Hesed House Pleads For Funding To Avoid Homelessness Crisis

AURORA, IL — As Kane County officials work to distribute tens of millions in federal coronavirus-relief funding, the county’s largest homeless shelter urged them not to overlook its desperate need to upgrade its facilities to stave off another crisis amid the pandemic.

Numerous Aurora and Kane County officials have deemed Hesed House’s main shelter at 659 River Street “is no longer a viable option” for housing people at pre-pandemic levels, Hesed House Managing Director Joe Jackson told a Kane County Board committee tasked with allocating coronavirus-relief funding.

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Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, the main shelter housed an average about 250 children, women and men each night, Jackson said. Officials have said the shelter — the second-largest in Illinois — can house a maximum of 115 people during the pandemic.

“COVID-19 has crippled Hesed House’s ability to serve the most vulnerable residents in the greater Aurora community,” Jackson said.

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Hesed House converted its warehouse space across River Street into temporary housing for more than 130 people, Jackson said. But without significant upgrades and help from Kane County, more than 100 people could be forced to live on the streets of Aurora and surrounding areas during the coronavirus pandemic — and upcoming winter.

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The temporarily shelter, located at 680 River St. in Aurora, requires about $500,000 of renovations to be suitable for the winter, including installing insulation, replacing a piece of the roof and providing heated portable bathroom trailers, Jackson said.

Jackson said Hesed House has until Sept. 22 to secure funding and make the renovations, under guidelines issued by numerous Aurora and Kane County offices.

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“If nothing is done between now and Sept. 22 … over 135 men, women and children will be living and sleeping on the streets,” Jackson told the committee. “You’ll find them under bridges, you’ll find them in parks, outside of public buildings, in encampments all along the fox river. They’ll be all over.”

Jackson called on the committee to include Hesed House as a recipient of its federal funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

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Kane County received just under $93 million in federal funding, and officials have allocated about $28 million to municipalities and unincorporated areas. The Kane County Health Department is also set to get about $8 million to hire an outside vendor to perform coronavirus contact tracing.

Officials are working out how to distribute the remaining $57 million, with county departments submitting dozens of funding requests totaling about $63 million.

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Jackson also called on the committee to consider investing between $7.5 million and $10 million to fully renovate the space into a permanent shelter to house homeless people beyond the winter. That funding would allow Hesed House to build “effective and safely distanced” sleeping spaces, kitchen and dining areas, and permanent bathrooms.

“If you are thinking that those numbers I just provided are daunting, you are not wrong,” Jackson said. “But I can promise you this, that those numbers, as daunting as they are, are not nearly as daunting as the problem of homelessness that we currently face.”

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“Choosing not to invest in an appropriately sized facility would be catastrophic for the finances of both Kane County and the city of Aurora, as well as, frankly, put the lives of the residents in those two areas at risk,” Jackson continued.

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