Marni: Hey, everyone! Welcome to "Your Family, Your Library," a podcast where we discuss the many ways our library is here for families of all shapes and sizes. Each episode we will bring you information and resources relevant to your family and beyond. We are "Your Family, Your Library," and we're glad you're here. I'm Marni Balint, and today I will be joined by Richard Kong and Bonnie Kahn Ognisanti, which I said correctly, I just given the thumbs up. Thank you both for being here today. We're very excited to have you here and learn more about Skokie as a whole. But before we get started, how do you two know each other?
Bonnie: You told this story recently, actually.
Richard: We, so my recollection is that I was, a school district 68 strategic planning session one Saturday afternoon. This was I don't even know how long ago it was. I think it was...
Bonnie: Pre-COVID, for sure. I don't think I was an elected official ten years ago or something.
Richard: It was probably 10 years ago ,probably...
Marni: Pre-COVID is a wild way to think about time.
Richard: Right? You can't even think about time that way.
Bonnie: Right!
Marni: Sorry to interrupt.
Richard: No. It's okay. So many years ago, we were in a room together talking about strategy for a local school district. And Bonnie was, I was there, and I don't know how we started talking with one another, but maybe we just were in the small group together at a table together, and we introduced ourselves, and, stayed in touch.
Bonnie: Took a shine.
Marni: Became fast friends.
Bonnie: It's like there's something, there's something. And I feel some service there. I can't remember if I was a trustee then or if, I'm a parent from School District 68. And I was, you know, of course, very active there, as you may guess. So it could have just been that I was a parent in the room...
Richard: Right.
Bonnie: As a stakeholder, but I can't remember. But we were definitely putting a cohort together.
Richard: I know, I think you, still had, kids or one kid, at least in the school district at that time, right?
Bonnie: For sure, right. So yeah.
Richard: Yeah. We were immediately recognizing that we were kindred spirits and kind of had the same, the same kind of outlook on our community and commitment to service. So, hit it off right away.
Marni: Yeah. People committed to serving your community. Surprise. So you, sounds like you were a trustee before. What does your job entail now?
Bonnie: So now I am the supervisor of Niles Township government, which is an elected position. I'm just beginning. Well, I'm a few months into my second term.
Marni: Okay.
Bonnie: And I was appointed to the position in January of 2020 and then elected in, April of 2021. But the position is basically like the president of a board. So we have a board of seven. I'm like the, they would say the CEO of the board.
Marni: Congratulations.
Bonnie: Thank you. Heavy as the head that wears the crown. So I have that position on the board. I serve with a fantastic group of public servants that likewise are very committed to this community and to making it great and to be an ambassadors to the broader community. But then, unlike many other elected positions, I also have an administrative role. So.
Marni: Oh interesting.
Bonnie: In Township government...The township supervisor is the only person on the board that can make policies for and administer our social services department.
Marni: Interesting. I'm going to ask you more questions about how much of that job is yours later about writing policy. But before we get to that, I'm jumping ahead of myself. I have so many questions. How do you feel like you would describe the work of a township supervisor? I feel like most people know the word supervisor and they're like, oh, that's person who's in charge of people and things like that. But I feel like township supervisor is a little bit different.
Bonnie: So it's a little bit like being the mayor of the township and the township...so our township is, six municipalities, all of Skokie, all of Lincolnwood, all of Golf, a sliver of Glenview, Morton Grove, east of Harlem, and Niles east of Harlem. So that is the geographic footprint of our township.
Marni: Okay. What is a township?
Bonnie: Yeah.
Richard: Good question.
Bonnie: Good segue.
Marni: Thank you so much. I practiced that.
Bonnie: So in, township is the oldest form of government in the state of Illinois.
Marni: Okay.
Bonnie: It is almost like a kind of like a little county. And it does different things in different parts of the state depending on, like, I don't want to get too much into the weeds, but I actually really want to get like super into...
Marni: How deep are we getting into this episode? Tell me more about it a township!
Bonnie: Because our township has, all of our municipalities follow home rule and there are no unincorporated areas in the municipalities. So that really shrinks what our township does into basically a social service agency.
Marni: So, so I have a question. It's like, can Skokie be removed from the township? No. So everything is sticks together.
Bonnie: Yeah.
Marni: Okay.
Bonnie: Yeah. So all of those municipalities are within the township, kind of like all those municipalities are also within the county of Cook.
