4/8/26
Today, our guest speaker was Jen Bestry, Director of Community Engagement with Bridge Communities. (Terrible photo/excellent presentation!)
What is Bridge Communities (https://www.bridgecommunities.org)? Established in 1988 and based in Glen Ellyn, Bridge Communities provides free transitional housing to 100+ DuPage County families each year. During the two years each family spends in the program, they are able to save money, learn budgeting skills, and obtain better employment, so they can live self-sufficiently once they graduate. Bridge Communities provides a holistic program of services that provide the necessary elements to create permanent change in the lives of families experiencing homelessness in DuPage County.
- Housing: Client families reside in Bridge Communities owned apartment buildings spread throughout DuPage County in Glen Ellyn, Addison, Carol Stream, Glendale Heights, Naperville, Westmont, and Woodridge.
- Cases Management: Bridge Communities' professional case managers are available to assist mentors and client families in accessing resources that are important for families to achieve their individual goals.
- Tutoring: Bridge Communities provides experienced tutors to tutor all school-age children once or twice weekly throughout the school year.
- Car donations: Bridge Communities solicits auto donations from people in our community to give to the families in our program in need of reliable transportation.
- Counseling Resources: At times, client families need additional resources to help cope with life stressors or ongoing emotional issues. To help, Bridge partners with community-based psychological services for short or long-term counseling.
- Mentoring: Volunteer mentors from Program Partners sponsor and assist the client families as they work to develop the life-skills necessary for self-sufficiency. Mentors help families with budget development and savings plan, debt reduction, financial literacy, self-esteem, emotional support, parental skills and healthy decision making.
- Employment & Adult Education: Bridge Communities' employment team assists client families in securing and maintaining employment that will sustain their economic self-sufficiency upon graduation from the Transitional Housing Program. Job readiness training, resume writing, educational coaching, and mock interviewing are some of the counseling services offered.
- Family Wellness: As part of the holistic approach to helping client families achieve lifelong success, Bridge Communities provides them with family wellness services including nutrition counseling, a gardening program, and peer-to-peer support workshops to encourage clients to come together in fellowship, create connections over shared lived experience, and build resilience.
- Stability Program: Some client families with more complex needs require the opportunity to stabilize before transferring into the Transitional Housing Program and getting assigned a Program Partner and mentor. In the Stability program, Bridge Communities provides clients with more direct case management and supportive services.
- Children's Program: Bridge Communities' Children’s Program takes a holistic, preventative approach to breaking the cycle of poverty and helping children overcome the trauma of homelessness. Each child has their own case management, goals for the program, plan for a better education, and resources for improved social, emotional, and behavioral health.
Lasting change:
