For César Chávez Day, March 31, Marguerite Casey Foundation honored 36 community leaders across the U.S. who are continuing the legacy of the late farmworker and civil rights advocate. Please join in celebrating their work for a more just and equitable society.
Maxica Williams was among those honored after being nominated by CCH.
Maxica Williams
Hero’s name: Maxica Williams
Home city: Chicago
The person’s organization: Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH)
Why is this person a community hero?
“As a cancer survivor who has experienced homelessness, Maxica Williams is using her past to fight for a more equitable future for her community.
She was inspired to fight for change after meeting an organizer from Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) while living at a shelter with her four children in 2016. ‘I was intrigued to learn that elected officials are supposed to work for the people,’ Maxica said. ‘And that they could be held accountable.’
Six months later and cancer-free, Maxica called up CCH and immediately got to work. She marched with the Fight for $15 campaign. She served on focus groups. She registered to vote. And after years of struggle and advocacy, she secured permanent housing for her family in 2017.
In 2018, Maxica spoke with legislators and the press about the difficulties of being homeless, jobless and seriously ill, with only a modest TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) grant for support. By sharing her story, Maxica helped sway legislators to increase TANF grant levels across Illinois for the first time in a decade, providing critical support to the state’s poorest families.
Today, Maxica continues to fight for her community and a better world for her children. She serves as a core group leader on CCH’s Bring Chicago Home campaign and is a member of CCH’s Speakers Bureau. She recently joined CCH’s board of directors, inspired to add her voice and perspective through a new lens.
‘There is power in numbers,’ Maxica says. ‘Together, ending homelessness is within our grasp.’”
Chicago’s homeless shelter system discriminates against people with disabilities and fails to provide accommodations mandated by federal law, a Chicago woman claims in a federal lawsuit.
The suit, filed in federal court late Monday on behalf of the Chicago woman, accuses the city of violating the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act by not ensuring that the city’s homeless shelters and their services are accessible to people with disabilities.
Laura Martin, the plaintiff, was turned away from more than one shelter because she has difficulty walking, according to the lawsuit. After she requested help from the city’s shelter system, it took three nights to find her a place she could stay, according to the suit.
Martin, who has rheumatoid arthritis, cannot climb stairs or walk for more than one block at a time because of her disability, according to the lawsuit.
“Some of the most vulnerable people in our city are completely being denied access,” said Diane O’Connell, a Chicago Coalition for the Homeless attorney. “I mean, (the plaintiff) had to sleep in a hospital emergency room for multiple nights because there was no help for her.”
Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and Porter, Wright, Morris & Arthur LLP, a large law firm with offices in several states, partnered with Martin in the lawsuit.
Chicago stepped up when the polar vortex hit. The city’s various departments, as well as Chicago’s businesses and concerned citizens, responded to the emergency with money, time and urgency. People experiencing homelessness could be safe in warming centers, buses, shelters and motel rooms generously rented for them by others (“‘Regular people’ move dozens from camp to inn,” Feb. 1).
The weather is returning to normal winter conditions. The added shelter beds and the warming buses and centers have gone away, and the funding for motel rooms is running out. The people who found temporary refuge will be back on the streets. Their homelessness does not end just because the weather emergency does.
Now is the time to focus on long-term, permanent solutions to homelessness. The Bring Chicago Home resolution sits in the City Council Finance Committee, waiting to be heard. This resolution would move forward a proposal to raise the city’s real estate transfer tax on properties worth more than $1 million and would generate millions in new revenue, all dedicated to permanent housing and services for those experiencing homelessness.
With thousands of people in our city experiencing homelessness, the Bring Chicago Home campaign can have meaningful impact on this enormous problem.
Whether it is 25 below zero or a beautiful spring day, no one should be homeless. Let’s move the incredible energy and compassion we saw this past week to bigger solutions.
— Doug Schenkelberg, Executive Director, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless
Temperatures in Chicago are set to plummet as low as minus 12 degrees on Wednesday as the polar vortex tightens its grip on the Windy City. Homeless charities and city officials are racing to shelter as much of Chicago’s homeless population as possible before the extreme cold sets in.
