Applications for the 2025 Bank of America Chicago Marathon have just opened and we have Charity Guaranteed Entries!
Each year runners challenge themselves to achieve their marathon, and bring others along in support of them and their passion! As a Team CCO charity runner, you make it possible to help a family end their cycle of homelessness.
Our fundraising goal will provide 1,500 nights of shelter for people experiencing homelessness.
Find out more on our 2025 Team Page
Cornerstone Community Outreach is a grantee partner of the Chicago Department of Housing Non-Congregate Shelter Acquisition Program, and the Chicago Department of Family & Support Services Shelter Infrastructure Inititative.
Organizations
The Buddhist Temple of Chicago – 1151 W. Leland Ave
Chicago Homelessness & Health Response Group for Equity (CHHRGE)
Citizen Skate Shop – 922 W Wilson Ave
Everybody’s Coffee 935 W. Wilson Ave
Heartland Alliance Health – 4750 N. Sheridan Rd
Illinois State Senator Mike Simmons – 1040 W. Bryn Mawr Ave
Illinois State Representative Hoan Huynh – 1967 W. Montrose Ave
Jesus People Covenant Church – 920 W. Wilson Ave
MADO Healthcare – 4621 N. Racine Ave
Missio Dei Chicago – 931 W. Wilson Ave
New Friendly Towers SRO – 920 W. Wilson Ave
Nine3nine Creative – 939 W. Wilson Ave
Northside Action for Justice – 1020 W Bryn Mawr Ave
ONE Northside – 4648 N Racine Ave
Uptown Peoples Law Center – 4413 N Sheridan Rd
Uptown Bikes – 4653 N Broadway
Uptown Ace Hardware – 4654 N. Broadway
Voice of the People – 4611 N. Sheridan Road
Below please find the Letter of Intent for the Washington Square Health Foundation.
Imagine the benefits of a non-congregate shelter for families experiencing homelessness! Picture a welcoming shelter space offering families individual hotel-style rooms with a toilet, sink, and shower in each room. The Non-congregate model shelter affords moms, dads, and kids greater privacy, dignity, and wellness.
Studies show that more families move from homelessness to permanent housing from non-congregate shelters, but the benefits start long before families move into their new homes. The following are just a few scenarios. Parents with teens would have a chance to retreat into a private space to nurture their relationships with each other. Also, families with members who have special needs or disabilities would have better health and emotional balance. It is not uncommon for a parent to bring a newborn into the shelter, an individual room would produce healing, rest, and recovery for a mother and newborn, reducing physical and emotional exhaustion.
Shelter guests will still have ready access to their case managers and other CCO staff. Research shows that guests in non-congregate shelters have a higher rate of staff engagement. Families benefit when parents access assistance and get help to stabilize their future.
Cornerstone endeavors to provide the very best shelter experience to vulnerable families experiencing homelessness. Over the years, all of Cornerstone’s shelter spaces have had construction renovations and upgrades. As a result, some shelter programs have semi-non-congregate rooms, offering families private rooms with shared bathroom facilities.
Through your ongoing support, Cornerstone will continue to welcome families of all sizes and descriptions into safe shelter spaces with wrap-around services. We believe everyone can benefit from non-congregate shelter units, and Cornerstone hopes to make this advantageous shelter model a reality.
Together, we can provide and improve shelter facilities for families experiencing homelessness!
Click here to donate today.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, ideas around what care in shelters should be provided began to change to. The theory is for there to be a Medically Integrated Shelter Model. This isn’t a new idea for Cornerstone, but the pandemic gave the opportunity for more discussion to be had due to the increased and emergency medical needs.
Below is an excerpt from that document, that was written specifically for adaptation at Cornerstone.
Cornerstone Community Outreach
Medically Integrated Shelter
The majority of people who are experiencing homelessness have underlying medical vulnerabilities and or behavioral health issues. Our experiences show that there are not enough resources activated in the shelter system to meet these needs. And in many ways these issues can be barriers to accessing permanent housing and are part of the cause of their current situation. This isn’t new information to those working with people experiencing homelessness, but this current pandemic has highlighted it. And as so many entities and individuals are joining together in this moment to care for this population, the clarity across the whole sector is so powerful, and the “what if’s” being asked are great.
The “what if” that we’ve been asking for a long time, prior to COVID, is what if the shelter model in Chicago had fully integrated medical and behavioral health care alongside the normal shelter services? How much more fully could we serve and provide for the individuals and families in Chicago that come to us all for support and care? And applicable to this current pandemic, how would this new model reduce the isolation response needed, like what has to be done using the respite spaces at A Safe Haven, the Y’s, and the boutique hotels downtown?
So as this idea is resonating with more people now, we have been putting real-world thought to what this would look like for the system, or at least at Cornerstone. Any of the ideas we have are in “draft” mode, perceived from our perspective, and we do want them looked at from others perspectives. We have been working with an architect for general drawings and costs too. For simplicity I’ve put them in bullet point format, and they are just an example of how we could address the idea of a Medically Integrated Shelter Model.
Background
Three of our shelters are congregate and one is semi-private with shared bathrooms, and all had different positivity rates. Rates include residents and staff.
Sylvia Interim, shelter for families in semi-private rooms, had zero cases of COVID-19 Naomi, congregate shelter for women had 53% positivity rate
Epworth, congregate shelter for men, had a 11% positivity rage
Hannah Interim, congregate for families, had a 14% positivity rate
Isolation onsite for people who tested positive was tried but not optimal and probably increased the spread of COVID-19, as in all programs there are shared bathrooms, shared eating spaces, and no clear way to keep individuals apart. It was also detrimental not having medical staff to keep and eye on them as their symptoms worsened.
WIth the decompression of the shelters, our capacity dropped by half, though we are willing to provide for more.
How to upgrade to a Medically Integrated Shelter Model
The overarching idea is to combine the resources and abilities of an existing shelter provider with medical and behavioural health providers, and have the shelter facilities built out to meet a continuum of needs. There is the model of respite coming out of hospital, but not a model providing the support for people coming “off the streets” into shelter, and that’s where we see ourselves doing what we do best.
