New PADS Shelter Opens in Downtown Chicago Heights

Public Action to Deliver Shelter has added a sixth Chicago Heights church to its list of overnight shelters available from Oct. 1 to April 30.

Greater Faith Baptist Church opened its doors to the homeless Monday night in a grand opening that site manager Wendell Mosby said has been a long time coming.

"It just seemed like a natural marriage that needed to happen," Mosby said. "We have quite a big community feeding here. Last year we fed almost 13,000 people. Doing the PADS emergency overnight shelter was just a natural progression from doing two days of feeding and a produce mobile."

The shelter is for men only and will be available to house up to 30 men every Monday night from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. until April 25.

Mosby said the most difficult part of opening up the church as a shelter was finding volunteers.

"Because of our location, it made it difficult to get volunteers," Mosby explained. "Mainly because it is downtown Chicago Heights."

But where there aren't volunteers, there are family members.

"My uncle is the Rev. Walter Mosby III and his wife is Belinda Mosby," Wendell added. "They pretty much said that they would commit to working some nights until the volunteers start to come. They wanted to show their congregation, ‘We’re going to do this, so we need everybody’s support.’”

Mosby was concerned about how the big opening would go as Monday night rapidly approached, PADS community resource coordinator Dawn Thrasher said.

"Wendell called me three hours ago and he said, 'Dawn, just tell me it’s going to be OK,'” Thrasher said during a toast with volunteers and guests. "It’s been fun putting it together, but it’s been scary putting it together."

Esther Scott, who has been a PADS volunteer for 20 years, said she had a special connection with the guests who will be spending their Monday nights with Greater Faith.

"I have a heart for the less fortunate people who are facing challenges," Scott said. "I have a labor of love breakfast that I do the second Saturday of each month at the Friends 4 Life Covenent Church [in Flossmoor]. I work with the people that we will see come in tonight because many of the guests come to the breakfast."

A PADS schedule is posted with the photos for this article.