Schoolhouse Connection: Innovation Spotlight – School-Housing Partnership Serves Homeless Families Who Are “Doubled-Up”

Posted on by Anne Bowhay

By Mary Tarullo, Associate Director of Policy, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless

HomeWorks, a housing and schools campaign spearheaded by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH), is working with the city of Chicago to launch a program to provide housing for homeless families with children.

Among its innovations, the program will include doubled-up families – those seeking shelter with other people – after assessing the most vulnerable among 264 homeless families identified at the six schools. It marks the first time that local housing dollars will serve doubled-up Chicago families.

Announced in April, the program will offer permanent housing and supportive services to 100 homeless families from six Chicago elementary schools in high-crime neighborhoods.

“We are thrilled that the city committed a new resource for housing for homeless families, and in particular, that it recognizes the needs of highly vulnerable doubled-up households that previously have not been able to receive housing and services,” said CCH Executive Director Doug Schenkelberg.

HomeWorks organized in mid-2015 to advocate that the city prioritize addressing family homelessness, including school services and the needs of doubled-up families, just as veteran homelessness was prioritized a few years ago.

Housing Homeless Families will be funded by a $1 million yearly investment from the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund, with $900,000 from the city’s new house-sharing (Airbnb) tax.

Last year, HomeWorks worked with the mayor’s office and the Chicago City Council to enact a 4 percent surcharge on the house-sharing industry, making Chicago among the first municipalities to leverage a dedicated funding source for homelessness. CCH also pushed for the housing trust to dedicate new housing resources after CCH helped secure the release of escrowed funds owed the rental housing support program.

The city and family housing providers will identify families, working closely with shelters specializing in family services and with the Chicago Public Schools.

Families identified for the program will receive housing vouchers and be matched to a provider who helps them locate housing, ensuring a smooth transition.  Housing navigators will help families get to appointments and obtain required documents for their housing applications. Families will continue to work with providers as they receive wraparound services to support them in maintaining permanent housing.

In a press conference to announce the new program, CCH released a report on doubled-up homeless families in Chicago. The report shows that 82% of homeless people living in Chicago in 2015 sought shelter with relatives and friends, or doubled-up. To assess the size of Chicago’s homeless population, CCH developed a new methodology using U. S. Census data. This method also provides a more precise understanding of how many families are doubled-up.

The report shows that 82,212 people were homeless in Chicago in 2015, an unduplicated count. Eighty-seven percent of homeless families (8,634 families) with children were doubled-up.

CCH also found that 44% of homeless families served by the emergency shelter system had doubled-up with friends or family, either prior to or after entering the shelter system within that year. This shows many families experience both types of homelessness, cycling in and out of shelters and the homes of others.

They include families like Chrishauna Thompson’s. Her family became homeless after Chrishauna’s mother suffered a back injury, leaving her unable to work two caregiver jobs. Over the next four years, Chrishauna, 17, changed schools nine times as her family doubled-up with different relatives.

“Doubled-up is homeless,” said Chrishauna. “I never had a key. I didn’t have privacy. A lot of times I was late for school waiting for a shower. I was worried that we could be put out at any time.”

As of now, there is no path for doubled-up families to access the housing resources made available to families in shelters. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) uses a limited definition of homelessness that includes people at “a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter… (or) a public or private place not designed for a regular sleeping accommodations for human beings.”


“Most of our families have spent years without secure housing, sleeping on couches or floors, never sure if they’re going to have a place to stay the next night,” said LaTanya Gray, senior director of early childhood for the Primo Center for Women and Children. Newly relocated to the city’s South Side, the Primo Center provides housing and services to over 500 homeless families in Chicago a year.

Working with children from birth to age 5, Gray says she sees the impact of homelessness on young children. Many suffer from anxiety.

“They’re angry and sometimes act out. Their young lives have been so chaotic,” Gray explained.

Eight housing providers partner with CCH on the HomeWorks campaign: AIDS Foundation, Beacon Therapeutic, Catholic Charities, CSH (Corporation for Supportive Housing), Facing Forward to End Homelessness, Heartland Alliance, Primo Center for Women and Children, and Unity Parenting and Counseling Center.

