The level of services and management made the Warming Center Program a national model of religious, civil and governmental collaboration. This program provided emergency shelter and meals throughout Chicago offering 1,165 shelter beds and serving 2,080 meals per day. Annually, the Warming Center Program provided 208,670 nights of shelter to 22,230 unduplicated homeless persons. Although Interfaith Council is not acting as the fiscal agent for the Warming Center Program, we continue to collaborate with emergency shelters in providing direct services to the shelter sites. An education and advocacy agenda was established to address the systemic causes of homelessness.
Unaffordable housing pushes many people into homelessness.
Interfaith Housing Development Corporation of Chicago was organized to focus its work toward providing housing for those persons with very low incomes . Also, that same year, out of a concern for the unmet health care needs of homeless people, a health care program was developed by Interfaith Council. Through a collaborative effort with local medical schools, hospitals, and medical students, five health care clinics were established. Growing out of this involvement in health care issues, Interfaith House was established as a respite care facility for homeless persons who needed a period of recovery from a debilitating injury or illness upon release from the hospital. As Interfaith Housing Development Corporation and Interfaith House's programs matured, these programs became separate organizations.