Greetings and welcome to the West Englewood United Organization website. The year 2005 was very trying. With the homeless community doubling, jobs being lost by the hundreds. The housing market is out of reach. Mothers are being cut off Public Aid benefit because of the five-year cut off plan. Corporations and foundations are changing their guidelines for what they would fund. When we look at the homelessness problem in our community, we forget our ex-offenders who are being released to us with no services support system at all. They cannot get a job; many are homeless with no place to stay. However, we want them off the street, and we say get a job, but where are the jobs for the ex-offender?

The average job offered to an ex-offender is washing dishes or mopping floors because of their background. They can barely get a license or a simple haircut. When we look around us the homelessness is everywhere. Due to the lack of services and funds available to, cases of domestic violence are on the rise. Who suffers the most? It is the women and children of our community. Domestic violence is a greater killer than aids. It strikes day and night; leaving helpless, homeless women and their children, needing counseling, guidance, mentoring, case management and social support. Many think that homeless women are most children are due to drugs or alcohol abuse. Not so! In most cases, life has dealt some of them a bad hand.

Most have no job skills or never had a job. Welfare checks of $345 or $400 cannot pay all of the bills. If you have 4 or 5 children and a rent is $700, lights and heating and cooking gas approximately $950 to $1200 it is nearly impossible to survive without any help. Even with an extra job, most minimum wage jobs basically will only cover childcare or baby-sitting fees. How about the children that gets out of school before the mother gets home from work? Who pays for them? There are many reasons why the homeless problems are growing. Jobs have dwindled, transportation has been cut, and schools have been declining. This is a direct opposition of the opportunity base housing model and is doomed to fail.