront had financed the purchase and renovation of the Harold Washington apartments with more than $2 million from city, state and private sector groups. But furnishing the building, Wolf said, would take private contributions.
Hollander, who once chaired the late Mayor Harold Washington`s Task Force on the Homeless, turned to Network members for assistance. (The Network itself does not endorse issues or causes, but members are free to call on each other for help.)
Lakefront`s project offered an opportunity to be involved in a permanent solution to the homeless problem as opposed to the stopgap measures that shelters provide, Hollander said.
Despite her sometimes 50-hour work week, Hollander, 50, who is married and has two grown children, is a member of more than two dozen boards and committees. She is on the board of trustees of the Illinois Institute of Technology and chairs IIT`s ethics center advisory board. She also is on the board of the Woodstock Institute, a group concerned with extending credit to low-income communities; and of Women in Charge, a group that helps develop women`s leadership in non-profit organizations.
Judaism, which she converted to eight years ago, has reinforced her belief in social responsibility. ”That has been a real force in my life,”
she said.
A unifying element
The women of the group have one common thread, said Phyllis Apelbaum, founder and president of Arrow Messenger Service, Inc., and auxiliary board chairman. ”We have a deep, deep desire to share the goodness of the life we`ve been able to achieve through our hard work.”
Her own sense of personal good fortune prompted her involvement, Apelbaum said. ”I feel a sense of obligation and responsibility to do what I can.”
The Small Business Administration`s 1990 Illinois Small Business Person of the Year and the first runner-up nationally, Apelbaum started her company in 1973 with a $3,500 investment and five employees. Today she has more than 140 employees and the company`s gross income for 1989 was $3 million.
Apelbaum, who is 50, said she works seven days a week, starting at 8 each morning and sometimes not ending until 10 at night. ”I can`t tell you how many hours I work,” she said. ”My work is part of my life.”
Yet she is involved in a dozen other organizations, including the Variety Club children`s charities. She recently helped organize a carnival for handicapped children that raised money for the children`s amputee program at the Rehabilitation Institute.
Apelbaum, who was divorced several years ago, credits her 34-year-old son, who is Arrow`s vice president, for working hard enough himself and for being responsible enough to allow her to get involved outside her own company. ”All these things are possible because of Mark,” she said.
Seeing the change the Harold Washington apartments has made in the lives of the residents in the last year gives Apelbaum a sense of accomplishment and achievement that is sometimes hard to come by, she said.
”There are not very many things in one`s day-to-day business life that give that kind of payback,” she said.
Access is the key
”Because of the number of companies represented within this group, there is tremendous access to people all over the city,” said Ella Strubel, an auxiliary board member and senior vice president of corporate affairs at Leo Burnett Co. Inc., a Chicago advertising firm.
Strubel said she joined the group because a ”combination of guilt and graciousness” worked on her conscience. The guilt came from seeing the problem on the streets, while the graciousness came from acknowledging her own situation.
Strubel wanted to help, but only when she could make what she considered a real difference, she said.
”Nobody gave me a solid concrete answer,” she said, until Hollander told her about the Harold Washington apartments.
When the auxiliary board first began meeting as the ad hoc furnishing committee early in 1989, the women met on almost a weekly basis and worked independently, trying to raise money.
”It was a killer,” Strubel said of the time involved in the fundraising. Once they reached their goal for the Harold Washington apartments, the group of women began meeting once every few months. The group will start meeting more frequently as the Malden Arms Apartments` opening date approaches.
Like the other auxiliary board members, 50-year-old Strubel works 50 to 60 hours a week. Her responsibilities at Leo Burnett include running the company`s civic activities, so Strubel is able to attend daytime board meetings. But most of her involvement comes out of her own free time.
The auxiliary board is one of nearly a dozen groups of which Strubel is a member. She is on the board of directors of several oganizations, including the Rehabilitation Institute, the Foundation for Excellence in Teaching, the Chicago Foundation of Education, the Public Library Foundation and the Latino Institute.
Strubel said she is able to handle that load because involvement on boards varies with the organization and how involved an individual becomes. Some boards meet often, others monthly or quarterly. Most give board members the authority to oversee all aspects of the organization.
”I`ve always tried to be involved in as many things as I could,” she said.
Sara Bode, president of the Greater State Street Council, a non-profit group representing the business community, joined the auxiliary board earlier this year.
Like Strubel, Bode is involved in nearly a dozen organizations including the Chicago Housing Authority`s Windows of Opportunity and the United Way. She is also on the board of the West Suburban Hospital and Medical Center Foundation.
”I`m a great believer in the need to give back,” she said.
Businesses suffer when homeless people roam the streets, she said, but pushing the homeless out of sight doesn`t solve anything. ”So I decided I`d better do what I can,” she said.
Bode, who is 54, has three grown sons and was divorced several years ago. If she were still raising a family, she said, her sometimes 70- to 80-hour work weeks would make her other involvements nearly impossible.
Home at the SRO
Barb Hall, a 37-year-old who has had back problems since she was hit by a car in the early 1970s, lives on the second floor of the apartments. Her back problems make it difficult for her to hold a job, she said, because she cannot stand for long or do much lifting.
Until she moved into the complex a little more than a year ago, Hall lived in a studio apartment in Uptown. Unlike the Harold Washington apartments, her building had no security system. ”Anybody could walk in,”
she said. People drank in the hallways. Burglary was common. At times, there was no water. At other times, her bathtub would fill up when the upstairs tenants ran water.
She was struggling to live on $154 she was getting through public aid each month and was having a harder and harder time finding roommates to split the $275 monthly rent. Her daughter, who is now 19, and granddaughter, who is now 2, lived with her for several months, but they finally moved into an apartment with her son-in-law.
”I didn`t know what I was going to do. I just knew I had to get out,”
she said.
Since Hall moved into the Harold Washington apartments, she has started receiving a Social Security disability benefit. She pays $106 a month for rent, a third of her income. Like the other residents, her rent is subsidized through a special program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development`s Section 8.
”This was a blessing, being able to get in here,” she said.
Hall`s apartment is spotless. Everything has its place. The twin bed, small brown couch, chest of drawers, nightstand, small kitchen table and four chairs are due to the efforts of the auxiliary board.
Each 14-by-15 apartment has a small kitchen area. Most residents share bathrooms. More than half of the residents previously were homeless. The others were living in substandard housing or were paying more than half their income for housing. About 80 percent of the residents make less than $5,000 a year.
The building, formerly the Moreland Hotel, was renamed shortly after Washington died in late 1987 to acknowledge his administration`s support of the project, said Jean Butzen, Lakefront`s executive director.
”I know we`ve made a difference,” said Lynn Cooper, Lakefront`s property manager. Cooper worked as a private-sector property manager before she started at Lakefront in 1987.
Lakefront`s overall goal is to renovate 500 units by 1993 in its Project 500.
The auxiliary board members realize Lakefront is making only a small contribution to solving the problem of increasing low-income housing.
”There is much more to do,” Strubel said. But she remains optimistic. The 70 rooms at Harold Washington and the 86 rooms that will be renovated at the Malden are ”more than there were before,” she said.
For information or contributions, contact Lois Wolf at 1-312-561-0900.
