News

To the Editor:

Columnist Greg Hinz claims no one is feeling the pain of the state budget impasse (“Why Springfield’s budget crisis is more talk than real,” July 8), but the uncertainty of the budget outcome already is forcing organizations to make tough decisions.

My organization serves homeless youth on Chicago’s South Side, providing a basic safety net of shelter, meals and connections to health care, employment and education. I am faced with the decision of whether to sign a new lease to keep our shelter open without knowing if funding will be there. While my organization received a contract from the state, it is unclear when payments will be received or whether the terms of the contract may change.

This budget uncertainty asks organizations to provide services and pay staff without being able to rely on when or if the human services provider will be paid for those services. Gov. Bruce Rauner has stated that he is applying needed business principles to state governance, yet his agencies are asking service providers to accept risky business decisions.

We recently held a meeting with our youth clients where we talked to them about the state budget crisis. I was impressed by how aware they are of the budget situation and the uncertainty of funding for services they depend on for survival. The young people whom we serve are accustomed to uncertainty, having experienced family dysfunction, fear of violence and not knowing where they will sleep at night. My organization’s purpose is to counter this uncertainty by providing a stable environment from which youth can reach goals that allow them to enter a self-sufficient adulthood.

It is hard for these young and vulnerable people to understand why even the little that they have to depend upon is threatened by this budget crisis. At the meeting they asked me, “Why us?” That’s another tough question to answer.

–Flora Koppel, Executive Director, Unity Parenting and Counseling & Chair of the CCH Youth Committee

By Stephanie Lulay

WEST LOOP — After fielding complaints about new rental developments in the West Loop for months, one alderman has a new word to describe neighbors’ opposition to renters: “discrimination.”

At a Tuesday night meeting to consider a proposed 80-unit apartment building near the Morgan ‘L’ station, Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th) said that renters have just as much of a right to live in the West Loop as condo owners and homeowners do.

“Quite frankly, the [opposition to rentals] in this neighborhood is a bunch of bunk,” Burnett said. “Most people in this neighborhood have been renting out their condos for a long time.”

From now on, the alderman said all developers who want to build in the West Loop neighborhood located in the 27th Ward will be required to dedicate 10 percent of units built on site for affordable housing.

“If this project is approved, they are going to have to do some affordable housing in the building. I’m not going to let any [other developer] buy out of affordable housing in this neighborhood because I am feeling so much discrimination, tension in this neighborhood,” Burnett said. “It’s going to have to be a mixed neighborhood. Don’t no one group own no neighborhood in the City of Chicago. This is America.”

Under the city’s current Affordable Requirements Ordinance rules, developers are required to put affordable apartments in all new developments of 10 or more units that seek zoning changes from the city or use city land or subsidies. But developers can skirt those rules by opting to make an “in lieu” payment.

In the West Loop, developers almost always make the “in lieu” payment, Burnett said.

Burnett’s new affordable housing rules come after another recent meeting where many longtime West Loop residents said they opposed a proposed development at 111 S. Peoria because it would bring more renters to the area. Burnett said the reaction made him think that the West Loop was starting to become “a bigot neighborhood.”

“When I left that meeting, I felt that [some residents] were very discriminatory against [renters]. I felt bad that there was people sitting in that room that rent. You don’t actually recognize that you are talking about people in the meetings. I thought it was wrong, I thought it was bad, and I tell you… it turned me off,” Burnett said.

On Tuesday night, resident Mike Samson, who has lived in the neighborhood for 10 years, said that his neighbors are very concerned about the “stampede” of rental buildings being developed in the neighborhood.

“Rental buildings tend to attract people who come and go quite quickly. The turnover is rapid. They don’t help to stabilize the neighborhood,” Samson said. “They don’t contribute in the long term to the neighborhood. Owners contribute in the long term to the neighborhood.”

The alderman said that all sorts of people choose to rent apartments, and that he doesn’t make decisions “based on how some people feel about other people.”

“Just because people are renting, don’t mean that they’re slouches. It don’t mean that they can’t contribute to the community. They’re no different than anybody else,” Burnett said. “Some people don’t want to rent, some people don’t want to buy. Some people don’t want to get married, do a lot of things. You know, everybody’s not the same.”

A 15-year resident who lives near Mary Bartelme Park said that neighbors aren’t discriminating against renters. They just want to protect what they’ve built, she said.

“I think we want to create our home and keep it that way, and I really resent everyone calling us bigots because we want owners [in the neighborhood],” the woman said.

West Loop developers seeking to build rental units have previously said that it difficult to finance a large condo building project.

Architect Patrick FitzGerald plans to develop a 10-story building at 922 W. Lake St. just west of the existing Lake Street Lofts rental building in the West Loop.

Fitzgerald said that Lake Street Lofts does not experience high turnover. Nearly 70 percent of tenants living in the building have resided there for four years or more, according to Property Manager Marc Koronkiewicz.

“Rental housing is a lifestyle choice that a lot of people make, and there ought to be an option available for them, too, particularly with all of the new businesses coming to the area,” FitzGerald said.

