Housing First - Joy! Lutheran Church

Joy! Lutheran Church in Gurnee is the first organization to implement a Housing First program in its congregation. A longtime supporter of the PADS Shelter programs, we felt we could do more to help the longer-term or chronically homeless. Through our Faith in Action Team, we sought support within our congregation to give individuals a stable place to live.

We are excited that through our congregation and partners, we have raised enough to house TWO individuals! We are consistently seeking new supporters to either sustain these individuals or to expand to more! Donations made monthly add to our ability to sustain - one-time gifts are divided by 12 in order to meet our monthly goal. This is done manually on a regular basis, but progress towards goal may appear higher than actual at any given time due to system automatically counting the entire yearly gift towards the monthly total.

Below are some remarks from one of the individuals that has been housed: