Service Examples

Examples of services provided by Title XX Social Services

  • In the Southern Illinois town of Elizabethtown, seniors have access to transportation for activities at the local Senior Citizens Center or other necessary trips.
  • In Rockford, these funds enable the Northwest Community Center to provide after school activities for at-risk youth and to teach job seeking skills to those in high school.
  • In Round Lake, an agency called Mano a Mano utilizes these funds to teach English as a second language during the evenings and weekends to ensure the widest possible opportunity to attend.
  • In Joliet, Prisoner Release Ministry provides job training and placement services to ex-offenders.
  • In Quincy, Transitions of Western Illinois provides services to families with young children who have developmental delays, so that every child receives the correct developmental foundation to begin life. Transitions also provides vocational rehabilitation services to individuals with disabilities and advocacy and linkage services.
  • In Caseyville and in Lake Villa, rehabilitation services for individuals with substance abuse problems are offered through the Gateway Foundation.
  • In Evanston, the Youth Job Center of Evanston offers classes aimed at improving skills of young people about to enter the ever changing job market.
  • Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community Projects in Chicago include:
  • Sweet Beginnings, is a project of the North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN) to train returning nonviolent offenders in beekeeping, landscaping, food processing, and retail sales and distribution.
  • The Mexican Fine Arts Center houses the largest permanent museum collection of Mexican Art in the United States. Over 100,000 people visit the Fine Arts Center in the Pilsen neighborhood, patronizing area stores and restaurants in connection with their visits.
  • Southwest Women in Trades provides intensive seminars for women who wish to enter the construction trades, which can pay upwards of $25 an hour. The average working woman makes about $22,000, just over the poverty level for families. Obtaining employment in the construction trades is one pathway to economic self-sufficiency.
  • The opening of the brand new Harold Washington Cultural Center (HWCC), named after Chicago's first African-American mayor. Harold Washington spoke warmly of the time he spent on 47th and King as a young man. He later represented the area in Congress and always dreamed of a cultural renaissance in the community. Other funded programs include Center for New Horizons, The Little Black Pearl Workshop, Tobacco Road and the Muntu Dance Theatre.
  • The transformation of the former Sears headquarters in North Lawndale is an example of community development at its best. Once an abandoned warehouse campus, now a thriving neighborhood of townhouses and rental apartments, Homan Square is a national model of public-private partnership in redevelopment efforts.