McHenry County began to recognize that homelessness was a reality in the community in 1984. St. Thomas Apostle Catholic Church in Crystal Lake and Calvary Assembly of God Church sent out a survey to every church in the County asking if increasing numbers of homeless were coming to their doors for help, in an effort to discover whether this was a local problem in the parish of St. Thomas or if it was, as feared, a new trend that needed to be addressed immediately before the numbers grew. At that time there were only about fifteen individuals/families in dire need. We wish that was the case today. The Survey reinforced the concern that indeed, homelessness was not just in Cook County but suffered by our neighbors and our own family members.

Calvary Assembly of God Church hosted a breakfast meeting where Joy Martin, the Mission Outreach Chair of Ridgefield Crystal Lake Presbyterian Church broke bread and educated the attendees of the growing needs of McHenry County. Although attendees listened and believed the problem was existent, but not one person felt capable of taking any action to solve it. It was obvious that the “not next door to me” philosophy was going to be a hurdle to overcome. As the year went on, more and more people started acknowledging that this problem wasn’t going to solve itself. And so it was when another pancake breakfast was given in 1985 with 24 people in attendance, Joy Martin and six other community members from different churches stepped forward to do something about this growing need.

As the committee began searching for funds and housing for a temporary shelter, the committee ran into walls of objection in every direction they turned. Donations were being made to enable the committee/First Board of Directors to house some people in local motels, but a shelter seemed an impossible dream.

It was when Reverend Phyllis Mueller, a Seminary Student sponsored by Faith Presbyterian Church, saw an article in the Northwest Herald titled “Shelter Dream Dies” and immediately contacted the Board. They met with her and she stated her interest and her actions while in Seminary that took her into the inner city without a penny in her pocket to see if the homeless living on the street wanted to live that way. What she found was that they never dreamed they would find themselves “on the street” and didn’t know how to overcome the crisis of homelessness. Rev. Mueller said that, as she saw it, we needed two things – homeless people—which we had—and a building to rent where we could move in residents; and then work with the county to help them out of this crisis.

We were able to rent a building just outside of the City of McHenry limits that seemed to be perfect for our needs.  The building on Lincoln Avenue is still there today and has been a small church, a community center, a private home and a bar.  It seemed to the Board that those walls had seen the highs and lows in the lives of many people and that they would help us overcome this adversity.  We opened the doors to our first shelter on December 15, 1986 thinking we would keep the family unit intact as they moved through this difficulty.  However, what we found was that in the vast number of cases, the men had left the picture.  We started to serve the women and children “left behind so to speak” and are still doing that 30 years later.

In February of 1987, Home of the Sparrow, Inc. became a private, non-profit organization.  Since then, Home of the Sparrow has remained dynamic in assessing and responding to the needs of homeless women and children in our community.