Care for Friends Capital Campaign
For over 50 years, Care for Friends has been dedicated to supporting the unhoused community in Chicago by providing essential services including food, housing, and health support. Each year, we make over 12,500 connections with housing insecure Chicagoans, reaching out to many of the approximately 68,000 individuals who will experience homelessness in the city. The arrival of migrants in 2023 has brought a 40% expansion in demand for our services.
Our outreach extends across over 25 wards, providing support to housing insecure youth and their families. During our meal gatherings, guests are encouraged to take advantage of donated clothes and other items they may need. Additionally, many benefit from our foot-care clinic, access primary care services, and are linked to housing and employment support through our network of 15 human-services partners. Recently, we have expanded our offerings to include a substance use education clinic, furthering our commitment to comprehensive care for those in need. We have significantly advanced our ability to provide these services with a high quality, high level of care. Breaking ground on a new community center (which we will do in partnership with Church of our Saviour this spring) is the next step in ensuring that CFF can continue to change the lives of Chicago’s most vulnerable for the next 50 years.
Why a new building?
- Care for Friends has grown exponentially throughout our 55 year existence and we require more space for our health, clothing, hygiene, and food programs.
- The current building is of pre-civil war construction and has fire code and compliance issues, typical of a building of its age.
- There has been increased demand to provide space for more community outreach programs. This new building will provide a safe structure and perfect setting for these events.
Key Benefits
- There will be dedicated areas for our kitchen, pantry, health clinics, toiletries, and clothing.
- A new building provides an opportunity for growth in community programming & outreach.
- Care for Friends remains in Lincoln Park – its home since 1968 – while keeping a presence in our current Edgewater location.
Moving Into Our Next Stage
Care for Friends is committed to meeting the needs of the growing unhoused population in Chicago, while raising awareness about the solutions to the issues of homelessness and food insecurity.
Now that we are opening a second location, while operating our core services consistently well, we are poised to be a major thought leader with Chicago lawmakers and state-wide partners in eradicating food-insecurity and homelessness across the city and state.
This requires our staff to work on program design and implementation at a scale larger than we have before. Additionally, we will actively involve the media to a greater extent, while taking a greater leadership role in fostering community dialogues.
We are currently operating at capacity, and we are in need of additional funding to increase the scope of our services.
We are poised to be a major thought leader with Chicago lawmakers and state-wide partners in eradicating food-insecurity and homelessness
Your gift will help us to do the following:
Fund the day-to-day operations of our organization so that we can focus on developing an even bigger vision for the future.
Pay down debt on our new facility, which will allow us to provide even more services to the unhoused and precariously housed community.
Create a more secure financial future for our organization so that we can continue to serve the unhoused, precariously housed, and food-insecure communities for many years to come.