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Thanksgiving is a time when we think about our own circumstances and about the less fortunate. But one Chicagoan has been thinking about those folks every day, as part of his job, for two decades.

Ed Shurna is the executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. He’s retiring from the non-profit organization later this month, and he reflects on the changes he’s seen in Chicago’s homeless population since the 1990s.

You can listen to the story here:

http://www.wbez.org/programs/morning-shift/2015-11-24/head-chicago-coalition-homeless-retires-113917

 

While on parole, John Hilton, 46, stays at St. Leonard’s Ministries on the West Side. The organization works to rebuild the lives of men and women recently released from prison. Lou Foglia / Sun-Times

While on parole, John Hilton, 46, stays at St. Leonard’s Ministries on the West Side. The organization works to rebuild the lives of men and women recently released from prison.

Back when he was a student at Orr High School in West Humboldt Park in the 1980s, John Hilton says he was on the baseball team and played French horn in the marching band.

But to fit in, he says he also started drinking and doing drugs — marijuana, cocaine, eventually heroin.

He’d once hoped to go on to play in a college marching band. By his early 20s, though, he says he was dealing crack cocaine to support his own habit.

“I sold to use, and I used to sell,” Hilton says.

In 1992, Hilton was busted by an undercover cop while working in a crack market. After a year in prison, he returned home to the West Side promising himself he’d never go back.

But Hilton says he couldn’t find legal work and ended up working the drug market at West End and Pulaski again.

“The same guys who was dealing with me before I got locked up greeted me with open arms,” he says.

Hilton, now 46, spent the next 23 years in and out of prison on drug and gun charges.

Out since June, he’s among a growing number of ex-cons being released on parole in Illinois and trying to leave prison behind for good. In the past four years, the number of parolees in Illinois has shot up by 14 percent, to more than 28,000, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

They live in communities across Illinois. (Click here to see the number of parolees by Zip code.)

But the largest cluster by far — one of every six parolees — is, like Hilton, on the West Side, straining an area already struggling with crime and joblessness.

“They come in to my office every day looking for help,” says Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th). “But there’s really not enough resources.”

And the numbers are projected to keep growing. How the state responds could have implications for preventing crime and creating jobs far beyond the West Side.

In February, Illinois became part of a national movement to reduce the number of people in prison, with Gov. Bruce Rauner setting a goal of cutting the state’s inmate population by one-fourth in the next decade.

“By reforming our criminal justice system, we can make our prisons safer, rehabilitate ex-offenders so they become productive members of society and save many tens of millions of dollars,” he said in his budget address.

The governor said that could work only if the state can keep ex-offenders from going back to prison. Within three years of their release, 48 percent of all former inmates in Illinois end up in prison again, according to state officials.

To reduce that number, those on parole need stable housing and jobs, both of which already are in short supply in many areas, according to experts, advocates and parolees like Hilton.

When prisoners are paroled, they have to give state officials the address where they’ll be living. That’s usually their family’s home but sometimes a friend’s, a transitional facility, even a homeless shelter. They’re given a bus ticket home and assigned a parole officer.

“People are overwhelmingly positive about how easy it’s going to be to stay out ‘this time,’ ” says Jocelyn Fontaine, who has studied ex-offender programs on the West Side as a senior research associate with the Urban Institute, a think tank. “But the neighborhoods where re-entry is concentrated are the places where crime is concentrated. And those are the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in the country. There’s not a lot of stuff — and they need a lot of stuff.”

Food, for one thing. And clothing. Then, there are costlier expenses such as substance-abuse treatment and job-training.

When they’re provided those kinds of services, things tend to go better, Fontaine says. It’s easier to stay upbeat — and out of trouble.

But she says, “When the doors are closing on you — you can’t find a job, you’re back in the same neighborhood, you see your old life, and you see no alternatives — you can fall back on the one you know.”

John Hilton agrees. During his most-recent prison term — doing time at the downstate Sheridan Correctional Center for dealing heroin — Hilton went through substance-abuse treatment for the first time. He says he realized he was tired of “doing the same things” and asked to be sent to a transitional center that could offer him housing and work when he got out.

Hilton ended up at St. Leonard’s Ministries, an agency on the West Side. He says he’s taken anger-management classes there, learned computer and job-interviewing skills and volunteered for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. He’s working for the CTA through a program for ex-offenders, he says, and has enrolled at Harold Washington College starting next semester. His goal: to be a substance-abuse counselor.

