Today we’d like to introduce you to Kevin McCullough.
Kevin, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
So I’m that guy you meet a party and when you ask what I do for a living, you quickly look for a way out. I work for a nonprofit and I do a lot of fund raising. And yep, eventually I would probably ask you for money.
I am pretty passionate about my work. Before you could run away, at the very least I’d tell you that no one should be homeless. I really believe that. Homeless people don’t choose to be homeless. Why would they. They are living with mental illness, addiction disorders, and hopelessness. But I also know that giving people a home and support and a second or third or tenth chance is the right thing to do.
My path getting to this place started 30 years ago at a small nonprofit organization in Roanoke, Virginia. I had a great mentor and boss who always challenged me and gave me projects outside the scope of my job description. That has served me well. Curiosity, hard work and long hours serve me well too.
My move to Chicago in 1997 solidified my career choice. This city is amazing but not without problems. I see the city through a lens influenced by the folks my organization is serving. They have had lives that would break anyone’s spirit. I cannot fathom spending every waking moment simply trying to survive.
At ReVive Center, my responsibility has changed dramatically from my position 12 years ago leading the fund raising office to today having the privilege to serve as the Chief Operating Officer. It has given me the opportunity be part of a network of professional across the city and nation working to end homelessness. It’s still hard work and long hours but all worth it knowing that at the end of every day, someone has been helped.
Has it been a smooth road?
It’s never a completely smooth road. I’ve made mistakes along the way and learned a lot of lessons. Once in a while I’ve had to relearn a lesson or two. My wise mentor boss from all those years ago in Virginia gave all the employees mobiles to hang in our offices. The mobiles were a series of index cards that on one side had a negative word and on the other side an alternate, positive word. The one I remember to this day is challenge / opportunity.
My world today is dramatically different than growing up in rural Virginia. I was raised by wise parents and grandparents who made sure we were well traveled and well educated. We were taught the value of a strong work ethic, taking responsibility for one’s actions, friendship, and empathy for others.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the ReVive Center for Housing and Healing story. Tell us more about the business.
ReVive Center for Housing and Healing was founded 102 years ago as Cathedral Shelter of Chicago. It is a designated charity of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago and a partner agency of Episcopal Charities and Community Services. The name was changed from Cathedral Shelter to ReVive Center in 2013 to better reflect the work we do today. One of my favorite pictures from our archives is our storefront mission with the words “hope for all who enter here” painted on the door; that is still true today.
Ending homelessness begins by giving someone a home. Threaded through the timeline of ReVive Center are housing programs that address the community’s needs at the time – from emergency shelters at our founding to transitional housing and a halfway house to our current programs of permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals and families and affordable housing with support services for individuals at-risk of homelessness. Without these housing options 140 men, women, and children would be homeless. It is vastly rewarding to see lives transformed, children overcome the trauma of homelessness, and witness people reach their potential.
In addition to these housing programs, we carry legacy services from our founding that are part of the fabric of our neighborhood. Lunch bags for the homeless, a wonderful thrift store, and probably the most well-known, our Christmas Basket program. These too have evolved through the years lunch bags originated as a soup kitchen, the thrift store started as a free clothes closet and still gives clothes to homeless people, and Christmas Baskets started literally as a basket of food and trinkets for children but today is so much more serving 1,500 families and distributing more than 4,000 boxes of presents annually.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I wish I had a crystal ball to know what the future holds. I am worried. While ReVive Center only receives one-third of its revenue from government sources, those dollars are hugely important. The last two years of the budget impasse in Illinois reduced our state grants by almost 50%. The rhetoric in Washington is also troubling. A homeless person with severe mental illness cannot “pull himself up by the bootstraps.” Private dollars cannot replace public funding; if it were that easy you wouldn’t run away from me at a cocktail party.
But here comes the challenge as opportunity. Creative pilot projects in homeless services across the country are ready to be replicated in communities like Chicago where there have been initial conversations about tiny homes, and Moving On projects are being evaluated. The vital and important attention paid to homeless veterans in the last few years has raised the issue of homelessness into the consciousness of society.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1668 W. Ogden Ave., Chicago, IL 60612
- Website: www.revivecenter.org
- Phone: 312-997-2222
- Email: info@revivecenter.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revivecenter/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/revivecenterchicago/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReVive_Center
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