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Public Affairs coverage from our award-winning staff |
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Homeless in Chicago: Calling a Patch of Grass 'Home'
Produced by Ashley Gross on Tuesday, September 01, 2009
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WBEZ/Andrew Gill |
The recession and foreclosure crisis have knocked a lot of people off their feet. More people appear to be slipping into homelessness. Housing Action Illinois says 87 percent of state-funded shelters saw more demand in the second half of 2008, compared with the first half. Every night, homeless people sleep scattered throughout Lincoln Park, but especially in the city’s Uptown neighborhood.
Slideshow: Sights and sounds from Sunday service at House of Prayer
Related: Champaign Says No to Homeless Tent City
Early in the morning, two worlds of Uptown converge along this stretch of Lincoln Park west of Lakeshore Drive. People stroll through walking their dogs. And then there are people like Ed Laster.
LASTER: They put $2 million for a pump to pump fresh water for them funky dogs. I love dogs, but go taste the water from that pump there that’s for the people. It tastes like gasoline.
Laster and his girlfriend Vanessa, whom he calls his wife, sleep here on the grass south of Lawrence. He says one lady gave him a hard time for getting water in the dog park.
LASTER: I come in there with a cup, she say, 'Sir, where’s your dog?' I look at her, 'Look lady, I am the dog, I need fresh water.'
Laster’s funny, swears a blue streak and is not short on opinions. He says he’d rather sleep out under the stars than in a homeless shelter.
Really, Laster just wants his own apartment. He’s working with the non-profit Heartland Alliance to find a place to live. He says he thought by now he’d have a roof over his head.
LASTER: I found a place, called my family, I’m in town, guess what, ya’ll, I’m fit to have an apartment, I’m fit to be housed on the birthday, I will not be in the park. Well, Friday, I go up here, they waited till the damn last minute to say, 'Uh, it’s not going to happen.'
Instead, Laster spent his 43rd birthday huddled under a viaduct to avoid the rain. Laster didn’t grow up in poverty. He says his dad was an insurance salesman, but Laster joined a gang, started selling drugs and left home at 16.
Now he pushes his worldly possessions in a cart stolen from Target. He wheels it down a tree-lined street past condos with for sale signs in front. The irony doesn’t escape him.
LASTER: It’s funny, because while they were trying to push the low-class person out of here, called it regentrification, go put up condos everywhere, yeah, you got more vacant condos than anything over here and now you have more, you have more homeless people.
Laster and other homeless people here say they’re surrounded by hostile condo owners who want them gone. Laster says one of the only people in the neighborhood who reaches out to the homeless is Pastor John Kim of the House of Prayer.
KIM: Really you want to repent your sins in the name of Jesus Christ.
Kim ministers to homeless people out of a borrowed church in Andersonville.
KIM: Our problem is not homelessness, our problem is not drug addiction.
Kim blames the recession for the fact that his church services are getting more crowded.
KIM: Normally, it’s last year we got a Sunday service, we got 70 or 80 people, but this year getting more people, sometimes 120 or 130 people. Increase more people.
The city of Chicago says it counts homeless people but the new numbers aren’t ready yet. It’s clear the need for shelter is as strong as ever. Here in Uptown, Rest Shelter turns away 20 to 30 men every night because it’s full. Ed Laster doesn’t want to stay there. But he seems to have a way of sabotaging himself when it comes to getting permanent housing. I catch up with him in the afternoon, after he’s met with his case manager. He’s angry and he’s been drinking. He says he’s tired of jumping through hoops.
LASTER: They say come to these groups, I do. I sign my name on their signatures, because I know signatures mean what, grant money. Why am I still homeless? Why is me and my wife still out here? In the damn park?
The answer to that may be getting only more complicated in this economy. But Laster holds onto the one thing he does have – his relationship with Vanessa. They choose to live together. And for now, that means living together on a patch of grass.
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Brendan Cummings, Uptown // Wednesday, September 02, 2009 @ 3:09 PM
These scums are a blight on our neighborhood. The police needs to be more vigilant in kicking them out of the park. The reason they stay south of Lawrence is because that's the border line for the aldermanic line. Mary Ann Smith has the neighborhood north of Lawrence. When I first moved on Marine Drive the park was littered with these homeless bums. SHe cleaned the park up with police vigilance and now they go the Helen Schiller's neighborhood who could care less about the poor and homesless and lets them do what they want. I am tired of Helen Schiller and want her out of office.
