A pregnant pause fell over Skokie's St. Timothy's Lutheran Church basement, where North Shore residents and community leaders gathered Sunday to celebrate Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs' achievements over the last year.

Maury McGough –  director of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Chicago Program Center – announced that for the first time the specific objective to combat housing discrimination, in those words, was removed from HUD's 2010-15 strategic plan announced in May.

HUD adopted the Fair Housing Act in 1968, four years before the Interfaith Housing Center opened its doors. From day one, fighting housing discrimination (based on race, sex, faith, disability, etc.) has been at the forefront of Interfaith's mission.

"Instead," McGough said, to diffuse the sense of doom that had come over the more than 50 attendants in the room, "the emphasis is being taken away from enforcement and put toward building inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination. Integration has to be done at the local level, and Interfaith has always maintained a strong community component."

In other words, housing discrimination is still illegal, but HUD has adopted a big-picture model, helping cities nationwide maintain and sustain integrated housing.

Sunday's annual meeting highlighted Interfaith's efforts in this endeavor. The group works to provide affordable housing to struggling residents, offers consulting help to local governments working on strategic affordable housing plans, and helps residents prosecute against discriminating real estate agencies.

"We have a history of accomplishing things," said Gail Schechter, Interfaith's 17-year executive director. "We do our bit to chip away at economic inequality, helping to bring about fair and just housing. What we've done in last fiscal year is amazing."

This very sense of bringing communities together through fair, affordable housing has been exemplified by Interfaith's home-sharing program, which was at the center of Sunday's celebration. Now in its 25th year, the program has been given a new name – North Suburban Homesharing – and a new website: www.northsuburbanhomesharing.org.  

North Suburban Homesharing has three main objectives: to provide extra income to struggling homeowners; to provide affordable housing for renters; and to bring two people together who might not otherwise find each other.

"I'm like a matchmaker," said Homesharing coordinator Jackie Grossmann, who's been at Interfaith for the past 13 years. "I still feel as passionate about the work I do as I did the first day."

Grossmann invited 10-year Homesharing participant and Evanston resident Bonnie Jackson, 67, whom Patch interviewed in September, to share her experience.

"This program has given me a sense of confidence," Jackson said. "With Interfaith, there are people willing to help, and that means so much to me."

Jackson currently rents out her two extra rooms to two people, who help her with house chores that are difficult for her due to her progressing Parkinson's disease. She's hosted a score of different people, including a man from Yemen looking for a second wife and a grad student who was working on a "medical robot" model.

"What about the violin player?" Grossmann asked her.

"Oh, he's coming to wash my windows next week," Jackson said.

The program's newest home-sharers, Gwen Johnson and Janice Reed, have been living together for the past two months. Johnson, 76, had known about the program for years but never imagined she would need to rent out her extra bedroom until she was "underwater" in her mortgage.

"This is a new opportunity for me, and I'm having a ball" Johnson said. "We're two months in, but it's like we've known each other forever."

Among their commonalities, both Johnson and Reed have a strong belief in God and they're both cancer survivors. Reed, who's a few decades younger than Johnson, also never thought she would need housing assistance until, in a short span, she lost her job and her fiancé, and was diagnosed with a rare cancer called thymoma.

"The last five years has been a roller-coaster ride," Reed said. "I was blessed with the homesharing program."

To cap off the evening, Evanston-based journalist and author Mark Miller, the son of Interfaith's original founders, Rayna and Marvin Miller, addressed some of the housing issues he thinks will be faced by the Baby Boomer generation in the years to come. Miller writes syndicated column "Retire Smart" for the Chicago Tribune, and his newest book, The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security: Practical Strategies for Money, Work and Living, was published this year by Bloomberg Press.

He said that in the last 10 years, the trend was that as homeowners approached retirement, their mortgage debt steadily decreased. Thanks to the infamous housing bubble, he said that trend "has gone in the wrong direction." (In 2009, the Center for Economic and Policy Research projected that 14 to 23 percent of homeowners ages 55 to 64 were underwater in their mortgages, compared with 1.4 percent in 2004.)

Miller said it's up to communities to think up creative ways to support seniors who can't pay their mortgages, especially considering the uncertain future of Social Security.

"There's a lot of exciting innovation coming," Miller said, mentioning Evanston-based North Shore Village, which offers a sort of Angie's List of services for seniors aging in place. "And home-sharing is such a simple, elegant idea. Why aren't we doing more of this?"