Services
We provide life-changing and life-saving services and referrals for our guests. Those include:
Case Management:
Guests meet with case managers to help set and meet goals to self-sufficiency and break the bonds of homelessness. Year-round, our case managers provide counseling and referrals for additional assistance to those who are homeless or in imminent danger of becoming homeless. In one-on-one sessions, they empower clients to address myriad needs.
Essentially, the case managers help homeless guests manage their lives. They determine the needs of each person and provide links to appropriate benefits and services. They intervene during crises as well as meet regularly with guests, helping them set and achieve appropriate goals to independence. They track and affirm progress. When they find regressions or shortcomings, they help guests investigate the obstacles to success, readjust their goals, and modify their action plans.
Case management provides our guests with opportunities for assessment and individualized action plans to overcome obstacles to self-sufficiency. Having two full-time case managers insures that more guests receive opportunities to develop and follow a comprehensive program of services including linkages to vitally needed supportive services, such as medical care and wellness management, mental health support, addiction treatment and supportive and independent housing. Meeting these vital needs affords SWCP’s guests the means to break the bonds of homelessness.
Without case management, SWCP would be providing only the most basic care, such as evening meals and clothing. The majority of guests come to us to meet such immediate and essential needs, but chronically homeless guests have many barriers and deficits to overcome. The mission of our experienced case managers is to follow up immediate care with support, and by doing so, to help guests find the causes of and the means to overcome their homeless state.
Areas of Service:
- Transitional and Preventive Assistance: Provides financial support for individuals and families facing a housing crisis and help in obtaining furniture and household goods for their new homes.
- Medical Assistance: Enables guests to get their basic medical needs taken care of. Bus passes are also provided so they can get to medical facilities. Volunteer doctors and nurses come in once a week to examine guests with medical problems and make treatment referrals.
- Workforce Development: Assess guests for their job qualifications, prepare them for interviews and assist with online job searches. Because a criminal background can be an impediment to employment, case managers also assist in completing criminal background sealing and expungement filings with the assistance of Cabrini Green Legal Aid and volunteer attorneys.
- Housing: Guests are helped to secure more stable housing.
- Additional Assistance: IDs, help securing a birth certificates, state IDs and driver’s licenses. Assistance with Social Security and other benefits. Guests may use the agency as their mailing address and receive personal voicemail in order to maintain medical, social service, employment and housing contacts. We also offer tutoring for guests preparing for their GED exams, computer training and transportation help.
Basic Services:
For summer services (June to September) guests come in twice a week during the day for clothing, meals, toiletries, and showers. On hot summer days, we are a drop-in cooling center and have occasional evening services which include a meal and medical services.
Winter drop-in services are offered Sunday to Thursday evenings from October to April. Up to 35 guests enjoy dinner, showers, clothes and a safe place to stay away from harsh winter elements.
We provide as needed: cost free prescription drugs, referrals to overnight shelters and partner agencies for additional services, e.g., substance abuse programs, mental health care and job training.
Extended Services:
New to Southwest Chicago PADS is transitional housing. Three guests are housed in the apartment located above our office. The furnishings were supplied by volunteers—beds, dressers, tables, towels, TV and the items needed for the home of three guests on their way to self-sufficiency. The guests will remain under the guidance of our case managers while they prepare themselves for more independent living.