Supplements

archive ISSUE

cchd grant makes real difference in people's lives

Story and photo by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor

In 2008, tenants at Rock Springs Mobile Homes Park in O’Fallon heard about plans to redevelop their mobile home park into luxury apartments.

This was bad news for tenants who already struggled to get by. If the redevelopment was approved they would have to pay large amounts of money to move their homes or would lose their homes that were too old to be moved. Homelessness seemed a real possibility and tenants felt powerless to do anything about it.

The good news is that two families at Rock Springs belonged to St. Clare of Assisi Church in O’Fallon, a United Congregations of Metro-East member Church.

UCM is supported by Catholic Campaign for Human Development in the Springfield and Belleville dioceses. UCM’s mission is to bring together congregations to address problems facing people in their struggles for a decent life. UCM helped the families at Rock Springs to organize.

By organizing and building relationships with public officials, they were able to find the power they needed and persuade local officials to approve the redevelopment plans only if all relocation costs were paid by the redevelopment company and a fair compensation was made to tenants who would be losing their homes.

Tenants later joined with other mobile home owners in passing legislation mandating similar compensation throughout Illinois for whenever a mobile home park was to be redeveloped.

Additionally, while waiting for the redevelopment, tenants at Rock Springs now have the power to address other problems with their landlord.

With the help of CCHD, families were able to prevent themselves and others from becoming homeless and to have a decent standard of life in their mobile home park.

In 2008 the diocese received $18,300 in grants to St. Vincent de Paul Society, Hispanic Ministry, Daystar and Catholic Social Services of Southern Illinois, Carbondale among others.

The collection for the 2009 CCHD will be held in November in all diocesan parishes. Please look for an envelope for the CCHD collection in your packets.