—

Editors note: Public schools, early childhood programs, and other federal programs use a definition of homelessness that does include families who are staying with others temporarily because there is nowhere else to go (doubled-up). The Homeless Children and Youth Act (H.R. 1511/S. 611) would amend HUD’s definition of homeless to include children and youth who have been determined to be homeless by these federal programs. The legislation would require HUD to honor local communities’ priorities, including by allowing using HUD homeless assistance to assess and serve these families and youth.

Take Action to Support HCYA Today:

  1. Urge your Members of Congress to sign-on as co-sponsors of H.R. 1511/S. 611.
  2. Sign your organization on to a letter to Congress to show support.
  3. Spread the word to community partners, colleagues, and others.

Social Justice News Nexus (SJNN): In a home but still homeless

Posted on by Vanessa Álvarez

Study shows more than 80 percent of homeless Chicagoans are living ‘doubled-up’

By Alexandria Johnson

For nearly 68,000 Chicagoans, the majority of them in families with children, being homeless does not mean sleeping on the street or in a park. Their friends, neighbors and classmates might not even know they are homeless.

But they are “doubled-up,” a type of homelessness basically defined as living in crowded dwellings with extended family members or friends because of economic hardship. A recent study by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless found more than 80 percent of the city’s homeless population living in this situation, a total of 67,582 individuals living doubled-up out of a total of 82,212 homeless people in 2015. There were almost 10,000 families living doubled up, and more than 11,000 unaccompanied youth, according to the study. More than half of the people living doubled up were African-American.

Though they might not obviously appear homeless, children growing up in such situations suffer many of the same struggles as people living outside or in other transient situations. So, the Coalition for the Homeless and city officials are stepping up their efforts to serve this population and reduce the number of families living doubled-up.

“There’s no difference between these families [and people on the streets] in terms of the reasons they become homeless or what they need,” said Julie Dworkin, policy director for the coalition. “Some of them end up going to a shelter. Some of them end up moving into someone’s house, but they’re all becoming homeless because they can’t afford their housing.” 

Coalition leaders and city officials hope to help people like Jakyla Mitchell, a 15-year-old student at Harlan Community Academy High School, on the city’s far South Side.

Mitchell enjoys participating in poetry club and playing volleyball at school. She said she’s proud of her grades and is looking forward to taking an honors art class next year. But she does all this with extra challenges that her classmates may not face or understand.

Most days after school, Mitchell chooses not to head straight home, where she lives in a three-bedroom house with at least six other people, sometimes more. She sticks around school to work on homework where she can better concentrate.

“It’s hard because with so many kids in one place, it can be hard to get things done with my homework,” said Mitchell. “Mom wants to move, but we don’t know where. I want to be somewhere kind of quiet.”

Mitchell, her mother, mother’s boyfriend, her sister and her sister’s three children all live together in the small home in the Roseland neighborhood. Sometimes more than seven people live in the house at once, including friends of Mitchell’s mother when they need a place to stay due to relationship problems.

“My mom invites people who can’t stay at their houses,” Mitchell said. “Her old friends have to stay and bring their kids.”

The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless report estimated that 67,582 total individuals lived doubled-up in the city in 2015. The coalition recently created a new methodology to better assess the size of Chicago’s homeless population by calculating an unduplicated total of homeless individuals based on analysis of the Homeless Management Information System, a database that tracks people accessing homeless services, and data about doubled-up individuals from the American Community Survey of the U.S. Census.

“We think [this methodology] is really sound and much more accurate than what we’ve done in the past,” Dworkin said. “It’s something that can be replicated every year in exactly the same way, so we can really compare from year to year what homelessness looks like in Chicago.”

The coalition’s definition of homelessness includes all people considered homeless by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – people lacking a regular, adequate nighttime residence, including those living in shelters or temporary residential institutions or people in places not designed as regular sleeping accommodations. The coalition’s definition also includes those living doubled-up, as defined by the U.S. Department of Education as people sharing others’ housing due to loss of housing or economic hardship.

