Homeless count in suburbs drops 13 percent after stimulus funds influx

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Emily Aker (center) and Candace Leirheiser talk with Lester Davidson at the Harlem Green Line station during a count of homeless in Oak Park on Jan. 27. Aker was working with the Alliance to End Homelessness in Suburban Cook County on its annual homeless

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Updated: August 31, 2011 5:09PM

The number of homeless children and adults in suburban Cook County dropped nearly 13 percent since 2007.

Alliance to End Homelessness in Suburban Cook County, which does a biannual one-night count of the homeless, released the figures this month.

From 2007 to 2011, the number of homeless adults and children in suburban Cook County, both sheltered and unsheltered, went from 1,237 to 1,080 — or 157 less.

The turnaround came in 2009 when federal dollars to prevent homelessness flowed in, shelter social workers said.

“In 30 years since the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development began funding homeless services, I’ve never seen such an infusion of federal money at this level, ever,” said Lynda Schueler, executive director of West Suburban PADS of Maywood.

“There was no money for the homeless, but because of the economic recession, this issue went on the national radar,” she said, adding HUD now provides U.S. Congress with national reports on the homeless.

“We were jumping up and down,” Schueler said.

Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — also called the federal stimulus — homeless prevention centers around the country received part of $1.5 billion.

West Suburban PADS, headquartered in Maywood, was given $784,000 in 2009 for its homeless prevention and rehousing program.

The funding does not support PADS’ emergency shelters, but pays for their clients’ apartment rents and utilities until they can afford both.

A second program called rapid housing helps place the homeless in apartments.

“I would theorize that more resources put into the prevention of homelessness was one reason why it has decreased. It’s helped to stave off homelessness,” Schueler said.

In 2009-10, homeless people staying at emergency shelters in the PADS system was 499, but by 2011 the number fell to 447 — or 52 less.

West Suburban PADS has shelters in 11 religious congregations in 20 villages.

For Kenith Price, 57, the Walk-In Ministry at First United Church of Oak Park and PADS found him a studio apartment on South Maple Avenue in mid-2009.

The funding pays his $665 monthly rent, but the subsidy ends in late July.

“I hope to find at least a part-time job as a security guard to continue paying my rent. I was a security guard before all of this,” said Price, homeless for six years in Chicago.

“Riding trains all night and staying in churches all day to stay out of the cold. It was hard,” he said.

Mil Tonya, a 2002 graduate of Oak Park-River Forest High School, was a bill collector before her homeless period.

One day last year she saw people lining up at the food pantry at First United Church of Oak Park and started asking questions about housing and job searches.

Housing was immediately unavailable, but she eventually found an apartment and has lived in Broadview with her three children since April.

Upon passing company tests, Tonya also has a good chance of landing an assembly job at the Chicago Ford Motor Co. plant.

She attributed the opportunity to PADS and Walk-In Ministry.

“They help people who want to help and themselves and become self-sufficient again. I just needed a boost,” Tonya said.

Every two years, Alliance to End Homelessness in Suburban Cook County, Westchester, conducts its one-night homeless count.

On Jan. 27, the Alliance sent out 200 trained volunteers from three locations in the north, west and south suburbs.

They visited every village except for Evanston, which does its own count.

Seeking the unsheltered from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. volunteers visited libraries, coin laundries, abandoned buildings, public parks and anywhere the unhoused found lodging.

Sixteen teams were assigned to search the west suburbs. One team perused the CTA Blue Line in Forest Park. Other teams set out for railway yards and viaduct bridges over Interstate 290 where the homeless find safe harbors in concrete crannies beneath the roar of expressway traffic.

Shelters, such as those in Elmwood Park, Franklin Park, Forest Park and Berwyn, are also an important part of the count.

HUD mandated the counting, said Hallan Hanson, Alliance program coordinator.

“When we apply for federal funding, HUD will look at our numbers and see if we set out and resolved our issues. The count is a way of taking the pulse of local homelessness,” she said.

Still, when federal funding runs out in 2012, nonprofits like PADS and the Alliance foresee homeless populations on the rise again, said Jennifer Hill, executive director of the Alliance to End Homelessness in Suburban Cook County.

“The stimulus funding for prevention has filled an important gap, but it’s ending next year, and so many people are still struggling in this bad economy,” Hill said.