WALKER Campus needs investment

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His parents eventually moved back to the area, and the family invested in turning the third floor of the house into a suite with a bathroom and kitchen for his parents. Walker, his wife and daughter lived in the house with them.

It wasn’t just any house, either.

The Walkers lived in one of four architecturally significant homes designed by architect Fredrick Schock in Austin. The Walkers’ house was designed in 1887 for Schock’s aunt, Catherine Schlect. The Shingle Style home with recessed porches and projecting bays has been featured on Open House Chicago and is a historic anchor of the community.

For Walker, the home has been a great place for his family.

“My sister is adopted, my aunt is adopted and we recently adopted a young woman who went to the colle ge I went to, and she’s a young mother,” Walker said. “We are trying to support another generation of young people. We have a dog, too. It’s enough to make a television show out of.”

Walker recalls getting a call in 1999, learning that the home had been desig- nated a Chicago Landmark. At the time, he was working for After School Matters, which was across the street from the city’s Cultural Center. He remembers walking down the Cultural Center’s hall one day and seeing a photo of his house on the wall.

“It took me aback,” he said. “You grow up in the hood with a couple of holes in the wall, and you end up in this house that’s being heralded for preservation excellence. It’s a big ste p.”

In 2020, Walker was just getting his consulting business of f the ground when he was asked to consider taking on the CEO job at Bethel New Life. Walker was already a board member at Austin Coming To gether due to the recr uitment ef for ts of community icon Mildred Wiley

She passed away before he joined Bethel New Life, but he credits her influence in the role he plays in the community today

“She was a big advocate for the Austin community,” Walker said. “She worked at Bethel New Life for over twenty years.”

Bethel New Life has a nine-acre West Side campus that includes more than 200 units of senior housing. When Walker took charge, all other activities on the campus had halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Walker wanted to return the organization back to its original vision and mor e.

“With COVID, equity, police violence, George Floyd -- the whole country was going through a transition,” he said. “A lot of the work we be g an strategizing around was through that lens.”

With proximity to Humboldt Park, Cicero, Oak Park and Austin, Walker saw a need to focus on the wellness spectrum, both physical and mental, and saw Bethel New Life’s large campus as a plus for this kind of work.

The original St. Anne’s Hospital on the campus dates to 1902, and Bethel New Life recently received a HUD grant to conver t the hospital to senior living. Walker has eyes on expanding the wellness and social services to all aspects of the community

He is partnering with over 50 organizations and recently launched a capital campaign to build the Mildred Wiley Wellness Hub.

“Our campus is within six blocks of the area with the most gunfire in the city,” Walker said. “It needs investment.”