Hello dear One Roof Chicago Community,
We as the board and volunteers of ORC would like to wish you safety, warmth and care this season. Thank you for ‘Coming Home’ to One Roof Chicago and supporting our work this year. As we approach this Giving Tuesday, we wanted to share a bit about what we’ve been up to and invite you to join us in developing our home.
Part of what we on the board continue to be excited about for One Roof Chicago is the potential to increase connection for LGBTQ+ youth and older adults, to create a home where we can live safely, with dignity, respect, and care. Your investment in One Roof Chicago is an investment in caring for our older adults and our young people. We all deserve the opportunity to ‘come home’.
We’ve held 2 storytelling events this year, and heard from young people about what ‘coming home’ meant to them. Storytellers spoke to the importance of healing relationships, sometimes with others and sometimes with ourselves. How critical it is to have a village of people to lean on, to grow with, and to trust. In many ways ‘Coming home’ is nuanced, and there’s a lot of factors and feelings to consider.
One of our major goals this year was to design the older adult services and program model in collaboration with LGBTQ+ seniors and our community partner H.O.M.E. What this meant was often weekly meetings to research, learn together, and be in relationship with LGBTQ+ older adults to better understand their needs and wishes. We held 3 focus groups with older adults, and shared food, laughter, and memories while designing our future home. ‘Coming home’ for them included factors like neighborhood safety, access to key services, and the ability to be home through end of life.
Giving Tuesday is an important chance to affirm our shared goals and values. At One Roof Chicago we are aiming to build 100 units of housing. 80 units for older adults and 20 for youth, where LGBTQ+ people can establish home together, in the ways that serve their needs.
The need for home is always timely, and it is often only achieved through community effort and action. If you’d like to join in this movement, we want to be your non-profit home, the place you are building and investing. Here’s some ways you can start making a difference now:
Please stay tuned here and on our social media for important updates about our plans for 2023.
It’s going to be a great year!
