[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 138 (Monday, September 30, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12010-S12011]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            A PLACE TO STAY

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President there is a publication in Chicago called 
Streetwise that is sold by homeless people. They sell it for $1.00 
each, and my guess is that most of that money goes to the person who 
sells it.
  In an issue that I bought the other day from someone on Michigan 
Avenue, who appeared to be homeless, is a brief analysis about who the 
homeless are and why they are homeless.
  It gives as a source for this the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.
  They also have a story written by Jeff Mason about a man named Mike 
who tells about his 24 hour experience as a homeless person.
  This takes place at the Pacific Garden Mission, which I've had the 
opportunity to visit on several occasions. It is a religious 
organization where people are obviously committed to living their faith 
and helping those who are less fortunate.
  Mr. President, I ask that both items from Streetwise be printed in 
the Record.
  The material follows:

                  [From Streetwise, Sept. 16-30, 1996]

                            A Place to Stay

                            (By Jeff Mason)

       7 p.m. It's a summer Wednesday night in Chicago. The sky is 
     getting dark as people hustle to their cars, trains and 
     buses. Everyone has some place to go, it seems. Everyone, 
     that is, except Chicago's homeless. They remain on the 
     streets or go to a shelter, looking for a place to stay.
       Like any other night during the year, guests at the Pacific 
     Garden Mission, located at 646 S. State St., are sitting on 
     folding chairs in the assembly room waiting for church to 
     begin. The room is large, easily accommodating the more than 
     400 men and women the shelter serves every night. Rectangular 
     signs hang from the walls with Bible verses proclaiming the 
     wonders of salvation. Men dressed in suit coats and ties 
     patrol the aisles, telling the guests not to lean against the 
     walls and not to wander around the room.
       Some of those seated in the chairs are dressed in shabby, 
     dated clothing. Many men have overgrown beards and messy 
     hair; others are better groomed and wear newer clothes. To 
     stay the night, the guests must attend the church service. So 
     they sit, they wait and, eventually, they worship.
       ``You either feel like you're in the military or you feel 
     like you're in jail,'' says ``Mike,'' a 35-year-old homeless 
     man staying in the shelter. ``They treat you like a child--
     like you don't have common sense. I guess they have to do it 
     like that. Otherwise, it would be total chaos.''
       Mike, who declined to give his real name, has been homeless 
     since his basement apartment flooded earlier this year. 
     Pacific Garden Mission is his first shelter. He can't live at 
     home because of a falling out with his family. In fact, his 
     family and most of his friends don't even know he's staying 
     here.
       According to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, 
     approximately 15,000 people are homeless like Mike on any 
     given night in Chicago. The Chicago Department of Human 
     Services reports that there are approximately 5,500 shelter 
     beds available in the winter. Some shelters close during the 
     summer, though, making the search for overnight housing even 
     harder.
       Michael Stoops, Director of Field Organizing for the 
     National Coalition for the Homeless, recognizes that shelters 
     meet a gaping social need but criticizes the way homeless 
     people are treated in them.
       ``The regimentation is abominable,'' Stoops says. ``They 
     treat people who are adults like children.''
       High numbers force shelters like Pacific Garden, which is 
     open all year, to enforce strict rules on the people who stay 
     there.
       ``The reason it has to be so regimented is for the safety 
     of everyone involved,'' says Pastor Phil Kwiatkowski, 
     director of the men's division at Pacific Garden. ``We want 
     this to be a safe haven.''
       Father Jim Hoffman, director of the Franciscan House of 
     Mary and Joseph, a shelter located at 2715 W. Harrison St., 
     agrees. ``We've been at 99 percent occupancy for the last two 
     years,'' Hoffman says. ``If procedures are followed, people 
     feel safe here.''
       8 p.m. The church service at Pacific Garden has started. A 
     college student opens the service with a prayer for those who 
     haven't been saved. A chorus of junior high girls sings. A 
     preacher delivers his sermon. ``First-timers'' are ushered 
     into a small hallway adjacent to the meeting room to await 
     counseling with one of the staff. After the service, the men 
     and women are separated. Then, sandwiches and fruit are 
     served and the guests get in line to go upstairs for bed.
       ``When you're hungry, you go to the shelter,'' Mike says. 
     ``When you want to sleep, you go to the shelter. When you 
     want to take a shower, you go to the shelter. Without the 
     shelter where would you get these things? What would you do? 
     Where would you go?''
       Some wouldn't go to a shelter at all. ``I would always want 
     to stay on the street instead of a shelter,'' says Joel 
     Alfassa, Street Wise vendor # 267, who was homeless for 
     almost two years. ``I'm a very independent person. I don't 
     like to be regimented, and that [freedom] is what the street 
     offered.''
       9:30 p.m. The men stand in line for mandatory showers. 
     Belongings are left in a locked room downstairs and each man 
     is frisked before walking up to the second floor. The men are 
     given hangers and told to strip in a communal dressing room 
     next to the showers. Each man hands his hanger of clothing to 
     an attendant and takes a timed two-minute maximum shower. A 
     staff member walks in the room where the men are undressing 
     and sprays the floor with an aerosol can. The men shout their 
     approval; the spray masks the smell.
       ``This is home for a lot of individuals,'' Kwiatkowski 
     says. ``When you're living in a communal environment, 
     everyone has to be clean.''
       A small towel and a thin hospital gown are issued after the 
     showers and the dripping men plod their way to a bunk bed or 
     a place on the floor. The mission has approximately 250 beds, 
     but Kwiatkowski says they serve anywhere from 400 to 550 
     people a night.
       ``Unless you get there early to get a bed, or you're a 
     first-timer, you'll be sleeping on the hard, stone floor. 
     Unless you're exhausted, your first night in a shelter, you 
     can't sleep,'' Mike says. ``You have to be sure you're in a 
     safe area. You have to hide your things. With so many people, 
     it tends to be overcrowded; tempers flow easily. So, you've 
     got your guard up on that.''
       ``It could be a night in hell for you,'' Mike says.
       11 p.m. The lights are dimmed. The room is filled with the 
     sounds of snoring and farting--sounds of men going to sleep. 
     Though all the men have bathed, the room still smells of 
     sweat and body ordor. Talking is prohibited, but the noises 
     of communal living keep some like Mike from getting a good 
     night's sleep.
       ``Man, these guys snore like crazy. A lot of people may 
     think that's not a big deal. But, let's say you're one of the 
     fortunate people that does have a job--you don't get enough 
     rest to go to work.''

