Mercy Home for Boys & Girls

Through our residential, aftercare, referral and community-based mentoring programs, we provide critical, life-saving services to more than 650 hurting and troubled young women and men every year. At the core of these services is our full-time residential program, which provides around-the-clock care in a safe and stable home for 134 young people, ages 11 to 21. Here, children who have suffered abuse, neglect, poverty and abandonment are given the opportunity to rebuild their lives and the encouragement to realize their dreams. Through therapeutic, academic and vocational support, we help them grow into healthy adults who go on to pursue higher education, secure good jobs, and raise loving families of their own. In addition to our core residential programs, our volunteer mentoring program, known as Friends First, matches at-risk youth living outside of Mercy Home with caring adult role models. Our AfterCare program extends support long after our young people transition to living outside of Mercy Home. We also provide professional referral services to hundreds of troubled kids who need help, but whose individual needs may be better met at qualified social service programs other than Mercy Home. Mercy Home for Boys & Girls is a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3), licensed child care institution and licensed child welfare agency. We are 99.8% privately funded and operate on two Chicago campuses — a home for boys at 1140 W. Jackson Blvd. and a home for girls at 11600 S. Longwood Drive. Mercy Home for Boys & Girls is nationally accredited by the Council of Accreditation of Services for Families and Children, Inc. and has been cited as an exemplary residential care agency in the State of Illinois by the Department of Children and Family Services licensing office.