Marni: Got it. Okay cool.
Bonnie: So you have your municipality. It's surrounded by a township. The townships are inside of counties, which are then inside the state are township. Township government, unlike municipal government has to follow something called Dillon's Rule.
Marni: Who's Dillon?
Bonnie: Some dude.
Marni: You don't know him?
Bonnie: He was like an attorney, I think, in the 1800s or something. But they follow, we have to follow Dillon's Rule. Libraries may have to follow Dillon's Rule too.
Marni: Do you know about Dillon?
Richard: Tell me more about Dillon's Rule first then I'll let you know.
Bonnie: Basically, Dillon's Rule just means that as a unit of government, you have to strictly follow codes and rules and mandates from the state. Unlike, municipality, that could be Home Rule, which means they can kind of they can just respond to the needs of the public. We cannot. So a township really can only do very specific things that the state has asked us to do. And those, all centered around social services.
Marni: Okay. Interesting.
Bonnie: And I can tell you more about that.
Marni: I would love to know more about that, mostly because I feel like this is new information to me in the sense of like a major municipality can sort of respond immediately to what its people need. And a township needs to basically wait for the state to tell it, like you can do.
Bonnie: Sort of, kind of.
Marni: Sort of kind of, okay.
Bonnie: So the state create a statute and we have to follow it.
Marni: Got it.
Bonnie: So the state said a township must provide financial services, specifically a financial aid program called General assistance.
Marni: Okay.
Bonnie: And that a township must, and this is the language that the state is from the state the township is tasked with caring for and creating programs and assistance for the indigent youth and seniors.
Marni: Okay.
Bonnie: So that is really what we do. And we creatively find ways to, to respond uniquely to the specific needs of our township, but only in that umbrella.
Marni: Got it.
Bonnie: So, for instance, most townships or many townships have a food pantry.
Marni: Okay.
Bonnie: Right. Because that falls under those auspices of, of what the state wants us to do.
Marni: And I know when we were not recording, you were telling us a little bit about this, about the food pantry that we have too. So I can't wait to hear more about it. But also, I know that something that you do is like food security, housing, immigration rights, those are all things that are under that umbrella. Is that correct?
Bonnie: Right.
Marni: Okay.
Bonnie: Yup. So that really makes us that's why I say we're basically a social service agency. So even though...
Marni: Doing all the major things.
Bonnie: The things townships will have to do...Our task to do is to have an assessor's office. We are the assessors, we have the social services, and we have an assessor's office in, in Cook County. It's almost a misnomer. The assessor doesn't assess your property. He helps you appeal your property. So again, you can think about that sort of under that umbrella of social services, you're really helping the individual resident have financial security.
Marni: Okay. Great. I want to hear a little bit more about like your team and how your team sort of gets these services out to the community. We've talked a little bit about that here behind the scenes, but I want to know what do you think is the most important things people need to know about the services that you provide?
Bonnie: Yeah, so we have a great team, as you can guess, lots of social workers on our team.
Marni: Fantastic. We love to hear that.
Bonnie: We love our social workers. My, we just hired a new director actually last night. Who is Jenny Steiner.
Marni: Congratulations.
Richard: Congratulations.
Bonnie: Did you hear about, you know Jenny?
Richard: Yeah.
Bonnie: So Jenny was my assistant for the past seven years, and she really was kind of everybody's assistant. She can do everything.
Marni: Shew as doing it all.
Bonnie: And she raised her hand to, walk into this position. So we're really, really excited.
Marni: So she already knows it all, too.
Bonnie: She kind of knows it all. She'll be learning a few new things, but she, like you, is super curious. She always wants to learn. She's extraordinarily competent, so I'm excited to have her in that role.
Richard: That's great. It's good to have a solid lead person on your staff.
Bonnie: Yeah, she's. And she knows like she knows everything about township.
Marni: So, I like me, which I'm just learning.
Bonnie: So she's great, and then we have our director of social services, Ruth Orme-Johnson, who really has been wonderful. She started really with me in 2020. Yeah, at the end of 2020. And, Ruth is a fantastic partner because she also has a big policy background. So she and I get into policy together and we look at things right away, like, right when Ruth was hired, one of the things that we do is, provide child care scholarships for families that need help paying for that. For a typical low wealth family, a third of your income goes towards child care.
