Homeless in Chicago, Various Partners

Then

For more than five years, McGowan fellows have explored homelessness in Chicago to come up with innovative ideas aimed at helping those experiencing homelessness or the nonprofits who serve them. Fellows have focused on elucidating the journeys of people utilizing Chicago’s support systems, the challenges of youth homelessness, and issues around working wages. They’ve developed strategies, including recommendations for greater coordination, and a public awareness campaign on the issue. “I found myself quite taken and inspired…” wrote one alumnus. “It is that attitude and focus on ‘small but meaningful’ change that I am determined to take forward in my own work on the social impact project in the weeks and months ahead.” 

Now

For many people, including the Fellows, these projects were life changing. For Christy Steele ’20, the exercise of working with her class of Fellows led her to better understand the many complexities surrounding youth homelessness. Since then, she has made a commitment to engage with the issue in her local community. Christy credits the project, and the McGowan Fund, with inspiring her to “strive to make a positive impact professionally, personally, and in (her) community. The generosity of the McGowan Fund … created a deep sense of gratitude and fueled (her) desire to pay that forward to (her) community and to the planet.” Sahar Jamal ’19, leaned on some the lessons learned during the point-in-time count of unhoused folks—conducted in the middle of a mid-winter night—in developing her current social impact project in Kenya, which helps moms keep their jobs.  You can read her story here.