Double your giving on Hope for Homes Day! The Chicago Community Trust will match $30,000 donated to Hope for Homes partners TODAY!
Hope for Homes Day offers a new opportunity to support Cornerstone’s vital mission of addressing homelessness, providing shelter, accepting people, and helping them find a home. Illinois non-profit housing and shelter service providers have banded together to make Hope for Homes Day an event that raises awareness and funds to support unhoused families and individuals.
We’re proud to share Cornerstone Community Outreach’s Annual Report, highlighting the impact we made together over the past year. From families finding permanent housing to individuals receiving critical care and support, each story reflects our mission in action. We invite you to take a moment to explore the report and see how your support is changing lives every day.
Log Bed Counts Between 12am and 2am I 8am and 10am I 4pm and 6pm
• Log in with your credentials • Chose Site you are reporting for • Enter available beds, and any relevant notes to availability. • Successful entry will create a green box, red if fail.
At Cornerstone Community Outreach, our mission is to do more than provide shelter—we strive to restore dignity, agency, and a sense of belonging to every person who walks through our doors. That’s why we’re exploring a new framework to deepen our impact: the Civic Identity Hub.
Civic identity is more than paperwork or a mailing address. It’s the ability to be seen, counted, and heard in society. It’s how someone knows they belong—not just to a system, but to a community. For people experiencing homelessness, this identity is often lost or stripped away, leading to a cycle of invisibility and disconnection from public life.
The Civic Identity Hub is a vision born out of our frontline experience at Cornerstone and our commitment to innovation in care. It is a space—physical, relational, and digital—where individuals can begin to recover what has been taken from them:
-Healthcare integration (linkages to Medicaid, primary care, and behavioral health) -Legal identification (state IDs, birth certificates, benefits enrollment) -Access to civic life (voter registration, census participation, mail services) -Restored agency (support to reclaim voice, purpose, and social participation)
While our Medically Integrated Shelter model addresses physical and mental health, the Civic Identity Hub expands that care to include social and civic health—the foundational structures of belonging and participation.
This is not a new building; it’s a new way of seeing people. A way of helping each person become known again—to themselves, their community, and the systems that shape their lives.
As we develop this vision, we invite civic leaders, policymakers, and neighbors to imagine with us: What would it look like if housing, healthcare, and civic identity were restored in the same space? What kind of city might we become?
We are excited to share with you the preview of the Cornerstone Community Outreach History Wall, being unveiled at our upcoming celebration. We are thankful for all the supporters that have made history, and continue to create the future! Send a donation today to keep the vision moving forward!
Mark your calendars for an extraordinary evening of gratitude and community! On April 10th, from 6-9 PM at The Abbey, Cornerstone Community Outreach invites our cherished donors and volunteers to a celebration of shared commitment to transforming lives.
Since 1989, CCO has evolved from simply providing shelter to creating temporary homes where comprehensive, professional support helps guests rebuild their lives. This transformation wouldn’t be possible without you – our dedicated supporters who believe in our mission of “Accepting People” and “Providing Shelter.”
Each day, your generosity enables us to keep our doors open 24/7, providing not just shelter, but hope and pathway to permanent housing for families and individuals in need. Through our wrap-around services and personalized case management, we’ve helped countless guests transition into homes of their own.
As we gather to celebrate these achievements, we’ll also share our bold vision for the future and how you can be part of writing CCO’s next chapter.
Space is limited. Please RSVP today by clicking here. You will be redirected to Eventbrite to secure your place at this meaningful celebration.
“The shelter gave me a place and helped with doctors, food, and clothes. The team helped me with everything.”
– Sheila found refuge, training, employment, and permanent housing while at CCO
Dear CCO Supporter,
Each year, Cornerstone Community Outreach faces a gap in government funding for direct services, and this year is no exception. In 2024, we supported 592 individuals, offering safe refuge and wrap-around services to help reduce the devastating impact of poverty on the lives of CCO guests. While we continue to welcome and assist each person who comes through our doors, we need your support to extend our efforts during this ongoing funding delay.
This year the need is immediate for unique reasons. While we always rely on your gifts to close the gap in government funding, we are facing both a cash flow issue and a larger-than-normal budget deficit. Payments from the city and state have been delayed, and we have not yet been fully reimbursed for 2024 services. On top of that, city reimbursement rates have not kept pace with inflation. Recent political uncertainty in Washington, DC has put our current state and federal grant applications at risk.
Please consider making a gift in support of CCO’s critical work. Your partnership is vital to our efforts to address the urgent barriers unhoused people encounter. In order to ensure continuity of services for our population experiencing homelessness, we have set an ambitious goal to raise $500,000 by July 1. Your financial gift directly improves the lives of CCO residents like Sheila (pictured above), who found a safe place and strong support so her employment and housing dreams could become a reality.
Below is an example of the impact you can make with a gap-bridging gift to CCO:
$26 1 day’s housing, meals, and care for an individual (total cost: $52
$364 Two weeks’ housing, meals, and care for an individual (total cost: $728)
$1092 Two weeks’ housing, meals, and care for a family (total cost: $2,184)
$2,400Average quarterly cost for one person at CCO (total cost: $4,800)
$4,400Average quarterly cost for a family at CCO (total cost: $8,800)
Your gift will allow us to continue our mission of meeting unhoused people where they are, assisting with comprehensive support, and helping them find a home. Thank you in advance for your contribution.
If you would like to make a gift, below are the ways you can donate. Please reach out to me personally if you would like to discuss CCO and other ways to support our work.
Donate online by clicking the Donate button above
Call us at (872) 246-5324
Send a check to: Cornerstone Community Outreach, 4615 N. Clifton Ave., Chicago, IL 60640
Thank you again!
Sincerely,
Andrew Winter, Executive Director Cornerstone Community Outreach awinter@ccolife.org
