If you are homeless in the northwest suburbs, where do you receive your mail? When PADS (Public Action to Deliver Shelter) locations are closed during the day or for the summer, where do you stay? How do you get to a job if you don’t have a car?
The answers to these questions can be found at the Hope Center, a walk-in and referral service in Arlington Heights.
Lyle Foster of Gurnee is executive director of CEDA (Community Economic Development Association) Northwest, which sponsored the 1991 regional seminar that became the genesis of Hope Now Inc. and its offshoot, the Hope Center.
“The Hope Center addresses a critical unmet need in the community (by) providing a safe daytime location for the homeless and those on the verge of homelessness,” Foster said. “People receive necessary services in a welcoming setting by trained and prepared volunteers. This help can assist them in moving on with their lives.”
Thomas W. Shirley of Prospect Heights, executive director of Hope Now Inc., said the purpose of the center is to act as a strong referral agency as well as an on-site service provider.
“We offer a permanent address so that clients can get mail here,” he said. “We can provide a few nights’ shelter at a local motel, and we give each client a bicycle if they have no other form of transportation.”
Shirley, a retired high school principal with 38 years of experience in education, was hired in April. His is one of only two paid positions in the organization.
The center, which is housed rent-free in the Wheeling Township Building in Arlington Heights, is open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Those hours fill a basic need for the homeless.
“We fill the void after PADS dismisses its guests,” Shirley said. “We also act as a 12-month referral center; PADS operates only seven months of the year. We are mainly a referral agency; we can line our guests up with a dentist, a doctor or a hospital. We do have some on-site counseling services.”
Hope Now Inc. — an acronym for Homeless Opportunities for Persons, Encompassing the North West — was incorporated in 1992. It was formed as a result of a meeting of church, business and community leaders at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights in 1991.
“The purpose of the meeting was to unite individual efforts within the community to deal with the growing problem of homelessness,” said Jerry O’Brien of Arlington Heights, the current board president.
Out of the summit, task forces on housing, mental health and related issues were formed. These groups met for a year, and one of the task forces became the nucleus of Hope Now. Ruth Grundberg, then director of Wheeling Township, gave free space in the building to open the center.
Rev. Jeffrey Deardorff of Arlington Heights, associate pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Arlington Heights, recalled the beginnings.
“It’s been a real grass-roots community effort,” Deardorff said. “We pull people from all over, not just in Arlington Heights. We also help people who are in crisis . . . the `near homeless.’ “
Hope Now is part of a network of northwest suburban agencies that provide support and referrals for homeless people. These include PEAR (Parish Emergency Assistance and Referral), Catholic Charities and PADS.
Kristina Perry of Buffalo Grove, new executive director of Northwest Suburban PADS, said PADS and the Hope Center see many of the same clients.
PADS has so many guests with questions its volunteers can’t answer and needs for services they can’t provide, she said, that “we refer people to Hope Center.”
Both agencies have adopted the same intake form, which will allow the client to use the services of both in addition to emergency services at Northwest Community Hospital.
For the clients, Hope Center has the resources to assist them in a variety of situations.
A married couple in their early 40s have been Hope Center clients for several years. They have been homeless since 1991, living out of their car. The Hope Center has helped the woman apply for Social Security benefits and the man obtain his driver’s license. “They provide a legal residential address and phone number, plus free phone calls and job contacts,” the husband said.
“Now we try to provide for ourselves,” he said. Hope Center volunteers “have taken an interest in us to find housing; it’s a friendly atmosphere. They’ve kept us going, kept us from getting squashed by the oppressiveness out there.”
A male client in his late 30s has been homeless for 1 1/2 years. Although he has received assistance from the Hope Center, he still finds himself living in a shelter. He has a job right now, but it doesn’t pay much. “I’m right back in the shelter this year,” he said. “It’s a cycle — you just can’t get ahead.”
Of Hope Center, he said: “They give me bus tokens, some food, someone to talk to. They do what they can. They help a lot of people.”
Rev. Larry Dowling, pastor of St. Denis Church in Chicago, was an associate pastor of St. James Catholic Church in Arlington Heights when Hope Now began. “I was part of the original team, a mix of people from social services and churches who sought a step up from PADS, a next level outreach,” Dowling said. “Hope Center came out of that. It addresses the gaps, people who are `on the verge,’ within a rent payment of being homeless. It is a central place, a resource to many agencies.”
Dowling maintains his involvement by helping to train volunteers — there currently are 39 — and by giving them the history of the center.
According to Shirley, there are two groups of trained volunteers at Hope Center. One group meets the clients, does the intakes and supervises the operation. Another group spends time with clients, gives out food, sorts mail and runs errands.
Cathy Ostendorf of Arlington Heights was there at the beginning as a volunteer. She is chairwoman of the Art for Hope Auction, which this year will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday at the Lattof Chevrolet Showroom in Arlington Heights. It is the major fundraiser for Hope Now, and it yielded $15,000 in 1996. The center’s annual budget is $38,000.
The future brings challenges for Hope Now and the center.
Board president O’Brien is pleased that the Hope Center has recently met two important goals: expanding its services to five days a week from three and adding a case manager to give continuity to the counseling process. He would like to enlarge the current space or find additional space.
“The homeless have not decreased in numbers, and there is only one job for every six welfare recipients,” O’Brien said. “We need to prepare for the day when there are more homeless. One goal that we have now is attempting to assist those who are able to make the transition out of homelessness into their own apartment and more of a regular life.”
Siobhan White of Arlington Heights, the center’s case manager, also wants to focus on counseling. “I hope to do more case management rather than immediate intervention,” White said. “Many of our clients are fearful of government paperwork and agencies. We need to sit down with them and talk about Social Security and general assistance.”
Deardorff, the first president of the board of directors of Hope Now and still a member of the board, said the organization needs to branch out to educate the community.” Misunderstandings and stereotypes about the homeless still exist.”