“My main objective was to try something different besides going home,” Hilton says of asking for help. “It was the best decision I made in my life.”

The demand for programs like the one at St. Leonard’s has been growing for decades. Illinois’ prison population, following a national trend, more than quadrupled between 1978 and 2011, driven mostly by drug offenses and other non-violent crimes. Programs to help people getting out of prison haven’t kept pace.

Over the past four years, the prison population has inched down from about 49,000 in 2011 to 47,000 this fall, according to state figures. The facilities are designed to hold just 32,000 inmates, though.

Meanwhile, the number of inmates released on parole is up from 24,809 in 2011 to 28,319 this summer.

The West Side accounts for just 3 percent of the state population — but it’s home to 17 percent of the state’s parolees. In Garfield Park and Austin, about one of every 50 residents is on parole.

Altogether, there are nearly 12,000 people on parole across Chicago. That’s in addition to thousands of other former inmates.

Burnett says most who come to his office are looking for work — and most of those job-seekers are ex-offenders.

Burnett himself did time for armed robbery in the early 1980s before receiving a full pardon. He says he tries to help out with job leads, referrals to service organizations and sometimes a bus pass or money for a union card.

“You want them to stay being an ‘ex-offender,’ ” he says.

Some business owners make a point of hiring former prisoners. Charmaine Rickette, CEO of the West Side-based Uncle Remus Saucy Fried Chicken franchise, says she’s developed a hiring process that includes a drug test, a personality test and conflict-resolution training. More than 75 percent of employees at the company’s four restaurants have a criminal background.

“It’s known that we have a crisis,” Rickette says. “The guys standing on the corner, if they don’t have an example, they don’t know what to become.”

While the number of former prisoners has swelled, state funding to help them slowed to a trickle over the summer, among the victims of the war between Rauner and Democratic legislative leaders over the state budget.

In the 2014 budget year, the Illinois corrections and human services departments spent about $69 million on services to aid people getting out of prison. In the 2015 budget year, they spent $67 million. Since the current, 2016 budget year began July 1, the figure has fallen to $418,000.

“We’re basically working as volunteers,” says the Rev. John H. Crawford Jr., president of F.A.I.T.H. Inc., a state-funded agency in Austin that helps parolees and ex-offenders get the state ID they need to find legal employment.

F.A.I.T.H. is fighting to keep its lights on, Crawford says, even as the number of people seeking its help keeps growing.

“They’re still coming,” he says. “If you reduce the prison population and they come home, how long do you think we’re going to be able to help them all?”

Walter Boyd, the executive director of St. Leonard’s, says he has made layoffs, “and we’re still not out of the woods.”

About 250 parolees a year live in St. Leonard’s facilities. They get meals and are connected with jobs and counseling. Boyd says about 13 percent of them end up back in prison — far below the statewide figure of 48 percent.

“How can you say you want to help reintegrate people if you’re decimating all the services and agencies necessary for their re-entry?” Boyd says.

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/7/71/1118385/watchdogs-boom-parolees-hits-chicago

By Josh McGhee

CHICAGO — Imagine, as a child, trying to do your homework by the light of a cellphone, or spending your lunch breaks napping in the attendance office because you couldn’t get a decent night’s sleep.

These things are commonplace for homeless children in Chicago. According to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, over 13,000 families in the city were homeless during the 2014-2015 school year and only about 1 percent — about 123 families — have access to permanent affordable housing.

More than 20,000 students in Chicago Public Schools were homeless last year, according to the coalition’s numbers. Latoya Ellis, a single parent of three children ages 8, 14 and 16, is the matriarch of one these families. Since August, they’ve lived in a shelter “due to a lack of affordable housing,” she said.

“My 16-year-old daughter told me we should just pick up and leave Illinois and live somewhere more affordable. She said to me, ‘Your struggle is my struggle, and I can’t keep watching you struggle. I have very few years left as a child, and I would like to enjoy some of it,'” said Ellis.

While homelessness is difficult in any life stage, it’s particularly hard on school-age children. Children need structure and routine, which are hard for parents to provide at a shelter when you don’t have control over things like when the lights go off, Ellis said.

