If there’s one thing many DeKalb community leaders can agree on, it’s that homelessness is a complex reality.

It can’t be fixed overnight. It can’t be solved by a single magical solution. It can’t be lifted from those who do not want help. And it can’t be tackled alone.

Mayor Cohen Barnes said this week that the city is considering expanding its local support for networks and groups that help those facing homelessness in DeKalb.

“We’ve got some amazing organizations and some amazing volunteers in our community trying to figure out how we’re going to take care of our homeless population,” Barnes said.

How can the city support local resources “that quite frankly can change their life, but also save their life?” Barnes pondered at this week’s City Council meeting.

Hope Haven, the city’s only licensed homeless shelter, has been in operation since 1991.

Barnes said that over the past year he’s toured Hope Haven and met with local church leaders including those heading up the city’s only overnight warming center. He said he wanted to better understand the realities faced by people who are homeless in DeKalb.

Specific areas of the city are more frequented than others by people facing housing insecurity, Hope Haven’s longtime executive director Lesly Wicks said. She said the agency, for example, receives regular calls regarding “homeless people or people who look homeless” congregating along Fourth Street.

But the shelter where Wicks has worked for three decades has its own rules to follow. People must be from the DeKalb area. The shelter can’t take in people with certain criminal histories, including registered sex offenders, she said.

And not everyone wants that helping hand.

“There are some limitations to Hope Haven,” Wicks said. “Some people don’t want to come to Hope Haven. That’s their choice. We have five pages of rules that a lot of people don’t want to abide by. We have 65 people there. It’s very important that people follow our rules.”

What about other resources?

Homelessness in Illinois nearly doubled between 2023 and 2024, according to federal data released in January.

Most was due to an influx of migrants bused from Texas to Chicago, Capitol News Illinois reported. But the report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also showed an increase across the state due to a lack of affordable housing, increased homeless shelter capacity, extreme cold that brought people into shelters when a statewide count was conducted and a rising cost of living triggered when pandemic-era aid ended.

Other barriers to permanent housing offer even more complex challenges, DeKalb officials said.

Homelessness among Illinois youth also is on the rise. Illinois State Board of Education data reported its highest-ever increase in the number of students experiencing homelessness in the 2023-2024 school year, according to the Illinois chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

People with chronic mental illness, disabilities or substance abuse disorders tend to suffer higher rates of homelessness, Wicks said.

“Homelessness remains a persistent and complex challenge,” said Tynisha Clegg, executive director of Family Service Agency of DeKalb County. “Let me be clear: Homelessness is not a crime and I do not support any efforts to treat it as such. Instead, we must approach these issues with respect, dignity and understanding.”

The Family Service Agency’s will soon open a new youth shelter for ages 14 to 17 to address youth homelessness, Clegg said.

FSA also has its Community Action Program. To date, Clegg said, the program’s helped hundreds.

According to data provided by Clegg, the agency connected 355 people to personal one-on-one support; helped 134 families achieve longterm stability; helped 24 people find permanent housing; helped 145 residents rebuild after their homes were lost due to fires; and connected 588 people to employment.

“Those outcomes represent real people, neighbors, families and youth right here in DeKalb whose lives have been transformed through compassionate, strategic intervention,” Clegg said.

Finding someone a hotel room or an apartment doesn’t solve the complexities that may have led to homelessness in the first place, Clegg said.

“To truly address homelessness we must understand its root causes,” Clegg said. “Trauma, poverty, generational and systemic barriers and limited access to mental health care and employment services.”

Nonprofits such as the Family Service Agency of DeKalb County, domestic violence surivvor shelter Safe Passage, Rooted for Good (which has a mobile food pantry), Elder Care Services, the Housing Authority of DeKalb County (which oversees affordable housing programming including Section 8), Habitat for Humanity, the Viluntary Action Center (which oversses the county’s Meals on Wheels program) and Adventure Works are among other agencies that connect residents in need with significant social service networks.

Some history

Hope Haven’s first shelter was a remodeled dry cleaning business at 317 N. Sixth St.

The building was initially purchased and rehabbed by the city in 1990 to aid local churches that came together to develop the city’s first nightly homeless shelter. That association was made up of five local churches that offered food and housing to about three people per night on average from 1968 to 1990, according to an outline published by City Manager Bill Nicklas.

Hope Haven as we know it now opened in 2000 at 1145 Rushmoore Drive, and expanded in 2011. The agency also has a permanent housing location, opened in 2004, at 965 W. Dresser Road, according to city records.

The shelter created two new programs in 2015 – one that offers rapid rehousing to families with one member who has a disability, and another that provides long-term permanent housing for people who suffer chronic homelessness due to a diagnosed mental illness. And in 2015, Hope Haven developed therapy groups for area youth suffering from trauma caused by homelessness, documents show.

Where does the money go?

As a member of the Northern Illinois Homeless Coalition, Hope Haven receives federal funding annually to support its shelters, including meals and other services.

Since 1998, the city of DeKalb has awarded funding – from local dollars and federal aid through the HUD – to nonprofits that provide programming which directly benefits those in the community facing housing insecurity, city documents show.

From 1998 to 2001, the city awarded on average $184,000 to DeKalb-based human service agencies, records show. In 2025, that increased to $300,000, an amount proposed again for fiscal 2026. (Though a 2026 budget hasn’t yet been finalized.) In 2025, the city disbursed just over $400,000 in federal funds, documents show.

Money has historically gone to agencies that provide services addressing quality of life and stability for DeKalb area residents, including those facing homelessness, according to the city.

The city also has given out emergency funds when the situation arises, Nicklas said.

The city gave out $75,000 to six local social services agencies on July 28 to help provide housing and food for those with disabilities and the elderly, documents show. On Jan. 27, the city gave $40,000 to the Voluntary Action Center to aid its Meals on Wheels program amid a lack of state funds. On Feb. 26, 2024, the city created an emergency fund to better funnel aid to agencies in the event asylum seekers needed emergency housing and food. The city suspended local taxes for some businesses including hotels, motels, bars and restaurants for much of 2020 due to mitigations that affected businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What’s next?

Nicklas said the new discussion is part of a greater effort by city leaders to prioritize, among other things, affordable housing citywide, neighborhood revitalization, specifically on the north side’s Annie Glidden Neighborhood, and help those struggling with housing insecurity.

The goal for all these leaders? Help people facing housing insecurity find their footing and eventually become self-sufficient long-term. Nicklas called them “human challenges.”

“However a person gets to be homeless, we have to ask ourselves in our community, ‘What are the services, if any, that we can provide and what should we as a government be doing to help those people meet those challenges?’”

What type of additional aid is the city considering? It’s not yet clear.

Nicklas said he expects to bring to a future council meeting more concrete proposals – an ad-hoc volunteer committee? Revised local ordinances? Programs to back with city money?

But the most important component, Clegg said, is to remember “It’s a help up, not a hand out.”

Capitol News Illinois contributed.