By Amanda Hudson, News Editor
CARPENTERSVILLE/WEST DUNDEE—A member of the St. Catherine of Siena St. Vincent de Paul conference heard about the overnight apartment fire in Carpentersville from the morning news.
Shortly after midnight on Nov. 29, residents of the Meadowdale Apartment complex woke to sirens and calls to evacuate as a fire that started on the first floor spread to the roof and throughout the three-story building. Everyone fled, and fortunately all 23 households escaped. Most lost everything but the clothes they were wearing.
“We contacted the (Carpentersville) village manager, and they connected us with the Red Cross, and our involvement began,” says Peggy Veltri, St. Catherine SVDP conference president.
The Red Cross organized a Multi-Agency Resource Center 12 days after the fire. The St. Catherine SVDP conference came and met with 19 of the 23 households, plus one other individual who could not attend the event since he was working.
Those meetings served as the SVDP equivalent of home visits and were followed up with phone calls to assure information gathered was accurate and complete, Veltri says.
The Vincentians asked each household where they were in the process to find secure housing and meet their other needs. Some were living with extended family members; others were in hotels. “Each household had different needs,” Veltri says.
At that point only one 81-year-old man was still at the Red Cross temporary shelter. He had found a studio apartment but was not allowed to move in until he had all he needed to live there. That included, Veltri says, some 60-70 items, from furniture to pots and pans.
“We reached out to our volunteers, and he was in his apartment in two days,” she says, with donated items and a little “shopping spree” of new things. Reflecting the personal touch of the SVDP Society, one of the Vincentians visited right after the move, bringing the man his first meal and visiting with him over that breakfast to “make sure he was
doing okay.”
Another, much younger, man, Luis, 23 or 24 years old, had moved into what was his first apartment just 18 days before the fire. “In a matter of minutes,” he says, “my brand-new apartment and furniture, together with family photos and important paperwork, were all gone.
“I had no idea how to begin again. Then I met the people from St. Vincent de Paul, and suddenly I had hope! Their guidance and financial help took a huge weight off my shoulders and put me on a solid path forward.”
“He was such a good guy,” Veltri says, adding that he had just lost his mother in August.
Other dilemmas faced by households included those who had insurance but were told they won’t get any money until they provide the insurance company with photos. However, they are not allowed to enter the burned building for safety reasons.
One couple was able to live at an older relative’s home while she is in a warmer climate for the winter. “Come March, they will need their own place,” Veltri says.
She anticipates that many people’s needs will continue for some months, “but not in a heavy flow” of the immediate needs they experienced right after the fire. “At this point,” she adds, “some are settled,” and she calls it “affirming” when she hears that people are okay and don’t need any
more assistance.
“People didn’t ask for more than they needed,” she says.
Three other area SVDP conferences were helpful, Veltri says. Delivery of furniture, for example, was accomplished by the SVDP conference at St. Margaret Mary Parish in Algonquin, which had the manpower and vehicle needed, she says.
At a recent SVDP district meeting, the St. Catherine conference provided an update, saying, “We have a plan, but if it goes beyond our means …” All of the 15 conferences in the Northeast District, without exception, said they would help, Veltri says. When any of the families move outside St. Catherine’s boundaries, they are referred to the local
SVDP conference.
“St. Catherine’s Vincentians saw the heartbreaking suffering of the fire victims and made every effort to be the ‘Face of Christ’ to them in their time of dire need,” the SVDP conference said in a press release.
“It’s overwhelming how generous our parish is,” Veltri adds, saying their conference, which was established in 2007, “keeps getting bigger each year.”
Typically, the St. Catherine conference helps people with basic requests for funds, most often for rent, sometimes for security deposits so they can move into an apartment. Utility bills are the second-most need, but there are also school supplies for grandparents suddenly caring for grandchildren or emergency help for car repair costs or for medications.
“Basically, one of our main goals is to make sure people stay housed,” Veltri says, because of the ripple effect of hardships that happens with homelessness. “A good bit of what we do is to help (those who call for assistance) find resources.”
Normally, SVDP conferences wait for those calls to come to them. But nothing was normal with the fire that happened during the holiday season, so the St. Catherine conference reached out. Past experiences had well prepared these Vincentians to provide good help to those affected by the fire.
And, as always, to be the “Face of Christ” to those neighbors in need.