“My 8-year-old, last year, was doing so well that they wanted to skip him a grade. This year his reading comprehension is not up to level, [and] his math is also down,” said Ellis, adding she believes his classroom difficulties directly correlate with his homelessness.

“Homelessness is a major distraction. When they should be studying in class, they’re worried about things like: When are we moving from the shelter? When are we getting our own place?” Ellis explained. “There are constant distractions that keep them from sleeping and getting a good night’s rest. As a result, they sleep during class time. Sometimes my girls go into the attendance office and nap during lunch time.

“My children are often left trying to do their homework by the light of a cellphone or on the bus [on] the way to school the next morning, or sometimes, even in class the next day,” she said.

In Uptown schools, nearly 300 kids are homeless. McCutcheon Elementary has about 124 homeless students, which falls on the high end of the spectrum compared to other Chicago schools, according to the coalition.

Simeon Career Academy in Chatham had the highest count, with 219 students, while McCutcheon had the 26th highest of the 644 schools that participated in the count for the last school year.

The key to success at McCutcheon, which was awarded a level 1+ rating by CPS (the highest rank available) earlier this month, is creating a family environment and ensuring that “a child doesn’t feel ostracized, because everyone has a story,” said Principal Jenn Farrell.

“We feed from specific attendance areas, which means if a shelter is within your attendance area, that’s where your kiddos come from. So our school truly reflects the community … people in a lot of different situations,” said Farrell. “That’s why I came back to the community: because I love it.”

At McCutcheon, the staff takes “responsibility” for such things as clothes and gym shoes if a child needs them. “If we need something we ask for it,” she said.

Last year, the school received a $15,000 donation from a private donor to help meet these needs. It’s also implemented three meals a day for students, she said.

“Getting the basic needs met is how the student feels part of the family. You make sure they have everything they need,” Farrell said.

Ellis was speaking to reporters and onlookers in City Hall Wednesday morning at a news conference announcing the coalition’s new campaign, “Home Works,” which aims “to create affordable housing for homeless families and improve school services for homeless students.”

The campaign unites parents, students, teachers and homeless providers to push for better school services and more family-sized housing, including 500 units dedicated to families through the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund, said Eithne McMenamin, associate policy director for the coalition.

“[Homeless families] are suffering the effects of unstable housing and the resulting education instability,” she said. “We know intuitively that housing and school instability have a negative impact on children: on both their behavior and academic performance.”

While thousands of CPS students received their report cards Wednesday, the coalition gave Chicago its own report card, assessing how the city meets the needs of homeless students and their families. The city was given its “grades” based upon a survey of 118 homeless families with school-age children, according to a news release.

The results show:

• 66 percent reported changes in their child’s behavior after becoming homeless

• 57 percent said their children lacked an adequate place to study

• 46 percent reported being homeless more than a year

• 40 percent didn’t have a quiet place to sleep

• 26 percent of parents had to live apart from their children, including at a different shelter, at some point

• The most commonly cited reasons for being homeless was job loss and the high cost of housing

“We are failing the most vulnerable children and families in our city as they struggle to stabilize their lives,” said McMenamin. “The severe shortage of affordable housing and lack of support service cripples families as they attempt to move out of homelessness and provide stability for their families.”

CPS said it is “committed to providing students and families with the supports they need to access a high-quality education.”

As an example, CPS pointed to its “Students in Temporary Living Situations” program, which is designed to ensure students without stable housing have the support to be successful in school.

“To remove barriers that a child’s living situation may place on instructional continuity, we provide an STLS liaison at every school and will waive fees so that all students can participate in an academic environment that will put them on a path for success in college, career and in life,” said Emily Bittner, a spokeswoman for CPS.

CPS provides uniforms, school supplies, fee waivers and access to tutoring to those in need. It also provides transportation to more than 13,500 students, and each school has a liaison and clerk to support students in the temporary living situations program. CPS also said it meets monthly with the coalition.

By Maureen Foertsch McKinney

The first installment in a series on homelessness looks at a campaign to get the city and public schools to target the needs of homeless Chicago students.

Tristian Ellis’ test scores in reading and math dropped dramatically this fall from last. The difference: the Ellis family had its own apartment last year. Now, the family of four stays in a shelter on Chicago’s far north side.

