Evelyn J. Diaz, President, Heartland Alliance

Evelyn J. Diaz is the President of Heartland Alliance, one of the world’s leading anti-poverty organizations. With headquarters in Chicago, Heartland Alliance operates in the broader Midwest, and has programs in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Evelyn leads the organization’s executive team, directing domestic and global strategy, and operations. For more than two decades Evelyn has been a leader in the nonprofit and government sectors, starting as a direct practitioner, leading economic development initiatives, and serving as a public official.

Before being named president in September of 2015, Evelyn led the City of Chicago’s Department of Family and Support Services as Commissioner, under Rahm Emanuel. In that role she was responsible for administering a budget of $330 million to deliver social service programs in the areas of children, youth, homelessness, domestic violence, aging, workforce development, and human services.

She was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff by former Mayor Richard M. Daley, serving as the Mayor’s liaison to the City’s human capital departments and overseeing initiatives related to poverty, jobs, and economic security. She was later appointed chief executive officer of a quasi-governmental organization, the Chicago Workforce Investment Council, which was charged with addressing labor market shortages in key industries through a data-driven collective impact model.

Previously, Evelyn was Associate Director of the Chicago Jobs Council, where she oversaw financial, administrative, policy, and program operations and coordinated Opportunity Chicago, a $23 million initiative to assist thousands of public housing residents gain employment. She has also worked as a direct practitioner providing individual and group counseling to domestic violence victims; managing programs for homeless women in shelter; and coordinating economic development initiatives and homeless, childcare, and domestic violence projects in Chicago’s 46th Ward.

In 2011, Evelyn was named an Emerging Leader by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and participated in its two-year program to examine global issues, including the global economy, foreign policy, immigration, energy, and the environment. She received her graduate degree from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration and her undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame. She was the 2014 National Association of Social Workers’ Illinois Social Worker of the Year, and she serves on the governing boards of the National Skills Coalition, the Rebuilding Exchange, Donor’s Forum, and Chicago Tech Academy.

Download Evelyn J. Diaz’s biography (PDF) »

Watch the video to learn more about about Eleni Wolfe-Roubatis of Heartland Alliance’s
National Immigrant Justice Center and the Advocate of the Month Award.

 

 

Chicago Magazine

 

January 29, 2015

 

 

From Chicago Magazine:

The counties with the highest rates of poverty tend to be the ones where Pat Quinn lost—and where Bruce Rauner will need to tread carefully while cutting government spending.

The Heartland Alliance just released its annual report on poverty. The biggest news is bad: The state poverty rate, as of 2013, reached levels the state hasn’t seen since 1960.

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Here’s how that poverty is distributed (deeper red means higher percentage of the population in poverty):

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Chicago Tribune

 

December 25, 2014

 

 

From Chicago Tribune:

Every morning, Dinar sits in a folding chair in a second floor bedroom of a house in this university town and Skypes with his family a world away.

This is likely as close as he will ever be to them again.

Dinar, a 30-year-old Afghan man, was an interpreter for the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan and his service on behalf of the U.S. has cost him dearly.

He was targeted by death threats. He had to cut all visible ties to his family to protect them; for the same reason, he asked that his last name not be used here. And, in the end, he had to leave his country.

He is now starting over in an unfamiliar land. But he is not making the journey alone.

At his back — and often downstairs at breakfast while Dinar is Skyping – is Maj. Christopher Bourbeau, head of the Marine Corps subdivision of the Navy ROTC program at the University of Illinois.

In 2012-13, when Bourbeau was second in command of a Marine unit advising the Afghan national army, Dinar was one of his interpreters.

In gratitude for Dinar’s decision to risk his life working with the Marines, Bourbeau has stepped forward to help him build a new one.

When Dinar got a special immigrant visa for Afghans and Iraqis whose service to the U.S. put them in danger in their homelands, Bourbeau volunteered to take him into his home and be his guide to America.

Working with Heartland Alliance, the Chicago resettlement agency that brought Dinar to the U.S., Bourbeau picked up Dinar at O’Hare International Airport on Sept. 17.

He drove Dinar to Champaign, where he and his wife, Katie, set up Dinar in a bedroom in their home in a quiet neighborhood.

Bourbeau helped Dinar through the paperwork of applying for a Social Security card and for temporary government assistance. He took him to the secretary of state’s facility to start the process of getting a driver’s license.

He bought Dinar $900 worth of clothes for job interviews — a suit, shirts and a tie, socks and dress shoes. He is trying to help Dinar get a civil service job at the university, which would offer educational benefits that could lead to an American college degree.