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James Cappleman, Uptown // Wednesday, September 02, 2009 @ 5:35 PM
The Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness relies on the use of best practices to address the needs of those with no place to live. It might be good to hear from this organization and learn some of the obstacles that stand in the way of making this plan work. I have several homeless shelters just a few blocks from my home in Uptown and adding more to a neighborhood already beset with a disproportionate number of people experiencing chronic homelessness isn't the answer.
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Ade, Uptown // Wednesday, September 02, 2009 @ 6:07 PM
Brendan=hostile condo owner??
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Concerned Reader, Uptown // Wednesday, September 02, 2009 @ 6:42 PM
Gotta say I'm disappointed in Chicago Public Radio and this article. It gives one homeless man's opinion and fails to look into proper facts and issues. The main problem people have with the homeless sleeping in the parks is dealing with seeing public urination, human feces and trash thrown all over the place not to mention obscenities being screamed while families are walking by. It shows a major lack of respect for the neighborhood and the neighbors. Uptown is a diverse neighborhood and most would (including the "angry condo owners" that that is why we like it here. There are plenty of services available in Uptown for the homeless and low income. Lester chooses not to use them. It's he and his wife's choice. Though it seems he wants Heartland Alliance to give him an apt. How long has he been homeless? Is he and/or his wife even attempting to find work? What are they doing to improve their situation? I can tell you most in Uptown don't want the homeless gone. We just don't want them sleeping on our front porches, in our parks etc. What a terrible article.
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J-Chi, Chicaho // Wednesday, September 02, 2009 @ 6:53 PM
These bums need to be arrested and locked up. I use the bike lane every night and they are a blight on the city. I moved here from New York and Mayor Giuliani did a great job at reducing the homeless population by rounding them up and shipping them to a camp update called Camp Laguardia and some were provide with one way bus tickets out of town.
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Sydney Kopp-Richardson, Logan Square // Wednesday, September 02, 2009 @ 9:17 PM
As an ex-employee of Heartland Alliance and resident of Chicago, I am appalled at the vigilant hatred expressed in the comments above. Uptown has a history as being the social service hub of Chicago. Despite what some people with money and housing might say about the homeless population, it is not going away. In the Reagan years, many severely mentally ill people were pushed out of institutions and left to fend for themselves on the streets of Uptown. Uptown is home to a wide range of homeless and housed populations, including Cambodians, Ethiopians, Thai, Latino, African American, Appalachian, and other ethnic populations. The diversity is something to be celebrated, but can also be seen in the wide range of individuals in need of safe and affordable housing--something that Chicago has a severe shortage of at this time. Homelessness is a multi-faceted plague in this country for many reasons, including mental illness, trauma histories, war, lack of family structure, addiction, bigotry (as exhibited above), racism, disease, and the blatant disregard for any sense of communal bond between human beings. The city is seeing a reversal of the "White Flight," and now people with money find it hip to be back in the city. But you cannot lock people up, ship them out of town, or pretend they do not deserve to exist. This crude selfishness and lack of any education on the core roots of homelessness in America, and particularly in Chicago, is horrifying. Ship people like cattle out of town? These are the ideas and values that cause genocide. I am at a loss at the utter lack of compassion the residents above (obviously feeling they are more deserving than those around them) have illustrated. We should be looking at homelessness as a human rights issue and a preventative health care issue--not using derogatory language to insinuate that homeless people are filthy animals. Thank you, NPR, for discussing a much ignored problem that deserves more attention.
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Marie, Uptown // Wednesday, September 02, 2009 @ 10:29 PM
I don't think the problem in Uptown is a lack of understanding or compassion towards our homeless population, but rather a problem of one neighborhood shouldering a very large percentage of the homeless population on the north side of Chicago. Uptown has a disproportionately high number of shelters and social service agencies. Uptown residents, like myself, are tired of hearing individuals from other neighborhoods tell us how "accepting" we should be of the problem. Frankly, I think we are, and we overwhelmingly volunteer our time and services to try and make this community a success, for all our residents. However, concentrating the poor and the homeless in only one section of a city is a failed model, and helps no one. What it does instead is create an unhealthy "community" of individuals who are overwhelmingly confronted with drugs, gangs, violence and fear. Uptown is doing an awful lot to help the less fortunate...before pointing fingers back at us and telling us to do more, look to yourself and your own neighborhood and ask if you instead could be doing more.
