Rockford Sun

Illinois homeless shelters and food pantries are having a difficult time supplying enough food as more people are in need and fewer people are making donations due to the stay-at-home order. 

“We don’t really get any donations right now,” Dawn Shondel, Chicago Avenue Mission's development coordinator, told the Journal Standard. “People used to bring donations, food and everything all the time.”

Chicago Avenue Mission, a homeless center in Chicago, is part of Freeport Area Church Cooperative and is now operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It has also started giving individuals three meals each day. 

“They’re coming from all over,” Shondel told the newspaper. “We can’t turn them away. We have people coming in from Winnebago County, Crystal Lake and all different areas.”

Chicago Avenue Mission Executive Director Dean Wright said local church groups typically prepare the meals for the homeless, but now employees are preparing the meals to help reduce the number of people who come in contact with the food. Local restaurants have also been donating food to help make up for the lack of supplies the shelter has. 

Other shelters in the state are also having a difficult time. Empower Boone, a food pantry in Belvidere and Boone County, has seen a 15% to 20% increase in the number of people needing food, according to the Journal Standard. 

Kim Adams-Bakke, director of the pantry, said less food is available now, but more people are needing the food due to the rise in unemployment. This has led the pantry to put together packaged boxes of food to hand out instead of letting families pick and choose what they want. 

“We’re fortunate for the relationships that we have with the grocery stores and the retail rescue program,” Adams-Bakke said. “And understandably, they just don’t have the food available for rescue right now. So we’re seeing a deep decline in food that’s available. As well as people picking up extra items here and there and dropping them off. That too has declined.”