Harbor House targets site expansion

KANKAKEE – Seeking to create more domestic violence emergency shelter and confidential office space, Harbor House has started work to move ahead on a Kankakee site expansion.

The organization is targeting an eventual 12,130-square-foot addition to its city location, which would provide triple the square footage of 5,467.

Harbor House attempts to keep its site from being publicized as a way of helping protect those who seek shelter or service.

Expansion work would likely be completed in a single phase, but exact details are not yet determined.

On Tuesday, Harbor House Executive Director Jenny Schoenwetter sought and gained a conditional use permit to operate a permanent domestic violence shelter facility within a neighborhood commercially-zoned district.

The conditional use permit was approved by a 5-0 vote. The matter now heads to the full Kankakee City Council on March 3.

When the funding application was being reviewed, Harbor House was said to be a temporary location. The language from the 1980s was corrected.

In operation within Kankakee since the 1980s, Harbor House provides full-service domestic abuse shelter while also offering a 24-hour hotline, emergency and counseling services.

The addition, expected to cost in excess of $2 million, would include 12 bedrooms of various sizes – meaning to accommodate an individual seeking shelter or a family – as well as court advocacy.

Currently, Schoenwetter said, Kankakee’s shelter has eight bedrooms of limited sizes.

The city of Kankakee is working on behalf of Harbor House to secure an Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity urban shelter grant, which is funded through the CARES Act, approved by Congress in March 2020 during the pandemic.

The city has applied for $2 million. The grant approval has not yet been gained.

Barbie Brewer-Watson, Kankakee Economic & Community Development executive director, is leading that funding effort.

Brewer-Watson said there has been no indication these funds could be held up by the ongoing talks regarding the Trump administration’s funding freeze.

Brewer-Watson said the city is working through its final grant compliance phases. She expects that process to be completed by late March.

Then the wait begins to see if their efforts were successful. Harbor House staff waits with her.

Harbor House has a paid staff of about 40 between its sites in Kankakee and Iroquois counties.

The organization celebrated its 45th anniversary in 2024.

In a June 2024 discussion before the planning board, Schoenwetter said while domestic violence is often thought of as a family problem or an individual’s problem, it would be better to think of it as a community problem, a public safety problem.

“... It’s something we have to address collectively and head-on such as through programs like this,” she said.

She said then that when people have no place to turn to for help, there options are not great.

“You’re faced with a rock and a hard place, a position that you’re facing countless barriers and you need somebody and a place to go to,” Schoenwetter said.

She said a lack of emergency space means the adult and in many cases, children, simply have no where to turn.

The number of those turned away can reach into the hundreds, she said.

Often time people who seek Harbor House shelter can stay for days and even weeks.