“The homeless face serious challenges all year long when outside,” Paul Hamann, president of local organization the Night Ministry, told Newsweek. “During cold weather snaps, such as we are having now, our biggest concerns are hypothermia, frostbite and respiratory illnesses.”
Experiencing sub-20 Fahrenheit temperatures for just a few minutes can harm your health, Hamann explained. The extreme cold, he added, is especially dangerous for people whose health is already compromised.
Advocacy group Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) estimates some 16,000 people live on the city’s streets and in its homeless shelters. That number jumps to nearly 80,000 when people who are couch surfing or seeking shelter with friends or family are taken into account.
Official figures counted just 5,657 sheltered or unsheltered homeless people in the city in one day in 2017, but the CCH’s executive director, Doug Schenkelberg, said the numbers do not capture the full picture.
The city has turned public buildings and even buses into warming centers to help people stay safe during the day. But many people facing homelessness have nowhere to go when they close, Hamann explained. “There are never enough shelter beds,” he said.
Some warming centers do stay open all night, however, and those seeking shelter—and people who spot others in need—can call 3-1-1 to find the nearest one. CCH is also collecting transit passes for those whose local shelter is full. “Whether it’s a shelter, a 24-hour warming center or a family or friend’s couch, find a place to be safe,” he said.
Some people prefer to stay on the streets at night because they’ve had bad experiences at shelters or because single-sex facilities can’t accommodate their partner, for example. “These are hard situations to face,” Hamann noted.
Hamann said locals could support those in need by contacting groups like the Night Ministry and finding out which items are needed, such as blankets, sleeping bags or socks. Financial donations, he added, were always appreciated.
Although Schenkelberg praised the city’s response to the current cold weather, he urged officials to improve support for homeless people year-round.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office estimates at least 18 people have died from exposure to the cold so far this winter, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Since 2006, some 250 people are thought to have died at least in part because of the cold. It is not known how many of these people were experiencing homelessness.
The CCH, Schenkelberg told Newsweek, wants elected officials to implement a funding initiative called “Bring Chicago Home” that would dedicate $150 million to tackling homelessness in the city.
“Homelessness exists 365 days a year,” he added. “It’s important to rise to the occasion in these emergencies, but it’s equally important to work towards ending homelessness when the emergency passes.”
For the first 18 years of his life, the Englewood native managed to overcome the disenfranchisement plaguing his neighborhood: He graduated from Jones College Prep, becoming the first in his family to finish high school; started college at a historically black university in Memphis; and found a passion producing music. “I was on a high horse,” he proudly recalled.
No one could have predicted he’d be homeless by age 19…
…Niya Kelly, state legislative director for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH), says doubled-up living for young people tends to look like Rivers’ experience: “couch surfing,” “moving from place to place” — particularly at night — and not being guaranteed the same place to stay.
In 2016, there were more than 11,000 unaccompanied homeless youths ages 14 to 24 in Chicago, and 85 percent of them were living doubled-up, according to the most recent data from a CCH estimate…
…The fear of the unknown, of not knowing where they can go next, is a common feeling for homeless youths who are bouncing around or living doubled-up. Kelly says they often try to make themselves “as small as possible, or not eat as much food, or be as hospitable as possible to keep the peace” to be able to stay somewhere.
There’s a misconception, too, Kelly said, that having a roof over your head — however momentary it may be — is better than living on the street.
“You don’t know what a person has to do in order stay in a house that night,” she said, “so it’s not always better than living on the street. Some youths have to turn over their disability check or SNAP benefits (to the homeowner). Some girls get trafficked. Just because you’re going somewhere at night doesn’t mean you’re safe.”…
The homeless residents of the Wilson and Lawrence viaducts are vowing not to quit after a Cook County judge delayed ruling on whether to dismiss their discrimination lawsuit against the city of Chicago.