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Bradley, Uptown/Buena Park // Thursday, September 03, 2009 @ 8:08 AM
I'd be very interested in hearing the back story to this story. Did WBEZ happen upon this story by walking around Uptown? It seems to (to use a phrase used by the aldrerman's apologists) fit too nicely to the "evil condo owners" diatribe. Taxpayers are forking over more than $400K each for no/low income housing at Wilson Yard. My 2 br condo in Buena Park was a lot less. The "advocates" for the homeless don't seem to be concerned with getting more for their buck.
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Robert, Uptown // Thursday, September 03, 2009 @ 10:35 AM
My opinion seems to straddles some extremes.
1. I do agree burden needs to be shared. The old saying is cliche but true. Go ahead and try to save the drowning person, but only to the extent that you don't drown yourself. Social endevours need to be shared among the greater city, not just Uptown.
2. I have absolutely no problem with people sleeping in the park. That is just me. But some of my criteria is that who does sleep or live there, they should pick up after themselves, just like I expect from someone I live with because it is a shared space and behave in a non-belligerent fashion. I am fine sharing the park with anyone and a broad capacity, but don't want to feel like I can't peacefully use it as well.
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Robert, Uptown // Thursday, September 03, 2009 @ 12:39 PM
I also want to add, I walk in the park near my home quite a bit, and the people that do seem to live or sleep there have been quite friendly. I think we need to look at those things that are not acceptible and be able to distinguish. For instance is loitering bad, or are belligerent and aggressive loitering what we don't want. In my view, I don't want to stop people from hanging out outside. I think that adds vitality to the neighborhood streets. What I don't think is acceptable is aggressive and hostile actions. I will use another trite cliche; let's not throw the baby out with teh bath water. Fear seems to polarize us to the point of not being able to distinguish what it is that really isn't acceptable from socially negative standpoint to from those associated activities that really are not that bad, often even helpful. (example: I think a park that is being used, with many people is safer then an empty park). If you merely say let's get rid of loitering, what are you really saying? Do you really want to clear people from spending time out on the streets? I don't. I want a vibrate pedestrian activity on the streets and parks. Let's just focus on keeping it safe. Eliminating it completely isn't the solution.
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Hawkmoon947, Uptown // Thursday, September 03, 2009 @ 3:17 PM
Uptown is not a neighborhood of the rich and famous. Those of us who live in its gentrified apartment buildings, condos or single family homes worked long and hard to be able to afford the roofs over our heads. We continue to work diligently to improve our homes, as well as the community around us, because we made a commitment when we chose to live in a troubled area. That's just the problem -- despite our efforts, there are people in high and low places who are devoted to frustrating our attempts to make this a more decent place to live. I wish the rest of the city shared the burden of helping and housing the homeless and addicts who roam our alleys, parks and lakefront. This is an issue of fairness and safety.
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Min.Greg Scott, uptown // Thursday, September 03, 2009 @ 6:56 PM
We at "House of Prayer" [shown on the slideshow portion of this artcle ] thank GOD for Ashley & her crew for producing this awesome yet raw truth of this growing problem ,not only in Chicago or even in our country . Sweeping the problem to somewhere else is not the answer!!!! JESUS said " the poor you will have with you always ". We are living in a time when the haves are becoming the have-nots ,I met a man at afood pantry driving a2007 mercaides-bends ,about to loose his house [to qualified for the jobs that are there]another family about to become homeless!! The growing rate of homeless teenagers is alarming!!! At the House of Prayer over the last 10 years we have seen over 70% percent rate of homeless people [drug addits & alcoholics ]CHANGE THEIR LIVES !!! The anwser dosn't start houseing or even a good job ,They need inner healing ,when they meet Jesus and find they are GOD'S children things change from the inside out! We need a bigger building ;so we can start program not another shelter we want to raise the barr and help a larger number of people 7 days a week not 3 days aweek GOD BLESS
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Sydney Kopp-Richardson, Logan Square // Thursday, September 03, 2009 @ 7:01 PM
There is no justification for saying that Uptown social service agencies need to be spread out to other neighborhoods. This is a vibrant neighborhood with roots in social justice. I agree, there is definitely an important distinction between people hanging out or living in the parks, and people becoming belligerent and aggressive. I have witnessed far more belligerence and aggression in Wrigleyville after Cubs games than in Uptown. Safety is important, as is making a neighborhood holistically healthy for all its residents. To label certain behaviors described above as a persistent characteristic of the entire homeless population in general is very misguided. Also, the dog park example does note something about our values in terms of how we view the homeless and who/what deserve humane treatment. I work very hard to maintain a comfortable home in an area ridden with many of the problems surrounding poverty and violence that unfortunately exist in large cities. This does not change how strongly I feel about this issue.