Marni: It's amazing how large that amount is when you're looking at it, which is like the conversation of, do we have one parent stay home and watch the kids? Or do we have one parent go to work just to pay for child care?
Bonnie: Right.
Marni: Which is a huge portion of their income.
Bonnie: Absolutely. And, and if you make a rational decision to have somebody stay home because that cost is so high, then you're setting somebody's career back for those years that are lost in the workplace. I mean, there's just all these other kinds of consequences and implications. So we think it's, it's of great value to be able to offer a little bit of assistance so that folks can be engaged in the workplace.
Marni: But do you feel like that's a program that a lot of people know about?
Bonnie: We have a waitlist every year. So we really spend through that money.
Marni: Okay, great.
Bonnie: And that first year when Ruth got in there, we took a look at it and we were like nobody's using it.
Marni: I was like, I wasn't sure if I was like, you heard it here first, folks. Sign up for it.
Bonnie: People know about it, but definitely go sign up for it.
Marni: Yeah.
Bonnie: But that was an issue where it's like, it's really fun to have two policy people look at it and be like, why are people not utilizing this program? And really it was written in a way not on purpose, but accidentally written in a way that kind of designed it to fail. So for instance, it had requirements that you had, you know, there was work requirements that are involved in it. We still have some we still have work requirements that are piece of it, but income requirement with the work requirement did not match. So you had to be making such a little amount of money with the, amount that you had to work. Nobody would ever like, even at minimal wage.
Marni: Yeah. Nobody could nobody meet those both those standards.
Bonnie: Exactly, exactly. So we changed that, and then we ended up blowing through that money and needing to, really, we triple it and we still have waitlists. So we spend through that money, there's lots and lots of need for childcare assistance.
Marni: I'm glad that that is something too, that has been reevaluated to make it more accessible. One for your community members who have a need to, two, recognize where that policy change needed to come from. And three, like continue to beef it up as much as possible as that need continues to for sure.
Bonnie: And that is one thing that I am so proud of with our staff and really with our board. It's the flexibility to look at our programs and see if they're working and look at what needs are out there, and then be responsive and try to change those programs so that they're really doing what they were intended to do.
Marni: I very much connect with that. I feel like on a library level and a township level too, mostly because that is something that I feel like we do really well here at the library is we're constantly reevaluating. Like, is this a service model that still works for the community, is still a need for the community. Can we adjust it in any way to make it better for the community? I think people think of a lot of times, like all the policies in place. That's the policy. Like people change, times change. Things are evolving way quicker than we can even keep up with.
Bonnie: Hundred percent and that is one of the cool things about local government right. Either it's at the library or it's the parks, or it's the township. We can be in communication right there on the ground with the people that we're serving, and then respond to that and look at our policies and have the flexibility and kind of but, we don't have the same bureaucracy.
Marni: Yeah.
Bonnie: So it's a little bit easier just...
Marni: I was going to ask that later, too. I was like, is it easier when you're in a township to feel like you have a little bit more ownership of the thing, the smaller policies that are able to be able to change or larger ones at that point.
Bonnie: So we do need board approval for lots of things. But like I was mentioning at the top when I was describing the role of a supervisor for some of the things that fall under social services and general assistance, that really does fall just to the supervisor. So those are things that I can make, like...I'll always need board approval for spending. So when something and everything has like a budgetary, piece to it, we need board approval. But those policy changes can be made really rapidly.
Marni: That's amazing.
Bonnie: The other thing that's really great about Township, and we work hand in hand with other social service agencies all day long. But because we are so local and we have monthly meetings where we're approving spending, if somebody needs something, we can get them the financial assistance that they need within 24 hours.
Marni: That's amazing.
Bonnie: So we can really face emergencies. If your light, we do a lot of shut off notices. We offer financial assistance for that. If you come in with a shut-off notice that your lights just got turned off, your heat just got turned off, or right now your air just got turned off. You need that remedied right away. And we can turn around in three hours with a quick fix.
Marni: Amazing.
Richard: Did you know that you wanted to get into policy work when you joined or ran for a seat on the board, or did you feel like that was more of a community engagement type role that you were looking for? And because that's it's kind of a different skill set.
Marni: Yeah, how'd you get here?
Richard: And it's I think that you're someone from what I can tell you, no good at both, the policy side and just kind of meeting community members, listening to people and talking.
