Watch: How to Help Families Facing Homelessness, Inside Bridge Communities

In this Firks 5 episode, Dan Firks sits down with Jennifer Bistry, Director of Community Engagement at Bridge Communities, a DuPage County nonprofit that helps families experiencing homelessness move toward self-sufficiency. Jennifer explains the organization’s wraparound model, its work with children, and the many volunteer and community-partner opportunities for people who want to help.

Read the full guide: Bridge Communities and Homeless Families →

Video Transcript

Dan Firks: Hello, I’m Dan Firks, and this is Firks 5. Today we have Jennifer Bistry with Bridge Communities, out of Glen Ellyn. Jennifer is the Director of Community Engagement at Bridge Communities. Jennifer and I met at a Naperville Chamber event, and when I found out what Bridge Communities was all about and how they help homeless families, I just had to get involved. Selling homes is what I do, and having a home is so important and makes you such a strong individual. I couldn’t imagine having somebody be homeless, so I said, okay, I’ve got to help out on this one. So thank you for being here, Jennifer, I really appreciate your time.

Jennifer Bistry: Oh, thank you, Dan, I really appreciate the opportunity.

Dan Firks: Absolutely. Tell me a little bit about yourself, Jennifer.

Jennifer Bistry: Sure. I’m Jen Bistry, and I’m the Director of Community Engagement with Bridge Communities. Our vision is a community where all families are healthy. We have 156 apartments in DuPage County that we own.

Dan Firks: You guys own them?

Jennifer Bistry: Bridge Communities owns those, we do. It allows us to control the quality and also the pricing, and to serve more families that way.

Dan Firks: Jennifer, tell me, what brought you to Bridge Communities?

Jennifer Bistry: Well, I was attracted to the mission.

Dan Firks: What’s the mission?

Jennifer Bistry: The mission is that we transition families experiencing homelessness to self-sufficiency in DuPage County. We do that by not only providing a safe and healthy place for a family to live, but we also provide full wraparound services for each member of that family, individualized to their needs, because our goal is that the family moves on to be permanently self-sufficient. We want to break the cycle of poverty, homelessness, and abuse for the families we serve, and we want to be a generational solution. So not only do we work with Mom, but we also work very closely with the kids.

Dan Firks: Tell me, how do you do this with the children? Because the children are so important.

Jennifer Bistry: They are. We have a dedicated children’s services staff, and they’re phenomenal. They work with each child and do an initial assessment, and then assessments throughout the two-plus years that the family is with us. They work with the schools, they find tutors, they give enrichment programs. If the child needs a bike, we get a bike for the child. We give backpacks with school supplies, whatever that child needs to not only thrive but also to have a more normal-feeling life, to feel like their peers and have all those advantages.

Dan Firks: It makes them a stronger individual, and they fit in better, I’m sure.

Jennifer Bistry: Absolutely. And it also gives them a future to look forward to. For instance, right now we have 23 kids in high school in our program, and we’re working with them to take them on college visits and help them figure out what they want to be when they grow up. We might provide job shadowing for some, we might provide an introduction to the military or to the trades. So we are really trying to break that cycle and show the children that the sky is the limit, their future and their potential are limitless.

Dan Firks: Well, keep us in mind, because with Naperville schools as well, we have job-share days, and I’ve hosted many kids for the day where they come in and just watch what real estate is all about.

Jennifer Bistry: That would be great, we’d love to do that for the kids as well.

Dan Firks: So you said “goal.” How do you achieve your goals?

Jennifer Bistry: We’ve been around for 35 years, and we’re celebrating our 35th anniversary this year.

Dan Firks: Congratulations.

Jennifer Bistry: Thank you very much. In that time we’ve served 950 families. We’ve served up to 100 families a year. And think about it, we provide each member of that family with customized full-service wraparound services, and that could be anything from a car to a scholarship to job training, tutoring for the kids, summer camp, and mental health services.

Dan Firks: How can a staff of 25 people provide that for 50 to 100 families a year?

Jennifer Bistry: We rely on volunteers and community partners. Our community partners are our healthcare and mental health services providers, and our volunteer tutors. I just saw today that in 2022 there were 570 hours total of volunteer time for people tutoring our kids.

Dan Firks: Just for the kids? That’s tremendous.

Jennifer Bistry: So all these partners come together, these hundreds of volunteers come together to make our program work and allow us to scale. And the most unique thing about Bridge Communities, and a really important group of volunteers, are our program partners. Program partners are often faith communities and community groups that sponsor a family. They give us money per month to defray the cost of the program over a period of two years, and then they provide two to three mentors. These are volunteers who are boots on the ground, meeting with our families every week for an hour a week, helping them through their problems, setting goals, and working with resources. So they’re a super important group.

Dan Firks: Tell me, where can our viewers go to find out how they can volunteer?

Jennifer Bistry: We would love your viewers to go to bridgecommunities.org, and there you’ll find lots of information on long-term volunteering, events, and donating.

Dan Firks: So Jennifer, tell me, what’s next with Bridge Communities?

Jennifer Bistry: So much great stuff is planned. The first event coming up is Wine, Women and Shoes.

Dan Firks: I like my shoes.

Jennifer Bistry: I know, and it sounds like a great event, right? And it really is. It’s our largest fundraiser, and it’s on March 11th at the Oak Brook Hills Resort from 11 to 4. It’s a spectacular event, we have raffles, silent auctions, live auctions, a high-class fashion show, lunch, and wine tasting, of course. It’s such a fun event, and I would encourage anybody to go to bridgecommunities.org and look for more information and join us. Our next event after Wine, Women and Shoes is Celebrating Women Transforming Lives, at the Danada House in Wheaton.

Dan Firks: Oh, beautiful venue, especially in the spring, perfect timing.

Jennifer Bistry: Yes. What we do there is we honor a person in the community who has really given of themselves, and give them an award. We also honor a graduate from our program, an alumni who has done a particularly wonderful job of taking advantage of all the program has to offer and really thrived. We also have a golf event in August.

Dan Firks: All right, listen up, that’s right, we have a golf event.

Jennifer Bistry: We’ll be at Ruth Lake Country Club. And then we also have the Backyard Barbecue, which you already spoke about.

Dan Firks: Looking forward to that. And that’s right after Labor Day?

Jennifer Bistry: Yeah, it’s always the Saturday after Labor Day weekend. And the last event we have is Sleep Out Saturday. If you’ve ever driven around and seen, often in church yards, tents out in November and kids sleeping outside in the cold November…

Dan Firks: I’ve seen that, I was wondering what that’s for.

Jennifer Bistry: That’s for Bridge Communities.

Dan Firks: What a wonderful organization. Thank you for doing what you do, and thank you for joining us for this episode of Firks 5. It was just amazing, thank you.

Jennifer Bistry: Well, thank you, Dan, I appreciate it.

Dan Firks: Absolutely. And thank you for watching this episode of Firks 5. Make sure to follow us at @danfirks for your most up-to-date real estate trends and market conditions, and when the time comes to buy, sell, or invest in real estate, we’ll be here. See you next time, and have an amazing rest of your day.

Read the full guide to Bridge Communities near Naperville →