Groups split on Lake Street development

If approved, FitzGerald’s Lake Street project would have 80 units, about 66 parking spaces and 2,415 square feet of commercial space at the site, according to Richard Whitney, principal at FitzGerald Associates.The loft apartments would be a mix of studio, one- and two-bedroom units.

The proposed site, currently zoned C1-1 and C1-2, now houses a parking lot. The property’s owner seeks to change the zoning to C1-5.

The landlord currently holds 89 parking spaces for each of the 89 units in the existing Lake Street Lofts building. If the second building is approved and built on the parking lot, the two buildings containing 169 units would share about 66 parking units, Whitney said.

After the Morgan ‘L’ station opened, Lake Street Lofts tenants required less and less parking, FitzGerald said. Today, less than 50 percent of the existing parking spots are leased to tenants, he said.

Two of five West Loop groups have made a recommendation to Burnett concerning the project.

Ben Spies, director of economic development at the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago, said the group opposes the Lake Street plan because it does not comply with the Fulton Market Innovation Plan.

The Fulton Market Innovation Plan calls for new residential buildings to only be developed south of Lake Street.

“Our concern is that everybody in the Fulton Market area will ask for their pass,” Spies said.

The West Central Association will likely support the project, said association president Armando Chacon.

“By Department of Planning’s own words, the Land Use Plan is a guide,” Chacon said. “The city does want to bring life to Lake Street, and we agree with that.”

FitzGerald said that the Lake Street block has been residential since the property was first developed in 2000.

“This little piece of Lake Street has been residential for quite some time,” FitzGerald said. “We’re not looking to introduce a new use here. We’re simply looking to expand a use that we already have on land that we already own.”

The West Loop Community Organization and Neighbors of the West Loop plan to make formal recommendations to the alderman next week, leaders said. The Randolph Fulton Market Association has not weighed in on the project, Burnett said.

During an informal poll, a majority of the 50 people in attendance Tuesday night supported the plan.

The 922 W. Lake St. property is owned by Lake Street Lofts LLC, an LLC managed by FitzGerald, according to state records. FitzGerald and his family own the parking lot, according to city zoning documents.

Lake Street Lofts, a historic six-story building built in 1886, was converted into 89 apartments about 15 years ago.

FitzGerald Associates Architects leases office space in the Lake Street Lofts building.

By Jasper Craven

Among the tall towers and tourists crowding Chicago’s Magnificent Mile is an often overlooked population: homeless people with signs asking for change.

While many of the cardboard signs seem hastily scribbled, over the past months many of them have been revamped and replaced, a project from a Chicago art student who hoped that beautiful lettering would stand out amid the hustle and bustle of Michigan Avenue.

“My hope was that the Chicago project would create some awareness around the homeless,” said Ian Todd, the man behind the hand-lettered signs. “And also that people would be more inclined to talk when they walk by, and more willing to give.”

When Ian Todd moved to Chicago from a small town, the first thing that struck him was the amount of homeless people on the city’s streets. In an effort to help, he began redesigning their signs as an art project. June 30, 2015. (WGN TV)

Todd, 23, said Wednesday that he was struck by the vast number of Chicago’s homeless when he moved to the city from California to study at the Chicago Portfolio School, which focuses on advertising and design.

“It was a bit shocking seeing all the homelessness,” he said. “I was taking a class on expressive type, and after seeing someone hold a cardboard sign I thought a well-designed one could grab people’s attention.”

Todd first approached homeless people in April, asking whether they wanted new signs. Some refused, but others acquiesced and Todd got to work. He finished about 20 signs in two months and said that the complexity of the lettering meant one sign took anywhere from five to 10 hours to complete. He started a blog called “The Urban Type Experiment” documenting his experience making the signs, which quickly went viral.

The signs, all of which are photographed on his blog, tell varying stories of turmoil, from a single father struggling to support three children to a woman offering work so that she can afford a bus ticket home. Todd kept in touch with many of the sign recipients and said while some had success, not all of the signs brought an uptick in charity.

Mike Droney, 54, was holding one of Todd’s signs on Michigan Avenue on a recent sunny afternoon. The aging piece of cardboard read: “I lost my leg for my country. Please help, you will be blessed.”

Droney, who has been homeless for six years, said he lost his leg fighting in Somalia. He sits in front of a Starbucks coffee shop most days asking for money, and said the only real assistance he gets is medical care from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Droney said he often gets accolades about the sign, but it is hard to quantify whether the lettering is really doing much.

“People compliment me on it, you know, so it might help, in a way,” he said. “I can’t really say.”

Ulysses White, 54, also has one of Todd’s signs and said it has resulted in more charity. White said he served two tours in Iraq, and his sign makes mention of his service before saying: “Anything is appreciated. Thank you for your generosity.”

White got his customized piece of cardboard after being introduced to Todd by one of his homeless friends who already had a sign.

“The new sign has helped, most definitely, a whole lot,” White said. “He made signs for a whole bunch of people along Michigan Avenue.”

Todd’s project is not the first of its kind; in 2011 the Tribune profiled Christopher Devine, who was printing and laminating signs for the homeless. Devine’s signs were much simpler than Todd’s, printed on white paper in bold Helvetica font with text declaring “Homeless” or “Please Help.”

Devine, 32, said Thursday that he printed nearly 700 signs over the past four years of the project and just stopped distributing signs a few months ago. He said he has seen Todd’s artwork on the street and was happy to see another project aimed at increasing the visibility of the homeless population.

“They are far more elaborate and intricate than the plain Helvetica signs, they are eye-catching,” he said. “The important part of both projects is that the signs are different aesthetically than your typical homeless sign.”

While Devine’s project got mixed reactions, including some who said the signs denigrated the homeless, Devine said the project was successful in his eyes. He said a flood of donations came in following the story to help cover his laminating costs.

“There were a number of people who were against the concept of the project,” he said. “The point is, yesterday they weren’t talking about homelessness, and today they are.”

Ed Shurna, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, said that while the revamped signs may help some in the homeless community, Chicago’s homeless problem requires systematic action. He said the homeless population is the largest in recent memory, adding that 6,000 people fill the city’s shelters each night.

“It’s getting worse, is all I can say,” Shurna said. “You see more people on Lower Wacker, more people on the lakefront, it’s escalating.”

Shurna said that Gov. Bruce Rauner’s budget priorities would reduce care services for poor people and exacerbate the problem of homelessness throughout Illinois.

“If the cuts being proposed at the state level continue, you are going to see shelters closing,” Shurna said. “There is going to be a big increase in homelessness, and even now the shelters aren’t sufficient.”

Todd, who just graduated from the Chicago design school in May, moved to Los Angeles a few weeks ago to begin an advertising internship. He said he notified his homeless friends before he left that he would no longer be able to make signs for them. While he said his new job keeps him busier than when he was in school, he didn’t rule out making signs for California’s homeless.

“Homelessness is definitely here,” Todd said. “I wouldn’t mind getting something started.”

Aja Lowrey knows what it means to struggle.

The 18-year-old Chicagoan has endured homelessness twice during critical junctures of her young life.

After receiving most of her schooling at Leslie Lewis Elementary School in the North Austin neighborhood, an institution on probation most of her educational career, she became homeless after a dispute between her mother and their landlord. Lowrey, who was applying to prestigious Walter Payton College Prep at the time, stayed with relatives and friends for roughly a year while her mother worked multiple jobs and sought shelter wherever she could.

Lowrey tested among the top applicants and celebrated with relatives when admitted to a class of about 250 people. But shortly after obtaining stable housing, Lowrey and her mother slipped back into homelessness in her junior year while she was juggling ACT prep, college applications and routine schoolwork.

“This last time, I was breaking down crying because I had nowhere to go,” Lowrey said. “I ended up staying with an uncle … and the next day we worked out an agreement with (my mom’s) friends, but my mom still had nowhere to go. She was working in the hospital and staying in Walgreens all night and things like that. I was literally crying every night, trying to get through.”

There were no tears last week after Lowrey — who commuted three hours to Indianapolis to work two overnight shifts every other weekend at a Steak ‘n Shake during her senior year — was one of five high school graduates to accept a $2,500 a year scholarship for current and former homeless students from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

“It honestly meant a lot with them giving me the CCH scholarship because I was planning on taking out loans, but this will mean I will be without debt,” Lowrey said. She is pairing the coalition scholarship with a $30,000 scholarship from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she will enroll this fall.

Lowrey’s mother, Sherita Scott, is a medical assistant, and her late grandmother was a Cook County nurse for 30 years. The scholarships will help launch Lowrey on a path to becoming a physical therapist — a fitting end for the girl who used to play with her grandmother’s stethoscope, Scott said.

“I’m very proud of her,” said Scott, who still wore her work scrubs at a recent ceremony for scholarship recipients at Loyola Law School in River North. “It really touched me because we had a lot of obstacles with the homeless stuff, me not having a job, getting a job, going through an agency only to get laid off. But when it was time for graduation, it was like we made it, through all the trials and tribulations.”

The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless’ Law Project, a legal aid program focused on the homeless, started the scholarships in 2004 after an analysis of their services revealed more than 94 percent of their clients were homeless students or youths. Since then, $240,000 from private donors has helped finance up to five years of college for 50 students, 10 of whom have obtained their bachelor degrees and 13 others who are rising sophomores, juniors and seniors.

Though the graduation rate remains around one-third, coalition officials are encouraged by the numbers. The coalition cited a 2015 report from University of Pennsylvania and Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education that found only 9 percent of students in the lowest income bracket obtained degrees by age 24.

Daihana Estrada, a 2010 scholarship recipient, beat those odds. Estrada became homeless at 17 after her parents were deported to Mexico after working 20 years in the U.S. and applying for legal residency in Utah. A judge gave her parents two months to sell their home and sent Estrada and her younger brother, who were born in the U.S., to live with their older brother in Chicago.

