The Night Ministry seeks to be light for those in the shadows

By Megan Lichte
On any given Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday, from 10:30 p.m. until 11:30 p.m., a bus stands at the intersection of Damen Avenue and LeMoyne Street, largely unnoticed by the general populous. But for the homeless, it provides needed hope and help.

This is no ordinary bus. It is part of The Night Ministry—an organization which helps adults and youth on the street. This bus is an outreach program and the bus is where the homeless can get medical help and even a meal and someone just to talk to.

The purpose of the Night Ministry’s outreach programs is “to earn the trust of individuals who have become isolated form much of society and build caring relationships,” according to its published literature.

Through the Health Outreach Bus, the group connects with the homeless to provide for them what they say homeless cannot provide for themselves.

According to officials, the agency’s operating expense for 2007 was $4,398,182, and it serviced 53,908 people from the Health Outreach Bus alone in the 2007-2008 fiscal year. Staff tested 961 individuals for HIV, 59 for sexually transmitted diseases, and 132 for Hepatitis C.

Alicia Adams-Stanley, a spokeswoman for Night Ministry said there are people on the bus who can help the homeless. Among the medical services offered are rapid HIV testing, treatment for injuries, flu shots, and testing and treatment for select sexually transmitted diseases—all administered by nurse practitioners.
The Health Outreach Bus can also provide coats in the winter.

“The supplies all depend on what has been donated that day,” Adams-Stanley said. “You’re not going to need a coat in July.”

“We try to get them cool, bottled water in the evening in summer, as opposed to soup, which is what normally serve in the fall and winter months,” Adams-Stanley said.

This direct outreach service is run in conjunction with two youth shelters in the city—both named Open Door Youth Shelter, one of them an 8-bed, 120 day shelter that serves pregnant and parenting minor girls and their children; the other, a transitional living program with 16 beds for teens,” Adams-Stanley said.

The goal of each program offered is to help individual make better decisions in their daily lives. Unlike many shelters and organizations that help the homeless and are faith-based, Adams-Stanley said The Night Ministry aims to present to the homeless help without a sermon, even though The Night Ministry, founded in 1976, was created by Protestant and Roman Catholic churches.

“While it was founded on religion, it was still based on the fact that it doesn’t matter what stage or walk of life you’re from, you might still need help,” she said.

“It’s not that you need to believe in one thing or another,” Adams-Stanley added. “Faith has nothing to do with it.”

The short line outside of the bus on a dank Tuesday night on the last day of March of 2009 would eventually become part of the agency’s statistics. But for that moment, they stood as a wintry portrait of real people with real needs getting real help.