February 29 – March 6, 2012
By Suzanne Henney
Every homeless coalition across the United States got its start in the 1980s, the result of economic changes that had already begun and politics that accelerated the says Ed Shurna, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH.)
Our Speakers Bureau teams kicked off the week with some wonderful audiences in the north and south suburbs – speaking Sunday morning at North Suburban Synagogue Beth El in Highland Park and Monday evening at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights.
At the start of Beth El’s annual Mitzvah Day, 200 people turned out to hear Ashley Allen, Jose Vasquez and Stephanie Hooker talk about what it was like to cope with homelessness, including in their youth. Continue reading Wonderful audiences in the north and south suburbs
Our Speakers Bureau teams kicked off the week with some wonderful audiences in the north and south suburbs – speaking Sunday morning at North Suburban Synagogue Beth El in Highland Park and Monday evening at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights.
At the start of Beth El’s annual Mitzvah Day, 200 people turned out to hear Ashley Allen, Jose Vasquez and Stephanie Hooker talk about what it was like to cope with homelessness, including in their youth.
Beth El members were asked to write their state representative, Karen May, urging her support to preserve state funding for programs that help homeless youth. Homeless youth funding of $3.2 million is 32% less than it was three years ago (FY08). The governor’s current FY13 budget plan proposes to keep youth funding level, with no further cuts.
The congregation’s letters were touching.
“The youth of our generation are the future of society. We must protect them,” wrote one woman.
“Youth are the future, and their protection stability and safety are fundamental to the future of society,” wrote another.
Later, at Trinity Christian, 60 students attended a Speakers Bureau talk hosted by the Social Work and Sociology departments. Students heard from Jose Vasquez, Sonovia Petty and Leeanna Majors, and from our director of community organizing, Jim Field.
The event was organized by one of the Bureau’s college interns, Liz Brice. Liz is a senior majoring in social work at Trinity Christian. Students learned about the governor’s proposed FY13 budget, which proposes to cut 52% of state funding ($4.7 million) in July from shelters and transitional housing programs across Illinois.
Our Speakers Bureau leaders and staff are honored to meet so many caring people in the city and suburbs. In 2011, the Speakers Bureau reached 3,516 people at 64 school, religious and community venues.
The Bureau and Senior Organizer Hannah Willage also mobilized 338 students last year, working with them to set up meetings with their legislators or aldermen, or taking trips to City Hall and the state capital. They included 156 students from seven colleges and universities: Columbia, DePaul, Dominican, Elmhurst, Loyola, Northwestern and Trinity Christian. Also mobilized were 177 students from four Chicago Public and two Catholic high schools, and five students from Northwestern’s Sheil Catholic Center.
– Anne Bowhay, Media
A group of six students from the CCH core team at Loyola University met Feb. 17 with State Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago.) We initiated the meeting to talk about state budget cuts to homeless youth programs and to ask her support in preventing further cuts.
Each student held a different role in the meeting, discussing past budget cuts, giving personal testimonies, and asking for Rep. Cassidy’s opinion and experience with these issues. Rep. Cassidy was very open with her own experiences and passions, and committed to join us as students in fighting to stop more cuts to homeless youth programs.
In addition, she agreed to write a letter to House Speaker Michael Madigan to ask for his support in stopping these cuts. She encouraged us to get in contact with other legislators and make personal connections with them.
We students felt our meeting was successful because it fostered support for CCH and helped us begin an important relationship with Rep. Cassidy. She was very receptive to what we had to say and agreed to work with us to prevent further cuts. We hope to have continued success as we meet with other legislators serving Chicago’s far North Side.
– Taylor Tefft, a freshman double major in Sociology, and Advocacy and Social Change, Loyola University
Students at Chicago’s Tilden Career Academy, 4747 S. Union, are doing amazing advocacy work for the rights of homeless and unaccompanied youth! Ms. Erika Totske’s first-hour class began this service project by learning about homeless issues from several leaders on the CCH Speakers Bureau. The students talked with one another about the challenges experienced by homelessness youth, and their own concerns for their neighborhood.
