Catholic Charities’ Emergency Assistance Programs provide individuals and families in crisis with food, clothing, and financial assistance and then helps them address barriers to self-sufficiency. Our Emergency Assistance Programs are often the entry point for other services like housing, counseling, job training, and ongoing nutrition assistance.

A few things you should know about
Catholic Charities’ Emergency Assistance Programs:

• Last year, Catholic Charities Emergency Assistance Programs provided nearly 2.5 million meals to people in need in Cook and Lake counties.
• In the past year, nearly 240,000 requests for access to basic human needs were responded to by Catholic Charities Emergency Assistance Programs.
• Last year, Catholic Charities answered nearly 150,000 calls for help from people in critical need of food, clothing and shelter.
• The 3.8 million dollars Catholic Charities distributed to prevent homelessness last year saved a potential 16.7 million taxpayer dollars that might have been spent on housing the same number of people in an emergency shelter.
• Catholic Charities assisted more than 1 million people in Cook and Lake counties regardless of religious tradition, ethnicity or social status in 2011 through 159 programs at 156 sites.
• $700,000 is the cost to run Catholic Charities for one day.

Like all our programs, Emergency Services fulfills our mission to provide charity to anyone in need with compassion, competence and professionalism.

For more information about Emergency Services, contact Christene Dykes-Sorrells, Director of Emergency Assistance Department, at (312) 655-7516.