Local social service agencies are exploring bringing a comprehensive emergency shelter to McHenry County that would house homeless people and battered women.
A growing increase in the homeless population in the county prompted the agencies to band together to try to bring the county its first year-round emergency shelter, said Lou Ness at the Congregational Unitarian Church in Woodstock on Wednesday night.
Ness is executive director of Turning Point, a not-for-profit agency in Woodstock that helps battered women.
Representatives of a dozen McHenry County social service decided Wednesday to look at emergency shelters in other counties for ideas, especially a shelter in Downstate Illinois that houses homeless people and battered women, but keeps the two groups separate.