You Can Make It
March 2001-- Men’s Outreach Ministry launched
In March 2001, You Can Make It opened the doors of our first homeless shelter for single men, located in the Englewood community on Chicago’s Southside at 6012 South Honore Street. The Men’s Outreach Ministry program provided housing, food, counseling, and a safe and warm environment for hundreds of homelessness men every year. Many of the men we served became homeless due to their criminal backgrounds, drug and alcohol addictions and gang violence.
April 2002 – Women’s Outreach Ministry opened
In April 2002, the Women’s Outreach Ministry opened at 3108 West 59th Street. This program was also subsequently expanded into a 9-month residential program that provided services to women that were battling various drug addictions, alcohol problems, domestic violence and prostitution. We provided shelter and support services and placed dozens of women into permanent housing each year.
June 2003 -- Shelter for Women and Children started
You Can Make It opened its first shelter for women and children funded by The City of Chicago Department of Family and Support Services via The Inner Voice Inc. In June 2003, building on prior successes, the goals of this 30-bed program were to provide housing and support services, individual and family counseling sessions, job training, job placement services and permanent housing placement. In spite of numerous challenges (funding, changes in housing policy, shortages of affordable housing), this program continues to help families transition from homelessness to permanent housing.
March 2005 -- Shelter for Women and Children moved to a new location
In order to assist with meeting the constant growing need for housing and support services, You Can Make It moved to a 50-bed facility located at 5200 South Morgan Street. This facility, located directly across the street from Sherman Elementary School-- Chicago’s first official turnaround school help mothers, that would normally have to travel far distances to take their children back and forth to school, have more time to utilize the support services we offer them. This shelter made You Can Make It a pioneer in addressing the problems of homeless students.
January 2007 -- Interim House program was initiated
The main goal of Interim Housing is to place families into permanent housing within 120 days of entering the shelter program. The agency’s first interim housing program (65 beds) opened in January 2007 at 5052 South Laflin Street on Chicago’s South Side. The services implemented at this program are designed to help clients secure permanent housing as quickly as possible while assisting clients with increasing their incomes by connecting them to an array of resources and help assure housing retention after families transition from homelessness to permanent housing.
January 2010 – Another Interim House program was started
At the request of The City of Chicago, Department of Family and Support Services, You Can Make It transitioned our 50-bed emergency shelter program on Morgan into an interim shelter program. This expansion resulted in You Can Make It having a total of 115 beds available in our extended stay facilities.
December 31, 2018
YCMI closed the doors of our 120-shelter bed homeless shelter program due to a cut in funding for administrative costs and shortly after the world experienced the Covid 19 pandemic which caused a breakdown in the economy that caused many nonprofits, businesses and churches to close our doors.
January 2013 – Dec. 31, 2025
YCMI-IH increased from a 115 to 120-bed interim house program in order to meet the growing need for shelter services. In order to submit to funding guidelines that were put in place by The Continuum of Care, our 70-bed Laflin site now offers shelter and support services to intact families. An intact family refers to families in which both biological parents are present in the shelter or home. You Can Make It provided services to families headed by single mothers, families headed by single fathers and families with both parents. Our 50-bed Morgan site facility only houses families headed by single mothers in order to have the ability to continue to assist women that were fleeing domestic abuse.
April 2025 - present
In April 2025 You Can Make It Youth And Family Empowerment Services was launched. YCMI-YFES is located at 2450 W 59th Street. Our goal at YCMI-YFES is to groom families for greatness by offering support services. In order to fulfill our mission, we will provide summer programs, afterschool programs, STEM programs, drug prevention, prison prevention, violence prevention and bullying prevention services, tutoring, mentoring, and support services. . One of our main goals at YCMI-YFES is to assist our youth with breaking bad behavior patterns while assisting them with developing social skills. YCMI-YFES is also devoted to playing a major role in raising up, developing, and building strong leaders, college grads, nonprofit and for-profit business men and women, by motivating them to be productive role models to their siblings, peers, and communities.