The Aurora City Council has approved seeking a total of $4 million in federal money to help both Hesed House and Mutual Ground expand.
If the city gets the grant awards, the money would go toward reconstructing and thus expanding the family shelter at Hesed House, and toward construction of a new shelter facility at Mutual Ground, a domestic violence shelter.
The grants would come from special federal Community Development Block Grant funds that were allocated as part of recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Both homeless shelters and domestic violence shelters came under heavy use and pressure because of the pandemic, officials have said.
The money is administered by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which is where the city will apply.
The grants the City Council approved seeking last Tuesday would be two, $2 million grants, one for each of the projects, although Julie Frankino, the city’s grant administrator, has said the actual amount the city would get is unknown.
The Hesed House family shelter project is estimated to be about $1.76 million. The family shelter is for entire homeless families to be able to stay together.
The project would include new locker rooms, offices and other parts of the shelter, enough to serve 120 people, Frankino said.
At Mutual Ground, the money would go toward a new 40-bed, 4,000-square-foot shelter facility next to the current one on West Park Avenue, a former mansion remodeled into a shelter.
Linda Maranda, Mutual Ground’s chief executive officer, has said the money would allow the shelter to build a new building. It would be the first phase of a planned project Mutual Ground is currently raising funds for, which includes renovating the 1853 mansion.
slord@tribpub.com