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Alenka Kordish AK, Lincon Park // Thursday, September 10, 2009 @ 3:50 PM
I experienced homelessness for a little while, and I ministered at the House of Prayer (with Pastor Kim from the article), in hope to bring new horizons to homeless men and women. I don't see a solution only within the social service agencies, and I don't see it working by building new shelters because the R.E.S.T. is full.
Social agencies do not seem to have much success in rehabilitation of homeless people. Even with all the government funds and scientific resources, it seems like they cannot reach into the minds of these people. How then can they expect any lasting change?
With the help of agencies, most people who have experienced chronic homelessness mange to obtain a job or even permanent government housing. However they usually have hard time maintaining these blessings. For years to come and sometimes their entire lives they are on the brinks of loosing their jobs and housing.
Reading about the gentlemen who sleeps in the park, I feel a fraction of his pain. I hope the reader understands that there is no quick fix for this problem. I hold repentance to be a beautiful experience and a wonderful start of a new life, but it is far from enough. Take it from somebody who walked this walk. It is a long process of building up a human being to take them from calling themselves a dog to a confident and a successful fellow citizen.
I’ve seen the lacking of this skill among church ministers and among social workers. If the reader wants to know the truth, just look at the produce. What did any of these accomplished? I am talking in the long run, not for a few months or a year. Same people who were attending House of Prayer for a meal (Pastor Kim feeds a meal after each service) three years ago are still coming over to eat from time to time. Similar thing goes on with social service. Not much changed.
Now, when someone says I want to build a shelter for all those who sleep on the street, I hold this to be a beautiful idea. Even though I know this will not help them to get on their feet. If nothing else it gets homeless individuals into a little safer environment. So what are we going to do? Are we going to do the same thing like everybody else, and close our eyes and pray really hard?
All these shelters are funded by the city. These funds are less and less every day. For this reason many other programs, not only shelters, have closed their doors forever. While these were closing new ones are not springing up. This is why House of Prayer grew in numbers. People are hungry. Private organizations do support, but they are not strong enough.
While the regular financial struggle goes on, and some non per profit are fighting to survive, many good hearted people like Pastor Kim try to start a new organization to replace the extinguished ones. But they do not last long. There is usually a lot of enthusiasm in the beginning, and they run good for a little while, but not knowing how to provide a lot with a little, and not knowing how to shift as finances change they quickly fail.
Let me give you a little peek into this nightmare. An overnight shelter needs about $50 per a person per night to keep its doors open. This is not nearly enough to cover all the needs. That's why the staff is under trained and often underappreciated. This is only a beginning of chaos.
Because of poor funding most overnight shelters do not have beds. Residents of these places sleep on mats on the floor, and pregnant women are no exception. These are few major things that cause places like R.E.S.T. (and R.E.S.T. is a better overnight shelter) to have a bad reputation. I heard comments that cook county jail has better conditions then some shelters.
It does not stop with overnight. Let’s take a shelter like Cornerstone for an example. Cornerstone is run by Jesus People, who are truly good hearted people. Because of poor funds, the shelter is run mostly by volunteers, few under trained staff and a few social workers. Homeless are not getting the help they need, and this is evident in frequent outbursts of violence and continued drug and alcohol abuse. Some manage to survive this environment and obtain housing, but a lot of them just take their young ones with them, move to a different shelter only to experience the same trauma in a new environment.
I hope that the reader understands that this is an extremely complex problem, and it will take a lot more effort if we want to see any results. I hope that our fellow citizens would realize that this is a community problem. We all need to get on one accord, and each one of us needs to do something. We desperately need a new approach, and a whole lot more outreach.
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Ruthie, chicago // Monday, September 14, 2009 @ 1:29 PM
stop letting the government pay for these people to live off of us for free. well let say not for free because the TAX paying US citizen are the ones paying. Yes there are those who the unfortunite ones but lets get real here most of the homeless that sleep in the parks are chronic homeless people who have been living off the system for years and are here in the US on VISA's that the system got for them because they were to lazy to do it on their own. The system takes them to apply, pay for the Visa's and whamo they stay here and the people who are losing there homes and jobs can't get the help they need. AK your one of them!!
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Ria, Edgewater // Sunday, September 27, 2009 @ 9:32 AM
Hi, Ashley. How can I contact Pastor John Kim?
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