Bonnie: I love this question because I really do believe the two can be braided together, and we do braid them together with everything that we're doing at the township. We're trying to do it in communication and in community with our community. We look at that as a policy piece, and we are, we firmly believe that the way that we truly thrive together is through interdependence. And so everything that we're doing, we want to bring the community in and have buy-in from the community and have conversation, whether that is creating volunteer opportunities. So that folks who are really, really hungry to plug in and give back have a way to do that and build relationships on both sides of that equation, or they're the people who are in need of some help right now. But we also want to be really careful that we're not creating stigmas around that health.
Richard: Right?
Bonnie: Right. And as you are building systems of mutuality and interdependence, you're also breaking down stigma. And I have I mean, this is a it's a conversation I had during our election. So I when I was elected. So I do believe that the public is with us on those policy decisions. But it's a great question because I, I think we often think of those things as two different buckets. And they just they don't have to be when you're intentional about it.
Amy: Winter Reading Bingo is back! Pick up your card at the library or on the bookmobile between December 15 and January 31. Snuggle in and spend the season reading and earn a festive mug. You must be a Skokie cardholder or attend a K-12 school in Skokie to qualify for prizes. Warm up to reading, at Skokie Public Library.
Marni: I'm also curious to how do you and your team get feedback from the community? Mostly because I'm interested in this, because this is a question that we have deal with at the library all the time. How are we getting feedback from patrons to think of something that they enjoy or they don't enjoy, or they want something, or that we don't have something? How do you get feedback from the community for the, the things that you are able to provide to people and like, how are people able to come talk to you like volunteer organizations? Fantastic. Getting involved in the community. Fantastic. How do you know what your community needs?
Bonnie: Yeah, it's a, it's a tricky question, right?
Marni: Yeah.
Bonnie: And I think that people in service and organizations in service struggle with it a lot. One of the things that, I think is an often overlooked answer or a way to find the answer, is really in direct service. So because we are so operating...
Marni: So involved.
Bonnie: ...in direct, one on one service with our communities and with our partners, we're in those conversations constantly. That's something not only that, we really firmly believe that we can't just sit in our like, Ivory Township building, right, and wait for people to walk in the door because, again, with an intentionality, if we did that, then we're creating programs that are for resourced folks only, even people who are in need, they're already aware that our that we exist. That's a certain set of resources that another community may lack. And so, if you look at the makeup of our board, for instance, we were very intentional to try and this time around, make sure that we were representing more of our very diverse community with folks who can be ambassadors and liaisons back to those communities, because...
Marni: Skokie is a very diverse community.
Bonnie: All of Niles Township's super, super diverse.
Marni: Yeah.
Bonnie: Richard, do you remember how many languages are spoken in 219?
Richard: I think....
Marni: So many.
Richard: 80...90....dialects and languages.
Bonnie: Yeah, yeah, it's like in the 90s, dialects and languages. Right. So which is it is another like beautiful, piece of our community and also a challenge.
Richard: Right.
Marni: And this is just a tiny, shameless plug for the library too. But if you go to our doors, we have hello or welcome in every single language that is spoken in Skokie. And I feel like that is just something that I feel like it's so inclusive.
Bonnie: That's so it's really cool.
Marni: It's really cool. if you go near the entrance, you can see it on our doors. So that's my little shameless...
Bonnie: I love it. I'm going to take a picture of that one.
Richard: I think you're right. It's, it's I wouldn't have it any other way. I love serving a community that's as diverse as ours, but it's also challenging, right? It's not a, a common situation that, other municipal entities or units of government normally face, right?
Bonnie: Right. And like meeting those needs is not as easy as saying, well, we have a high Spanish speaking population, so let's make sure we're hiring someone who's speaking Spanish. It's very difficult.
Marni: Make sure you're also hiring somebody who's in those communities that can go back and share these resources and make sure people who need them are getting involved.
Bonnie: And I'm sure you guys are doing this too. But also then we look to the community to have, ambassadors from those from, from the different community centers, from ethnic centers, from different churches. And we, you know, like you guys, because I know you do this with us, we make sure that we are tabling events and we're talking with people and our relationships with our partners, which, honestly, Richard, you're so wonderful of facilitating this...
Richard: Thank you.
Bonnie: Close relationships between local government and other leaders and, other people who are in service, you all, the library and especially you, Richard, you just do such a wonderful job in making sure that those connections are maintained.
