Truly a home
A House in Austin offers resources and community for parents in an area that can be lacking in so much
If Lynette Kelly-Bell wanted to meet other parents her age in programs that included playtime for their children, she had to drive from Chicago’s West Side, her home of 30 years, to far-flung neighborhoods such as Roscoe Village or Lakeview.
“The better programs were in the South Loop and up north and that didn’t work for me. I was looking for a local community,” she said.
Kelly-Bell, 30, is now helping manage a program of her own. A House in Austin is a two-story, blue Victorian house in Chicago’s Austin area that has been refurbished as an informal space for West Side parents to meet each other, learn new skills, share experiences and learn from one another. It is an intentional community created within a neighborhood where it is difficult to find one. Weekly programming is free. The organization offers a holistic suite of daytime programming such as a music class, a parent chat hour, a support group for new fathers, art and reading classes for infants through 5-year-olds, meditation and yoga, even a cooking course stressing nutrition.
The organization opened its doors in September 2020 with 10 families. Today it serves about 50, Kelly-Bell said.
“The commitment is very high,” she said of the families. “Because we are in a house, we have a certain level of comfort and that really matters.”
The journey to how 533 N. Pine St. opened its doors was swift. Founder Erica Hilgart and her husband, Bret, bought the two-story house in 2016, the same year that she proposed the first incarnation of Boppin’ Music for Babies and Toddlers, a parentchild music and movement class at the Austin chapter of By the Hand, a Christian after-school organization in Chicago. She had recently moved to Oak Park from New York. There, she had volunteered at A House on Beekman, a social justice organization in the South Bronx, where she enrolled in music classes specifically for parents and children to take together. Within just weeks she witnessed parents of different races, ethnicities and economic backgrounds lean on one another for support. She recalled how the families at Brian Piccolo Elementary School on the West Side, where she taught for years, would have benefited from such programming.
“Every child deserves to have this opportunity, no matter what ZIP code they live in,” she thought. In Oak Park she searched for a similar model but couldn’t find one. That January she decided to teach a class herself.
It attracted West Side parents who enjoyed lingering after class and talking about shared experiences. She added a second class and soon, after conversations with parents who by then had grown into a support group, it became evident that having their own space would create greater opportunities, especially in an area that needed them. Using their own money, the Hilgarts closed on the 1903 house in July for $130,000. It was one year before the new organization would be incorporated as a nonprofit, and at least that long before the house — dilapidated and requiring a complete rehabilitation — would be brought back to life.
How that happened was a combination of goodwill, good luck and a lot of sweat. Community groups, private donors in neighboring Oak Park, area churches and other organizations raised money and pitched in to help. Aria Group, an architecture firm in Oak Park, donated its services to reshape the house into a cozy community center where people slip off their shoes inside the front door to play, make music, share stories, cook and even garden together.
Today, A House in Austin stands as a testament to those early years: The interior features generous activity rooms for children fashioned from the home’s original living and dining rooms, each with a fireplace and ornate windows. A state-of-the-art kitchen is stocked with appliances to accommodate cooking classes. A room off the back is a quiet area for parents to meet around a long table for their weekly get-together. Murals adorn the bedrooms upstairs, now fashioned into rooms for individual therapy. Two bedrooms in the front were combined to make a large music room. Comfortable mats shaped like music notes are attached by Velcro to the wall, ready for excited kids to rip and throw to the floor before they bang their drums and rattle their noisemakers. In the landscaped backyard, a garden, a sandbox and a climbing wall wait for little ones.
On a recent Thursday morning, six children, all under age 5, gathered around a short table in the dining room, sipping juice boxes and listening to Hilgart read a book about making cupcakes.
“If you like frosting, touch your nose,” she said. Little fingers rose accordingly. Then she brought out Play-Doh and kitchen whisks, and the children got to work on their own creation.
Nearby, in the rear of the house, their parents talked quietly over coffee and tea. Voices floated from every corner of the house, much like in any family home.
“What I’ve learned is that parents really need each other. No matter who or where you are. That’s the beauty of connection — supporting and championing each other,” said Hilgart, 41.
A House in Austin is in a Chicago neighborhood that continues to struggle with violence. And according to U.S. census data, its per capita income is $16,962, well below the city average of $34,689.
The needs of many of the mothers who rely on the House’s services go beyond parenting. Becky Martin, a 39-year-old social worker who leads parent discussions and house visits, said many of the parents she encounters regularly cycle through the deaths of friends and family, all young: “There’s traumatic loss for so many of them over and over again.” The experience makes it “hard not to be worried all the time.”
Martin is a mother of four in Austin. Because the neighborhood is isolated for various reasons — from lack of public transit to limited resources such as large grocery chains — the greatest need for parents is community, she said.
“When I was a kid, I was able to roam the streets with my friends. I can’t do that with my kids,” she said. Meeting on the back porch on Pine Street fills that void. There, when the weekly groups started, “everyone took a deep breath and realized we’re not alone together.”
Parents can be vulnerable to handing down their trauma to their children. Much of the group work, Kelly-Bell said, focuses on teaching parents to become aware of their own behavior and to “make sure they are intentional in their actions around children,” as opposed to lashing out on impulse.
“Some of us deal with a lot,” she said. “It takes a lot to know what your triggers are and to figure out how you can find a balance between your past and who you are now.”
Austin does not reflect the narrative people see from a distance, parents say. Makema Adkins, 38, said her husband initially hesitated when he learned her book club, parents meetup and play dates for their two children were on the far West Side — another world from where they live near the United Center. “There are a lot of resources here.
People just don’t know about it,” she said. Because the programs for parents and children take place in a real living room, with carpeting and a fireplace, her children “just think of it as visiting friends.”
“You’re made to feel like it’s your home,” she said, sipping tea while curled into a couch. “For a parent, it’s a good getaway.”
In October, Hilgart announced she was stepping down from her executive director role to serve as a full-time volunteer. Kelly-Bell and Martin now share duties as her replacement. “It will be led by two West Side moms, which feels exactly like what was always meant to be,” Hilgart said.
The organization has budgeted a goal of $220,000 for its upcoming fiscal year. Private donations complement the constant flow of volunteers, who do everything from bringing the garden to life to donating diapers. There’s a modesty in how A House in Austin operates, and Martin said that’s intentional. Change, she said, can be made in simple ways. She recalled making a recent home visit to a mother and her four children.
“We were going over parenting behaviors that make the most impact to a child,” Martin said. “One of them was nurturing and telling your child you love them. One of the kids shouted, ‘My mom says that to me all the time!’ I could see the mom’s face brighten up. This family had no housing stability, but at the end of the day, I was able to tell her that ‘Despite what you are going through, your kids are loved and feel safe because of you.’ ”