Mike Bertrand, the newly-named executive director of Hesed House, had his eyes set on leading this Aurora homeless shelter as soon as he learned earlier this year the position was available.
You could also say his heart was set on that goal.
As the longtime president and CEO of Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois, Bertrand is credited with guiding agencies from deep deficits to lasting financial stability – he doubled one budget from $25 million to more than $50 million – and leading fundraisers as well as partnerships and mergers that brought programs to communities statewide.
But the 61-year-old licensed clinical social worker missed having a more direct role in a community, especially with its vulnerable populations, as he’d done earlier in his career in human services.
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Bertrand certainly knew a lot about Hesed House, and not just because he’s lived in Aurora for 30 years. As a child protection investigator with the Department of Children and Family Services, he “would put (unhoused) families in my car and take them” to the shelter, where he saw first-hand the differences the staff and its many volunteers could make.
It’s no surprise that he’s more than eager to step into this critical leadership role Oct. 19.
When Joe Jackson resigned from this role in the spring, former Hesed House Executive Director Ryan Dowd returned to Aurora and took over as interim until a transition could be made.
“I am thrilled for Mike to join the Hesed House team,” Dowd said in its recent press release. “He shares our values, particularly that of ensuring dignity for the most vulnerable.”
In my conversation with Bertrand, that certainly seemed to be his main focus. But he knows what a tough job he’s taking on, especially with federal funding cuts that will impact those already teetering on the economic brink.
“What fuels me is that if we don’t rise to those challenges, what will that mean for the people we need to help?” he asked. “You get good at picking yourself up and getting back in the fight” because if “we don’t, we know who will suffer.”
Bertrand is also aware of the stigma attached to those who are homeless, as became evident in the recent pushback from Boulder Hill residents over an emergency winter shelter two churches are starting next month in their neighborhood.
However, one residual effect of the pandemic and the opioid epidemic, Bertrand pointed out, is that as more people have struggled with mental health issues or watched loved ones do so, that stigma has begun to fade.
“One of the things Hesed House has,” he said, is its 7,500-plus volunteers “who see for themselves” the people they serve are “like you and me … that there is nothing to fear” because they really are “like our neighbor who needs some help.”
The idea that “bad things happen to bad people is being challenged,” Bertrand told me, adding that he’d love for more in the community to visit Hesed House, where the focus is not on what the shelter wants to do but what must be accomplished to give those who are unhoused the most basic in human needs.
And that “changes over time,” said Bertrand, pointing to the closing of the Association for Individual Development’s Living Room program and Mercy Medical Center’s shuttered crisis intervention unit as critical gaps that need to be addressed.
“You have to be nimble enough to pivot and do things” so people are not sleeping on the streets, he continued. “It’s a big job. But there is a big need.”
And an obviously enthused Bertrand is “ready to get at it.”
Married for 36 years, the new executive director and his wife Sue, who heads the Aurora Regional Economic Alliance, have raised three daughters, and he’s now looking forward to working alongside her in giving back to the Aurora community both care about.
“We are delighted to welcome Mike to Hesed House,” Board of Directors Chair Julie Proscia said in the press release.
“He has called Aurora home for 30 years and brings the heart of a social worker and the experience of a seasoned leader, so we know the people we serve will always come first with him at the helm.”