Richard: Thank you.
Bonnie: Because it's easy to get caught up in your in our busy, busy world.
Richard: I mean, it's thank you for saying that. I think it's definitely a part of, what we intentionally do here at the library is we kind of set the table and bring people together and, you know, kind of foster conversations. And that's a big part of community service, right? Listening to people, listening to partners, unlike yourself, and just fostering that dialog.
Bonnie: I'm very grateful for it. And I talk about it whenever I can.
Marni: What do you think makes Skokie a great place for families?
Bonnie: Well, some of what we've already talked about, which is the community itself and the commitment to building an active community, and Skokie truly is populated by people who believe that they, every day are creating the world that they want to live in. And you see it, by the way, that people raise their hands to be on school boards and, to be in service or PTA or help their neighbor and build these systems of care with one another. So I'm so grateful for that. Also, again, we are an El stop, so you can still get to the city.
Marni: That's true.
Bonnie: I tell my city friends like, still and el stop. So pretty cool.
Marni: We're one of three yellow lines, very exciting.
Bonnie: So there is an urban feel to it, right? It's still, we're close enough to the city that it's really not that big of a hardship. And, and, and we have all of these forest preserves around us. So we get nature too.
Marni: I'm still learning about all of them. They're amazing.
Bonnie: It's amazing. I know where herons nest. And I won't tell all of your listeners, but I will draw you a map later.
Marni: Okay, great. Fantastic.
Bonnie: And our schools are great and our amenities are wonderful. We have one of the, best libraries in the nation, if not the world.
Marni: Thank you so much.
Bonnie: We have township services that uplift our neighbors. And, it's just it's a really, really special place.
Marni: Totally.
Richard: I think it's, what I when I moved to, or when I started working in Skokie, people said Skokie is a place where it's resource rich. So we have so many organizations, so many people, like you said, who are have the means and the ability and the, desire to serve the community and to help others. So that's, you know, you feel that wherever you go in Skokie, like they're part potential partners.
Bonnie: Every where.
Richard: Right.
Bonnie: But, you know, here's another thing that I don't think people say when they're trying to sell Skokie, but I do...
Marni: You're like, I am constantly thinking about this.
Bonnie: We are totally resource rich. We absolutely have people who have means, and we have people who are brand new immigrants who are trying to figure out how to make their life work, who need help and who need assistance. And we live in a community that wants to be an active part of that and believes in financial mobility as well as social mobility and professional mobility. And that is like the American dream, still alive and well in this teeny tiny special little bubble. And we should be celebrating that because, you know, if you look at communities kind of everywhere, segregation and financial segregation is a big part of, financial. We talk about white flight, but financial flight is a real thing, too. Skokie is diverse in every single way you want to talk about it. We are religiously diverse. We are ethnically diverse. We are financially diverse. We have, a big gender queer population in Skokie. We, you know, you, you, you name it, we've got it. And we coexist. And we even our children all play together. I used to make, my youngest is now 17 and my oldest two are adults. But my joke was like, okay, well, you know, look out the back door and it's like a little UN meeting. They're just having a great time.
Marni: I was just thinking about that too, because like when patrons come to the library and they're like, oh, I'm new to the area, I need x, y, z. It's like, I've never not known anybody who's been asked that question who doesn't have the ability to answer it? They're like, oh, if you need someplace that works with adults with disabilities, if you need some place to offer emotional support, if you're going through a really hard time, if there's someplace that you need for a food pantry or someplace to that you need for a social worker, someplace you need for community involvement or things like that, like we have an answer for everything when you're talking about the, like, types of diversity that are here in Skokie, there is also something that answers that need.
Bonnie: Except for one thing that we don't have now.
Marni: Gasp!
Bonnie: And that's and that's overnight shelter for folks who are experiencing homelessness. Then, we're working on that at the township. But that is one thing in Niles Township, we have, of course, our daytime respite center, which I'm super proud of. And I know you wanted to talk about and we will talk about, but what we don't have is a place for folks to go and get out of the elements and to provide shelter and dignity and support around the clock.
Marni: I want to know what services would you highlight that you don't see in other places? So we started talking about this briefly in some of our previous conversations. But what are some things that you feel like you're really proud that the township has? You're really proud that we're able to offer things like that.
