Struggling local families looking for help from Loaves & Fishes Community Services these days receive assistance with far more than just putting food on the table. Their self-help relief now comes in a way that’s tailor-made for their circumstances – and aimed at getting their households out of the predicament.
A revised client engagement model launched in early November equips the Naperville agency’s 10-member volunteer empowerment team with tools that enable them to help low-income clients access the local resources most appropriate for meeting their unique sets of needs.
It starts with a conversation.
“We want to hear their stories,” said Duncan Ward, Loaves & Fishes’ first director of empowerment programs. “Every one is different.”
Ward was hired last June to spearhead the updated community engagement strategy when the nonprofit left behind its former name, Loaves & Fishes Community Pantry. The new title reflects the agency’s broadened approach to helping households return to self-sufficiency.
“There was something missing, and we’re filling that gap,” said Megan Selck, Loaves & Fishes’ interim president and CEO.
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In the past, the agency furnished grocery items and offered assistance in areas including tax return preparation, housing and job searches. The new model continues that, but studies other ways the households can regain and maintain their independence, and then connects them to the specific resources needed to do that. It also incorporates such elements as transportation, money management and nutrition-based health maintenance.
“It goes to show our focus is not just on feeding our families Doritos and Mountain Dew,” Selck said.
Ward said the team revisits each family’s plan every 45 to 90 days, to assess its effectiveness, and makes adjustments where they’re needed. The response from the 346 families served through the new model as of last week, many of whom have had aggravating experiences in the social services network, has been positive so far, he said.
“They like that someone is listening to them,” said Ward, who spent 18 years working for agencies affiliated with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services before coming to Loaves & Fishes. “They like that they’re able to vent.”
The added layer of review is part of enrollment when new households come seeking help. Existing clients are required to re-enroll after 12 months, and if they do that, they also go through the 15- to 30-minute empowerment interview, Selck said.
“It’s really living up to that name change,” she said. “It’s becoming a community resource center, and not just a food pantry.”
Ward said between the program’s launch on Nov. 1 and Christmas, he and his team met with six families who would have been homeless by the end of the year if they hadn’t received help through Loaves & Fishes from such local entities as Bridge Communities, Naperville CARES, the Community Housing Association of DuPage and the DuPage Community Resource Information System.
For those at lesser risk of imminent crisis, the new model appears to be bringing benefit as well.
“It’s good to hear people, when we contact them after 90 days, say, ‘I’ve only been back to Loaves & Fishes (for food) one time, because the services you connected me with are working,'” Ward said.
It’s too soon to quantify the new model’s effectiveness, Ward and Selck said. That will be done using data collected next fall, after it has been in place for a year.
They don’t anticipate activity to let up much between now and then. An average of 120 families make their first visit to Loaves & Fishes every month, Selck said. Many of the clients are working more than they used to, but earning less, frequently without benefits.
“We serve the working poor,” said Selck, adding that 70 percent of Loaves & Fishes’ client families have at least one household member with a full-time job.
A 40-hour work week is no guarantee of economic comfort. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a worker must earn $25 hourly to support the budget needed to rent a two-bedroom apartment on which the monthly rent is $1,300. The Chicago-based Heartland Alliance has calculated that a minimum-wage earner in DuPage County must work 95 hours per week to afford a two-bedroom unit in the county.
“People are working, they’re just struggling financially, often due to lack of education,” Ward said.
Selck said when she talks to people about Loaves & Fishes, she often invokes the Chinese proverb that declares, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” It’s a good analogy, she said, for the organization.
“Five years ago, we were just giving out fish,” she said. “Today, we are really teaching people how to fish.”
Twitter @scarlman