Three years ago, Diane, a young single mother in DuPage County, was in a place no mother wants to be emotionally or economically.
“I was trying to make it on two jobs, as a waitress at night and with a clerical job during the day,” she said. “We were living in this apartment that was just terrible. The guy next door was beating his wife, and there were drugs all over the place.
“I was barely making enough for rent, and we were constantly on the verge of eviction. I never saw my kids. I was a nervous wreck, and I couldn’t see any way out of it. It was bad, but it was better than my marriage.”
A volatile home life was familiar to Diane. Her parents were alcoholics who divorced when she was a youngster after years of fighting. When Diane was 19, her mother died of an overdose of medicine for her manic depression, and her father died four years later of emphysema. Diane finally left her husband when his drinking and their fighting got out of hand.
Diane’s way out came as the first client of a small transitional housing program called Families Helping Families, begun by Vicky Joseph of Naperville.
The program provides rent, utilities and mentors for at least a year while a client pursues an agreed-upon educational or vocational goal.
“I went into my community to create something on a permanent basis, to be able to help a few people a lot instead of a lot of people a little, ” said Joseph, telling how her own family, her husband and two children, gave gifts to a needy family at Christmas, but it left her feeling sad and frustrated because it provided only a temporary lift.
“The best way we could figure to do this was through education so these women could have the luxury of going back to school in a field that would allow them to make a living,” said Joseph, who with friend Mary Johnson rallied neighbors in their Naperville subdivisions for financial support.
“They’ve been wonderful to me,” said Diane, “and done so much for me. I don’t where I’d be without them, because they’ve helped on a long-term basis. Getting an education is really important because I can support myself, and they have given me the support so that I can make it.”
Diane is finishing her computer technician degree at College of DuPage and will be entering an electrical engineering program at DeVry Institute in Addison in November.
Various transitional housing programs already existed, but Joseph said they were operating through churches. Along with requiring that clients’ pursue an education, “my only (other) twist was that I wanted to do it in my neighborhood,” she said. “Churches do it based on their religion because those are the people they gather from, but I wanted a program that would cut across religion and color and interest so that each community could take care of their own.”
Her neighborhood’s enthusiastic donations almost solely financed Diane’s and her two daughters’ first year in the program. The group also has been able to help five other needy single mothers. One graduated from college with a degree in business and criminology and is working as a youth counselor while completing a master’s degree in the evening. Another is working on completing her undergraduate degree in education.
The program has continued to receive financial and material support from individuals, numerous local philanthropic groups and churches and through an annual walk-a-thon. Joseph said her group likes to have $10,000 saved, enough to cover one year of help, before taking on a family. They encourage clients to tailor their dream within a two-year technical degree.
“We do this, of course, with help from the government programs: medical cards, food stamps, academic scholarships,” said Joseph. “We’re not doing it by ourselves, but the personal involvement from the community is where the government falls short. So the combination of the government programs plus what we offer really puts together a tremendous window of opportunity.”
“These moms are so smart. They are bright women, and they have survived far beyond what I would survive in terms of emotional trauma. Often there are things that went on with parents and grandparents: alcohol and drug abuse, mental health issues. They’re just unlucky and were born into the wrong families. But they have excellent brains and are smart, motivated people who have thought out what they want. They just haven’t had the vehicle to get there.”
The program is run by a 16-member steering committee operating by consensus, without officers or hierarchy,
” Everybody here does it because it is the right thing to do. You don’t need a boss for that, you need to have your heart in the right place . . . and lots and lots of energy,” said Joseph.
To create her transitional program, Joseph followed a neighbor’s tip and contacted Catholic Charities in Lombard, which led her to Bridge Communities, a 9-year-old transitional housing program begun by Bob Wahlgren and Mark Milligan through their Glen Ellyn church to help homeless families in DuPage County.
Joseph’s group took up Bridge Communities on its offer to be responsible for signing the leases and carrying the insurance, along with supervising the mentors and providing tutors. Catholic Charities screens the clients and provides six-week introductory training for the mentors.
“We want to be able to help a few people really change their lives and their children’s and their grandchildren’s (lives) because this tends to be a generational problem, the poverty and abuse, the kinds of things these women have survived,” said Joseph.
Each client has three mentors who are there with financial and practical support; they also ease their client’s fears and cheer her efforts. And they form loving bonds.
“Sometimes it’s the only positive, no-strings-attached relationship these moms have ever had,” said Joseph. “They know we are there emotionally for them, and that is every bit as critical as the financial support we provide.”
And, like one of the newest mentors, Amy Weber of Naperville, they hope to assist in the generational change of which Joseph speaks.
“My bottom line is the kids, ” said Weber, a mother of two. “Getting involved in providing a better way for the mother is going to make a better way for the children.”
Wahlgren is enthused by Joseph’s group.
“It’s marvelous,” he said. “They just have a wonderful energy. The main thing is that they love the people under their care. They don’t treat them as clients; they’re friends.
“And they are concerned about helping these families having problems. My main focus is to help children who are homeless. That’s who really tugs at my heart because they don’t have a chance to mess up. They’re there because their parents made mistakes.”
Diane’s goal is the same.”It’s way different for my kids than it was for me,” she said. “There’s no drinking, no abuse. I’m as positive as I can be. I’m trying to make it as normal as I can.
“I want them to look back at their childhood and say it was good.”
For more information on Families Helping Families, call Vicky Joseph at 630-355-1043.
