Meet Our Leadership

Nada, Founder and Executive Director,  oversees and conducts physical street outreach work.

She is active in her Christian faith. Supports the work of the McHenry Continuum of Care to End Homelessness Community Awareness and Housing and Services committees, and represents street outreach as a resource at the Willow Creek Community Care Center/Community Resource Day in Crystal Lake each Friday. She brings lived experience with homelessness, addiction and recovery.

Nada received two degrees in higher education: 

• A.S. Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts/Chef from the College of Lake County, Il.
• B.S. Business administration from Kaplan University
• 1 year certificate courses in Social Work and Human services from Elgin Community College, Il

Nada brings 12 years of corporate experience in contract law with her experience with national and global corporations:

• Deutsche Bank, U.S. *DRH Cambridge Homes

Gail is an available team member who is active in her Christian faith, and understands homelessness, the population served and the obstacles they face. She is welcomed by our clients and is also well received at events serving this population. 

 Gail's career has been invested in people. She is a retired certified Senior Professional in Human Resources with over 30 years of leadership experience in her field of expertise, inclusive of multi-site, corporate, and international roles for globally recognized companies. 

• BSBA from Roosevelt University 
• Further graduate at Benedictine University with focus studies in Management and Organizational Development 

Gail previously served on:

• The Board of Directors of the Human Resource Association of Greater Oakbrook, including the role of Vice President and two terms as President. 
• Advisory Board Member at Oakton Community College
• As a member on the Board of Directors for the Northbrook Chamber of Commerce.

Dusten attended Columbia College in Chicago. He is currently the Store Manager and Lead Bike Technician and Mechanic at Deerfield Cyclery. 

Dusten brings the unique lived experience and perspective of being a family member of the homeless, as his father was Steven, who was in long-term addiction and chronically homeless.

Dusten’s additional accomplishments include: 

• City of Chicago - Divvy Bikes as Bike Mechanic for five years including assistance to the city of New York by traveling there to assist in backlog of repairs and to advise on improvements to their efficiency and city-wide bike systems.
• Teaching courses on bicycle repair to new and highly experienced riders
• Lead Bike Technician and mechanic for Vail Resorts and Cyclery
• Music composition partner with online group settings
• #MusicandYouth program using music as an outlet for youth

Wendy has worked in social services for 30 years and brings all that education and professional experience to our team. She has supported Steven’s Home from a personal capacity almost since its first year of service, and while retired, she is still eager to help the unhoused by guiding our program creation and implementation through advisory measures; in addition, she has provided monetary support to ensure our friends living outside have their immediate needs met. 

She brings a wealth of professional experience and qualifications with work as a Community Coordinator with Homewatch Caregivers, years as a Support Specialist with Thresholds,  Program Manager at Stepping Stones of Rockford and also Bethesda Lutheran Communities, Case Management at Carpenter’s Place, and the  McHenry County PADS Shelter, as well as several other positions, spanning almost a decade and including street outreach, with PADS/Pioneer center. 

Mary Alice Heinlen brings 20 years of outreach experience, 9 of which were working with children, and the remaining 11 years with unhoused adults. Although officially retired from a position at a Houston mental health facility where she created a homeless street outreach program, she continues to serve the population in a private capacity on her personal time with personal resources. 

Mary Alice has spent years as a CoC member and has participated in countless grant competitions to fund a wide spectrum of programs for those who are unhoused. Her support and guidance, prior to the formal implementation of Steven’s Home, her work for 10 years with Steven himself, and continued support, in-depth knowledge and guidance are still at work today. 

We hold the highest value to her expertise and her guidance in paving the road for this outreach to be possible.

Diane recently celebrated a year of sobriety and abstinence from cigarettes. She  is a survivor of homelessness. 

Diane is an advocate for homeless rights and shares her story that housing and sobriety can be done! 

Diane lives in a rent controlled apartment for just about the last two years and has learned a lot about how to assimilate back into housed culture in that time. 

She’s also a survivor of cancer and treasures her life, having fought very hard for it. Diane is a talented writer who also has a strong culinary background that compliments our work as well.

We value the friendship that was built through outreach work and we recognize Diane’s areas of lived experience in homelessness and her contribution to this street outreach as highly valued, respected and irreplaceable.