PROGRAMS

Providing Advocacy, Dignity, and Shelter (PADS) provides emergency shelter and supportive services to individuals and to families with children experiencing homelessness in Lake County. We offer a safe environment with a comprehensive and proven approach to enhancing the quality of life for those experiencing homelessness and those living at risk of becoming homeless.
As the only non-restrictive, nighttime emergency shelter program in Lake County, PADS shelter sites are housed in 14 different churches every night of the week on a seasonal basis (October 1st through April 30th). PADS also has one year-round fixed site emergency shelter in Waukegan. Staff and volunteers provide dinner, breakfast, and a bag lunch. Depending on distance, clients either walk or are driven to the sites at 7:00pm and picked up at 7:00am by PADS Crisis Services' buses. The nighttime shelters are staffed primarily with volunteers, and each shelter has a staff member present or on call at all times during the hours the shelters are open.
PADS Crisis Services is unique in that it also functions as a support center / day shelter, with additional important features listed in the following paragraph. Here we help homeless individuals, including families with children, take the first steps toward experiencing success and making positive changes in their lives.

The Assessment Center provides supportive services day shelter, located at 3001 Green Bay Road, Building 5, North Chicago, is open seven days a week, 365 days a year, from 7:00am to 7:00pm, in order to provide an opportunity for support:

• Client advocates and peer counselors make the necessary referrals and follow-ups.
• Meet such basic needs such as shower and laundry facilities.
• Use the PADS office to make and receive phone calls; use our address for receiving mail.
• Life Skills/self-help classes.

• A parent or guardian must accompany clients under the age of 18.
• A person cannot be a registered sex offender.

1. Connect them with resources to begin the hard task of leaving the streets.
2. Have them make a commitment to their own health and recovery.
3. Personal and economic self-sufficiency with safe, affordable permanent housing.

PADS' services are free and no program fees are collected.

The Family Center

The Family Center is a fixed point of entry for families with children. Thanks to Dennis Mudd and Father Gary Graff, the old Saint Bart's Church in Waukegan was renovated and made availiable for families with children. On November 23, 2004, PADS officially opened "The Family Center." On July 1, 2007, the Family Center began its first day of 24-hour operation. An anonymous donor wanted to ensure that families experiencing homelessness could get the assistance they need and maintain their dignity. Until recently, the Family Center was only able to shelter residents overnight. For financial reasons, the Family Center was closed from 7:00am to 4:00pm. Now, because we are open 24 hours a day, children will be able to catch the school bus in their own neighborhood rather than at the PADS Asessment Center. Now, when they are sick, they can stay in their own bed, and when the weather is bad, they don't have to be outside. It's important that kids get to be kids.

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The Holy Family Soup Kitchen in the same building serves dinner four nights a week. Volunteers provide dinners for the remainder of the week. After dinner, Monday through Friday, the residents can attend a one-hour life skills group. These groups focus on helping individuals identify issues that may have caused them to become homeless, and to help them to make necessary changes to live independently.

Residents are required to set and achieve goals, do chores, follow the rules of The Family Center, and develop a sense of belonging to the community by working on neighborhood projects. We are continuing with a gardening project sponsored by the Chicago Botanic Garden to help beautify an already nice neighborhood, and we are planning more projects to work with the people who live in the area.

While the adults are attending the life skills group meeting, the children are doing homework in the computer lab or playing in the playroom. After the group meeting, residents can unwind in the game room or TV room and watch movies. There is a laundry for their use, but the things that residents like most about The Family Center is the privacy of a bed and storage space of their own. Everyone has their own sleeping area that comes with a bed and a complete set of matching linens, a wardrobe, a nightstand, a lamp, and an alarm clock.
                                                                                                                                                  
 

The Veteran House

The Veteran House is a 10-unit permanent supportive housing program used to prevent chronic homelessness for Veterans. Contact is made through PADS' emergency shelter to a population that has been "treatment resistant" or "not housing ready." The Veteran House is based on the Consumer Preference Supported Housing Model (Tsemberis & Asmussen, 1999), which states that housing is a basic right for all people.

The program prevents the cycle of recurring homelessness by achieving long-term housing stability through the provision of support services that are relevant to the resident's needs, such as client-determined service plans, including assistance with mainstream resources, such as developing independent living skills, vocational rehabilitation employment, recreational activities and opportunities to socialize for ten individuals.

The principal beneficiaries are the veteran residents who have gained housing stability, increased quality of life, increased empowerment, improved educational and vocational goals, reduction of alcohol and substance abuse, expansion of a social network, and increase contact with social providers mainly the North Chicago VA.

The benefits to the Lake County, IL, community are to have veterans move away from homelessness to self-sufficiency; from addiction to recovery; from hopelessness to an experience of self-reliance; and from isolation to a job and valued community role.

Safe Haven

Safe Haven is a housing program for 15 adult participants who are chronically homeless and who have a serious mental illness, usually schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The program's philosophy follows the "low demand / high tolerance" philosophy, as the people living there have not been able to tolerate or be successful at other housing programs. It is a "housing first" model. The participant is brought into the program first, and other issues are then addressed—such as medical care, mental health care, substance abuse treatment, securing income, learning independent living skills, etc.

The program is staffed 24/7 by advocates who have had special training in mental health. The Safe Haven likes to recruit volunteers for the program, including advocates, art therapists, and vocational specialists. We always need people to facilitate various groups, including social, leisure, and skills building. We are also looking for volunteers to provide cooked meals or to assist and supervise participants' cooking. For more information about Safe Haven, call Sandy Stephens at 847-689-4357, ext. 124.

Street Outreach

The PADS outreach worker, along with a PADS volunteer, drives a van around Lake County twice a week, making connections with chronically homeless persons living on the streets, under bridges, in abandoned buildings, and in other places where it is known that persons experiencing homelessness congregate. They hand-out sack lunches, toiletries, hats and gloves, foot salve, and anything else they might have to make life on the streets more comfortable.
 

This outreach links persons experiencing homelessness to basic needs and to the invitation to use PADS 24-hour emergency sites, along with the supportive services of PADS and other collaborating agencies.

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