The former encampments under Lake Shore Drive in Uptown were widely known as tent city. In this most recent lawsuit, filed in August of last year, the plaintiffs and their attorneys accuse the city of illegally targeting the homeless by concocting a plan to install bike lanes on the sidewalk, resulting in not enough space for them to reside in their makeshift tents.
“Regardless of today’s outcome, we are going to continue to fight the city when they choose to operate outside the law,” said Carol Ladape, lawsuit plaintiff and former tent city resident.
The dispute has been going on for years… Lawyers for the homeless contend the city’s own guidelines say placing the bike lanes in the street would be safer for everyone. They say the construction is a deliberate attempt to remove homeless people and is a violation of the Illinois Homeless Bill of Rights.
“We have also adequately plead discriminatory intent, after we get the ruling to decide how to proceed,” said Diane O’Connell, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless…
Crystal Nelson holds one of the coats she was able to purchase for an elderly couple who is homeless with funds donated by neighbors. PATTY WETLI/BLOCK CLUB CHICAGO
By Patty Wetli, Features Contributor
LINCOLN SQUARE — Someone apparently forgot to tell the good people of Lincoln Square that big cities are supposed to be cold, heartless places.
Because neighbors’ concern for an elderly couple who is homeless has been the stuff of small-town caring and kindness.
It started with a social media post in early November to the Rockwell Neighbors Facebook page, a community hub for folks who live in the west-of-Western neck of Lincoln Square.
Jason Moy opened the discussion: “There is an older couple I’ve seen from time to time around Lincoln Square; they seem pretty well put together but are possibly homeless, and always pushing a whole bunch of suitcases around. I see them occasionally by the Western Brown Line entrance, or taking refuge from a rainstorm under a condo building awning, and most recently keeping warm under the L station heat lamps. Does anyone know their story, and how (or if) we can help them, especially as cold weather descends on us?”
Replies came quickly from others who had likewise seen the pair, including some who had interacted with the couple, either by hauling their bags for them or approaching the duo with offers of food. Piecing together information shared in the post’s comments, a narrative emerged: The two were husband and wife, and were indeed without a home. The man was in particularly poor health, and the couple was both proud and wary.
Crystal Nelson, manager of Ruff Haus Pets, situated just a couple of storefronts north of the Rockwell Brown Line station, was among those following the Facebook post.
She too had seen the couple and originally thought they were tourists as she watched them cross Western Avenue with their luggage. On spying them a second time, she realized their situation was far more desperate.
Nelson has a particular soft spot for older people. She lost her parents at an early age, so she grew up closer to her grandparents than most, even taking a leave from Ruff Haus in 2017 to care for her dying grandmother.
All of which explains, in part, why Nelson was the one who pushed the conversation toward concrete action.
“I feel like it’s all of our responsibility to help out,” she said of her decision to become involved.
Since Ruff Haus is well known among the area’s pet owners, and also the type of business residents readily recognize from their daily CTA commutes, Nelson figured people would trust her if she started a fundraiser for the couple.
They did.
Nelson set a goal of $500, expecting that within a week or two she’d have enough money to buy the couple warm winter coats. After sharing the fundraiser with the Rockwell Facebook group, she went to bed.
Nelson wouldn’t get much sleep that night — her phone kept beeping with donation notifications.
Within 12 hours, Nelson’s original target had been met and when she closed the fundraiser the next day, she’d collected nearly $1,000.
“I felt like I won the lottery. The support from everyone was awesome,” she said.
Nelson also became the point person for additional offers of assistance — from people volunteering to store the couple’s belongings to folks investigating the feasibility of occasionally putting the couple up at nearby motels.
“Everyone wants to help,” she said. “I literally just started a fundraiser. The whole neighborhood did this.”
With guidance from staff at Uncle Dan’s Lincoln Square shop, who also gave her a discount, Nelson was able to stretch the donated funds to buy a pair of parkas, gloves and socks, and still have money leftover. But how to get the items to the couple, the nature of whose plight meant they had no fixed address?