Bonnie: Yeah. I think this all comes back to kind of what has been the theme of this conversation today, which is our risk, our shared responsiveness and communication with our, community. So some of the things that uniquely Niles Township has for township government and that we offer is unique to the public that we serve. So we have a pretty large, immigrant refugee and asylum community. So we have, I'm always like, how do I do this without totally boring you guys....
Richard: No, this is....
Marni: I'm fascinated. So hopefully whoever listens to will be fascinated.
Bonnie: So this again, the state mandates that we do a couple of things, and one of them is to administer this program called General Assistance with sort of a financial aid program. If we lost our funding for everything, we, the state would say, you have to you have to stop doing you have to close your food pantry. You have to stop. We're, helping people appeal their property tax. You have to stop everything you do, and you have to find a way to administer a general assistance. It is the heart of what the state has tasked townships to do. It is a financial aid programs called Of Last Resort. It predates Social Security and any other kinds of welfare. And every township administers this program in Illinois.
Marni: It's like written in.
Bonnie: It is written and it's it is what we what we have to do.
Marni: Did Dillon say it?
Bonnie: Dillon said it. So in general assistance, you can give general assistance dollars to refugees. Most townships aren't doing that just because they don't have the refugee population that we have. So when other townships are across the state are looking at, an opportunity to help the refugee population, they're sometimes calling our social workers because we have such vast experience with particularly that sort of aid for that population. All that said, we are, are still subject to some rules around who we can help and who we cannot help. So...
Marni: Okay.
Bonnie: During the COVID-19 pandemic, when people needed a lot of extra help and people were furloughed for the first time...
Marni: Right.
Bonnie: And were really struggling to pay their bills, we were again in communication with, in direct service with people who were in need, and we were having people come to the office and we couldn't help them with general assistance because of their immigration status. So we created our own financial aid program called Additional Assistance, additional assistance is a little different than general assistance in that we can help whoever we want with them, as long as they are a resident of Niles Township. And that means that we can use that money to help people, even with uncertain immigration status.
Marni: Okay, amazing.
Bonnie: So super proud of that. Our food pantry is one of the largest in all of Cook County, and it's a grocery store model that serves with dignity. It has more than groceries and it has all the groceries on it. Right? We have halal for instance. We are responsive to what people really need to eat. We have all kinds of ethnic foods. One of our new board members is from the Assyrian community. So she's been so helpful to me and helping us stock our shelves with things from grocery stores that were getting thrown away. We always say feed people, not landfills.
Marni: And it's also...going to talk about this too, because you talked about how you get this food last time. Yeah. So you go on a little bit about that.
Bonnie: Well, we are a subsidiary of the Greater Chicago, Chicago Food Depository. So most of our food comes from GCFD.
Marni: Okay.
Bonnie: And we get very large, semi trucks of that food every week, which is awesome. And that that's dairy, meat, fresh produce and shelf stable food. But you, you, you know, shelf stable, you're assuming is in a food pantry.
Marni: Right?
Bonnie: Cans and dried beans, whatever. But on top of that, we have a robust food rescue program, and we really rely on our community to help us secure this food. And what that is, is will go into, area grocery stores that are shopping for the look of abundance. Nobody wants to go into the grocery store and see empty shelves. So grocery stores as a business model are buying more food than they know they can sell, and then weekly throwing food just out into the dumpsters. That's the business model...
Marni: Which is wild, that that's the business field.
Bonnie: It's wild. But that is that's the standard business model. So we're trying to disrupt the model a little bit by diverting food from the landfill back to our food pantry to feed the hungry, and honestly, if we were able to to continue doing that, we, you know, you could end food insecurity nationally with how much food we throw away. It is crazy. But not only does that keep things out of the landfill, but it also increases the, choices that folks have when they come into our food pantry, which is really important to us. One of the things that I like to talk about when I'm talking about, the people that we serve, is really the lack of choice. And when we are thinking about poverty, to start to think about the poverty of not having choices.
Marni: Right.
Bonnie: Right. So increasing choices helps us with our mission to also increase serving with dignity.
Paul: This is "Your Family, Your Library," and it's time for a Skokie fact.
Jessica: Did you know? A windmill provided power for the first home in Skokie to have the indoor plumbing and electricity? The house, which was torn down in 1959, belonged to Edwin and Louise Klein and was located at the northwest corner of Oakton Street and Floral Avenue and is now a parking lot. For more Skokie history, visit the library's local history page.
