Wow, this brings to mind the days when Harris Bank was an
open air campground (not the case anymore, we hear). Nothing like going into a locked room to do some banking and getting to confront someone of uncertain mental status taking a nap. A reader sent this in, and we hope it was followed by a call to 911, or at least a 311 call for a well-being check.
The slogan "Chase What Matters" came to mind. I have no idea what that means, but made me smile.
ReplyDeleteAny idea which chase this is? I know the lock at the Sheridan and Irving Park branch never seems to work.
ReplyDeleteThis was at Lawrence and Winthrop, across from the Aragon.
ReplyDeleteWow, I sense a lot of condescension here... Maybe we should work harder to find a suitable place for the homeless to sleep, rather than concentrating our questions on their mental state?
ReplyDeletennssls -- are you LOOKING for something to be offended about? Let me explain: Uptown has the largest concentration of social services in the entire United States, including several overnight shelters within several hundred feet of the bank. It is the goal of hundreds of social workers and government employees who are employed by those shelters to aid the homeless and help them find places to sleep and to improve their lives. Those who do not choose to take advantage of the many, MANY services within steps are often paranoid schizophrenics and therefore not accepted by the overnight shelters, or they have substance abuse problems which makes them choose not to avail themselves of overnight shelters, since they must be sober to stay there. Every single night there are shelter beds available in the city. Every.Single.Night. All a person has to do is call 311. (Don't take my word for it: if you think this isn't true, call the head of the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services and tell him he's a liar.)
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Chase Bank built its lobby as a service to its customers, who pay to have accounts there. That's why there's a lock on the door. It was NOT built as a social service agency or a shelter for someone who chooses not to take advantage of the buildings that actually serve that purpose.
Ask any cop, ask any fireman, ask any social service worker, and they will tell you NOT to approach a sleeping homeless person because of the very real possibility that the person is mentally ill and dangerous to others, especially someone who wakes him from sleep.
I'm sick of the attitude that every single resident in Uptown who might DARE to object to retail establishments and sidewalks being used as makeshift shelters and begging stations is wrong, and (as you seem to imply) responsible for the welfare of the homeless and the indigent. There is a small army of people employed in Uptown for that very purpose. They're the ones with degrees, they're the ones with experience. If they're unable to get these people to come to shelters -- and they post all the time that they can't force them to do anything -- then how is it MY job to solve it?
Short answer, it's not. All I want to do is walk down the sidewalks without an aggressive panhandler following me, and I want to be able to use the freaking ATM at my freaking bank without worrying that a possibly paranoid schizophrenic overnight camper might take offense to my presence.
Nowhere else in the city are the people who pay for retail services demonized for it like they are in Uptown.
Sure, nnssis, we should be working harder to find a place for this guy to sleep. I will suggest one of the Cornerstone shelters on the 4600 block of Clifton, or perhaps the REST shelter at Lawrence or maybe the Salvation Army shelter at Marine Drive. Oops, I forgot about the shelter at Epworth Church on Kenmore. Maybe the person sleeping is a woman and in that case, there's always the REST shelter at Uptown Baptist Church. Gosh, if there's no room at any of those shelters, we could start another shelter in the neighborhood. Oh, I have a better idea! Let's have the person sleep over at your place!
ReplyDeleteDuring the recession of the 1980s, people lost their jobs, their homes----entire networks and social safety nets were obliterated. A large surge of homelessness ensued.
ReplyDeleteIn the last two years, we’ve experienced the single greatest economic upheaval since the Great Depression. Even more jobs and homes have been lost. At the same time, state and municipal funding streams for social services have fallen and are failing---providers haven’t been paid in more than six months.
Ask yourself, where would you be if you lost your job and didn’t pay your rent or mortgage for 6 months? What do you think happens to the mentally ill when therapeutic services are cut or disappear?
Nnssls, we should work harder to find suitable places for that person to sleep and be treated. And not just so he or she isn’t a nuisance to Boohoo or others, but because effective social services are, on net, a smart self-interested investment. It is much less expensive (think tax dollars) to address homeless and treat mental illness at the community level than it is to ignore it or wait until it deteriorates so badly that it ends in the emergency room, the courts or prison.
