Home of the Sparrow to relaunch employment program for clients

The McHenry-based women’s shelter and services group Home of the Sparrow is bringing back and expanding a program aimed at both skills training and jobs placement, the nonprofit’s leadership team said.

As pandemic restrictions ease, Home of the Sparrow Executive Director Matt Kostecki said, there is an increased need among the nonprofit’s clients – many of whom are homeless – for both affordable housing and jobs.

“I think people forget that this can happen to anybody,” Kostecki said of homelessness. “It can happen to you. At some point, everyone is a paycheck away from that situation.”

But while plenty of jobs are available, they don’t always pay enough for the Sparrow’s clients to get out of poverty, said Debbie DeGraw, the organization’s vice president of marketing and development.

“Our clients making just above minimum wage cannot afford the housing that is on the market,” DeGraw said. “And now, more than ever, there is an employment issue in the community. The housing issue is critical to helping our clients.”

According to a Heartland Alliance Poverty report from 2020, the average hourly wage needed to afford a two-bedroom home in McHenry County was $24 an hour. That figure is well out of range for most of the nonprofit’s clients, many of whom only have a high school diploma, DeGraw said.

The organization hopes to both get clients the skill sets they need to be self-sufficient and help them network directly with companies, DeGraw said.

“When you build relationships with people, that could give our clients a chance and opportunity when they’d otherwise be overlooked because their résumé isn’t beautiful,” DeGraw said.

In addition to financial factors, DeGraw cited transportation access and child care as barriers to finding suitable housing.

Municipalities in McHenry County, as well as the McHenry County Board, have been making an effort to increase affordable housing stock in the future. Home of the Sparrow also has rental assistance grant funding from the federal CARES Act package, and could receive more from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to a news release.

Even as the Home of the Sparrow hopes to relocate more clients to affordable homes this year, it also must relocate itself, Kostecki said. The organization’s lease at its current location on Shamrock Lane in McHenry ends in November.

“We want a permanent site in McHenry County,” Kostecki said. “We’ve rented for the past 35 years. There’s a building shortage in the county, but we’re in the process of looking at places. We want to get the right location.”

The Home of the Sparrow’s retail locations have a major need for volunteers, as they lost many during the pandemic, Director of Retail Judy Degutis said.

“We need bodies,” Degutis said. “We have stores that need managers. That’s the bottom line.”

Degutis estimated that the stores have about two-thirds of the number of volunteers they need. Despite the shortage, the stores are doing well overall, Degutis said. She speculated that the nonprofit could add another in the coming years.

The organization also hopes to acquire a handful of new housing units, including a two-bedroom unit that could be available in April and a home that could house up two families for a one- to two-year stay to get them in a stable situation, DeGraw said.

At the moment, all of House of the Sparrow’s available housing units are full, Kostecki said.

During the pandemic, Home of the Sparrow postponed its intake, kept the shelter at 50% capacity and conducted case management remotely, Kostecki said.

As of last June, Home of the Sparrow was assisting 378 clients, although it receives calls for assistance from more than 1,700 women annually, according to the organization’s website.

The Sparrow’s housing stock includes a shelter for up to 40 individuals, 25 affordable housing units and three subsidized apartments, according to the website. It also runs rapid rehousing and prevention programs.

The Sparrow works with community partners such as McHenry County College on a variety of programs and receives a lot of clients through Turning Point, an organization that assists victims of domestic violence.

Their partnership speaks to the strong network of local nonprofits and other nongovernmental organizations assisting with struggles related to poverty and violence, Turning Point Executive Director Sarah Ponitz said.

“The Home of the Sparrow’s transitional housing program is tremendously beneficial,” Ponitz said. “We have a lot of people leaving our shelter who aren’t quite ready to be out on their own yet. There is a great deal of coordination between social services that happens around the county.”

Ponitz agreed that getting volunteers is a major priority, as Turning Point is seeing an increase in people staying at the shelter.

The Home of the Sparrow will be training new volunteers in April with the goal of getting 1,000 volunteers overall to work in the stores and clean up housing units.

The Sparrow also will hold a gala to celebrate its 35th anniversary on May 21 at the Sanfilippo Estate in Barrington Hills. Those interested can find out more about the gala at www.hosparrow.org/35anniversarygala.