Estrada finished her senior year at John Hancock College Prep High School with a 3.9 GPA and went on to study political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago with help from a homeless coalition scholarship. But she encountered more hardships when her older brother kicked her and her brother out during her sophomore year of college.

Estrada addressed the scholarship recipients at the ceremony, telling them the road ahead may be tough, but the outcome is worth the wait. “I worked full time at Best Buy, full time at school, went to class at like 8 in the morning till 4, then go straight to work until 10 at night, and still, you know, do homework and stay up till 4 in the morning. Red Bulls were like my best friends at that time.

“But I want to let you know that it is possible. Each person goes through a different obstacle, but it’s up to that person to look at it in a positive or in a negative way.”

Estrada’s parents watched their daughter walk across the stage via Skype in May. Estrada, who works as a paralegal and plans to attend law school within a year, hopes to become an immigration attorney.

“I want other families to stay together and not go through what I went through,” she said. “Because it is hard, but at the end of the day, you have to move forward.”

As Estrada leaves UIC, T’Prinn Ingram of Aurora, the first suburban homeless coalition scholarship winner, is preparing to begin her studies at the university. She hopes to become an emergency room physician.

A graduate of West Aurora High School, Ingram lived in a shelter with her mother, father and two older brothers for six years, from first through sixth grade.

“I was confused,” Ingram said. “In my mind, it was something very temporary. I didn’t know I would be homeless that long. I thought it was an adventure, but it became a new way of life.”

“Me, my two brothers and mother stayed in the women’s and children section, and my father lived separately with the men,” Ingram said. “At 6 a.m. we would pack up our mattresses. We had lockers for stuff, but we had to figure out everything you wanted to carry around for the day. We had a half hour to eat … and then you had to find something to do all day.”

For Ingram and her family, they frequented Aurora Public Library, where she learned to love reading after she was surrounded by books almost daily. Ingram later served six years on the library’s Teen Advisory Board and four years on its Citizen Advisory Panel.

“The library holds a very dear place in my heart,” she said. “I would spend so much time there, everyone there knows me. It was another part of me being given so much and wanting to give back in return.”

Upward Bound, a college-oriented program aimed at low-income youths, was another significant influence on Ingram. As an eighth-grader, Ingram knew little about college other than it was a place she had been told that she needed to go. In the first year of Upward Bound, she visited a number of East Coast universities, including St. John’s University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Georgetown University.

“It was a little overwhelming,” Ingram said. “I was like ‘Holy cow! I can live here and study?'”

Now, with both older brothers attending college, one at Northern Illinois University and the other at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, it appears Ingram has found a home, too, at least for the next four years.

By Mark Brown

Even as they brace for state budget cuts that could hit this week, social service and community organizations met Monday to jump start grassroots support for longer-range revenue solutions.

Organizers conceded that their “progressive revenue platform” calling for higher income taxes on the wealthy and corporations has little chance for resolving the current budget crisis in Springfield.

But they said Wednesday’s looming state shutdown has created an opportunity to build support for a smarter, more equitable tax system in Illinois that could avoid such crises in the future.

“Reform is needed, but it’s not the reform the governor is talking about,” said John Bouman, president of the Sargent Shriver Center on National Poverty Law.

On that much, at least, I found myself in agreement with this left-leaning bunch, which is backed by labor unions and was joined by a smattering of public officials.

At the heart of the matter is whether Illinois government generates enough tax revenue to support the services that the public expects it to provide.

Conservatives say it does, and that the problem is a matter of overspending, not a shortage of revenue.

If that’s the case, and I’m as inclined as most to believe there is fat in the government, then why has Rauner targeted so many of his cuts at individuals who are clearly in need of the services he proposes to withhold?

Those pushing Monday for a “People’s Budget Plan” are hoping the public will soon awake to the problems inherent with Rauner holding the needy hostage so that he can prevail on his anti-union, pro-business agenda.

“You’re playing a dangerous game here,” Bouman warned leaders in Springfield. “There are lives at stake here.”

A similar message was directed at Mayor Rahm Emanuel with financial problems at the city and Chicago Public Schools also coming home to roost.

“You’re not going to able to cut your way out of this challenge,” warned Brandon Johnson, an organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union.

Rauner and Emanuel would probably say you can’t tax your way out of it either.

Ed Shurna, director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, said the answer is for Illinois to “make the rich pay their fair share.”

That could either take the form of a millionaire’s tax, which I am on record as opposing, or a graduated income tax similar to the federal government, which makes a lot more sense.

Illinois has a flat tax on income, currently 3.75 percent on individuals, down from 5 percent last year.

Switching to a graduated income tax with higher rates for individuals with more income would require a state constitutional amendment, which is why that can’t be used as a solution to the state’s immediate problems.

How about another temporary income tax increase that would sunset in time for Rauner to still be able to control the tax overhaul on which he campaigned but has since forgotten?

Rauner has even voiced support for one of the items proposed Monday: a tax on “luxury” services, although the governor and the liberals would undoubtedly have different ideas of what should be taxed.

In his own brief trip to the podium Monday, Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who lost to Emanuel in the mayor’s race, said the state Legislature should also empower local governments to enact their own local income tax.