For the 8-year-old student, who attends LEARN Excel Charter on the city’s northwest side, distractions abound. His mother, Latoya Ellis, lost her job in August and moved into the shelter a month later. She describes being homeless as “a very devastating experience,’’ which is particularly hard on Tristian, her youngest child.

Of the shelter, she says: “It’s a big open space, and there’s always things going on. There’s nowhere private or quiet for the children to focus on their studies, especially with my son because he’s still very young. If he sees five other kids running around and playing, he’s very distracted. He wants to run around and play as well.”

Add to that a list of problems that includes poor sleep, unbalanced meals and an hour-plus commute from the shelter to school on a train and a bus.

Recognizing the effect lack of permanent housing has on academic performance, those who work with the homeless in Chicago are making the case that the most important thing students need to succeed at school is a place to call home. They have called on the city to expand housing vouchers for 500 families.

An estimated 13,054 Chicago families experienced homelessness during the 2014-15 school year, according to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, which reports that fewer than 125 of those families find permanent affordable housing each year. There are about 22,000 homeless students in the district, which has 400,000 students in 600 schools.

The coalition issued a report yesterday calling for the creation of programs to help Chicago Public Schools students and their families find housing. “There’s a lot of research already out there about the negative impact of residential mobility on education. …  It has a big impact on kids and their ability to learn,’’ says Julie Dworkin, director of advocacy for the coalition. “There’s also research about the opposite of that — that kids in stable housing, affordable housing, do better, and there’s lots of models around the country where the housing programs were really partnering with schools to identify families that need to be stabilized. It also helps the schools. The kids moving around is very disruptive to the school.’”

That report also calls for greater emphasis on homeless families — like the attention given to homeless veterans by the city of Chicago — and more funding being directed toward finding families housing.

In addition to the calls for new programs, the coalition also surveyed 118 families without homes. From that survey, the group collected information about the consequences of homelessness on students’ school behavior, which included sleeping in class, being withdrawn, being disruptive in class, getting into fights and receiving more discipline, including suspensions.

“How do you concentrate on your school work when you don’t know where you’re going to get off the school bus that night?’’ asks Spencer Cowan, senior vice president of research for the Chicago-based Woodstock Institute.

Dworkin says the coalition is asking the Chicago Board of Education to update its policies on homeless students. “We want them to make sure that everybody is trained on that policy and doing everything that they’re supposed to be doing.  We want to see more liaisons in schools.”

The report also calls for having the coalition partner with CPS to train staff  “on sensitive and comprehensive identification of homeless students, including unaccompanied homeless youth.” It says Chicago Public Schools should “provide students who are homeless with rights and services, including immediate enrollment, transportation, fee waivers, tutoring, uniforms and dispute resolution.” And the coalition advocates for the school system to improve attendance rate, graduation rate and academic performance of homeless students.

“The Chicago Coalition, in sentiment and direction, in my view, is heading in the right direction,” says Dr. Ellen Bassuk, president of the Boston-based Bassuk Center on Homeless and Vulnerable Youth. She says the recommendations share an outlook with her recent report on how to end family homelessness.

Emily Bittner, director of communications for CPS schools,  offered a written statement on this story after its release: “Chicago Public Schools is committed to providing students and families with the supports they need to access a high quality education, and our STLS (Students in Temporary Living Situations) program is designed to ensure that students without stable housing are receiving the services and supports necessary they need to be successful in school.”

Each school has a liaison for homeless students and the district waives fees for those in the STLS program, Bittner said.

One short-lived program for Chicago Public Schools students tied housing support to education. Federal stimulus funds were used to pay for the 2009-2010 program run by Beacon Therapeutic Diagnostic and Treatment Center and the Heartland Alliance. Even in that short time, improvements were measurable, says Susan Reyna-Guerrero, president and CEO of Beacon Therapeutic, a Chicago-based behavioral and mental health agency whose services include outreach to the homeless.

The program involved 611 children in 220 households. The families were in 31 schools in several areas of the city, but were mostly concentrated in the south side Englewood area. According to the final evaluation of the program, families received more than $1.5 million in rental assistance and nearly $100,000 in security deposits. Each household received $10,651 on average over the life of the program.

Reyna-Guerrero says students were identified through schools as being in an unstable living environment, and then evaluated for mental health issues and received services, including help for parents in finding employment.