When the students were asked what they would say about these issues to someone in power, one student said, “I would want them to understand that people don’t have anything already and I believe that they can make a change only if we help them.”
Empowered with new information about issues surrounding homelessness as well as the Illinois government, the students prepared to meet with their state senator.
To arrange a meeting with State Sen. Mattie Hunter, the students practiced making phone calls to the senator’s office. They were a little nervous at first, but eventually were incredibly confident – and the senator agreed to meet with the students!
On Monday, Jan. 30, at 9:30 a.m., a group of 10 sophomores excitedly boarded the bus to Sen. Hunter’s office. Sen. Hunter was warm and friendly while she met with the group in a large conference room and talked to them about her involvement in the community. She also listened to their concerns about homeless youths, including unaccompanied teens in high school, and agreed that more funding and programming needs to be available.
Each student had a role in the meeting that morning, and each participated in the political process. It was inspiring to hear students speaking to a state senator with a 10-year tenure in Illinois politics. It was definitely an amazing opportunity for the Tilden students – and for Senator Hunter!
– Elizabeth Brice, Trinity Christian College senior & Speakers Bureau intern
The legal community and public are invited to join the Law Project of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless at its annual Justice Circle reception on Thursday, January 19.
The free reception will be held in Corboy Hall at the Chicago Bar Association, 321 S. Plymouth Court, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
This year’s event will feature remarks by two distinguished honorees: Presiding Judge of the Cook County Court’s Criminal Division, the Honorable Paul P. Biebel, and the judge of the WINGS Court, the Honorable Rosemary Grant Higgins.
Judge Biebel, Judge Higgins, and the Prostitution Alternatives Round Table (PART) will be honored for groundbreaking work to create Cook County’s WINGS Court. A first of its kind in the Midwest, the court offers intensive probation and services to women facing felony prostitution charges.
Since it opened in January 2011, the WINGS court has enrolled 26 women, many of them mothers, in a two-year probationary program where they receive substance abuse treatment, housing, trauma counseling, and job training.
To support the work of the Law Project and/or RSVP for the event, please go HERE.
The Law Project is the only legal aid program in Illinois dedicated to serving people who are homeless or at risk. PART advocates for public policies and resources that enable women in the sex trade to quit prostituting to survive.
More than 400 people filled Chicago’s Old St. Pat’s Church Wednesday evening for a service to remember those who died while homeless in our city.
Among the speakers, a recently homeless young woman spoke poetically about life on the street.
“Based on my appearance, would you guess all the dark places I have been? Places without hope, where seeds of love fail to grow,” said Shon Robertson. Continue reading Homeless Memorial
It was an exciting and inspiring day in Washington D.C. : Brandon Dunlap – recipient of a CCH college scholarship in 2005 – was invited to testify at a Dec. 15 hearing on child and youth homelessness, held by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Financial Services Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing, and Community Opportunity.
With the assistance of renewable scholarships provided by CCH and other organizations, Brandon, 25, earned his bachelor’s degree from Kendall College. Brandon is employed by the Union League Club of Chicago, where he worked throughout college. Continue reading Testifying in Washington, D.C.
Brandon Dunlap (left) – one of the first of 29 students to win a college scholarship from CCH – testified in Washington, D.C. today on behalf of a bill that would ensure that all homeless students could qualify for housing assistance and services.
Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Hinsdale) has introduced the “Homeless Children and Youth Act of 2011” (H.R. 32), which seeks to have the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) expand its definition of when a child or teen qualifies as homeless. Continue reading CCH scholarship winner testifies in Washington, D.C.
“August 13, 2009,” says Ceolo Lewis.
Asked when she became homeless, Ceolo remembers the very day she and her daughters moved into an emergency shelter on Chicago’s South Side. It would be 19 months before her family found a new home.
Being evicted from a house shared with a relative – and out of work, out of money and in the process of divorcing – Ceolo had no options. Her family moved into a shelter in Auburn Gresham. Within days, a box of the girls’ clothes and toys was stolen from their unlocked room. Continue reading Ceolo Lewis & her family
