Programs / The Cooperative Living Program (CLP)

CLP is a transitional living shelter for teen moms ages 18 through 21 and their children. We can accommodate 20 moms and up to 30 children at any one time. Each client mom can stay in the transitional shelter for up to 24 months, followed by a six-month period in the AfterCare Program for those moms in need of further supportive services once they have transitioned to a stable living environment.

Applicants must be homeless; from within the Chicago city limits; have no other options for housing; be a pregnant or parenting teen of at least 18 but not yet 22 years of age; and have no more than two children in her custody. Participants are required to enroll in school and/or begin employment within 60 days of entering the program. Participants are also required to attend our career readiness program daily when they are not in school or working. They must also engage in our comprehensive case management services; attend two group meetings a week; be in the shelter building by curfew each night; and, have their children in a regular day care program while they are in school or working.

We provide a clean and bright living space that offers dignity and respect. CLP is a shared apartment model with three families sharing an apartment, and each family having its own bedroom. All apartments are at a single site. In addition to the shared apartments, the facility has a community living room and dining room; indoor and outdoor play space for the children; a laundry area; and, a food pantry that is always open to the moms and their children to use as needed.

CLP has built an outstanding reputation as a structured, yet nurturing, program that enables teen moms in crisis to become stable and create a healthier environment for their children. The participants who come into the program are generally in crisis as regards to where they will sleep on any given night. Many engage in “survival sex,” which is described by a Center for Impact Research survey as “exchanging sexual activity for necessities such as food, a place to stay for a night, or clothes.” Without radical intervention, these young women will continue to perpetuate the model of despair, poverty, and hopelessness in their children that was the hallmark of their own upbringing.

CLP has a three-fold focus:

1. To provide a stable, safe, home-like environment that is structured and models a supportive family environment. This enables our moms to participate in managing household responsibilities while pursuing resources to obtain an education and eventually a career-track job.
2. To provide the teen mom with a larger and more hopeful view of her life and her world. Most of these moms have lived very isolated lives in an urban neighborhood marked by violence and poverty. We take outings away from the inner city and help participants dream about and achieve employment.
3. To assist the mom with developing a goal-oriented future and postpone any subsequent pregnancies. We expose them to tools that can provide an escape from low self-esteem and guide them to a recognition that a productive and secure future for themselves and their children is possible.

CLP represents 21% of homeless beds in the City of Chicago for this particularly vulnerable population of homeless youth. In 2005, we turned away 374 homeless teen moms and their children as we did not have the bed space for them. In 2005, CLP served 58 moms and their 71 children. Of that amount, 74% of these young families were able to transition to stable housing after they left CLP!