Was it successful? “From our standards it was, because we were able to get these families housed. We did show growth in these families through some assessment tools. It was successful in demonstrating that this model of wrap-around services to these vulnerable families in conjunction with the schools can help stabilize these families,” Reyna-Guerrero says.

She says that because the project ended, the long-term effects on participating families were not documented. “These families, I would suspect, that some of them were able to continue on, but probably a reasonable amount of them probably need ongoing continuing support. Even though the program closed, we did provide referral and linkages to other programs. The model that we had developed where we were going into the homes and making very purposeful engagement is what a lot of these families needed.”

Dworkin says the coalition would like to see something like that re-created “where we’re connecting families identified by the schools with permanent housing resources and supportive services.”

Mike Bach, executive director of the Supportive Housing Providers Association of Illinois says he is not aware of similar programs being tried anywhere else in the state.

“Typically the supportive housing as a program does not have a school component. But the case managers who are involved with that supportive housing would do all of the connecting and linking with whatever it is that the family or the individual may need,” he says. For students, that might include helping kids sign up for school and get the supplies they need. “There’s collaboration, but I wouldn’t say there’s specific tutoring or support services to address the needs of kids staying in the shelters.”

In Rockford, one homeless service provider saw the need for such a program. “It seems … very important and something that could actually keep kids in school and not repeat that cycle,” says Sarah Parker-Scanlon, executive director of Shelter Care Ministries.

Dworkin says she recognizes that neither the state nor the city of Chicago have money for new programs. “The financial situation at the city level and the state level is so bad right now, we’re looking at existing resources that provide housing subsidies but aren’t necessarily targeting them towards homeless families.” She notes that the Chicago Housing Authority and the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund both have funding for such subsidies, “but it’s not necessarily targeted at homeless families, and we’d like to see more of it targeted that way.”

A spokesman for the CHA declined to comment without seeing the report. But when Housing Trust board president Thomas McNulty was asked whether his organization would support the coalition’s call: “I wouldn’t know why we wouldn’t. The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless is an ally in our mission to support housing opportunities for the poorest of poor. Our paths cross. “

The trust fund spent $15 million in 2014 to house 2,700 households and 5,000 individuals, he says. The coalition is asking for new housing units for 500 families, which family homelessness expert Bassuk says is too few.

Federally, in recent years, most of the emphasis has been focused on individual homeless people, particularly veterans,  Bassuk says.

“There’s been a real push to end not only chronic homelessness but veteran homelessness. The federal goal was by the end of 2015,’’ says John McGah, a senior associate The National Center on Family Homelessness. He is also executive director of Give Us Your Poor: The Campaign to End Homelessness based at the University of Massachusetts Boston’s McCormack Graduate School of Policy & Global Studies. That effort has been extended into 2016. A federal interagency council on homelessness created goals for ending chronic homelessness, veterans’ homelessness, family homelessness and youth homelessness. The family and youth homeless plans run until 2020.

McGah says that one reason the focus has been on individuals is the belief that the goal could be accomplished more quickly. “It’s easier with individuals as opposed to the dynamics of a family: there’s education, children’s health issues and developmental issues, and dealing with child welfare. It can get more complex when there’s more humans in the mix.”

The office of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced on Veterans’ Day its attempt to end homelessness among veterans by the end of the year.

A spokeswoman for Emanuel declined to comment on the coalition’s report, which has not been released at the time of the request, but issued a statement: “The City of Chicago shares the Coalition’s unwavering commitment to supporting all of our homeless residents — especially our youth and families — in accessing shelter, services and ultimately, a permanent place to call home.” The mayor’s office says that since Emanuel took office in 2011, funding for homeless services has increased by more than 10 percent.

Long-term, Dworkin says, the coalition wants funding from a state capital budget. In Fiscal Year 2010, the state allocated $130 million for affordable housing. “We’d like to see that increased to $200 million in the next capital budget, with a dedicated portion to homeless families.”

But, at least in Chicago, the coalition wants a new focus on the problem, and Dworkin says it should emphasize education. “We really feel like getting a good education is the ticket out of homelessness and breaking the cycle for that family.”

Listen to the radio interview with Julie Dworkin.

By Ben Bradley

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and before him Richard Daley, each proposed plans to end homelessness. Mayor Daley even pledged to get people off the streets within a decade.

