Homeless forum Angela Clay
Hi all, I attended the homelessness forum last week. I learned (supposedly): the police won’t remove homeless people from the park, the park district says there is a state law that allows folks to be in the park, a lot of homeless have mental health or substance abuse issues, the social services agencies offer to help, but if people refuse help, nothing gets done. The bus shelters with homeless living in them are no one’s issue to deal with. Alderman Clay’s office doesn’t know how many beds, shelters or affordable housing units are available. Also the alders staff made it clear at the beginning that anyone with a problem with homeless people would be shamed in the meeting. And it appears the Alders office doesn’t do anything to actually address homelessness except give out the phone number for social service agencies. The messaging and meeting were incredibly disappointing. Basically they can tell us about resources but don’t actually do anything to address the problem or coordinate solutions. At least that was my takeaway. And the folks living next to Victory Park with a drug encampment were basically told that the Alders office knows about the problem, but it wasn’t clear that they had any kind of solution. Further, the Alderman’s point person on homelessness didn’t even attend the event specifically to address homelessness. Does anyone have better information about what is being done to help folks get out of the parks and into housing?