Editorial: With Hull House closure, safety net gets weaker

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2-28-03 This is a Black & White copy photo of Jane Addams Sun-Times SS

Updated: March 1, 2012 8:23AM

With the opening of the Hull House social settlement house in 1889, Jane Addams forever changed Chicago for the better.

Guided by the settlement house principle of neighbors helping neighbors, Addams’ Hull House opened its doors to those in need, offering a hand out and a hand up.

It’s on Addams’ shoulders that Chicago grew into the city we know, a city with a rich civic life that extends itself to those in need, a city, at its best, that treats all its citizens like neighbors.

Sadly, Chicago is now mourning the death of a key piece of Addams’ legacy.

The Jane Addams Hull House Association, a 122-year-old social service agency that is a direct descendent of Addams’ original settlement house, closed on Friday.

It ran out of money, forcing the agency to abruptly shutter its doors, terminate services for thousands of children and adults and lay off more than 300 dedicated staffers without severance or health care. The agency served more than 60,000 people each year, offering foster care, child care, domestic-abuse counseling, job training and more, As of Friday, about 50 percent of its clients had been placed with other agencies through the hard work of Hull House staffers, but there’s no easy way to fill the huge hole Hull House’s closure leaves in Chicago’s safety net.

The causes of Hull House’s demise are many, including a long history of quality services but poor financial management that didn’t plan for the rainy day that invariably came, several people in the human services world told us.

But a major factor contributing to Hull House’s closure, and to the devastation seen in the human services field across Illinois, was the weak economy and the state’s budget problems.

Since 2009, state support for human services — provided primarily by nonprofits like Hull House — has dropped by nearly $600 million. And under budget projections released by the governor’s office earlier this month, human services could lose an additional $350 million in state support starting in July.

Making matters worse, the state drags out payment for services already provided. As of Friday, the state backlog of unpaid bills was $4.7 billion, with many dating back to September. That represents 163,000 unpaid bills to human service, housing and day care providers, schools, hospitals and other state vendors.

A recent survey of nonprofits in Illinois shows the devastating impact.

Among 238 agencies surveyed in October by Heartland Alliance for the Illinois Partners for Human Service, 46 percent have reduced hours or service, 46 percent have laid off staff and 38 percent have closed programs.

All at a time when the needs among our neighbors have only grown.

Over 122 years, Hull House grew into one of Chicago’s largest social service agencies, breathing life into the image of Chicago as a city with big shoulders, doing justice to Addams’ legacy on a daily basis.

Its closure and the loss of vital supports across this city are a stark reminder of how far we’ve strayed.