Personally, given the causes of our current calamity, I think using a bank lobby as shelter is poetic. The only thing that might make the irony more taut is if this person was seeking refuge in a Bank of America lobby.
We have had people sleeping in public spaces during the boom years of the economy. I agree the problem is poetic, but not here where we've been facing people sleeping in public areas for decades.
ReplyDeleteBefore I moved to Uptown, I felt moved when I saw someone panhandling or sleeping on the sidewalk. I continued to feel moved by it when I initially bought here. I was here for the long haul so I wasn't focused on the value of my home. Thanks to Helen and her ability to incite class wars at a moment's notice, that has changed.
I want the next alderman to bring some common sense solutions that don't alienate the community. Tolerating sleeping in public areas and not addressing public safety issues are not cutting it here.
Many years ago in a different city, an advertising rep tried to sell me advertising targeted at black communities because he said that my shopping center was "where black people belong." He went on to say that while shopping in "his" shopping center on the other side of town, he and his friends were offended to see black people shopping there and he thought, "that other shopping center isn't advertising well enough to the black community." That was his sales pitch!
ReplyDeleteAfter he left my office, I quickly called his boss to ask that this sales rep never set foot in my office ever again.
I get that same feeling when people suggest that Uptown is where poor and mentally ill people "belong." I, like many, chose Uptown to call my home precicely because of the diversity.
When someone suggests that we are somehow not doing enough to attract Chicago's poor and mentally ill to Uptown or to Uptown shelters, it's honestly not a good sales pitch. It really isn't.
I don't think that we Uptowners have to work any harder to solve the City wide homeless problem. We've do enough and more than our fair share. After all, isn't this the neighborhood that has a whopping 73% of its TIF "community development" funds being handed over to non-profits, who don't pay a dime in taxes into the TIF or into the real estate or income tax base to support the schools, the parks, the community or the homeless?
ReplyDeleteUptown is being used by this city administration as a leper colony for the drug addicted, mentally disabled, and dually diagnosed.
DON'T YOU DARE CONDESEND AND PREACH TO ME ABOUT WHAT MORE I MUST DO AS AN UPTOWNER UNTIL YOU HAUL YOUR ASS OUT OF HERE AND PREACH FIRST TO THOSE DOWNTOWN, in THE 10th Ward, in JEFF in PARK LINCOLN PARK AND EVERY OTHER AREA THAT DOESN'T DO A FRACTION OF WHAT WE MUST DO ON A DAILY BASIS TO JUST EXIST IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD.
I, FOR ONE, AM DAMNED SICK AND TIRED OF BEING TOLD THAT SOLVING THE HOMELESS PROBLEM IS OUR JOB. JESUS DIDN'T DO IT - HE SAID THE POOR WILL ALWAYS BE WITH US. SO IF GOD'S OWN SON DIDN'T SOLVE THE PROBLEM, PLEASE STOP LAYING THE RESPONSIBILITY, BLAME AND GUILT TRIP ON ME.
Holy: I think it is especially poetic in Uptown because this is where conflicting forces intersect. Anywhere else, it's a punch line, a slightly sick hallmark card, an advert yank that means little.
ReplyDeleteAs for common sense, what can I say. It ain't that common and it's destined to alienate some subset of the community, especially among those who view homelessness as some sort of personal insult or inconvenience.
Zesty: I wasn't suggesting that Uptown single-handedly shoulder the burden for homelessness. Rather, my use of the word "we" is shorthand for our collective efforts as embodied in municipal, state and federal policy. Posters here on UU and elsewhere continue to believe the Alderman's policy making powers are greater than they really are.
Truthbearer, I have worked each of the areas you mentioned and more. I have worked City Hall and the state Capitol and even with that experience, all I can say for sure is that the least helpful arrow in any quiver is indignation.
"Holy: I think it is especially poetic in Uptown because this is where conflicting forces intersect. Anywhere else, it's a punch line, a slightly sick hallmark card, an advert yank that means little." SE
ReplyDeletePeople who got drunk on Helen's kool-aide want to think it's a war between classes of people. That's a lie. The conflict lies in the unwavering judgment of Helen and her ilk about anyone concerned about crime in the neighborhood.