Nelson turned amateur sleuth, keeping an eye on Facebook for any sightings and also touching base with employees at CTA stations the couple typically frequented.
An “angel” at the Western Brown Line station, who’d been tracking the couple’s movements, took Nelson’s number and called her when the pair — named John and Mary — turned up at the Rockwell platform.
“She introduced us and I said, ‘There’s a lot of people in the neighborhood worried about you,’” Nelson said. “[Mary] was crying. She said they love the neighborhood and how generous everyone has been.”
The story could end here, with Nelson gifting the couple new coats and walking away. It doesn’t.
Thrown In The Deep End
Out of respect for the couple’s privacy, Nelson hasn’t pried much into John and Mary’s story, but she has learned they lost their home in May, and they’re petrified of shelters, out of fear of being separated from each other and their remaining possessions.
What John and Mary need, more than a coat on their backs, is a roof over their head. Setting the couple on the path to housing is Nelson’s next step.
Homelessness is a complex situation requiring a complex solution. Nelson realized she was out of her depth — she’s a retail store manager, not a social worker.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, I’ve never done this before,” she said.
Just as she began to feel overwhelmed by the obligation she’d assigned to herself, she was pointed in the direction of North Center’s Common Pantry. As of this writing, Nelson was working to coordinate a meeting between John and Mary and the pantry’s program manager.
Stories like John and Mary’s haunt Margaret O’Conor, Common Pantry’s executive director.
“I can’t even conceptualize,” she said of the couple’s ordeal.
The elderly are among our society’s most vulnerable members for a variety of reasons, O’Conor said, including skyrocketing medical costs, the curtailing of pensions and other retirement benefits, and a lack of affordable housing.
A quarter of Illinois’ senior citizens live below the poverty line and what’s troubling to people like O’Conor is that the number of elderly is growing.
According to the National Institutes of Health, over the next 20 years, the growth rate of the older population is going to be nearly double what it is today.
Chicago is no exception: In the 2010 Census, the city’s population of residents 65 and older was 277,000; by 2025 that number is projected to reach 388,000.
“This is exactly who we need to be concentrating on,” said O’Conor. “This is something that isn’t going to go away.”
While there are rapid response services to assist seniors, and the elderly are typically fast tracked for housing, seniors tend to be too scared or proud to ask for help, O’Conor said, and often their social networks are so limited, they’re unaware of available resources.
When seniors are placed in housing, that often means moving to a neighborhood that’s foreign to them — removed from their doctors, their friends, their routines — potentially landing in areas that lack services or are food deserts, said O’Conor.
“They’re thrown in the deep end,” she said. “That’s part of the problem with not having affordable housing in every neighborhood.”
What does this mean for John and Mary?
“We’ll do the best we can,” O’Conor said. “But they have to be willing to accept services and recommendations.”
So this tale’s happy ending remains up in the air. But for Nelson, her faith in humanity has been affirmed.
“I just feel like in a big city, the fact that everyone came together, it means we can all do something,” she said.
Advice For Good Samaritans
We asked Diane O’Connell, community lawyer with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, for advice on how best to assist neighbors like John and Mary.
For immediate shelter, she recommended calling 3-1-1 to see if the city can match an individual with an opening.
The challenge with shelters is that in the case of couples like John and Mary, not all are set up for married people, and many aren’t designed for people with mobility issues, O’Connell said.
Pacific Garden Mission, for example, one of the largest shelters in the city, requires people to be fully ambulatory, capable of climbing stairs and hauling their own bags. “It’s unconscionable that should be a barrier to getting help,” O’Connell said.
Of primary importance, she said, is connecting individuals with a service provider, where they can be assessed for permanent housing. There are fewer than a dozen agencies in Chicago that handle assessments, click here for the list.
The Department of Family & Support Services operates six community service centers (which also serve as warming and cooling centers). These centers provide information on a range of resources related to housing, food, employment and more.
Some municipalities have approved, or are considering, charging a “transfer tax” on homes of a certain value.