“This is honestly a very conservative estimate, we’ve been cautious as to who to include as doubled-up households,” said coalition intern Thomas Brown, a recent University of Chicago graduate. “In lots of cases, we decided we couldn’t assign someone as doubled-up because it didn’t look like it would be for economic reasons, but there are sometimes non-economic reasons for someone to be doubled-up, like an LGBT individual who might’ve been kicked out of the house.”

People in such situations are not included in the homeless estimate. Other exclusions include single adult children living with parents for reasons other than economic hardship, heads of households’ relatives over age 65 living with family for health reasons, grandchildren who live with grandparents claiming responsibility for their basic needs and people in institutions or group lodgings.

In conjunction with the April report, the coalition announced a collaboration with the City of Chicago in a pilot program aimed at addressing homelessness in neighborhoods with the city’s highest violence rates. This fall, the program plans to connect 100 homeless families attending Chicago Public Schools in Austin, Humboldt Park, West Englewood and Englewood with new supportive housing units.

“We know that we have an unmet need for supportive housing for individuals and families,” said Betsy Benito, director of the Illinois program at the Corporation for Supportive Housing, which is also involved in that pilot program. “We’re really excited about the 100 units to get us going to help respond to these families.”

Rent subsidies for the initiative will be funded with $1 million from the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund, and the city’s 4 percent surcharge on AirBnB rentals will fund supportive services for the families. Dworkin said the next phase of the campaign will include working with the Chicago Housing Authority – which oversees public and subsidized housing – on addressing homelessness.

DNAinfo.com Chicago: ‘Where We Supposed To Go?’: Uptown Homeless Set To Lose Their Roof—Again

Posted on by Anne Bowhay

Bobby Williams in front of his tent underneath the Wilson viaduct.

Bobby Williams in front of his tent underneath the Wilson viaduct.

June 14, 2017
By Josh McGhee

Last September, Bobby Williams grabbed all the possessions he could, packed them into a grocery cart and trekked from a tent encampment near the Stewart School building to the Wilson Avenue viaduct.

Residents of the encampment were warned about the eviction on a Friday, but few of them had developed much of a plan by the time city workers erected a fence around the outskirts of the shuttered school building at 4525 N. Kenmore Ave. the following Monday morning.

“I left a lot of stuff back there…. I didn’t want to make two or three trips because I got bad legs,” Williams said. “[I left] a lot of personal things. I had to because they only gave us a certain amount of time to get out of there. And they were going to close it up.”

The ouster sent more than a dozen people living near the shuttered school scrambling for a temporary roof as winter approached. Now, those who made the move last year are finding themselves in a similar situation.

Williams has made the Wilson viaduct his home, but fears he and the other residents will soon be pushed out yet again. In June, the City of Chicago began soliciting bids, which are due July 6, for the rehabilitation of the Wilson Avenue and Lawrence Avenue viaducts.

On Wednesday, residents from the viaducts set up tents outside of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office at City Hall, 121 N. LaSalle St., and held a press conference asking Emanuel and DFSS to help them find actual housing before the viaduct overhaul begins.

“The question is: where we supposed to go?” asked Louis Jones, who is also living beneath the viaduct. “We appealed to them. We have been appealing to them to work with us on a solution, but were denied yet again. We have no problem with the viaducts being fixed, but where are we supposed to go? There is nowhere to go. We have no options.”

Included in the plans for the project are six-foot wide bike lanes, which reduce the width of the sidewalks, and security fences, according to the Sun-Times.

The city is planning to “capitalize on this opportunity,” said Jones.

“We believe all people should have better housing than the viaduct, but when we have no other options available we have no choice,” Jones said. “A space where you feel safe, where you have access [to] food [and] healthcare, that makes a big difference between life and death especially when you’re out there. We need the city to understand they are causing displacement of a lot of people like myself.”