[[Page S12011]]

       Mike works as a telemarketer for a company in Chicago. 
     Beyond being tired, the stigma of living in a shelter hangs 
     over him in the workplace. He has told no one where he lives 
     for fear of getting fired.
       ``I would be a fool to say that I was staying in a 
     mission,'' he says. In most people's eyes being homeless 
     means you're a drunk, an addict or a criminal. Mike fears 
     that reputation--a reputation he says does not fit him.
       ``If people knew that you are homeless or are a transient, 
     that would lessen your opportunities to advance yourself or 
     get yourself back on track,'' he says. ``In order for you to 
     advance yourself, to pull yourself out of the situation that 
     you're in, in a way you have to don a disguise.
       But the trappings of homelessness are hard to hide. People 
     can spot it just by the grocery bags some carry. ``Who's 
     gonna go in that interview area with a bunch of bags and all 
     your clothes and try to be taken seriously?'' Mike asks. 
     ``People are dressed to the nines and here you are--you're 
     lucky to have a shirt and tie. Do you think you're gonna get 
     that job? You have to have a hell of an amount of character 
     to rise above that situation.''
       Though the shelter gives bag lunches to those who are 
     employed during the day, Mike says it is not as helpful as it 
     could be for people who have jobs. ``You only get a change of 
     clean clothes once a week,'' he says. ``How are you are going 
     to feel comfortable going to a job wearing the same clothes 
     every day?''
       In addition, the shelter staff often refuses to store 
     things for residents who have job interviews. ``You have a 
     hell of a time trying to convince them to let you leave your 
     clothes there for an hour without throwing them out,'' Mike 
     says. ``It seems like if you're trying to help yourself, they 
     really don't want you there.''
       Kwiatkowski says the shelter will help guests with special 
     needs such as storage on an individual basis. Mike says the 
     clothes he stored at Pacific Garden were thrown away. Now 
     Mike stashes his clothes in a closet where he works, but says 
     he doesn't know what he'll do if someone finds them there.
       1 a.m. Most of the residents at Pacific Garden are asleep. 
     Those who can't sleep--especially first timers--are awake 
     with their thoughts.
       ``You've got all of this stuff on your mind,'' Mike says. 
     ``Where am I going to go in the morning? Do I smell okay? 
     What does my appearance look like? Am I presentable? Nine 
     times out of 10 I'm not because I'm wearing the same clothes 
     I was wearing yesterday.''
       4:30 a.m. The lights go on. Residents are awakened for the 
     morning church service. Like the night before, attendance is 
     required to eat. ``All we ask is that they sit through the 
     service,'' Kwiatkowski says. ``I believe you shortchange an 
     individual if you give them a bowl of beans and a suit of 
     clothes and you shove them out the door.''
       Not everyone likes it, though. ``It's forever in your face. 
     I mean, forever in your face when you're there,'' Mike says. 
     ``It makes you not want to go to church sometimes.''
       Not all shelters in Chicago have the same religious 
     requirements Pacific Garden has. Not all shelters allow 
     people to keep coming back, either. ``There is no limited 
     length of stay here,'' Kwiatkowski says.
       At Hilda's Place, a homeless shelter in Evanston, Ill., men 
     and women have three days to establish goals or they are not 
     permitted to return. ``We will not let people stay on unless 
     they are willing to work with the case managers and with the 
     staff on goals,'' says Carolyn Ellis, the shelter's director. 
     Hilda's Place does not have any religious requirements. 
     However, Ellis says mandatory showers are handled on a 
     ``case-by-case basis'' for those who need them.
       5:30 a.m. The men are quiet as they collect their clothes. 
     Those with their own soap clean up for the day. The rest go 
     downstairs to get their bags and go to the service. Many fall 
     asleep again until they are dismissed for breakfast. 