A proponent of the additional fee is on incoming Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s transition committee, but there’s no plan to implement a statewide tax. Supporters say it generates revenue to fund needed programs, but the real estate community says it’s likely to backfire, costing renters more and ultimately depressing property values.
The city of Evanston now charges a higher transfer tax, sometimes referred to as an “exit tax,” on property sold for more than $1.5 million. Properties that sell for more than $1.5 million come with a transfer tax of $5 per $1,000 of sale price. A referendum voters approved raises that to $7 per $1,000 of sale price. For properties that sell for more than $5 million, the transfer tax will now be $9 per $1,000 of sale price.
The seller of a $2 million home, storefront, or apartment complex, for instance, would be charged an additional $3,500 on top of the other taxes and fees already in place.
Chicago aldermen have tried to do the same, but Mayor Rahm Emanuel shot down the proposal, saying the transfer tax would “treat homeowners like an ATM machine.”
Marisa Novara, vice president of the Metropolitan Planning Council, said the money is needed more than ever in a time of decreasing federal help for programs to fight homelessness.
“We are in an era of declining federal resources for things like affordable housing,” she said. “This is a way that a city can take action locally.”
Daniel Kay Hertz, research director with the Center for Budget and Tax Accountability, said this type of tax could produce a good amount of revenue for cities like Evanston, Chicago, or any of the 215 home-rule municipalities in Illinois.
“That’s a power that they already have,” he said. “[Middle-class homeowners] either aren’t going to feel anything from this or they’re actually going to have their taxes lowered, which is more likely.”
A home-rule municipality would have to make the change with approval from voters via a referendum. Voters in Evanston approved the increased transfer tax at the ballot box earlier this month.
Ralph Martire, executive director of the CBTA, sits on incoming governor J.B. Pritzker’s transition committee. Hertz said he hasn’t heard of any plans for a statewide progressive transfer tax. Pritzker’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Critics say the tax would hurt businesses and rental property owners, potentially depressing property values once investors start looking to areas without the higher fees.
“There’s nothing progressive about this tax. It will hit everyone, not just property investors,” Jon Broadbooks, vice president of Illinois Realtors, said. “If you do the math, an investor in even a modest apartment building might have to come up with tens of thousands of dollars more to close a transaction. For a seller, that means increasing the price of a property to account for the new taxes. For a buyer, that would mean raising rents to cover the increased costs of purchasing the property.”
Daniel Kay Hertz is the Research Director at the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability and Marisa Novara is Vice President of Metropolitan Planning Council.
Last week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel shot down several proposals for creating a graduated real estate transfer tax, claiming it would treat “homeowners as an ATM machine.”
Here’s how such a tax would work and why the mayor got it wrong.
First, consider today’s reality: Chicago has a real estate transfer tax of $5.25 per $500 of property value. This tax is not graduated, meaning someone who buys or sells a home for $150,000 pays the same rate as someone who buys or sells a home for $1.5 million. The current tax generates $160 million annually, a third of which goes to the Chicago Transit Authority.
Next, consider the vision: In the Metropolitan Planning Council’s “roadmap to a more equitable future,” a document released last spring, the MPC and the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability recommend a graduated real estate transfer tax to generate desperately needed funds for affordable housing. Because the tax is pegged to property values, only the highest-value transactions would cost more. In most cases, the buyer and the seller would pay less than they do now.
What’s actually needed: Most Chicagoans may be surprised to learn just how little of the city’s budget is allocated for affordable housing. Take a guess: Ten percent? Five? One? Try just about three-tenths of one percent in 2017, or $24.5 million out of $8.3 billion.
Tax increment financing revenue — local funds that get spent outside the normal budget process — contributed another $16.9 million in 2017 toward affordable housing. But even that represented less than three percent of the $660 million raised by TIF districts.
Rather than spend its own money on affordable housing, Chicago has depended overwhelmingly on resources passed down by the state and federal governments through programs such as public housing and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. In 2017, Chicago spent 36 times more of its own money on policing than on affordable housing, and three times more on legal settlements.