That wasn’t part of the group’s official revenue platform. Instead, it opted for a commuter tax on suburbanites who work in the city.

I’m sure all this seems completely tone deaf to those who voted Rauner into office just last November and support his agenda.

Perhaps, but at some point soon if these budget cuts are allowed to go forward as planned, the worm is going to turn and somebody else is going to be on the offensive.

One of 10 graduate profiles of the Class of 2015, published by the Marguerite Casey Foundation’s Equal Voice News 

 

Graduate’s name: T’Prinn Ingram

Home city: Aurora, Illinois

Name of school or program: West Aurora High School

Degree or certificate earned: High school graduate

Why you’re honoring this graduate:

“T’Prinn is one of five winners of a 2015 college scholarship from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH). During her senior year at Aurora West High School, she also joined CCH leaders on two trips to the state Capitol to advocate on budget issues affecting programs for youth and homeless families.

“‘It seems like legislators can be out of touch, but when you go down there, you talk to them face-to-face. A lot of times people think why vote, but when you go to Springfield, you realize wow, I can make a difference,’ T’Prinn said.

“T’Prinn became involved in advocacy through Hesed House in Aurora, a shelter and transitional housing program that has helped her family. Hesed House is among more than 30 groups from nine suburbs and downstate cities that are mobilized by CCH’s statewide organizing network.

“Statewide organizer Jim Picchetti told T’Prinn to consider applying for the $2,000 renewable scholarship. She was an obvious candidate – graduating in the top 12 percent of her class. T’Prinn has been active in school and the Aurora community.

“That includes serving six years on the Teen Advisory Board of the Aurora Public Library and four years on the Citizen Advisory Group that helped design Aurora’s new public library building.

“She also participated four years in Upward Bound at Northern Illinois University and several years each in her school’s Book Club, Multicultural Club and Best Buddies.

“T’Prinn is excited to be heading off to college, with plans to live on campus while pursuing pre-medicine studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

“As T’Prinn wrote in her winning scholarship application, ‘There are many people who are homeless that have great things to offer the world. They simply need the chance.’”

Honored by: Anne Bowhay of Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, which works to end homelessness. On June 25, CCH will honor all of the scholarship winners.

 

 

By Luke O’Neil

The weeks leading up to a concert being held tonight at Chicago’s Montrose Beach have not gone as smoothly as organizers might have hoped, and not just because it’s suddenly dawned on them they’re going to have to sit through a Mumford & Sons show. The performance by the British troubadours, which was originally scheduled for Wednesday, but postponed due to inclement weather, is expected to draw 35,000 people to the waterfront location, a venue that has been a sticking point in the past, most recently when the Wavefront Music Festival was canceled last year after complaints about traffic and noise pollution. In order to allay neighbors’ concerns, the promoters and the city have assured residents that they have nothing to worry about, planning for extra buses and trains to the show, and parking for 5,000 bicycles. “The audience is not the type of audience you have to worry about,” David Carlucci of JAM Productions told The Chicago Tribune.

The area’s homeless population, on the other hand, has been given no such a blessing. On Tuesday morning, as DNAinfo first reported, they were abruptly removed from a pair of viaducts that commonly serve as shelter from the type of heavy rains that hit the area earlier this week in order to clear paths that will serve as access points for the concert. The aptly named “street-cleanings,” as they’re called, are something the city’s homeless population is familiar with, but, as local advocates say, this time it was carried out capriciously, and without much in the way of warning, assistance, or instructions for where exactly they were meant to relocate to.

Norman Kaeseberg, who lives nearby, and works with the community outreach group One Northside, called the process “pretty sickening.”

“Up until a few days ago, 13 tents were there,” he notes. “They were there all winter long and they just got thrown out.” One of the chief indignities of such cleanings comes not in the relocating of the people themselves, but the manner in which their possessions are essentially confiscated, or thrown out, by city workers, meaning they can lose necessary coats, blankets, tents, or identification.

Kaeseberg spoke to a woman who was wandering around, confused as to what had happened. “She was looking for her partner, they had shoved him into a Catholic charities van, and they threw his tent and all his stuff into a garbage truck.”

He points to what he calls a campaign waged against the homeless by the area alderman James Cappleman as the motivation for the clean up, a politician who the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless has said “systematically reduces low-income housing in favor of a gentrification strategy” and “regularly vilifies” the homeless.

“So you’ve got this Mumford & Sons concert, and they went in and they used that as an excuse to go and kick these people out,” Kaeseberg says. “It wasn’t necessary at all. They’re talking about massive crowds and the fact that they’d have to get these people out of the way, but there’s a sidewalk on either side of this two-lane street. They could’ve stayed there.”

The area is semi-dangerous, he says, with a shooting taking place just the other night, “but the folks under the bridges, they’re not in gangs, they’re just homeless people. And they survived the entire winter, 20 below zero, now they finally get a break, we have nice weather and they’re gone.”

