Social services agency seeing increase in migrants

Family Focus is focusing more on non-English-speaking families and individuals than it did just a year ago.

“I see more people coming into the hallways looking for us,” says Nancy Mendoza, head of the Illinois Welcoming Center at Family Focus, which is located in the old Foster School building in the 5th Ward.

Family Focus added the Welcoming Center to its menu of programs last March, basically coinciding with the increase in border crossings and migrants being shipped north by Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

While not overwhelmed by busloads as seen in Chicago, Mendoza says that newcomers to the U.S. are coming in to Family Focus every day, mostly walk-ins.

“Yesterday, we had three people come in that were brand new,” Mendoza says.

One-to-three new clients daily is pretty typical, Mendoza adds, noting that “most of the people we see live in a shelter,” although some have an apartment but are looking for work “so they can pay the rent.”

And some of those looking for work need to get permits first.

Family Focus helps in a variety of ways, from providing food and toiletries, to referrals to health care agencies and immigration attorneys, and the always challenging attempt to find housing for those experiencing homelessness.

“Available space is one of the hardest things to get in Illinois, even in Evanston,” Mendoza says.

The only long-term transitional housing facility in northern Cook County, the Margarita Inn, with a capacity of around 65, is nearly always full.

Mendoza says Family Focus was able to just place a family at the Margarita, because a space opened up. There’s another client on the Margarita’s waiting list.

The family placed at the Margaria, speaks Haitian-Creole, Mendoza notes.

Haitian-Creole is the second most common “newcomer” language in Evanston, behind Spanish. Family Focus has bilingual case workers for both.

The agency also connects newcomers with social workers at the public schools.

As Evanston Now has reported, District 65 has seen nearly 250 non-English-speakers enroll in the system since 2022, which contrasts with only 77 for the prior three years.

Not all are homeless, of course, but D65 says it is educating 10% more students who lack a permanent, fixed address than it did last year.

As for the Margarita Inn, Connections for the Homeless, celebrated the purchase of the former hotel with an open house on Tuesday.

Connections had been running the facility as a shelter since the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, and was able to buy the building late last year, thanks to $7 million from Cook County.

Political leaders like County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, and Mayor Daniel Biss, were on hand for the open house.

Also speaking, a former Margarita resident who recently was able to move out into his own apartment.

Jelani Davis, a chef who said he became homeless after getting congestive heart failure, said that the Margarita made a “big, big difference in my life.”

Preckwinkle saidt “there are over 1,000 homeless in suburban Cook County each night.”

But with the Margarita, another hotel-turned-shelter in Oak Park, and a small number of short-term emergency shelters in the county, the number of available beds in the suburbs is far below what officials say is needed.

In a recent funding request to City Council, the Alliance to End Homelessness in Suburban Cook County said its participating agencies (including Connections) served 1,383 Evanston residents during the 12-month period ending in September, 2023.

Not all of those individuals were homeless. Many received services available to those on the financial brink. housed or not.

While Evanston has more shelter space than any other Northern Cook community, Connections says it is not acting as a “magnet” for those in need.

On its website, the agency says “Connections does not seek out, or in any way encourage those experiencing homelessness to come to Evanston.”

Connections adds that 80% of people served at the Margarita are from Evanston, “many of them long-time residents with significant family history.”

Connections says it assists 4,000 people each year with a variety of services, not just shelter.

For example, Connections says it helps with eviction prevention and rental assistance for other towns, which, the agency says, ” actually helps keep people housed in their own community.”

Still, word of mouth does travel, so at least some migrants are traveling to Evanston.

Not a lot, perhaps, but Mendoza, at Family Focus, says some of its walk-ins are from Skokie and the nearby Chicago neighborhoods of Rogers Park and Albany Park.

“We don’t turn people away,” she says.

Family Focus accepts donations of non-perishable food items, toiletries, and clothing. Men’s clothing is in greatest demand. To drop off supplies, call Nancy Mendoza at 847-867-9437 to make an appointment.