Construction is expected to start in August or September. Once construction begins it should take 6 to 8 months to complete, said Chicago Department of Transportation spokeswoman Susan Hofer.

DFSS has been in communication with the viaduct residents about the project and once details are finalized, “the City will provide the community with a 30 day notice of the construction timeline,” the department said in a statement.

“The Homeless Outreach and Prevention team will also work with those affected to ensure they are safe and know all of their options for services. This will include working with partner agencies to provide resources for food, shelter and other needs,” the statement said.

Chicago Sun-Times, Mark Brown: Viaduct work needed on North Side, but where will homeless go?

Posted on by Anne Bowhay

Published June 6, 2017

By Mark Brown, columnist

Harassment sweeps couldn’t permanently chase homeless people out from under the Lake Shore Drive viaducts at Lawrence and Wilson avenues.

Efforts to find housing for them resulted in other homeless individuals moving in to take their place on the sidewalk.

Now the city is looking to a road construction project to accomplish what it otherwise has been unable to do: Oust the homeless from these two highly visible North Side locations.

Contracts to rehab decaying bridges over Lawrence and Wilson were advertised for bid Friday.

Work is tentatively scheduled to begin in late August or early September.

The homeless people have been told they must move before the work starts. The question, as always, is where will they go?

“We’re trying to get them to house the people instead of just tossing them out,” said Mark Saulys, who currently lives in a tent under the Wilson viaduct and has helped try to organize his fellow tent dwellers.

So far, the city hasn’t committed to giving priority to the viaduct residents over other homeless individuals who have requested housing.

The homeless people at Lawrence and Wilson argue they should be moved to the top of the city’s triage list for affordable housing because they are in effect being evicted.

Ald. James Cappleman (46th), who has had a strained relationship with homeless advocates over the years, said he agrees.

“We should provide housing to them first,” Cappleman said. “I believe they deserve top priority. This is an unusual situation.”

In addition to moving out the homeless, plans for the project call for the installation of six-foot bike lanes cutting into the wide sidewalks that have made it possible for the homeless to pitch tents beneath the viaducts and still allow pedestrians to pass. New security fences also are planned.

In other words, the new design appears to intentionally preclude the homeless encampments from returning.

City officials did not address that issue in a statement Monday promising to give the viaduct residents 30 days notice before they must move.

“The Homeless Outreach and Prevention (HOP) team will also work with those affected to ensure they are safe and know all of their options for services. This will include working with partner agencies to provide resources for food, shelter and other needs,” the statement said.

That sounds like the basic approach the city uses every time it clears out a homeless encampment, which often boils down to little more than offering them a ride to Pacific Garden Mission.

Homeless encampments under the Lake Shore Drive viaducts date back many years, although the tents are a more recent addition.

The encampments have sparked considerable debate in Uptown between nearby residents who complain the encampments make it unsafe to reach the lakefront, and others who argue they aren’t hurting anyone and should be left alone. I’m in the latter camp.

As I’ve explained in the past, the location is attractive to homeless people because it is relatively safe, nearby other homeless services in the Uptown neighborhood and a magnet for Good Samaritans dropping off food and clothing.

A spokesman for the Chicago Department of Transportation said all lanes of Lake Shore Drive will remain open during what is planned to be a five-month project. Lanes on Lawrence and Wilson will be reduced beneath the viaducts during the project.

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association placed the two viaducts on its top 10 list of most traveled structurally deficient bridges in Illinois.

Note: The ranking is by most traveled, not most dangerous.

But the homeless people don’t question the need for the construction work, said Louis Jones, 50, who has been living beneath the Wilson viaduct for more than a year.

The crumbling concrete is self-evident beneath the structures, which were built in 1933.

Still, the homeless don’t believe the project should serve as a convenient pretext to get rid of them.

“A lot of people don’t have nowhere to go,” Jones said.

And moving them around doesn’t change that.

