When faith and community leaders in the La Grange area noticed residents sleeping outdoors in 1988, they responded by launching a small, rotating overnight shelter. That effort, Building Ecumenical Discipleship through Sheltering, now known as BEDS Plus, has since evolved into one of the region’s leading homeless service agencies.
Tina Rounds, CEO of BEDS Plus, has witnessed much of that transformation firsthand. Rounds has led the organization for 14 years and volunteered with her family long before joining the staff.
“I love that we are truly community based and we meet an immediate and essential need,” she said. “We really help people at a time when they desperately need it. Being a community-based agency means we are neighbors helping neighbors, people who went to high school together or families who grew up together and have a generational connection to the mission and the people we serve. It is what a community and safety net should be.”
Over the years, BEDS expanded far beyond its early roots as a volunteer-run shelter. The organization professionalized its services by adding case management, a daytime support center and partnerships with human service agencies. Today, BEDS Plus serves South and West Cook County and helped nearly 6,000 people in the last fiscal year through homelessness prevention programs, emergency shelter, housing placement and basic needs assistance.
A major shift came in 2014 when BEDS adopted the federal Housing First model and began offering evidence-based Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Rehousing programs. The organization doubled its service area three years later after assuming management of a near South suburban shelter network, bringing in more clients with complex needs, including survivors of domestic violence and people experiencing chronic homelessness. Staff responded by developing specialized programs to help those clients regain and sustain stable housing.
In 2018, BEDS opened its first Permanent Supportive Housing site, Ogden Avenue Supportive Housing, and partnered with area housing agencies to lease 80 scattered-site apartments for individuals with long histories of homelessness. Transitional Housing programs followed, supporting families, domestic violence survivors, victims of crime and young adults. Partnerships with AMITA Health and Pillars Community Health brought clinical and behavioral healthcare directly into shelters and daytime centers.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced another restructuring of emergency services to keep clients safe. Out of that period of rapid change came one of the organization’s largest milestones, the Linda Frances Sokol Summit Service Center. The new facility will house the first homeless medical respite program in Cook County and the second largest in Illinois, offering care for people who are too medically fragile to recover on the streets but do not require an extended hospital stay.
For those seeking assistance, Rounds said the best first step is to visit the Summit Walk In Center at 7666 W. 63rd St. Walk in hours are Monday through Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. “Anyone who comes in will meet with an intake specialist to assess their situation and start the connection to services,” she said.
Rounds emphasized that community involvement remains central to BEDS’ mission. She said residents can support the organization through financial contributions, in-kind donations such as sandwiches, shelf stable food or cleaning kit supplies, hosting a drive, preparing and serving meals at the Summit or Burbank locations, or volunteering at the annual Soup and Bread fundraiser.
“That sense of neighbors supporting neighbors is still at the heart of everything we do,” Rounds said. “It is what has allowed BEDS to grow and what continues to change lives every day.”