Help Connect People Experiencing Homelessness to Resources

The Chicago Help Initiative hosts a large hot meal every Wednesday at the Catholic Charities building. During the meal we have a resource room open to the guests where a social worker and several volunteers help people . Our guests are typically people who are homeless, mentally ill, elderly, or just going through a hard time. They need us to help them make doctor's appointments, fill out housing applications, apply for disabled bus passes, and a whole lot of other tasks.

We provide a monthly orientation for new volunteers. After that you will shadow other volunteers and then work in pairs with the guests. There is always a social worker supervising and offering assistance.

It can be very meaningful and rewarding to provide tangible help to people. It also can be frustrating to navigate the services available to Chicago homeless people, so we are looking for people who don't give up easily.

Our volunteers need to be resourceful, kind, patient and non judgemental.

We operate the resource room every Wednesday and ask volunteers to commit to coming at least twice a month.