Bourbeau sees his actions as paying back a debt.

“He’s done more for this country than a lot of people that live in this country,” he said. “He’s as much a Marine as I am.”

Dinar sees Bourbeau’s help as a crucial introduction to a new life.

“To find a person that guides you in a country where you know nobody … that was quite helpful,” he said.

The Bourbeaus are teaching him how to live in America, he said.

“They help me out about culture and people and society,” he said. “They’re, right now, everyone to me.”

It is not uncommon for U.S. military personnel to step forward to help their former interpreters in some way when they come to this country, said Darwensi Clark, associate director of refugee family services at Heartland Alliance. About 30 percent of holders of special immigrant visas move into the house or the community of someone they knew in the U.S. military, he said.

 

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Chicago Tribune

 

November 25, 2014

 

 

From Chicago Tribune:

 

The music filling the room was wholly American — the instantly recognizable Vince Guaraldi piano riff from the “Peanuts” holiday specials.

But the guests in the room didn’t grow up watching Charlie Brown or celebrating Thanksgiving. They were refugees from troubled spots around the globe, Iraq, Somalia, Myanmar, Ethiopia and Afghanistan, all trying to find their way in a new country.

To help, Heartland Alliance’s Refugee and Immigrant Community Services program last week offered a Thanksgiving primer at its North Side offices. First, staff members explained the holiday. Then they showed the refugees a DVD of “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,” in which cartoon character Linus gives his version of how it all began.

With that, everyone moved into another room, where a traditional feast had been readied: two turkeys — one of them prepared under the Islamic requirements of halal — gravy, stuffing, cranberry side dishes, cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie.

For Heartland Alliance, this third annual staff-cooked Thanksgiving meal was a way of thanking clients and teaching about an American tradition. Thanksgiving is a particularly resonant holiday for refugees, said Lea Tienou-Gustafson, the agency’s associate director of refugee family adjustment and employment services.

While those at the dinner came to this country with nothing and face formidable challenges, she said, they are among the fortunate — the 1 percent of refugees worldwide who get resettled.

“I think our participants are really thankful to be building a new life here,” she said.

The connection between refugees and the quintessential American holiday is also clear to RefugeeOne, Illinois’ largest resettlement agency.

This year, for the first time, the agency is arranging for refugee families to sit down for a holiday dinner with volunteers and donors who answered the agency’s call for host homes.

“It’s a way of really experiencing Thanksgiving in its original form, connecting people who hadn’t known each other before,” said Sara Spoonheim Amit, RefugeeOne’s director of development.

A Bhutanese family has already had a Thanksgiving meal at a home in Wilmette, and more Thanksgiving meals are set at homes around the area for families from Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo, Sudan and Ethiopia.

“Refugees probably more than any other Americans are so mindful of what they are grateful for — for their lives, a place to come home, the opportunity to work,” Amit said.

At last week’s Heartland Alliance dinner, the dishes were served at stations by staffers. As at many an American family table, some dishes were met with more favor than others.

Baked sweet potato and apples was a hard sell to some guests, said employment specialist Ahmed Alnidawi. “Not everyone in the Middle East likes sweet potato,” he said — or this particular dish’s combination of sweet and savory.

Speaking in Arabic, he offered some to a woman in a headscarf. She firmly shook her head no, proving his point.

But for the most part, the meal was a success. “Very OK,” pronounced Mohammed Abd Ali, who arrived here two months ago from Iraq.

“I like it. I like the turkey,” said Salimah Mohammed Shafi, who is from Myanmar and was holding up her cellphone to shoot video of the event.

As for finding reasons to give thanks, it isn’t always easy for newly arrived refugees. “When they arrive here, they are starting from scratch,” said Heartland Alliance case manager Gilia Barih. “They lost everything.”

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USA Today

 

October 6, 2014

USA Today covers the opening of our latest supportive housing development, Town Hall Apartments, the Chicago area’s 1st LGBTQ-friendly affordable senior housing development.

 

From USA Today:

CHICAGO — In his younger days, Ed Lund struggled to live openly as a gay man.

But as Lund, 69, enters his golden years, he has found a place where he is certain he will be comfortable. He’s among the charter residents moving into the newly opened Town Hall development in Chicago, one of the first affordable, LGBT-friendly housing communities for the elderly in the country.

“This feel likes home,” says Lund, who came out as a gay man during the AIDS epidemic and lost his job of 15 years in the early 1980s after his boss learned his sexual orientation. “As you get older, it just feels more comfortable to be around people who understand and share your background. It’s also nice not to have worry about letting something slip out.”

As lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people age, cities and LGBT advocates are grappling with how to deal with the needs of a generation that came out of the closet in more complicated times.

Perhaps the most sensitive issue for older gays and lesbians, particularly the poor, is housing discrimination. LGBT advocates also lament that the country’s elderly-care services haven’t evolved as quickly as the general population, which national polls show is increasingly accepting of gays and lesbians.

Communities are addressing the issue.With the opening of Town Hall, which had more than 400 applicants for 79 studio and one-bedroom apartments, Chicago became the third city in the USA since last year to open housing catering to low-income LGBT people.

Similar housing developments in Minneapolis and Philadelphia, both of which opened late last year, also received far more applicants than they could accommodate. Two more LGBT-friendly projects for low-income seniors are in the pipeline for San Francisco and Los Angeles, which opened the first such development in 2007.

Officials with the Center on Halsted and the Heartland Alliance, the two Chicago-based organizations that spearheaded the Town Hall project, say they are also exploring building another LGBT-friendly development in the region. The organizations screened applicants for Town Hall.

The push for LGBT-friendly housing comes as the gay rights movement has made huge strides.

Same-sex marriage advocates have racked up 20 victories in courts over the past two years. Twenty states and Washington, D.C., as well as more than 150 cities and counties across the USA, have laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBT individuals.

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DNAinfoChicago, by Justin Breen

 

August 31, 2014

 

 

From DNAinfoChicago, by Justin Breen:

DOWNTOWN — Everyone has a story worth telling, which is the idea behind “Questions That Matter.”

The project created by Downtown-based Heartland Alliance, the leading anti-poverty organization in the Midwest, focuses a “humanizing approach to talking about poverty that focuses on both the triumphs as well as the challenges people in poverty face,” said Heartland Alliance content manager Melissa Spear.

Justin Breen says the group found inspiration from a similar New York project, listen to the interview »

“I’m excited about this project because it gives us the opportunity to honor the hard work of those who fight their way out of poverty inch by inch, day by day,” said Spear, of Logan Square, who began publishing the once-a-week pieces online Aug. 12.

Questions That Matter is similar to the “Humans of New York” photo project, which has nine million-plus likes on Facebook, but is more specific to those connected to Heartland Alliance, which helps people throughout Chicago — including Englewood, Uptown, Hyde Park, Ravenswood, Lakeview, Rogers Park, Lincoln Park, Austin and East Garfield Park.

“The face of those in poverty is one many people don’t see — poverty is a concept, a statistic, but not a mother of two, working two jobs to support her family. We shine a light on that and help people make that human connection,” Spear said.

Spear writes the articles, which pair with photographs taken by Heartland Alliance’s staff, including digital strategy manager Ally Stewart.

Stewart, of the South Loop, said an important part of Questions That Matter is profiling people all over Chicago who have overcome a great deal.

“We’re giving a voice to people whose stories aren’t often heard,” Stewart said. “You get insight into who these people actually are.”

People like Menuka, who fled her native Bhutan and lived 18 years with her family in a refugee camp before coming to Chicago in 2008. She now grows a garden that looks like the one she had in her homeland.

Or Lamont, a high school senior who took a class called GreenCorps on how to build bicycles and gardens.

Spear said the best aspect of the project has been hearing from the story subjects.

“Many of them have had the door shut in their face more times than they can count. They’ve tried to find a good job, stable place to live, healthcare they can afford and time and time again it hasn’t worked out,” Spear said. “Through their constant hard work, and with support from Heartland Alliance, they’ve finally come out on top. To hear them say that being selected for this project makes them feel like they’ve finally succeeded is the best part.”

 

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The New York Times

 

April 28, 2015

 

 

From The New York Times:

 

To the Editor:

Incarcerating noncustodial parents for failure to pay child support is not an effective enforcement strategy for parents earning little or no income. A better strategy is connecting these parents to employment.

Work-oriented programs for noncustodial parents with child support debt couple job training with innovative strategies that help parents break the cycle of unemployment, debt and imprisonment. These strategies include helping parents reinstate driver’s licenses so they can get to work, modifying child support orders to reflect actual ability to pay, and brokering debt compromises that reduce state-owed child support debt.

For millions of noncustodial parents, it’s employment — not incarceration — that will help them support their families while meeting their own needs.

MELISSA YOUNG

Chicago

 

The writer is director of National Initiatives on Poverty and Economic Opportunity for Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights.

 

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