Have you heard of the of St. Joseph The Worker House Association in Rock Island? They run a house in Rock Island which offers temporary shelter to homeless women and their children in the tradition of the Catholic Worker House movement. They are very good people doing very good work.
A house which was damaged by fire was donated to the group and the Doris & Victor Day Foundation gave them a loan to rehabilitate it. The house has been completely refurbished and now the group is selling it so they can use the proceeds for repairs and operation of the St. Joseph The Worker House shelter.
The house for sale is at 2317 9th Ave., Rock Island. It is a 3 bedroom house with a new furnace and bathroom, refurbished kitchen and beautiful hardwood floors. The sale price has been set at $58,900. There is an open house going on right now as I write this from 11am – 3pm Saturday, May 20. Or you can contact William Palos of Mel Foster Co. at 309 292 1252.
St. Joseph The Worker House Assn. grew out of the Peace & Justice Committee of the former St. Joseph Church. The group was involved in keeping the Evening Meals program and discussions on Peace and Justice issues.
After Chuck Trapkus died in a tragic car accident in December 2004, the Catholic Worker House 901 20th St., Rock Island which he supported and ran fell vacant and into disrepair. The church group was donated the house by the trustees of the house. The P&J group decided to incorporate as a not for profit and sought loans to repair and re-open the house.
The house is run along the same traditions of a Catholic Worker House, accepting homeless women and their children as guests. There are no fees and no charges for their stay.
The mission of the organization is to offer services and programs that would create a healthy neighborhood and revitalize the community and provide affordable housing and transitional housing for homeless women and their children.
The house for sale at 2317 9th Ave., Rock Island was donated by Karen and Malik Khaliq of Milan. A garage fire damaged the rear of the house.
St. Joseph The Worker House Association accepted the donation and subsequently received loan funds from Doris & Victor Day Foundation to rehabilitate the house.
Italo Milani, architect, a supporter of the Worker House, prepared the rehab designs and contracted with Teel Builder, Inc., Milan to complete the work.
Board members include Ruth Pushetonequa, president; Vanessa Trice, vice president; Grace Rubalcava Woodley,secretary;Gina Howell, fund raiser; Vince Thomas, treasurer. Other members include, Chris Larson, Galen Leonhardy, Patrick Logan, Luca Luna Terronez and Toni Tribby.
The Worker House is supported by many individual generous donors and grants from foundations. These include Doris & Victor Day Foundation, Moline Community Foundation, Diocese Of Peoria Social Action Funds, First Lutheran Chruch, Rock Island, First Presbyterian Church, Milan and the Rock Island Arsenal Women's Club.
10 comments:
It's a sad commentary about politics today, but the Worker House Assn. and other religious organizations, plus the private sector, seem to be the only groups who are actually DOING something to help the poor and disadvantaged. That RICO has been governed for a generation by Democrats, but still the poor must depend on religious/private groups and individuals to help the helpless, is the great shame of our system.
To say nothing of the fact that RICO is 8th on the poverty list for all of IL. The poor can no longer depend on Democrats or government for their survival. Where's the outrage?
paladin,
You are blaming poverty on the county government?
Are you saying the county government SHOULDN'T be held accountable for RICO being 8th on the IL poverty list?
All three branches of government in IL are controlled by Democrats, and Democrats have been in power in RICO for a generation.
If you don't blame local and state Democrats, who do YOU blame?
paladin,
Huh?
Local government only has property tax to work with. If they tried to raise property taxes enough to reduce poverty everyone would move across the county line to escape the taxes.
State government has a little more money to work with but they still cannot raise taxes without just losing population and business to neighboring states.
Only the federal government is really in a position to reduce poverty.
Paladin the poor are the single mothers who choose not to abort their unborn children. These women are very pro life. You and your republican friends should embrace these poor single mothers for their work for the right to life effort.
Anonymous streotypes homeless mothers. Evictions, domestic violence, divorce and loss of jobs are some of the other reasons why there are homeless women and children.
RICO and the City of Rock Island have some responsibility to ensure that there is adequate affordable housing for the extremely poor, the very poor and those with incomes below the poverty level. Some people wprk two jobs and cannot make ends meet. Housing is a right not a previlege--similar to health.
Rock island has seen the destruction of moe than 200 units of "public" housing units and several 100 older houses in the oldest parts of the the city.
Concentrting on loft apartments and $180,000 to $450,000 homes is not the answer.
Dave, it appears that you are waiting for the resurrection of LBJ and the Great Society" if you believe that "only the federal government is really in a position to reduce poverty". Well, good luck with that. Our flirtation with Marxism and socialism ended when Bill Clinton reformed welfare.
Goofy is correct---it is the responsibility of Rock Island County to meet the needs of Rock Island County's poor. This points out the utter and complete lack of leadership the Democrats have provided in this matter. It's so much easier to blame the feds, and expect the feds to solve our local poverty problem, rather than do the hard work of fixing it ourselves.
I suspect part of this is just the Democrat mindset, which looks to the federal government to solve all problems. But look at your county tax bill. Democrats have found a way to finance increased bennies for their union members in the school system and the various governmental agencies. So there is the will to raise taxes locally-----we just need to make poor people seem as worthy as union members in the schools and courthouse.
Should be a snap. Right?
paladin,
You are correct that when you talk about government doing something about poverty I think of LBJ's War on Poverty. You are correct that I can not think of anything else might have any effect on poverty. Providing housing for the homeless helps the homeless, but of course it does not reduce poverty. Giving food or food vouchers to the hungry reduces hunger but it does not reduce poverty. Of course housing and feeding the poor has traditionally been more a city and township responsibility than a county responsibility. Definitely the city of Rock Island could do better on providing housing for the homeless and I guess the county could probably do more if they were willing to raise taxes but none of that would reduce poverty.
So here is your opportunity to show how much smarter you are than I am paladin. How can a county reduce poverty?
I'm not saying I'm smarter than you or anyone else----that's a strawman, and you know it. I'm saying, as you said, that is the City, Township, County and State's responsibility to reduce poverty in RICO. But the closer to the county, the better.
It is apparent that most of our elected Democrat leaders think like you----let's just wait for LBJ to rise from the dead and revive the Great Society.
For anyone who cares about the poor, that is not acceptable.
Since our "leaders" are waiting for Godot a/k/a LBJ, it falls on those who you name in your original post---religious organizations, foundations, the private sector and individuals who actually give a damn to get the job done, or at least attempt to find new measures to fight poverty----the 60s have been over for a long time, let's find people and organizations who can move on and get something done.
Paladin please don't equate poor with poverty. Some people will always be poorer than others in our system. This does not mean they are in poverty. The new phenomenon "the working poor" in a capitalistic system must make wlfare reformers feel good. A Rock Island alderwoman once said " Let them get three jobs!" when told several families in the former Arsenal Courts had two part-time jobs and still couldn't get off welfare totally ( they got food stamps and visited the food pantry and took their chilren to St. Joe's evening meals).
The folks who recently got "tax breaks" don't really earn their money--it is their investments that make money. While these folks flaunt their money on the Riviera and gambling casinos keeping Gucci, Tiffany's and Neiman Marcus busy, the poor ( and those in poverty) have to listen to debates on why they are not worthy of decent affordable housing, nourishing food and adequate health care. They have to listen to folks like you telling them they have to earn their way to secure these God given rights.
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