By Ellyn Fortino

In light of a new survey detailing the negative impact of homelessness on Chicago children, homeless advocates in the city launched a new campaign Wednesday aimed at improving housing stability and educational supports for families lacking stable homes.

Last school year, there were an estimated 13,054 families in Chicago who experienced homelessness, a number that has tripled over the past 12 years, advocates said at a morning press conference.

“Parents and, most especially, their children, are suffering in Chicago,” said Eithne McMenamin, associate policy director at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. “They are suffering the effects of unstable housing and the resulting educational instability.”

The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless is spearheading the new HomeWorks campaign with several partners to push for improved school policies and programs to support homeless Chicago students. The group also wants 500 housing units for families created through the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund, among other goals.

Homeless advocates launched the Home Works campaign as they released the findings of a survey conducted by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless over the summer. Among the findings, the survey showed that 46 percent of families were homeless for over a year, and job loss and high housing costs were the most frequently cited causes of homelessness.

Fifty-six percent of the 118 homeless Chicago families with school-aged children that were surveyed said they moved between two or three times over a three-year period, and 20 percent reported living at four to six different residences during that time period.

Meanwhile, 57 percent of parents said their child lacked an adequate study area when they were homeless, and 66 percent reported changes in their child’s behavior at school since losing permanent housing. Of the families surveyed, nearly 33 percent of the children missed six days of school last year and 17 percent missed more than 10 days.

“We are failing the most vulnerable children and families in our city,” McMenamin said. “As they struggle to stabilize their lives, the severe shortage of affordable housing and lack of support services cripple families as they attempt to move out of homelessness and provide stability for their families.”

The survey also found that 24 percent of parents reported negative changes in their children’s grades after becoming homeless and “34 percent of the children have been described as ‘withdrawn’ in school.”

Latoya Ellis, a single parent of three whose family became homeless in August due to a lack of affordable housing, currently lives in a shelter. She spoke to the educational challenges her children, ages 8, 14 and 16, face as a result of their housing status.

“Children need structure and routine, and due to homelessness, I as a parent cannot provide that, because I have no control over certain things like what time the lights go off. My children are often left trying to do their homework by the light of the cellphone, or on the bus on the way to school the next morning or sometimes even in class the next day,” she said. “There are constant distractions that keep them from sleeping and getting a good night’s rest so, as a result, they sleep during class time.”

The Home Works program is a coalition of parents, students, teachers and homeless service providers. Partner groups include the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago, Heartland Alliance and others.

“We believe we can end family homelessness,” said Ashley Allen, an education committee leader with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. “We are calling on our city and state to create more affordable housing and to support homeless students in their schools. Stable housing plus stable schools creates success for all students.”

By Sue Ontiveros, Chicago Sun-Times columnist

For years I walked the same Loop streets to get to the L after work.

I don’t work in that office anymore, but I immediately noticed changes when I walked that familiar path last week.

It seemed to be filled with the homeless. True, in the old days I’d run into a few especially when I worked late, but never like this. Clusters of people in sleeping bags or under blankets were propped along buildings, and at an earlier hour than ever before.

Was I imagining this?

I decided I’d run my experience by someone I figured would know: Ed Shurna. He’s retiring this month, after spending almost 20 years at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, the last 12 as executive director. My impression didn’t surprise him.

The shelters are full, but many without permanent housing choose to remain outdoors, according to Shurna. Some say their belongings have been stolen at shelters or they are worried about being harmed.

“They’d rather be outside,” says Shurna who’s seen a similar uptick, which includes a younger crowd. “I’ve seen more young people than I’ve ever seen.”

He’s also notices more in their 50s and 60s, people who to his trained eye look to have only been among the homeless for the last couple years. In the past, the 40s were the top age bracket. (Not surprisingly, living on the streets cuts one’s lifespan.) So what we’re probably seeing are people who more than likely worked all their lives, yet recent circumstances have left them homeless and outdoors.

“They are just surviving,” says Shurna.

CCH says there are more than 100,000 homeless in Chicago. When CCH talks about the homeless that includes those not in shelters, who are in temporary quarters or shuttle between being on and off the streets. That’s a number that has continued to go up for the last 10 years, according to Shurna. In the past the homeless primarily were single men; today they are more likely to be women and children, Shurna says. That explains another daunting number Shurna shared: 20,205 Chicago Public Schools students are homeless.