Louis Jones, who lives in a tent beneath Lake Shore Drive at Wilson Avenue, is among 45 homeless people who will be displaced by construction projects to rehab viaducts over Wilson and Lawrence. | Mark Brown/Sun-Times

Chicago Tribune: Crowded houses – program seeks to aid homeless families forced to live with family, friends

Posted on by Anne Bowhay
Published June 2, 2017
By Tony Briscoe, Chicago Tribune reporter

Pandemonium has been the norm for 17-year-old Sonitra Mitchell in the two years since her family lost their north suburban apartment and moved in with more than a dozen relatives living at her grandmother’s Far South Side two-flat.

Each morning, before the sun rises, the high school junior is roused by a flurry of footsteps and flickering lights before she gets up and jockeys for position outside the bathroom. After a five-minute shower, enforced by a timer, she gets dressed and hustles to catch a city bus from West Pullman to Harlan Community Academy, about 4 miles away.

After class, she takes her time before heading back into the fray of the crowded household.

LINK TO VIEW VIDEO: In collaboration with the nonprofit Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, a new city program looks to help families forced to live with others. (Alyssa Pointer and Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

“I didn’t like coming home,” Sonitra said. “I would stay at school as long as possible to do anything I could. I would sit at school and do homework, talk to friends. … But every time I woke up I was like, ‘I have to start this day over and over, again.'”

Sprawling homeless encampments under viaducts and families vying for beds at local shelters are the most visible examples of housing instability. But there are thousands more who have seen their lives upended by economic hardship, forcing them to move in with friends or family.

For the first time, people like Sonitra — who fall into a category known as “doubled up” — are being included in an initiative to help the homeless. The Chicago Department of Family and Support Servicesin April announced it will be providing permanent housing for 100 homeless and at-risk families with children who live in the high-crime neighborhoods of Austin, Humboldt Park, West Englewood and Englewood.

Created in collaboration with nonprofit Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, the pilot program seeks to provide housing stability for students. The program will be paid for through a city tax on the home-sharing industry, which includes companies like Airbnb.

In implementing the city tax, Chicago joins a handful of municipalities across the country that have created a sustainable stream of funds dedicated to assisting homeless families instead of relying on unpredictable state and federal money. In March, Los Angeles County residents voted to increase the sales tax a quarter-percent to raise an estimated $3.5 billion over a decade in an effort to house 45,000 of the county’s 47,000 homeless people.

Crain’s Chicago Business, Letter to the Editor: Dear Springfield, shame, shame, shame

Posted on by Anne Bowhay

Published June 1, 2017

Crowds of Illinois residents just traveled to Springfield asking our state government to do its job. It’s shameful that elected officials have left the state of Illinois without an operating budget for two years. It isn’t just a crisis—it’s a catastrophe. Businesses are laying off workers and closing because their contracts with the state have not been fulfilled. Ambitious students are dropping out of college because the tuition assistance they earned is being withheld.

“The private sector” can’t save us. All the foundations together do not have enough money to keep this ship afloat. Foundations provide over $3 billion in grants each year. While that is a lot of funding, it’s only one-tenth of an annual state budget—when we had one.

Solutions abound, if one has the guts to put what’s right for the entire state ahead of what’s politically expedient. Lawmakers, please listen to the residents who marched across the state to ask you to do your job. If you can hear them above the sound of ideologies clashing.

LESLIE RAMYK
Executive director
Conant Family Foundation

DOUG SCHENKELBERG
Executive director
Chicago Coalition for the Homeless

WCIA 3 News: Bill helps homeless teens seeking shelter

Posted on by Vanessa Álvarez

Bill helps homeless teens seeking shelter

Being underage can be a major obstacle when homeless teens seek an escape.

By Raquel Martin

According to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH), every year around 25,000 young people find themselves homeless in the state. Without a safe place to go, many lawmakers believe their lives are put in danger.

It’s why they proposed a new bill allowing minors, from 16 – 18, to take advantage of transitional shelters without their parents’ permission.

Right now, minors must first be emancipated in order to use a shelter. Without a place to go, many are sleeping in places such as cars or other public spaces.

According to the CCH, about a third of homeless young people say they’ve left home because of physical abuse. Lawmakers who support the bill say they these shelters are safe alternative.