Patricia Nix-Hodes of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless was in attendance on Tuesday morning during the removal. Her group settled a case with the city of Chicago earlier this year that amended the manner in which the city is meant to carry out such street-cleanings, stipulating that it provide ample notice, and requires the Department of Family and Support Services to be the primary point of contact for the homeless population as opposed to law enforcement, as it had been in the past.

What took place this week was different than standard procedure. At the time of the removal, a full day before the concert was originally scheduled to take place, there was no other concert preparation going on, erecting barricades, raising structures, and so on.

“With every other cleaning, the individuals who are homeless were not forced to leave, but because of the concert, the city was requiring that homeless people vacate the area,” Nix-Hodes says. “That raised a lot of concerns, particularly, was it even necessary to disperse them for the concert? If there really was a need to do so, our position was, the city should’ve provided a plan, communicated the plan, and provided an alternative for people, like short term housing situations, and help moving them and their belongings.”

“It’s very common for people to want to have people experiencing homelessness removed from areas where there’s going to be some kind of public event or concert and they don’t necessarily think about connecting people with resources to end the situations they’re in,” Lydia Stazen-Michael of homelessness outreach group All Chicago says. “It’s really about removing something that they perceive as nuance.”

On any given night there are 6,500 people living on the streets of Chicago, not including those in shelters, Stazen-Michael estimates.

“What has been happening in that particular area is a lot of people experiencing homelessness have been going under that aqueduct and throwing up tents, and creating a more stable settlement for themselves there. We’ve been seeing more of that for the past couple months. The people in that neighborhood are uncomfortable with that and feel like their neighborhood or quality of life is threatened by the presence of people experiencing homelessness.”

Matt Smith, spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services provided a statement to Noisey that pointed to the city’s “compassionate and consistent approach to ensure public safety and balance residents’ concerns while respecting the legal rights of the homeless and following legal agreements that govern how the city can interact with this vulnerable population.”:

“DFSS serves the city’s homeless population on a daily basis, providing shelter and services as needed. In certain areas, including the Wilson Avenue viaduct, the city performs monthly cleanings of the public way in addition to conducting homeless outreach through DFSS and our social service allies weekly and often on a more frequent basis. These routine cleanings include an advance notification period so that our homeless residents have ample time to prepare and remove their possessions from the area being cleaned.

Additionally, the city engages in periodic cleaning efforts in advance of large-scale events in which tens of thousands of pedestrians and cyclists are expected to be traveling through the area. These efforts are done in order to ensure that the public way is kept safe and accessible. This week, it just so happened that the monthly cleanup of the Wilson viaduct coincided with a necessary cleaning and securing of the public way in advance of a large event, the Mumford & Sons concert.”

Nix-Hodes disagrees with that sentiment, saying uncertainty and confusion have been rampant. “I think people were very upset, and I would describe them as being in a panic,” she says. “Part of the reason was that there was no clear communication to the people of what the process or procedure would be.”

A sign that had been posted announced a street cleaning at 10 AM on Tuesday, but with no additional information provided as to when they could return, or alternative locations they could go, or places to store their belongings, or about where the could later retrieve the ones that were taken away. Despite the cleaning being scheduled for 10, she says, by 9 AM that morning, the Chicago Park District was already on site removing people’s property.

“I would describe it as a situation of chaos,” Nix-Hodes says. “There had been different people coming through telling people when they had to leave. Some were told they could stay on an adjacent lot. Some went to a nearby lawn, after they were cleared out, and the police told them they had to disperse.” She and her colleagues were not instructed to leave themselves.

“The most common solution is to just remove people from the neighborhood,” Stazen-Michael says. “But the people experiencing homelessness have to go somewhere. It doesn’t solve a problem, it just moves it.”

 

By Melissa Muto

Advocates say a delayed outdoor rock concert in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood has created uncertainty about if and when a homeless encampment can return to the area.

For months now, a line of nearly 20 tents in orange and blue have lined both sides of Wilson Avenue under the Lake Shore Drive bridge. That’s where about 40 homeless people have been living and had formed a makeshift community. There was a similar encampment under the Lawrence Avenue viaduct. Each person or family had an unofficial space, surrounding their tents with belongings including wheeled carts, camping chairs and even a full-sized grill that some of the men took turns cooking on.

But all of that changed earlier this week in advance of a Mumford and Sons concert that is expected to draw thousands to nearby Montrose Beach. Originally scheduled for Wednesday, the concert was postponed until Friday.

Read the original WBEZ post, with photos.

On Tuesday, city workers ordered the homeless people to leave so they could clean the area. The workers also threw away many of the people’s belongings, including blankets and clothing, in what advocates call a violation of city policy.

“You know, it’s like we’re not people, like our stuff doesn’t matter,” said a homeless woman named Susan, who declined to give her last name. “We’ve got nowhere to go. We’re just trying to live.”

Susan said she was devastated about losing her blankets: “They’re even expensive at the secondhand store when they’re half-off. It gets cold out here — we were freezing in May.”

Clearing out a viaduct under a bridge isn’t unusual: The city routinely asks people who are homeless to leave for short periods of time so they can clean the area.

