The Hull House Association, initially founded by Jane Addams in 1889 will be closing its doors spring of 2012. The association, servicing approximately 60,000 members of the community each year, claimed to be closing due to financial reasons. However many efforts were made to keep the association open, were done too late in the game, said Stephen Saunders, board chairman of the Hull House Association.

“We spent the last two years selectively closing programs,” Saunders explained. “Trimming wasn’t going to do it.”

The main source of the problem was the inability to raise funds through private investors and fundraising philanthropically which accounted for 10 percent of the total cost to keep the Hull House alive. The majority of the funds used to run the association came from city and state funding, making up 90 percent of the total. Saunders said that the problems the City of Chicago has with its budget did not affect their funding and claims government funding has been good to the Hull House.

Services provided by the Hull House include foster care, citizen workshops, counseling, child care, education and literacy and since the early days of Jane Addams, has provided a place for newly arrived immigrants to learn to integrate into the city of Chicago. Throughout its years, Hull House has kept the mission of its founder, laying their grounds in the ideas that all human beings are equal and should be treated with dignity and respect; that people of all backgrounds deserve opportunities to succeed; and that those who are servicing the community should live within the community. Addams practiced what she preached by living in the house where all her programs took place.

Since the foundation of the Hull House 123 years ago, Saunders said that the biggest impact that the ...