DuPage Senior Home Sharing celebrates 30th anniversary

When her son moved from Lombard to Algonquin 15 years ago, then-octogenarian Jessie Joniak said “no.”

She did not want to move away from the area in which she had lived more than a decade.

The dilemma was that she didn't want to impose on other family members. And a retirement home was not an option for the still-active and independent Joniak.

So when her son discovered Senior Home Sharing, a Wheaton-based nonprofit organization that offers senior citizens shared-living homes, she jumped at the opportunity.

“This is just like living at home,” Joniak, now 95, said Friday during a break from a pinochle game she had going with neighbors and volunteers. “It's a good thing they have something like this instead of going into a (retirement) home.”

Senior Home Sharing will celebrate its 30th anniversary with the Legends and Legacies Gala at 5:30 p.m. May 5 at Harry Caray's, 70 Yorktown Center in Lombard. The event is open to the public and tickets are $100.

The long, ranch-style home Joniak lives in is one of four in DuPage County owned by the organization, including one each in Lombard, Downers Grove, Naperville and Elmhurst, as well as a four-unit apartment building in Lombard. In total, the group serves 29 senior citizens at the homes, with two vacancies.

The date with visitors represents a typical day for Joniak, who said she still prefers to use the stairs to get to and from her basement floor bedroom in the five-person home.

As Joniak played her game, Senior Home Sharing Executive Director Angela Bentsen said Joniak often receives visitors.

From a cramped, lower-level office on the southeast side of a DuPage Housing Authority building on Roosevelt Road in Wheaton, Bentsen and her staff take applications, conduct phone screenings and, ultimately, accept senior citizens into the homes.

Stationed within the homes, which generally house five or six seniors, a housing manager provides some oversight to the seniors' day, including reminders when the seniors need to take medication.

“Our staff tries to make every day a good day for everyone who lives with us and see that they are enjoying their life,” said Bentsen, who holds a clinical psychology degree from Benedictine University and has been with the company 10 years, including the last four as director. “You have come into this person's life and are just helping them live it out and it's a great thing.”

When the group first opened in 1981, the organization had nowhere near the reach it has today.

Former DuPage County Board member Mary Eleanor Wall said the group was part of a wave of startup groups aimed at helping the changing needs of the county at the time.

“As a fast-growing county, DuPage needed to create the structures that would serve a diverse population,” said Wall, who served as the group's first executive director from 1983 to 2000. “In that period, a number of not-for-profit organizations were blooming ... It was just fertile ground.”

When DuPage met certain population count thresholds, it qualified as an urban county. This opened the door for Wall, who was just coming off a four-year stint on the DuPage County Board, to receive community development block grants through the federal Housing and Urban Development program.

“We could tell that an urbanization process was coming to DuPage, along with all of the people,” Wall said.

The grants served as a sort of startup fund for the organization to take off.

“I have always had a feel for lower-income people and the issues they have,” she said.

While they serve lower-income senior citizens, the facilities are by no means handouts. The average rent for a room is $1,450 per month, although many residents receive Section 8 vouchers to help pay. But this includes three meals a day, utilities, the room and anything else beyond clothing and decor for the seniors' bedrooms.

When the organization finally bought its first house in June of 1983, Wall was installed as executive director.

Bentsen said the organization gets about 70 percent of its operating budget from rent payments, with the remainder coming through grants from various groups like the DuPage Community Foundation.

Despite the county's general affluence, Bentsen said there are still many who need the organization's help.

“DuPage County is known as an affluent county but there are those seniors who live on around $1,000 per month,” she said. “There is a huge need for affordable housing options for lower-income seniors.”

“Nobody wants to go to a skilled-nursing facility no matter how nice it is,” she said. “With a program like ours, we allow you to stay in a community and age the way you want to age.”

Joniak said that was her main reason for sticking around the last 15 years.

She said she remains in good health and feels blessed that she doesn't need anybody to wait on her.

Meanwhile, the longtime retired quality inspector for Curtiss Candy Company enjoys her frequent pinochle games with neighbors, some of whom helped Joniak and her housemates dig out of this winter's blizzard.

“I don't know where I would be without this,” she said. “Probably living with nieces and nephews. I know they wouldn't push me out but I'm happy where I am.”