A Safer City
From Counseling to Legal Aid, Chicago Organization Helps Families Impacted by Violence as They Work to Heal
Julbert Hernandez was 21 years old when he was shot and killed in Rogers Park.
His sister, Iris Hernandez, said it’s a heartbreak you never get over.
“Not being able to come into his room and share any news with him or have a good cry with him,” Iris Hernandez said. “It’s more so feeling that absence now in the house and that quiet that doesn’t go away.”
The Hernandez family has been receiving support from Chicago Survivors for the past two years. The organization offers a range of free services to families impacted by violent deaths, from counseling to legal aid.
“They have been the only organization that’s been with us from the start,” Julbert Hernandez’s mother, Angelita Hernandez, said. “They have been attentive and still are.”
Prosecutors and Julbert Hernandez’s parents said he was shot multiple times May 3, 2022, by men who stole his car. His mother said he had possibly worked with one of the suspects. According to his parents, Julbert Hernandez was hanging out in Rogers Park the evening he was killed; surveillance video captures Hernandez getting shot.
Iris Hernandez said Chicago Survivors’ criminal justice unit is helping the family through the court case as two men have now been charged with his death.
“If it wasn’t for them, we would’ve been lost,” Iris Hernandez said. “We wouldn’t have been connected to other mothers and families that recognize the pain, and it would’ve been really confusing as well to go through the legal process of what the courts are, what’s going on.”
Chicago Survivors was founded in 2010. Executive Director JaShawn Hill began her career as a social worker, driven by the loss of her brother to gun violence.
“It’s really a fire from within me because my brother and his life were worth what I see today,” Hill said, “and I get to relive the good times and I get to relive what it means to be about a response to violence when it wasn’t there for me.”
Hill said the organization partners with the Chicago Police Department by responding to homicide scenes and providing immediate support.
Rosalba Alvarado is also receiving services following her son’s death. Antonio Alvarado, 19, was fatally shot just a block away from his mother’s home on Nov. 26, 2023.
“He had just left the house,” Rosalba Alvarado said. “He came to drop some stuff, and a minute later, I heard the gunshots.”
Rosalba Alvarado said her son was embracing a new life, working to better himself when he was killed. He worked with New Life Centers, his mother said, and left behind a daughter he never got to meet.
Hill said helping family members feel heard is what Chicago Survivors is all about.
Rosalba Alvarado and her children are currently in therapy through the organization.
“It’s hard because I’m supposed to be the strongest person,” Rosalba Alvarado said. “I do have six other kids. It’s like, how can you take that pain away from your kids? Take the pain away from your daughter-in-law?”
“We can provide some solutions, some practices and ideas,” Hill said of Chicago Survivors, “but really the creativity of healing is individually. We’re here as a bridge to help you figure that out, find your way and let you know that you don’t have to do it alone.”
The Hernandez family said they’ve found healing by creating an organization in honor of Julbert Hernandez.
“I want people to know that my brother was truly the light in our lives, which is why we decided to name the nonprofit La Luz Eterna de Julbert,” Iris Hernandez said. “In English we call it Jewels Light, that was his dancing name.”
Through Chicago Survivors, the Hernandez family has collaborated with other groups to organize events for children and teenagers who are passionate about breakdancing, as was Julbert Hernandez.
“It’s almost like therapy,” Angelita Hernandez said. “It’s reliving in his memory by doing what he really loved, and I know he is happy about it.”
A Safer City is supported, in part, by the Sue Ling Gin Foundation Initiative for Reducing Violence in Chicago.
