Local Chefs Feed Formerly Homeless Through New Program

EVANSTON, IL — Families and individuals who have recently moved into permanent housing with the help of Connections for the Homeless are receiving two meals a day through a new pilot public-private partnership. In addition to those who have recently experienced homelessness, the effort aims to support local restauranteurs, chefs and their staff.

The program launched in November with $30,000 in federal funding provided by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES, Act and distributed by Cook County. Local businesses and philanthropists have raised an additional $50,000 in private donations, county officials announced Tuesday.

Betty Bogg, executive director of Evanston-based Connections for the Homeless, said the need for shelter has more than doubled in the past nine months.

"We know that homelessness requires a community response, and this partnership exemplifies what's possible when every member — forward-thinking government, engaged philanthropists, supportive business and determined nonprofits — step forward and work together," Bogg said at a new conference. "Initiatives like these highlight that when we help one neighbor, another benefits as well. The need for the critical services we offer continues to grow, and we know it's going to get worse before it gets better."

Bogg said the home delivery pilot builds on an existing program the group launched in the spring to help provide temporary housing amid the first wave of COVID-19 infections in Illinois.

"Connections began sheltering families and individuals in local hotels when the shelter-in-place order went into effect in March, and we quickly had to find ways to safely feed nearly 300 people, 70 of them children, who were in our care," Bogg said. "That's when we started our restaurant partner program."

Joe Flanagan, chairman of the Cook County Health Foundation and CEO of Evanston-based business Acquirant, contacted Bogg in the fall with an idea of how to expand the program. Local businesses and philanthropists needed no convincing, he said.

"We all know that this coronavirus pandemic has absolutely hammered so many families, and so many people in our economy. So what can we do? I asked myself, 'What can I do to help these families?'" Flanagan said.

"As I got to Betty and her team, they were working so closely with our restaurants who were in desperate need of help as well. So the idea was to build their capacity, in serving the folks who needed so much help during this pandemic, and our restaurants — those folks who are providing food to so many of us," he said. "I own a business in town, my family I raised here in Evanston and I don't want to come back to this town to have a bunch of shuttered doors, in terms of restaurants and small businesses. So this was an opportunity to create some money flowing through the system."

Evanston Chef Q. Ibraheem said her catering business dried up in the spring and it was a "no-brainer" and an honor to take part in the Connections meal program.

"In a time of war, we would call on our army. In a time of food insecurity and hunger, you've chosen to call on your chefs and restaurateurs, which is a brilliant partnership. Because this means that we've created a sustainable environment," Ibraheem said. "It means that I eat and the restauranteurs eat, their staffs eat, let alone the people and the participants of Connection for the Homeless eat as well."

Ibraheem said the partnership has allowed her to retain some of her employees and contribute to the growth of the local economy by partnering with small farms and other businesses.

"So it's allowed everyone to be able to grab some funding and get money that will help them support their households and their families, their children and the elders as well," she said. "It makes so much sense for us, as restaurateurs and as chefs, to be on the front line of this when hunger is involved."

Carlos Duany, who recently moved into permanent housing after being housed in an Evanston hotel, praised the work of the nonprofit's staff, who he said he first encountered a few years ago at a rough point in his life.

"They deal with mental illness, homelessness, gangbangers, it don't matter, they help. And so for the last couple years, they were extremely helpful, especially during this pandemic that has affected us all," Duany said.

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"The Connections staff — people that make you feel like they have the spirit of help. And the spirit of help, we get a lot of lip service from a lot of places, but they make you feel like family. They don't make you feel 'less than," he said. "People come here from all over, they don't have to be Evanston residents, and so they're doing great, great work."

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said the county's partnership with Connections for the Homeless takes on the intersecting issues of housing, food insecurity and economic relief.

"To date, our partnership has funneled more than $3.3 million in CARES funding through the county and Connections to help local housing providers, restaurants and the hospitality industry in Evanston and in the North Shore," Preckwinkle said.

"This includes $1.3 million shelter support, $800,000 in eviction prevention funding and $700,000 in rental assistance funding," she added. "We are also supporting similar homelessness response efforts throughout the suburbs."

Preckwinkle said the county has distributed $82 million in CARES Act funding countywide through its network of recovery initiatives.

Connections staff report serving more than 2,500 residents since the start of the pandemic, with the nonprofit's overall COVID-19 response efforts generating an investment of over $5 million in the local economy through spending at hotels, restaurants, rent to landlords and staff wages.

RELATED: Hotels Shelter Homeless During Coronavirus Stay-At-Home Order

Rental assistance distributed by the group has also prevented nearly 300 households from being evicted — 100 of them in December alone, according to its executive director.

"I would say that one of our biggest concerns that we have right now is our ability to respond to a looming eviction crisis. Rental assistance such as the kind the county is providing has helped us keep people in their home." Bogg said.

"We are deeply grateful that we can infuse sometimes very small amounts of cash to prevent that from ever happening," she said. "Even though there is currently an eviction moratorium, that does not erase people's debt to their landlords. And so we have to continue to respond to that and that need is even, for me, hard to quantify right now, but it is more than what we have."

The $80,000 home delivery pilot program is initially planned for about 13 weeks. It will provide lunch and dinner to 60 recently housed people from 27 households through the end of February, officials said.

Flanagan urged the community to keep supporting local restaurants and small businesses to help them survive what promises to be a difficult winter.

"I don't think it's a marathon. I think it's a sprint. I think it's now, I think it's today and I think it's just for the next several months. So let's work together to help make sure our restaurants are pulled through this, and the folks that so desperately need food and other services get what they need," he said. "Because we're going to get through this, but I hope we can all pull through this together."