August 10, 2007

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall
Reporter/fspielman@suntimes.com

This may come as a shock to commuters who see panhandlers on every Loop corner, but a city census of people living on the street in the downtown area has produced a surprisingly low number: 24.

The downtown count was released on the same day Mayor Daley claimed homelessness across the city was down 12 percent — from 6,715 in January 2005 to 5,922 at the same time this year — marking progress in his 10-year Plan to End Homelessness.

"Many people say, 'Are you gonna do it?' I say, 'There's nothing wrong with being on a mission — a mission of saving souls,'" the mayor said.

Homeless advocates maintain the actual nightly homeless population is 21,078 because of an "invisible" group that includes people "doubled-up" with relatives and friends.

Two months ago, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that City Hall was conducting a census of people living on downtown streets with an eye toward getting them the permanent housing and support services they need.

The 15-week "foot poll" found an average of 92 people on the streets at the noon hour, some panhandling, others just wandering around. But only 24 of those people were sleeping downtown when the weekly count was conducted again at 5 a.m.

"The public perception is it should have been a higher number, but we couldn't find it," said Acting Housing Commissioner Ellen Sahli.

She added, "There was a story a few years ago about a person living in a bridge. We didn't find anything like that. They were living in alleys, behind a Dumpster, anyplace where there's a bench or marble slab."

Ed Shurna, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, branded the city's downtown count "ludicrous."

"I could find 24 people walking from my office [at 1325 S. Wabash] to City Hall. The Pacific Garden Mission has 600 people every night. They're downtown. They're homeless. There's got to be at least that many living on the street," he said.

Shurna accused the city of trying to "sanitize" Chicago's marquee shopping district to bolster Daley's Olympic dream.

Seeking permanent housing

"That's what they did before the [1996] Democratic Convention. That's why they moved all of the shelters out of downtown. They're trying to get people off the streets and sweep the problem away," he said.

Sahli denied that. She said the city's goal is to intensify in the downtown area an 18-month-old program that has moved 130 "chronically homeless" people — including six people living downtown — to single-room-occupancy buildings and other permanent housing.

The Street-to-Home Initiative calls for building relationships with people living in public places and offering permanent housing and social services once that trust has been established.

"We're trying something new because what we've been doing hasn't worked," Sahli said. "It's only worked to manage" the problem.