While all cities are struggling with a decline in federal support for affordable housing, there’s more Chicago can and must do to support this need locally.
Finally, here’s what is possible: Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and other groups have proposed a plan to generate $150 million a year for affordable housing and services for some 80,000 homeless people. The plan calls for increasing the city’s real estate transfer tax on high-value property. An ordinance seeking to put this proposal on the Feb. 26 election ballot, as a referendum question, has been presented by Ald. Walter Burnett.
This is one of many versions of a proposed progressive real estate transfer tax that could get us over the finish line.
Chicago suffers from a shortfall of 120,000 affordable housing units. That alone is reason enough to consider a progressive real estate transfer tax, just as there is in San Francisco, Baltimore and New York City. Such a tax was approved in Evanston on Tuesday.
A graduated real estate transfer tax to cover some of Chicago’s most pressing affordable housing needs would not be breaking new ground. Chicago would simply be catching up — both to other cities and to our own profound shortfalls.
A Chicago nonprofit seeking to end homelessness is proposing a substantial increase in the real estate transfer tax on high-end properties to fund services for some of the city’s most vulnerable residents.
As part of its Bring Chicago Home campaign, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless is proposing a transfer tax of $9.75 per $500 on residential and commercial properties that cost $1 million and up. (The current rate is $3.75 per $500.) The extra funds generated from the tax increase – $12,000 per property, at minimum – would go toward support services for the homeless, according to Julie Dworkin, the group’s policy director.
CCH estimates the plan could generate $150 million per year and would impact just 5 percent of real estate transactions in the city and 3 percent of homeowners. That extra revenue “could decrease the number of people experiencing homelessness by 9,000. In 10 years, it could decrease by 36,000 people,” said Dworkin.
“In the city, more than 80,000 people are homeless, and one in four who are homeless are children,” she said. “A lot of people don’t know about that. They think of the person on the street. They don’t think of children living doubled up.”
CCH is seeking to get a referendum placed on next year’s Feb. 26 ballot asking voters if they would support the measure. Dworkin said 31 of the city’s 50 aldermen are in support of putting the question on the ballot. CCH plans to present its proposal before the City Council on Wednesday.
City officials declined to comment on the proposal.
According to a CCH-commissioned poll, two-thirds of 600 would-be voters in the February election said they would support the proposal. Nearly 80 percent of those polled said homelessness should be a top priority for the mayor and City Council, and that not enough has been done to address the issue.
On Tuesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration announced a $1.1 million investment in the 2019 budget to support homeless residents, including $705,000 for the continuation of a pilot program to assist those living in encampments.
Chicago Department of Family and Support Services Commissioner Lisa Morrison Butler said the pilot program is not a cure for homelessness in Chicago, but a tool. “In a city this size where we do have encampments, it makes sense to have some special effort for them,” she said.
In April, city officials began making frequent visits to encampments in the downtown business district, which they say house about 200 people. Rather than visiting an encampment once every few weeks, “we tried to be really intensive and consistently be there every day for two weeks,” Butler said. Not only did officials conduct outreach during the day, but they also piloted overnight outreach. “If you don’t have dedicated efforts overnight, you’re often missing people when they come back,” she said.
DFSS worked alongside the Chicago Police Department, Department of Streets and Sanitation and Department of Public Health during the pilot. Butler says that after learning why some people resist going to shelters, they opened their own low-barrier shelter that allowed people to bring their pets, partners and belongings with them. The city will increase the capacity of the low-barrier shelter from 30 to 40 beds in next year’s budget.
Officials move on after each two-week period, even when residents reject city services and opt to stay put. “That is their right and we respect that,” she said. “We’re trying to achieve the right balance between respecting the rights of the individuals and at the same time … doing everything we can when we engage them to hopefully make taking services the choice that they would make.”
Tents set up in a homeless encampment along DesPlaines Street north of Roosevelt Road. (Kristen Thometz / Chicago Tonight)