But advocates say it was different this time. They charge the city violated its own policy for handling the personal property of the homeless.

“There’s an agreement that before property’s thrown out, people should get notice if there’s a problem with the property and have time to do something with the property,”said Patricia Nix-Hodes, an attorney for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. “That didn’t happen.”

Workers put up a sign saying the cleanup would start at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Instead, a team of ten city workers arrived in a van around 9. They said they were following city orders to clean the area and were instructed to throw out anything in their way. Some bags, carts, and boxes were still under the viaduct.

Rene Heybach, another attorney for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, said she told the workers they were early for the cleanup and to stop what they were doing. They reportedly refused.

She said she told them they were in violation of the city agreement. But Heybach said that none of the workers she spoke to Tuesday had been properly trained in that protocol, and none of them, including the supervisor, had even heard of it.

The supervisor on the ground did order her staff to weed whack and cut the lawn first to give people more time to remove their things.

But Heybach said the city’s approach to clearing the area this week was disorganized and confusing. She said they created an emergency situation and added undue stress while not offering any help for the situation.

“Everyone is saying different things, they are not coordinating,” said Heybach, “Everyone’s been confused and remains confused.”

Susan, the homeless woman who lost her blankets in the cleaning, said workers put up signs with Tuesday’s date for the street cleaning. But she said they told her a day earlier that she had to leave, and that she’d only have to leave for a day.

“They changed their story, they are trying to get us messed up so we lose all our stuff,” Susan said. “It’s like we’re not people, like we don’t exist.”

Susan, who said she struggles with anxiety, PTSD, neuropathy and other medical conditions, was a single parent and ran a daycare before becoming homeless.

“It’s embarrassing that life can get this low,” she said. “We’re not bad people, we’re just homeless.”

Attorney Rene Heybach said the Department of Family and Support Services was supposed to help transport some of the homeless people and their items to a nearby safe location. The city agreement says the DFSS “will lead the City’s contact with homeless persons during the cleanings.” But she said DFSS didn’t arrive until after the other city crews were already there and clearing the area.

DFSS spokesman Matt Smith said the department’s team is trained in the procedure for handling homeless people’s belongings, which includes notification so there’s “ample time to prepare and remove their possessions from the area being cleaned.”

He said this cleaning was different than routine monthly ones because multiple other city services were involved. The size of the concert also made it necessary for people living under the bridge to leave the area for a longer time period.

Smith said the show is expected to draw thousands and will bring a lot of foot traffic there. He said having tents and people blocking the sidewalks would present a health and public safety issue.

“What I believe we are going to be doing is taking tents or possessions or anything that shouldn’t be here … and taking them to a shelter and inventorying them,” Smith said. “If they want to reclaim those items later, they can make arrangements with our staff to do so.”

But by the time DFSS arrived, workers from other departments had cleaned out all but a few items remaining beneath the viaduct.

DFSS encouraged people to sign up for a system that determines eligibility for supportive housing. The Salvation Army showed up to offer their services too. But Smith said even though people were offered shelter, the city can’t force them to take it.

Susan says she was abused in a local homeless shelter, and doesn’t want to go back.

People who’d been living under the bridge spent Tuesday spreading their remaining belongings on the grass and over benches at a nearby park to dry out from a rainstorm. Some did go to shelters, while others found temporary housing with family.

But several of them have spent the week sleeping in the open on blankets and mats. They said DFSS had found them temporary storage for their stuff at a nearby CVS.

Susan had planned to join them in the park, but said she was afraid to sleep out in the open like that. She found temporary shelter across town instead.

“I don’t want to just lay on the ground on top of blankets, I’m a woman, I need privacy,” Susan said. “Every other woman (who lives) down there has a man, or husband or someone to protect them. I don’t.”

But like many of the others, Susan plans to return to her spot under the bridge as soon as she can.

It’s unclear when, or if, that will happen. Thursday, a representative from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless said she had not heard back from the city on whether the homeless people could return after the concert.

Melissa Muto is a WBEZ Pritzker Journalism Fellow.

By Jacqualine Simone Williams

Illinois lawmakers were not able to reach an agreement on the state’s budget in the spring session. However, both chambers managed to approve a number of bills that could make it easier for those with criminal records to secure jobs or at least get a foot in the door.

Almost half of the state’s offenders return to prison after completing their sentence according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.  When people with criminal convictions try to reenter society, they face difficulty with basic things like finding work and housing because of their criminal history.

House Bill 3475, sponsored by Rep. Rita Mayfield, a Waukegan Democrat, would expand the types of convictions eligible for Certificates of Rehabilitation. Such documents include: Certificates of Good Conduct, which can be presented to potential employers, and Certificates of Relief from Disabilities, which can allow people with criminal histories to obtain certain business licenses. The certificates do not change or wipe out a criminal record, but they may convince employers to give an applicant a second chance. They also reduce the legal liability risk for a business that hires a worker with a criminal record.

