Chicago’s homeless, service providers ready for season
The last time we talked with StreetWise vendor
Now, Illinois is reporting its
“The people who don’t have anything, it’s even rougher on them,” he said about trying to stay afloat and housed in the pandemic. “Thirty-five dollars a day before the pandemic, that was no problem because I was doing about $60 to $120 a day. I just hope for the best, be prepared for the worst and do my best every day to make that day better than the day before.”
StreetWise has helped him keep a roof over his head, and when he doesn’t have anything to eat, he can go to the nonprofit’s State Street office and pick up food.
According to a report by the
“50,000 people, at the best of times, are just one calamity away from potentially becoming homeless because they’re living paycheck to paycheck,” he said. “There’s been a lot of extra instability for those kinds of reasons. But on the economic side, some of that impact right now has been a little bit hidden because of the eviction moratoriums. We expect a tsunami, a deluge of newly homeless people in January when the eviction moratoriums end.”
Shelters and community organizations that tend to homeless populations are preparing for this first full pandemic winter season in a variety of ways. Maura McCauley, Chicago Commissioner for Homeless Services, said her office is doubling down on its COVID-19 prevention and mitigation strategies. In spring, McCauley said the 50 shelters that the Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) funds across the city followed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and spaced beds 6 feet apart.
That will continue, alongside a DFSS
Each shelter will have a medical team/partner to help clients with primary and behavioral health care, and substance use needs with a focus on COVID-19 transmission control. According to McCauley, DFSS is also working with the
“They are partnering specifically with our shelters and with our street outreach team to identify individuals, families and young people who meet those criteria,” she said. “We’re very excited about having that housing strategy attached to what we’re doing, especially as we head into winter.”
The
“It was like flipping a switch,” Harris said. “People are just trying to get the support where they can. We’re trying to figure out the best way to support folks through either a challenge that they’ve been experiencing for 10 to 20 years, or for the first time in their lives.”
The
“We’ve seen lengths of stay in our shelters increase,” she said. “We need to find ways to keep facilitating moves into permanent housing as quickly as possible so that we make room for those who are going to be inevitably coming in.”
South Suburban PADS closed its church-based shelters in March and moved guests to local hotels for better self-isolation. According to Kenshol, hotel-based shelter as winter months approach is necessary to provide safety during the pandemic, but it is not sustainable.
“If there was ever a time when people’s awareness has been raised dramatically to the plight of homeless, it’s now,” he said. “There’s an opportunity to begin working on a longer term plan for permanent emergency shelters that would allow people to have a safe, secure platform that they could use to get back up on their feet.”
McCauley agrees. With a DFSS January assessment of Chicago’s sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness showing a
“What we have right now is this really unique opportunity with coronavirus relief funding to really bolster and sustain our shelter system,” she said.