Aldermen vent frustrations about city losing battle against homelessness
At a city budget hearing on Thursday, some Chicago aldermen let loose about what they called the city’s failed effort to attack the intransigent problem of homeless people suffering from mental illness and substance abuse.
Sometimes, the frustrations of being a Chicago alderman just boil over. And it’s not always about the looming vote on a $588 million property tax increase that could shorten the political careers of aldermen who dare to support it.
At a city budget hearing on Thursday, some Chicago aldermen let loose about what they called the city’s failed effort to attack the intransigent problem of homeless people suffering from mental illness and substance abuse.
Ald. Ariel Reboyras (30th) said he sees the same needy people so often on the streets of his North Side ward, he knows them by their first names.
“It’s sad. I got so upset that we couldn’t do anything with one of the homeless persons on Milwaukee Avenue that I went across the street and I bought him a pint of vodka. I sat with him and drank some of that vodka with him because, if you can’t help him, you might as well join him,” Reboyras said.
“Oh, no. That’s not true,” said Budget Committee Chairman Carrie Austin (34th).
When Austin asked if he had helped the man, Reboyras said: “I got him shelter. . . . We got him in a YMCA. My staff and I — we bought him clothes. These are little things that nobody knows the alderman does. I’m not speaking about me. I’m talking about everyone that’s here.”
With Lisa Morrison Butler, commissioner of the city’s Department of Family and Support Services, on the hot seat at City Council budget hearings, Reboyras said he has “yet to see any dollars” to help the situation of homeless people with mental illness.
“They’re still there. They’ll walk from one location to another,” he said.
“It’s not me, commissioner. There’s at least five wards — maybe 25 wards — dealing with this issue.”
Indeed, Reboyras was not alone in unleashing his frustrations about the burgeoning problem of homelessness on Chicago streets.
Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) said he has “tried every which way” to get homeless people into shelters in coordination with delegate agencies funded by the city.
“They come out. We’ll go out there with them. We’ll coordinate with Streets and San and with the police, as we’re supposed to do. And nothing happens after that. That’s the frustrating part for me,” Waguespack said.
“Many of them have mental illnesses thatwe’re not coordinating on. The stories go on every single day. Whether you’re walking to the train or you’re walking under the viaduct to the Metra or trying to get into a store. I just don’t see us giving them the options or the assistance.”
Ald. James Cappleman (46th), a former social worker, told the story of a bipolar woman who lost one eye after a stabbing suffered on the streets. He said he never had seen the woman sober.
Cappleman said the city is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on ambulance transports and emergency roomvisits for the woman, who is now in prison, when the money could be better spent on outreach.
“We’re doing your department an incredible disservice. You need more funding. You need the resources to take on that leadership that the AIDS Foundation of Chicago did back in the 1980s,” Cappleman told Butler, who has been on the job for just 50 days.
According to the last socalled “point-in-time count” conducted by the city, Chicago’s homeless population stands at just over 6,700. That’s a slight increase over previous count, but not as large an increase as other major cities, including New York and Los Angeles.
Butler estimated that 19.4 percent of those living on the streets and in shelters suffer from mental illness and that 22.7 percent have substanceabuse problems.