While most misdemeanor violent convictions are eligible for this remedy, this bill would allow judges to consider higher-level drug-related and more serious crimes that did not result in bodily injury or death. “You have to jump through all types of hoops to prove that you’ve changed,” Mayfield says. “It doesn’t guarantee anybody a job, but it does give them a chance to say they’ve turned their lives around and paid their debt to society.”

Charles Austin, a community leader for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, has two Certificates of Rehabilitation. More than two decades ago, Austin served 60 days in Cook County jail and two years’ probation for possession and distribution of drugs—an offense that carries a lifetime ban on working in any school-related occupation.

Because of his record, Austin lost a job as a delivery truck driver for a Chicago Public Schools sub-contractor. “Nobody really knows the long-term impact that this [kind of] behavior has on our lives,” Austin says.

That’s why he advocated for HB 494, which would provide an opportunity for ex-offenders with criminal convictions  for nonviolent crimes, including drug convictions more than seven years old, to be considered for jobs and volunteer positions in Illinois school districts. The bill passed with bipartisan support.

“Schools are a very focal part of most communities, especially in the inner city,” says Jonathan Holmes, a policy fellow at the Coalition for the Homeless. “We realize that absolute bars are not appropriate and prevent people from being assets and involved in their community.”

School officials would still be required to perform complete criminal background checks on all applicants as well as search sex, murder and arson offender registries.

However, some legislators say they are apprehensive because the bill would extend eligibility criteria to include those convicted of prostitution, public indecency and victims of human trafficking. These convictions are classified as misdemeanor sex offenses. But, Holmes says these cases should be viewed as “a particular circumstance of being homeless.”

“We don’t see those as sex offenses as opposed to someone who has done direct harm to a child,” Holmes says. “A lot of people who are prostitutes are victims of sex trafficking. Because they’re victims, [these crimes] shouldn’t prevent them from ever working.”

Rep. Litesa Wallace, a Rockford Democrat, voted against the bill. “I’m not against any types of reform that allow people to get back on their feet, so we can reduce recidivism,” Wallace says. “I think we have to be very careful as to how we do it and what populations we start to allow individuals to work with.”

Another bill, which also cleared both chambers with bipartisan backing, would give a head start to those who prepare for employment while they are still incarcerated.

HB 3149 would allow prisoners, who complete their education while incarcerated, the right to apply to have their records sealed immediately after completing their sentence.  Currently, there is a waiting period between three to five years, depending on the severity of the offense.

Sealing legally restricts many employers from viewing an applicant’s criminal history and removes the person’s name from public records. Only law enforcement,  courts and those required to conduct background checks such as school, park and health officials, would have access to the information.

The types of offenses eligible for sealing would remain the same, including most misdemeanor and felony charges that are not sex offenses, violent crimes, gun-related charges, reckless driving or DUIs.

Todd Belcore, lead attorney in the Community Justice Unit at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, estimates that over 200,000 people across the state could potentially take advantage of sealing based on arrest and incarceration rates related to eligible offenses. “These are people that generally our society has deemed should not be serving significant time in prison and certainly should not be denied access to jobs and housing as a result,” Belcore says.

Rep. John Cabello, who sponsored the bill, says those who’ve committed violent crimes should not be eligible. “If you murdered or hurt somebody in the commission of a crime, that raises it to another level,” says Cabello, a Loves Park Republican. “I want to make sure the victims’ families are always kept in mind when we try to pass these types of laws.”

SB 844 would shorten by one year the overall waiting period before a person would be able to request sealing. If Gov. Bruce Rauner signs the measure, the average wait for all eligible offenders would be three years.

Rep. David Harris, who voted in favor of this bill, says that generally employers should have access to every applicant’s criminal history.  “I have voted for some sealing in the past, when it’s on a very limited basis,” says the Arlington Heights Republican. “But, I have a general reluctance to sealed records.”

But Harris says he did not support HB 3149 because: “The mere fact that an individual has obtained a high school diploma or a GED while incarcerated, does not give them the opportunity to have their records sealed [immediately upon release] on that basis alone.”

Belcore says without policies in place to counteract the stigma of having a criminal record, ex-offenders would not have much hope. “There is a population of people who are just opposed to the notion of limiting who can look at old records,” Belcore says. “They don’t know that 65 percent of employers (nationally) won’t hire a person with a conviction of any kind, no matter how long ago it is, no matter what it was.”

Although these bills could, in theory, help ward off bias in the employment process, more research is needed, Belcore says.

Chicago Democratic Rep. Mary Flowers introduced House Resolution 498, which calls on Rauner’s commission on criminal justice reform to study re-entry issues, including the effectiveness of sealing in breaking employment barriers. The commission was created through an executive order earlier this year and is tasked with reducing the state’s prison population by 25 percent by the next decade.

One of the co-sponsors of the resolution, Chicago Democratic Rep. Esther Golar, says the proposal would put “the real responsibility on government to allow them to begin to look at some of the issues that ex-offenders have to go through in order to reintegrate into their communities.”

Flowers says her goal is to find effective ways to empower those who have served their time, especially African American men and women. A group she says is subject to “post-incarceration, a life sentence of second-class citizenship.” The House unanimously approved the resolution.