The people I encountered might not have been unemployed, either. Instead, what we often are seeing are the working poor. Their income just doesn’t add up to enough to cover permanent housing. These days, oftentimes the working poor need three incomes in a household to be able to afford lodging, says Shurna. How sad is that?

People used to be able to “get by,” in cheap — albeit rundown — housing, says Shurna. So much of that is gone; in its place is housing way out of their price range.

But here’s what bothered me just as much as the number I noticed: those walking the streets didn’t seem to notice the homeless. People didn’t seem surprised. It was more like the homeless were just part of the scenery.

Maybe some have grown callous, but I’d rather think just as many aren’t sure how we can change this.

The solutions aren’t easy: We need better wages and more affordable housing, neither of which will happen quickly or in large enough numbers.

“Hard to understand where it will end,” says Shurna, agreeing the situation “doesn’t look that hopeful.”

But it just doesn’t seem right that while people are walking the Loop to shop or dine, people are settling down on those same streets to get a night’s rest. We look like some Third World country. And we’re better than that.

Aren’t we?

One sleeping bag. Two pairs of shoes. Three bags. The city has rules for what homeless people can own in two areas — Lower Wacker Drive and the Wilson viaduct in Uptown. As we head into winter, police officers have been handing out paper copies of the policy to the homeless there. Diane O’Connell is a staff attorney with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and she’s spent the last two and a half years interviewing homeless folks on the street about their experiences, like when police seize their possessions. She helped negotiate the policy with the city on what the homeless can and cannot have.

Link to listen to the Soundcloud taping of Diane’s WBEZ interview.

By Beth Malik

Around 8:30 every night, more than 20 unaccompanied youths congregate outside The Crib. Each hopes to win the lottery–the shelter lottery, one that will let them sleep on a mat on a basement floor for the night. Operated by The Night Ministry, The Crib is a city-supported emergency shelter in the Lakeview neighborhood for homeless youth, ages 18 through 24.

The youth shelter only operates at night. Youth must be out by 9 a.m. the next morning. Most homeless youth have no choice but to carry their belongings with them wherever they go. Once they leave in the morning, they are not guaranteed a bed the following night.

By Michael Lansu

T.J. Kiser has always had a roof over his head, but his name hasn’t always been on the mailbox.

More than 130,000 Chicagoans live with family or friends because of economic hardship, according to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. The federal government, however, does not classify these people as homeless.

Kiser, 28, was in that gray area when he chose to stay with friends after his roommates suddenly moved out and then he lost his job in 2012.

The former Chipotle employee did not want to move back home with his parents because of his and their different lifestyles, so he asked friends if he could sleep on their couches.

“I left my apartment with my bag and my guitar, and I just couch-surfed off everybody’s good will,” Kiser said.

With no job and nowhere to live, Kiser stayed with friends for weeks until he could get back on his feet.

“I tried to only stay at some places for two or three nights,” Kiser said. “One place was six nights, but another place was only one night. Eventually, a friend let me stay at their place.”

Kiser said he didn’t have money to give his hosts for bills or rent.

“I was trying not to spend money. … I gave people art, I drew them pictures [as payment],” he said.

Kiser’s situation is not uncommon.

Defining “homelessness”

Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, which uses four sources including Chicago Public Schools data to count families without a permanent residence, estimated there were 125,848 homeless Chicagoans during the 2014-15 school year.

The federal government does not consider most of these people homeless.

In 2014, a “point-in-time count” during a single night in January of Chicago’s homeless population found 5,329 people in homeless shelters and another 965 unsheltered residents, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

While people living on the street may be the most visible type of homeless group, they make up only a small percentage of the city’s homeless population, said Eithne McMenamin, associate director of policy at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

“We know where there are concentrations of folks on the street: Lower Wacker, Wilson and Lawrence [avenues], and the Belmont and Kedzie underpass,” McMenamin said. “We know where street homelessness is visible, but that doesn’t mean that there are fewer homeless [people].”

McMenamin said the HUD point-in-time estimates do not count people without permanent homes, many of whom are entire families “doubled-up” with friends or relatives.

The HUD census numbers indicate street homelessness is down, but McMenamin said homelessness is on the rise, according to the CCH numbers.