“You want a teenager, if they’re seeking help, to be able to access those services and programs that a shelter provides. I mean, you don’t want to jeopardize anybody’s safety by putting them back on the streets if they don’t have the proper permission. You want them to be safe,” says Steve Staldeman (D- Rockford).

The bill is facing some opposition. It passed the House 71 – 40 and now is awaiting a vote in the Senate. Some lawmakers are concerned the bill would encourage more minors to leave home.

There are dozens of transitional shelters for teens around the state. Each offers counseling services so children can ultimately reunite with their parents.

Those who support the bill say these shelters are not meant to be permanent solutions but a way to keep those vulnerable protected.

Chicago Sun-Times: Quinn shares canvas with Lincoln, White Sox, people of color

Posted on by Anne Bowhay

CCH editor’s note: Former Gov. Quinn’s new portrait includes a photograph of the governor signing a bill to ask voters if the state’s minimum wage should be increased. It shows Mr. Quinn handing the pen to long-time CCH leader Gloria Davis, an activist on the 2014 wage campaign. Ms. Davis was invited to Springfield to participate in a celebration of the potrait’s unveiling. 

By Tina Sfondeles

Former Gov. Pat Quinn on Monday unveiled his official portrait at the Illinois State Capitol — a painting featuring 44 items that he deemed important to his life, including photographs of his family, a link to a Bible verse and a photograph of him signing a bill that placed a referendum about minimum wage on the ballot.

It’s the first governor’s portrait to feature “people of color” in the Hall of Governors.

The portrait painted by Illinois artist William T. Chambers features Quinn standing in front of a desk, surrounded by pictures of his parents and family members, while holding a Bible. An image of Abraham Lincoln is framed behind him. Other items include a baseball with a plaque that reads 2005 — an homage to the Chicago White Sox World Series win.

Former Gov. Pat Quinn’s official portrait. Provided photo.

During the ceremony, Quinn joked that the artist offered to put “found items” in the portrait, and Quinn chose to include 44 of them.

He spoke of expanding healthcare coverage, signing the marriage equality law and abolishing the death penalty — all depicted in the portrait as well.

“We have to protect that expansion right now,” Quinn said during the unveiling, alluding to President Donald Trump’s overhaul of Obamacare.

Quinn said he came into office during a “difficult time” — with a recession and an imprisoned governor. Quinn was sworn in as governor in 2009 after former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached. Quinn lost a re-election bid to Gov. Bruce Rauner in 2014.

To applause — and in a nod to the state’s historic budget impasse — Quinn noted he signed six budgets during his tenure. He spoke about signing important revenue measures. He said he was willing to raise taxes — “it wasn’t easy but it was important.”

The portrait also includes a photograph of Quinn signing a bill that put an advisory referendum on the November 2014 ballot asking voters whether the state’s minimum wage should be increased. He is surrounded by supporters in the image, which marks the first time “people of color” have ever been featured in a governor’s portrait.

The painting features 44 interactive “found items” representing people and issues from his career in public service. Quinn also announced the creation of the GovernorQuinnPortrait.org website where visitors can follow links to items featured in the portrait.

Quinn opted not to use state funds for the portrait and instead raised money for the framed painting and website.

Columbia Chronicle: Housing program finds homes for 100 families

Posted on by Anne Bowhay

High school student Sonitra Mitchell, 17, said she has been in and out of her grandmother’s house since birth—sometimes living with four different families at a time.

Mitchell is one of the 82,212 homeless people in Chicago, according to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless’ April 19 report for 2015. Of the homeless population, 82 percent identify as doubled-up families-, or families staying with other families.

“There is nowhere that I can call my home,” Mitchell said. “I had to come to school thinking everything was okay, knowing I was in pain and going through [anxiety.]”

According to an April 20 press release from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office, the city will start housing 100 of these families this fall through the new Housing Homeless Families program. The Department of Family and Support Services is partnering with the coalition and the Corporation for Supportive Housing-, –a community housing organization, to provide new permanent housing for families from six public schools in Humboldt Park, Englewood, West Englewood and Austin.

