CEDA changes in Evanston may affect services to people in need

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Julie Whyte, a specialist with the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, helps a client Tuesday in the new offices of the Community and Economic Development Association, at 2010 Dewey Ave. | Joel Lerner~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: February 20, 2012 8:10AM

An agency that has long served some of the neediest residents with utility help, housing assistance, access to medical care and other issues will continue to serve Evanston, but a new service model may affect how some clients receive service.

This week, CEDA-Neighbors at Work moved into offices on the lower level of the Family Focus Building, at 2010 Dewey Ave., after serving people for decades at a stand-alone office at 1229 Emerson St.

Facing cutbacks in funding at both the state and federal levels, the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County — one of the biggest private nonprofit organizations in the country — closed the Emerson Street office under its 2012-2014 service delivery model.

The CEDA office in Mount Prospect now serves as the region’s one-stop service center.

CEDA will continue to maintain a presence in Evanston, “but at a significantly reduced cost,” said Robert Wharton, CEDA’s chief executive officer, announcing the change in November.

Programs continue

Marsha Belcher, the organization’s marketing and research director, said the agency will continue to operate most of the programs full-time from its new site at Family Focus.

“We’re not abandoning Evanston,” Belcher said.

Family Focus is a family support agency, working with teenage parents and other vulnerable groups.

“It’s a perfect partnership,” Belcher said. “Both Family Focus and CEDA are seeing some of the same families, so it’s a perfect location for us.”

She said the agency will continue serving clients five days a week in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance and weatherization programs.

She said the agency’s Women, Infant and Children Clinic — where families can get nutrition counseling, receive vouchers to buy fresh vegetables and produce and get other services — will continue on a four-day-a-week basis.

She said some other programs, such as the agency’s housing assistance program, would be available by appointment or on a reduced schedule from what was available at the Emerson office.

Satellite locations

The agency, however, has plans to provide service in satellite stations, such as on Howard Street, hoping to attain greater mobility under its new service model.

Belcher, asked when the sites would be up and running, said CEDA is awaiting final state action.

Former Evanston Mayor Lorraine H. Morton, who serves on the CEDA board and voted for the new plan, said the decision to close the Emerson office “had nothing to do with the services rendered” at the Neighbors at Work location.

Rather, she said the agency sought to serve people in need in the areas where they now live, “instead of people coming to Neighbors at Work to receive services.”

No services will be eliminated under the move, Morton said; the change, rather, will be “where you go to get those services.”

Four of five of longtime Neighbors at Work staffers in the agency’s community services division, including Director Patricia Vance, didn’t move to new positions at the new Family Focus offices.

Belcher said job descriptions changed under the new plan, and that the change included a new stress on the ability to be mobile.

Vance said she didn’t apply for a new position. She expressed hope that CEDA will stay committed to change.

“We touched a lot of lives and helped a lot of people,” she said, “and for that I’m grateful.”

But Hecky Powell, a former executive director of the agency, when asked about the changes, said he would have fought the move to close the Emerson Street office were he still the director.

Powell: Plan faulty

The plan CEDA is advancing to maintain service “sounds good, but it is not good,” Powell said. Clients, he said, will have a harder time getting to Family Focus rather than the Emerson site, which was located off one bus route.

CEDA itself grew out of the federal “War on Poverty” program launched in the ’60s, he noted.

With the Evanston office closed, leaving just the center in Mount Prospect, “I guess that war on poverty is over. It’s in a Republican neighborhood now,” he said.

Belcher said CEDA’s recent moves were based on a poverty study. For instance, she noted, “we’re now going to provide CEDA services in Des Plaines and Franklin Park at our Head Start locations.” Before someone in Des Plaines would have to go to Evanston or Mount Prospect for services, she said.

“So we’re looking at people whose resources were already stretched and asking them to come to us.”

She was unable to supply by press time a breakdown of how many clients were served at the Emerson address, both from Evanston, and from other towns.

The city has received some calls about how service will be provided with the change, said Evonda Thomas, director of the city’s Health Department, when asked about the issue this week.

The city, Thomas said, is keeping an eye on the Access to Care program, in which CEDA-Neighbors at Work served as an agent.

Under the program, Neighbors at Work could sign up people for insurance cards. People who fell into that group included the uninsured, perhaps some on general assistance, those who were disabled or waiting for Social Security eligibility.

Thomas said only a certain amount of slots were made available to Evanston under the program.

She said the city, however, also is empowered to act as an agent, and that people may sign up at the Health Department, located on the ground floor of the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center, 2100 Ridge Ave.