Clara Kirk, who ran Englewood shelters for 30 years, dies at 79
Clara Kirk, a recipient of numerous national and local public service awards for shelters and services for the homeless she operated in Englewood for more than 30 years, including Clara’s House and Clara’s Place, died Monday at age 79.
Ms. Kirk received one of the nation’s highest awards for service presented by the Jefferson Award Foundation. She garnered the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award for Outstanding Public Service Benefitting
Local Communities in 1996.
Dubbed “Mother of Englewood” for her work with battered women and children through her West Englewood United Organization, Ms. Kirk also received the President’s Service Award from then-President Bill Clinton.
That photo had hung proudly on her wall for many years.
“Clara was a true philanthropist, who adjusted her life to live in the community where she could meet the critical needs of countless women and families. Every community needs a Clara Kirk who sees everyone in need as a member of her family,” said the Rev. Janette Wilson, a civil rights attorney and Rainbow PUSH Coalition senior adviser. Wilson supported Kirk for years.
Born in 1941 in Mississippi, Ms. Kirk’s family was part of the Great Migration north. Her family settled on Chicago’s Northwest Side, and in 1974, she moved to Englewood. After seeing a need for help for battered women, she launched the West Englewood United Organization in 1983 while continuing to work for the Chicago Public Schools as a custodian.
Clara’s House was opened four years later, taking in families for up to 120 days. It was the first of several entities she’d establish, including Clara’s Place — a 13-unit apartment building offering long-term housing for families transitioning from the shelter — and Clara’s Academic Center. She annually served more than 300 women and their families.
“I witnessed what she actually did on a day-to-day basis as far as caring for victims of domestic violence. I called her the ‘mother of mothers,’ ” said veteran Chicago music executive Carter Russell, of Carter Russell Music, who adopted the shelter after a visit in 1990 where he saw Kirk struggle to find food to feed the children there.
Russell, formerly a promoter with Buddha Records, Elektra Entertainment Group and Universal Music Group, turned his birthday party that year into a fundraiser for the shelter, and did so for 25 years, even stepping in to help Kirk as executive director for two years.
“I just loved her dearly. She needed help trying to keep the shelter running because it was kind of hard to get funds, but her commitment for caring for the battered women and their children at her shelter was just unbelievable,” he said.
Ms. Kirk met her husband, the late pastor of Englewood’s Universal Temple of Christ and Training School, Hughie Bell, at church, their daughter, Charmaine Rodgers-Richardson, said. They were married for over 50 years.
“Before she opened up the shelter in ’87, her and my dad gave home to plenty of people that were homeless, that lived with us all our lives,” her daughter said. “As a mom, she stressed education. She said the best way to serve God was to serve your neighbors, and that’s what she instilled in us. She taught us by example how to be humble and of service to others. She just wanted to help people, and that’s how she lived her life.”
Ms. Kirk was also a minister at their church and retired from CPS after some 30 years, Rodgers-Richardson said.
Art Norman, the retired NBC Chicago anchor who helped the shelter become a beneficiary of the National Association of Black Journalists-Chicago’s annual Christmas toy drive, personally delivering toys to Kirk’s shelter year after year, recalled Ms. Kirk’s fierce dedication to families she served from two buildings near 63rd Street and Ashland Avenue.
“I have been at Clara’s House more than three dozen times. West Englewood was always a busy place. Clara knew every client on a first-name basis, and these women loved her back,” Norman said.
“On the day I delivered Christmas toys from NABJ, she cried from the time I walked in till the time I left,” he said. “She said, ‘These fatherless families have nowhere to go except here. Please have lunch with my moms and their children.’ I was supposed to do a quick drop-off but wound up staying for three hours.”
Ms. Kirk, who depended on grassroots support in the nonprofit’s later years, struggled to stay afloat, frequently needing emergency donations to keep gas and electricity on.
Time after time, folks rallied to help the beloved philanthropist, who suffered a stroke in spring 2017. Her son, McKinley Bell Sr., took over operations until November 2017, when the city shuttered its buildings for code violations.
Despite her organization’s financial struggles, Ms. Kirk always pushed forward with her mission, as the Illinois African American Families Commission noted in honoring her in 2013 — for three decades of dedication to homeless women and children, and “never giving up even when things looked bleak.”
Survivors include another son, Benjamin Kirk; another daughter, Sabrina Burnett, and a host of grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. Services are pending.