This is alarming. Wait, let me seek advice from the 46th Ward office's website!
ReplyDeleteShucks.....I can only find info on the latest dog park, or how I can get a rebate on recycling (which I haven't got)
Uptown is one Hell of a college campus.....
So let me get this straight. I can't show any indignation, but it is perfectly ok for Shiller, Couraj, and outside special interest groups to constantly hurl racial and class warfare attacks upon me for my mere existence in this community.
ReplyDeleteSo, you suggest that being a sheep is effective against attacking wolves? That is exactly what followers of the Saul Alinsky method want. The attacked follow the rules while the attackers justify everything they do as a proper means to accomplish their end goal.
"Zesty: I wasn't suggesting that Uptown single-handedly shoulder the burden for homelessness."
ReplyDeleteNobody ever does, with the possible exception of Helen Shiller.
Holy: Uh, there is a conflict among classes and it exists independent of Helen, thus my finger wag at Bank of America. I’m not sure that recognizing this fact makes me or anyone else “drunk on Helen’s kool-aide.”
ReplyDeleteTruthbearer: You can be as indignant as you want to be. All I said was there are strategies that are more productive than indignation. Putting words in my mouth is not one of them. As for “hurling racial and class warfare attacks,” I have no idea what you are talking about but it does sounds like you might be winding up quite a pitch yourself because, not for nothing, the opposite of indignant is not sheep and people you don’t like or people you disagree with you are not wolves. :-))
Suzanne, I was right there with you until I moved to Uptown. From observing and from getting hit with Helen's class warfare that she encourages in Uptown, my attention is no longer on Bank of America. It's more focused on what is immediately in front of me.
ReplyDeleteWhen Helen is out of the picture (willingly or not willingly), I may get more motivated to look at the bigger picture. The way I see it, both the conservative Christian Right and Helen's promotion of class warfare in Uptown are both quite similar in the destuction of people's willingness to work together.
Truthbearer: A big massive WORD to everything you wrote, times a thousand!
ReplyDeleteSuzanne Elder do not put words in my mouth. I did not say that the opposite of all sheep are wolves nor did I say that all people that disagree with me are wolves.
ReplyDeleteNope, I specifically said the Helen Shiller, Couraj and some of their special interest group buddies act like attacking wolves by throwing racial and class warfare slurs at people who simply live in Uptown.
Here are a few examples taken from the key word dictionary --used at their Wilson Yard TIF Rally --- and which, according to the authors, was developed from their activist experiences, particularly in Uptown.
Gentrification: the remaking of urban residential neighborhoods and commercial area for higher income - usually white newcomers from the middle class.
Suspicious people: are people whose physical appearance and presence invokes fear. This term is used in CAPS (Community Area Policing Strategy) to identify people who "gentrifiers" want police to clear out of "their" neighborhood. The value of marking someone as a suspicious person is that they do not have to prove that are doing anything illegal, you only have to mark them as someone that the police should closely monitor in the expectation that they will "find" a reason to move them, or through harassment cause them to move to another neighborhood.
So, if you live in Uptown aren't low income; or are whit; or attend CAPS meetings, considered yourself slurred.
FYI, here is the link to a Sweet Home Coalitions study. This group - a spin off of the Coalition of the Homeless - advocates for 20% of all TIF funds to be spent on affordable housing. They recently did a protect march for more TIF funds in Uptown. It might be interesting to note that while the Wilson Yard TIF has put 73% of its funding into affordable housing, the Sweet Home Coalition study shows that citywide all TIFs average 4% spending on affordable housing.
ReplyDelete(And so, if Uptown has surpassed the 20%b goal by more than 3 times, then why are they demonstrating for more TIF funding in Uptown instead of those other communities? That would be a good question to pose to Shiller, the Depts of Planning and Dept of Housing.)
http://www.chicagohomeless.org/files/images/CCH_TIF_Report_Ka.pdf