Pandemic winter a ‘really unique opportunity’
Chicago’s homeless, service providers ready for season
The last time we talked with StreetWise vendor Keith Hardiman, 59, it was mid-May. Then, he talked about how hard it had been since the start of the pandemic in March to make enough money to afford his $35 daily rent at a hotel.
Now, Illinois is reporting its highest number of new coronavirus cases since the pandemic began and is about to endure its first full winter in the grasp of COVID-19, and he is more concerned. Selling StreetWise on Lake Street and Michigan Avenue for a decade has been hard. The $2 magazine that he sells to customers? Prepandemic, he was making his rent. Mid-pandemic, he said, he’s barely getting rid of 15 copies aweek. If he can’t pay his rent, he said, he foresees nights spent riding the Red Line between midnight and 5 a.m. to keep warm.
“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 Iwas 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 Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, an estimated 76,998 people experienced homelessness in Chicago in 2018 (the latest year for which U.S. Census data is available). Doug Kenshol, executive director of South Suburban PADS in Cook County said that in a normal year, his organization would provide about 13,000 nights of shelter for those with housing instability. Given the pandemic, he is expecting more than a 100% increase — anywhere from 25,000 to 30,000 nights of shelter from July 2020 to June 2021.
“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 itsCOVID-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 rental assistance program that grew from three months to six months of assistance.
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 Chicago Continuum of Care on an initiative that will house 2,500 residents most at risk of severe impacts from COVID-19 over the next 18 months, including those age 60 or older, those with underlying health conditions, families and youth.
“Theyare partnering specifically with our shelters andwith 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 aswe head into winter.”
The Chicago Lights Elam Davies Social Service Center turned its daytime dropin center into a curbside model, where people can get immediate necessities, like hygiene and food pantry items as well as clothing. Jackie Harris, social service center director, said the organization is seeing many new faces since the stay-athome order was lifted in the spring. Comparing the periods from March to May with June to October, the organization saw an 80% increase in guests on a daily basis during the latter months.
“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 bestway 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 Primo Center, which provides 520 beds for homeless families, will be doing more COVID-19 testing at its three facilities this winter, according to Primo’s CEO, Christine Achre.
The Night Ministry is working with the city on outreach to the homeless population that rides the trains to stay warm at night. The organization provides 61 shelter beds for homeless people ages 14-24 in housing programs that range from overnight stays to two years, according to Erin Ryan, senior vice president of the The Night Ministry. From offering meals in shifts to virtual meetings with case managers, the nonprofit limits the amount of contact people have in the facility but finds ways to keep clients connected, such as having a Nintendo gaming system on hand.
“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, hotelbased 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 bee nraised 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 thatwould 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 2% increase prepandemic, McCauley said she’s anticipating an uptick.
“What we have right now is this really unique opportunity with coronavirus relief funding to really bolster and sustain our shelter system,” she said.