Serving Korean immigrants . . . and others
The Hanul Family Alliance has been a part of the Mount Prospect community since 1999. Located at 1166 S. Elmhurst Rd., it serves the needs of the immigrant – primarily Korean – population through congregate dining and home-delivered meals for those over 60, public benefits application assistance, assistance in applying for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, home care services for those over 60, citizenship applications, mental health counseling, English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and other cultural and educational programs.
Hanul (which means “one large family” in Korean) Family Alliance was founded in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood in 1987 as a Korean American Senior Center to meet the needs of primarily limited-English-speaking Korean elderly. It opened a suburban location in Mount Prospect in 2004 and further expanded to Lake County in 2012.
Today, the agency annually serves over 10,000 individuals and families of all ages (1,000 from Mount Prospect alone) by providing a broad range of community services to meet the diverse needs of community members. Since 2006, Hanul also serves as a resource center for a wide variety of other nearby ethnic populations.
“Our three different offices conveniently serve our Korean American community spread throughout the Metropolitan Chicago area,” explained Yihyun Kim, manager of the Mount Prospect office of Hanul. “We serve a large population of Low English Proficient Korean American older adults and also low-income immigrant families and primarily focus on promoting healthy aging, family wellness and community engagement.”
The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-21 created challenges and barriers for Hanul staff and patrons, just as it did for everyone else – in the world!
“Our staff had to resort to working from home and congregate dining for older adults was no longer allowed,” Kim related. “Instead of the daily congregate dining, we provided lunch pick-up services two days a week. Staff provided public benefits application assistance virtually and allowed clients to drop off necessary documents through a mail drop-in box at the office. Our in-person classes moved to Zoom and YouTube livestream. We knew these programs were essential to our most vulnerable community members and it was our mission to find innovative, yet safe, ways to deliver the programs to our clients.”
Hanul staff members dealt with increased call volumes. They also attended training to appropriately provide clients with additional services like applying for unemployment insurance, filing COVID-19 emergency cash fund applications, applying for rental and mortgage assistance and more.
“There has been increased demand for assistance with these COVID-19-related programs and services and the number of clients we can serve has decreased since each case management takes longer when done virtually,” Kim said, so this had put added pressure on Hanul’s staff.
Annual events like Hanul’s Purple Ball fundraiser, Korean Seniors Day and Youth Science Day were postponed, but they held their first-ever virtual fundraising gala which was very successful.
For more information about Hanual, visit their website at https://hanulusa.org/.