‘Street people … shelter folks’ and those lacking fixed addresses

“There are two different definitions of homelessness. It’s not just street people or shelter folks. We consider it anyone lacking a fixed address,” McMenamin said. “… If it’s you and your sister and your two kids and her two kids in a one-bedroom apartment, then there is no stability there. Often what we see is folks double up and end up on the street or in shelters. Welcomes get worn out, tensions arise and people can only house one another for so long.”

According to the CCH, families made up half of Chicago’s homeless population, including more than 48,000 homeless children with parents and another 12,000 people younger than 21 without parents or guardians.

The CCH estimates there are more than 64,000 homeless adults, about 46 percent of the total homeless population.

Kiser fell into that category and said he considered himself homeless when he was couch-surfing.

“I told people that I was homeless because I didn’t have a house of my own,” Kiser said. “That is how I felt. I didn’t sleep on the street, but it felt like I was homeless.”

McMenamin said that nationally a lot of resources have been dedicated to veterans and the chronically homeless, but “we are seeing increases in family homelessness. … There are fewer resources for families who may need bigger units.”

In Chicago, the number of families without homes has been on the rise since the recession because of the foreclosure crisis, McMenamin said.

“More renters were impacted than homeowners,” she said. “Many multi-unit buildings ended up getting foreclosed on, and folks would lose their housing. The rental market was getting squeezed because people were losing the homes they owned, prices rose on rental housing.”

Meet one of the men behind the cardboard signs

Ulysses White shows the signs of the times—six of them, in fact.

The 54-year-old homeless man sits on a milk crate at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive. He holds a cardboard sign that tells his story and props up several others that thank passersby for their generosity.

White said his troubles started when he lost his job nearly three years ago. The former nurses aide moved in with his mother but was forced onto the streets when she passed away.

White is now one of more than 5,000 homeless people in Chicago who live on the street or in a shelter.

Like many homeless people, White said he could not find a job and now has to beg for money. His cardboard signs, featuring hand-lettered messages in various colors, help him generate some income until he can find employment.

“They do background checks, and that messed me up,” White said. “I got in some trouble downstate, and that messed me up.”

White said he does not have enough money for a permanent residence and prefers sleeping on the street or the Blue Line to the city’s homeless shelters.

Eithne McMenamin, associate director of policy at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, said many homeless people prefer staying on the street to shelters, which she noted were never designed to be permanent residences.

“It really does vary from person to person. At some point, in all likelihood, someone on the street has spent time in a shelter,” McMenamin said. “People often don’t feel safe at shelters. When they gather on the street, they are often with an encampment and feel safer because they aren’t sleeping by themselves. It’s possible they had a bad experience at a shelter. Maybe they have been robbed. They form communities so they can look out for each other. If someone has to leave to go run an errand or go to the doctor, someone can watch their things.”

‘Homeless’ does not always mean ‘unemployed’

Just because a homeless person is asking for spare change at a busy intersection or outside a Loop train station doesn’t mean they are unemployed.

Many homeless people in Chicago have jobs—often part-time or seasonal work—but still don’t make enough money for a permanent home, said Eithne McMenamin, associate director of policy at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

“Many homeless people do work,” McMenamin said. “Maybe they are selling Sun-Times, sweeping up or doing odd jobs somewhere. It may be that they have some benefits, including disability or Social Security. It’s not that they don’t have any
income at all, just not enough to support an actual residence.”

And not everyone asking for money on the street is homeless.

Near Michigan Avenue and Illinois Street, a man sits with a large cardboard sign asking for money. The South Sider, who asked not to be identified, explained that he is not homeless but is a seasonal worker who doesn’t have enough consistent income to support his 10 children. He said his sign helps him make $40 to $50 per day.

The man said he sees a lot of people asking for money on the weekend to earn extra income.

Homelessness by the numbers

52.3 percent: The number of renters in Chicago who are “extremely low income,” making less than $22,000 per year.

$17,160: The annual salary for someone working a full-time minimum wage job in Chicago.

44 percent: The percentage of a full-time minimum wage worker’s paycheck that goes toward housing at the median fair market price in Illinois.

629,454: The number of people living in poverty in Chicago with 298,403 of those living in “extreme poverty.”

(Source: Chicago Coalition for the Homeless)