Marni: Yeah, I very much appreciate that you've been saying with dignity for the last couple of things that we've talked about, and I think that's so important to realize that, like anybody in, experiencing hardship or in a new situation or a new country, like they should be afforded the dignity of being able to be still treated as a human being. And I feel like that is something that we need to work a little bit harder on.
Bonnie: Sure. Especially in these trying times.
Marni: These trying times.
Bonnie: Yeah. So there's that, that. And then, I think your question was what other kind of unique things we do, we also have our respite center.
Marni: Yeah.
Bonnie: And it is the we are the only township in the entire state of Illinois that operates, daytime center for folks who are experiencing homelessness. And again, you know, coming back to dignity, it is a place where people can find their own dignity. It's a place where you can take a shower. We've had people tell us, you know, that it's the first space that they've taken their shoes off in, like, two years, because you're just afraid that someone might steal your shoes. You don't want people to see your feet. They're dirty. So it's a spot where people get to wash their clothes. We have washers and dryer. They can take a shower. You'll store your belongings so they don't have to schlep all of their belongings with them everywhere, right? They can relax. They can feel safe. We have, a lot of times people come in, they put a load of laundry and they take a shower, and then they just want to sleep because most of their sleep is disturbed.
Marni: Right
Richard: Can you talk a little bit about the origin of the rescue center and like where the idea came from, what you were hearing from the community, and then also talk a little bit about how the partnership with Saint Paul's came to light.
Bonnie: for sure. So the origin story really of the rescue center, this is another COVID story.
Marni: A classic.
Bonnie: It's like a classic COVID story. Anyone who was working in an office will relate to this one. So it was one of those days where, I'm showing up early in the office and found out that none of our social workers can come in because somebody's kid was exposed or somebody's grandma was exposed, like, I was just frantically canceling appointments. And this young man, you know, maybe 25 years old, walks through our front door. And he had six garbage bags with him. And in my mind I was like, oh, shoot, I need to put down everything that I'm doing. I need to stop what I'm doing because this nice man is here with donations for our food pantry. And so I walked over to talk to him and they were not donations for the food pantry. That was everything that he owned. And he was coming to talk to our social workers. So that was like carrying all his belongings. And Richard knows we're not on a bus route, unfortunately. So you walk from the bus to the township with these six heavy bags, comes to the township. None of our social workers are there. And he was coming to get a bus pass so that he could then take all his belongings back to the bus station. Get on a bus, go. I believe to Northfield, where they had a daytime shelter where someone could wash your clothes. You just wanted to wear clean clothes and take a shower. And...
Marni: All of that just for that.
Bonnie: All of that. Just for that. Just for, like a baseline human dignity, that kind of stuff. Like, How many times have you heard someone say, I don't even feel like a person till I take my shower in the morning, right? Like he just wanted to feel like a person. And that's when I realized that we had nothing in all of Skokie. All of the six municipalities that are served by the township, where somebody could go during the day and Maslow's pyramid like feel like a person. So how are we supposed to ask this gentleman then to figure out, you know, next. And actually, I had that conversation with him. I said, so what's next for you? I you know, I was like, you know, I'm going to get you a sandwich. We actually had a washer and dryer in our food pantry. Why don't we? We can't do a lot of your, your wash, but we'll get some of it. I'm going to figure this out for you. And so I asked him was like what's next? And he was like, I don't know. I just want to sleep where I can be safe and no one's going to steal my things or try to, you know, hurt me in the night. And he's like, I'll go anywhere. I would if feel, like I couldn't get him to get to the point that was like, I'm going to feel I need to fill out my for my SNAP benefits or I'm going to look for go back to school because really, all his needs were so immediate. And of course, they were like, it makes sense that they would be. So we already had a relationship with Saint Paul's Church, which was, empty parochial school. Perfect for what I was envisioning at the time. Saint Paul's is a place on Sundays that would hold food for us left over from the Skokie Farmers Market. So some of the farmers donate the food that they don't sell. And, Pastor Henry and some wonderful volunteers, actually, from the Skokie Commission of Human Services would come and pick up food for us and put it in the church. And then on Mondays, I personally was driving over and picking up the food and bringing it to our food pantry.
Marni: Wow.