Maura McCauley, DFSS Chicago region director of Homeless Prevention, Policy and Planning, said the goal is for families to receive housing where they can reconnect with their existing support networks or find new ones.

“Homelessness can be a traumatic experience, and we know that housing stability through having your own home contributes to the overall well-being for all people,” McCauley said. “With children, we know that also contributes to educational success.”

The families will be chosen through a “vulnerability index,” which will take many factors into consideration including the ages and number of children, and the physical and mental health of their families, said Julie Dworkin, director of policy at the CCH. Those who receive the highest scores during the assessment will be given housing, she added.

For some families, this housing opportunity will mean not having to undergo hardships like having to leave belongings behind when moving into another person’s home or a hotel, Mitchell said.

“It’s been kind of terrible because you have no room, no space and no privacy,” she said. “The only difference between doubled-up [housing] and living in shelters is that you are living with someone that you actually know.”

While Mitchell will not be considered for the program because she lives in West Pullman, this is the first city housing program that will take doubled-up families similar to hers into consideration for housing, Dworkin said.

“Because this program is all locally generated funding, we advocated for them to include the doubled-up families, and [Emanuel] agreed to do that,” Dworkin said. “They are going to be considered for the first time.”

The funding for the program will be a combination of $1 million from the city’s 4 percent Airbnb tax, and $1 million from the Chicago Low Income Housing Trust Fund, according to Dworkin.

Families who are not eligible to receive housing can still be assessed and given other resources and support services, McCauley said.

The department will start meeting with families at the end of the 2016–2017 academic year to inform them about the different resources for which they are eligible, but they will not start assessing families for the housing program until the next academic year, she added.

“We are rolling out this coordinated process to identify families in need, assess them quickly and match them to the appropriate resource,” McCauley said. “I hope the housing is the beginning of a long period of stability.”

The Architect’s Newspaper: Chicago uses Airbnb fees to house 100 homeless families

Posted on by Anne Bowhay

By Matthew Messner

While many cities struggle with their relationship with house-sharing micro-rental companies, Chicago is looking on the bright side of the relatively new phenomenon. The city has announced that it will use $1 million raised from fees paid by homeowners who use home-sharing platforms, such as Airbnb, to help house 100 homeless families. The Housing Homeless Families program is a joint initiative with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, one of the city’s primary resources for information on and advocacy for the homeless population.

The program will focus on families in areas of the city with high violent crime rates, including Austin, Englewood, West Englewood, and Humboldt Park. Working with shelters that specialize in family services and the Chicago Public School system, the program will focus specifically on families with school-age children.

“The goal of this initiative is to help our most vulnerable families to establish stability so that their children can succeed,” said Department of Family and Support Services Commissioner Lisa Morrison Butler. “Thanks to collaboration with our partners at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, the city will deliver a coordinated response to ensure the needs of our most vulnerable families are met, and to prevent families on the cusp from experiencing homelessness.”

The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless recently released a report on the number of homeless people in the city. The count includes data on those who “double-up,” referring to people that do not have their own home but stay with friends or relatives. The report, which looks at 2015, found the city to have 82,000 homeless individuals, which includes nearly 10,000 homeless families. It is estimated that 87 percent of those who identified as homeless were “doubled-up.”

The money for the new program was raised through a $1 million investment by the Chicago Low Income Housing Trust Fund, with matching funds from a four percent surcharge leveled against homeowners using Airbnb and other home-sharing programs. That money will go towards providing housing vouchers to families and provide additional transition services. Those services will include helping families set up appointments, navigate the housing application process, and work with housing providers. The ultimate goal is to find permanent housing for the participating families.

“Around the city, children should be able to focus on their studies, and not where they are going to sleep at night,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel at the announcement of the initiative. “Working with our partners at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless on this new initiative, we will work to ensure that more families experiencing or on the verge of homelessness can find and maintain the housing and stability they need to thrive and provide for their children.”