     Breakfast consists of grits, eggs, a hard bagel and a glass 
     of water or coffee. ``The food is one of the better things,'' 
     Mike says.
       7 a.m. When they finish eating, the men leave the shelter, 
     re-entering street life for another day. Mike's job doesn't 
     start until late afternoon, so he heads for a park bench to 
     sit for awhile.
       ``You have nowhere to go in the morning. You're wearing the 
     same clothes. If it's raining, you're out here in the rain. 
     If it's freezing, you're out here in the cold.''
       The stigma of homelessness follows him out of the shelter 
     and on to the streets. ``Just hanging out here in the park--
     people act as if you're invisible,'' he says. ``Time moves 
     very slowly sitting on a bench waiting for a place to open 
     up. I wish I had enough money to go hang in McDonald's or 
     White Hen.''
       Mike says he wishes the shelter would let people stay there 
     longer during the day. According to Kwiatkowski, the shelter 
     stays open all day during the winter but not the summer so 
     guests can use the time to look for jobs.
       ``I don't even know of a job that's interviewing at seven 
     o'clock in the morning,'' Mike says.
       Les Brown of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless sees a 
     larger problem than how long shelters stay open. ``The 
     biggest danger with shelters is we've begun to, as a society, 
     accept shelters as a normal way of housing people,'' he says. 
     ``It's becoming an institution--an institutionalized way of 
     helping people who really need jobs and housing.''
       8 a.m. ``It is now eight o'clock,'' Mike says. ``Where am I 
     gonna go? '' Mike has to kill time until his job starts at 
     1:30 p.m.
       ``For me, this is just temporary,'' he says. ``I need to 
     get the hell away from here. I want something out of my 
     life.''
       Until he has more money, though, Mike will continue going 
     to the shelter at night. It's not a home, but at least it's a 
     place to stay.
                                                                    ____



                         who are the homeless?

       In Chicago, 80,000 are homeless during the course of one 
     year.
       42% are single men.
       40% are families with children: The fastest growing segment 
     of the homeless population is women with children. Domestic 
     violence is a leading cause of homelessness among women with 
     children.
       17% are single women.
       7% are unaccompanied youth: 25% of homeless youth become 
     homeless before their 13th birthday.
       25% are disabled.
       Amost 50% are veterans: More Vietnam veterans are homeless 
     today than the number of U.S. soldiers who died during the 
     entire war.


                         why are they homeless?

       Lack of affordable housing
       For every 225 households seeking housing, only 100 
     affordable housing units are available.
       61% of poor Chicagoans spend 50% or more of their income on 
     rent.
       In Chicago, 700 single room occupancies for low-income 
     people are destroyed each year.
       The waiting period of public housing is 5\1/2\ years, and 
     the waiting period for Section 8 housing certificates is 10 
     years. The Chicago Housing Authority has closed the list to 
     new names.
       Lack of decent jobs or sufficient income:
       50% of homeless adults work full- or part-time but still 
     cannot afford rent.
       Chicago has lost more than 130,000 manufacturing jobs in 
     the last decade.
       In Chicago, a family of four must earn an annual income of 
     $33,490 to meet a basic budget including rent, transportation 
     and child care.
       In Illinois, the ratio of low-skilled, unemployed workers 
     to jobs that pay a living wage is 222 to 1.
       Lack of health care or support services:
       30% of the homeless suffer from varying degrees of mental 
     illness.
       40% are substance abusers.
       8% have AIDS or are HIV-positive.
       Source: The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless; City of 
     Chicago's ``Report on Hunger and Homeless in American 
     Cities'' for the U.S. Conference of Mayors 1990--
     1994.

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