Bonnie: So I'd seen the space and I knew that they had it, and I knew that it was empty.
Marni: They were basically just using it on Sundays.
Bonnie: There's a community center, so upstairs there's, there's a daycare and there's a gym that they rent out for different things. The space that I was where the big cafe, there's like a big cafeteria or locker rooms right there wasn't being used.
Marni: Seems perfect.
Bonnie: I know, seems perfect. And, so it had a really, just introductory dreamy ideas conversation with the pastor, and he said, you know, I don't make all the decisions in this church. We have a council. And actually, our administrator at the time was a congregant of the church.
Richard: Oh, okay.
Bonnie: So that was also a really wonderful connection. And his wife was on the council.
Marni: You always gotta get one.
Bonnie: You can always kind of get one. But it took a lot of conversations and we had wonderful, robust conversations with the community where, I feel honored and privileged that the folks in that space felt safe enough to ask some scary questions. And we dug into them and we talked for almost eight months, probably until we got to the place where they felt comfortable enough to open up that space. And for us to build this time center for folks experiencing homelessness. And it's grown into, we just I mean, talk about a space where, we all learned and needed to be responsive. At first it was 9 to 5 because those are our normal operating hours. And we quickly realized that that doesn't work for that population. For folks who are lucky enough to have shelter, they're asked to move on from the shelter at 6 am. Other spaces like coffee shops and libraries don't typically open until a little bit later. So we were like, again, like, got to think about the policy and the policy design. We were creating a loitering situation.
Marni: Right.
Bonnie: Because we weren't being responsive to what the real needs were. So now we are open at 7 am. till 3 and there's no loitering at all. It's just it's, it's a great system. We work really, really closely with close partners like the library and also Skokie PD. They have got social workers are probably familiar with Brian and Blue over there. They help us a lot, and they help us get the word out.
Marni: Yeah.
Bonnie: And they'll bring folks to us who don't know about us, because you can't. The other thing I should probably say, for anybody who's listening and might know somebody who needs this kind of help in particular, you cannot just show up at the respite center. You have to talk to our social workers first and get vetted and that's really primarily because there is also a daycare in the space upstairs. And so we are checking to see if, someone's on the sexual offender list. And that's the one thing. We're very low barrier shelter, they, we're helping people with mental health issues. We're helping all kinds of folks and really getting them to the place where they can accept help.
Marni: That's amazing.
Bonnie: Yeah.
Richard: So one of the interesting things about the respite center and what it's done for the community is that you recognize how everything is connected. So because of the presence of the respite center so close to the library, our work in the library has changed for the better, right? Like we're able to assist people more and refer people to the township, and the rest gets into, knowing that there's something there that's going to be helpful to certain people. Right? So and the Village and the whole community is stronger. In a safer and healthier place because of the respite, right? Would you agree with that?
Bonnie: Oh my gosh, so much. I, I hope that that is like another theme of this conversation, right, is that we are all these little pieces or parts or organs of one thriving body, and we really work in tandem to make that body run well. And the body is our, it's our community.
Richard: Our community, right. And if, if there's suffering or, or hurt or pain in, in any part of our community and by anyone in our community, it impacts all of us, right?
Bonnie: That's right. So beautiful.
Marni: That's why I was so excited about having this conversation today is because I was like, we've talked a lot about what we do here at the library and how we've been able to help and support our community, but this is just another aspect of that. Even on a bigger level, like what resources can you do for your community? How can you volunteer? How can you be a like...the idea of being involved in your community makes you so much more invested.
Bonnie: That's right. And it's beautifully...right? Yeah. And we I do really think we do it in partnership or not at all. I think, government entities and nonprofits, schools, whatever, are often thought of these like siloed spaces. But we are not we bleed into each other and like, the most beautiful and positive ways. And when we are in conversation and supportive, we just do a better job for the people that we serve in all of our goals.
Marni: Well, that's it for us this month. But don't worry, the conversation is just getting started. Stay tuned for our next episode where Bonnie will chat with us more about local government and resources and services available to our community. Remember to keep in touch with us. We'd love to hear from you. Email us at podcast at Skokie library dot info. And don't forget if you've enjoyed this episode of previous episodes, rate and review us on your favorite pod catcher. Goodbye!
Niles Township Supervisor Bonnie Kahn Ognisanti joins Marni and Richard to dive into the workings of a township and what services they provide.