Wang, in need of emergency housing last fall, telephoned a publicly-funded, Christian-run homeless shelter for women and children. During her client intake interview, Wang revealed that she was a lesbian. When the shelter told her that no beds were available she felt she had been discriminated against.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois charged that homophobia was involved and filed city and state discrimination complaints about the New Life Interim Housing shelter. It also planned to file a lawsuit against the shelter located in Rogers Park.
As a concerned community resident, I went to get more information from Rev. Bud Ogle, President of Good News Partners. We met at the Jonquil Hotel, 1600 W. Jonquil Ave., which for 32 years has been the base of operations for the organization’s delivery of emergency and long-term housing and developmental support programs to people in need. I’ve known Ogle since I moved to Rogers Park in the mid-90’s. Up to this point, as a gay man, I never thought that there was a problem about sexual orientation in his institution.
We also met with Hendretha Hill, the shelter’s program director. Ogle and Hill believe that a terrible snafu occurred, not a case of discrimination. Hill said that when Wang initially called, from a Chicago Department of Human Services (DHS) office, their shelter staffer conducted a routine client intake telephone interview. Wang talked about splitting up with her lover and her need for emergency housing. The staffer put Wang on hold in order to check a daily client log of available beds. Hill said the log form, with handwritten entries of current client names, showed two beds were available. However, the log had not been updated to reflect commitments previously made to two other women who were expected to arrive at the shelter. So, Wang was told no beds were available.
Wang and the ACLU believe she was discriminated because of this point: after Wang’s call ended a DHS staffer called the shelter, talked to someone else, and was told that the client log showed two beds were available. Hill said the log had still not been updated when the DHS staff called. Olge and Hill agree that it would be easy to assume that this was a case of discrimination. As a result, he is taking steps to correct intake procedures at the shelter.
Behind the scenes at Good News Partners Mission Statement:
It’s hard to know who to believe simply from looking at the “he said-she said” circumstances of a story, especially when it involves unrecorded telephone conversations, multiple staffers at different agencies, and handwritten client logs. This incident is inevitably complicated by the longstanding history of conflict between Good News Partners - with its expansive housing and social programs serving the poor - and some of its adjacent neighbors.
Add to the mix varying beliefs about religious institutions, in this case an evangelical Christian mission in our community. LGBT folk have good reasons to be wary, given the history of religious persecution in our society and the fact that a huge percentage of the homeless are LGBT youth. It is expected that people would be alarmed and believe the worst about this story.
So, I asked Ogle if there was other evidence to support his contention that homophobia was not a factor in the incident. I specifically wanted to know about written policies and public statements on discrimination, the history of management practices, staff and personnel policies, and the experiences of the clientele and residents of Good News Partners’ programs.
What I learned was eye opening.
It turns out that Ogle is well-known within his denomination, the Presbyterian Church, for being a firebrand about civil rights issues. He is considered to be far left of center on issues related to LGBT equality, and happens to be a longtime ACLU member. While the Presbyterian Church has fought for years about ordaining lesbian and gay pastors, Ogle has advocated for it as the right thing to do.
I also didn’t know that that the most recent chief of staff at Good News Partners, Ogle’s second in command, was Molly Lovelock, an out-of-the-closet lesbian. She was hired as development director in 2003 and later was appointed chief operating officer of the non-profit corporation. Ogle said she was a respected staff leader until she resigned last year to move to the east coast with her lover.
For the past 15 years Richard Marks, an openly gay man, has served as the manager of the Jonquil Hotel, and is responsible for other housing operations as well.
Program Director Hill said that there have been many lesbian residents at the shelter, before and since the Wang incident, which is now under investigation by city and state agencies. She noted that the atmosphere of equality also includes respect given to residents at the hotel diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.
Even with all of their apparently positive support for and experiences with LGBT staff and residents, Ogle said the Wang incident has prompted him to be proactive about the possibility that homophobic discrimination could have occurred in the past or future. He just beefed up the organization’s current non-discrimination policy and gave me a copy:
Good News Partners is committed to affirming, discerning, evoking and supporting the best in everyone. Following Christ's lead we welcome everyone and oppose every form of discrimination, injustice, prejudice, and harassment. In all of our housing and supportive activities we are eager to partner in creating better lives and a better world for all persons regardless of race, ethnic origin, religion, gender, age, ancestry, sexual orientation, physical handicap, marital status, veteran status or any other legally protected status.
Ogle also invited LGBT community residents, and all of Good News Partners’ neighbors, to a meeting to discuss the Wang incident. It will be held Wednesday, May 30 at 7pm at the Jonquil Hotel, 1600 W. Jonquil Ave. Ogle hopes to get input at the meeting on the new non-discrimination policy as well as his plans to initiate sensitivity training on these issues for his staff. He sees a role for our community to participate in this.
I think everyone in Rogers Park would benefit from thinking more about this controversy, which now looks more like an opportunity on many levels.
For starters, what will be our response next time allegations of homophobia arise in our neighborhood? City and state commissions on human relations, and even citywide LGBT groups, exist to advocate for us and they serve important role. However, at the local level, I’d favor more of us working together and proactively on solutions to local issues. What about sensitivity training for other groups here. The police department? What other issues (from health to housing to economic development) might benefit from the LGBT perspective? What’s the potential for a local group of residents coming together to provide advocacy on our behalf?
It’s been a while since we’ve had any kind of LGBT organization in Rogers Park. Our history includes a Rogers Park gay drop-in center in the 1970’s. A few years ago, I was active with a different group that mostly had social events. A lot of great people joined, but it eventually dissolved when internal personality problems could not be overcome.
Thanks for reading. I’d like to hear from everyone who has ideas. You can email me at MJH123@aol.com
7 comments:
I congratulate you on meeting with Ogle to learn what you did instead of what many might have done and just run a diatribe against him and his organization. I know nothing about it but I have read here and on the Trib. It sounds as if this was an unfortunate mistake at the time, and now has become a sort of opportunity. Thank you for doing the research in such a professional way on a heated matter.
Great work on this.
The website of the Chicago Metropolitan Association of the United Church of Christ lists the Good News Community Church 7649 N Paulina as a member church, with Rev. Dan Dale as Interim Pastor and Rev. Marilyn Pagán-Banks as Associate Pastor.
Their website also includes a list of certain member churches that are officially designated as Open and Affirming (ONA), meaning they welcome Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgendered persons.
Good News is conspicuously absent from this list. Why?
Michael, I appreciate your willingness to reach out to Mr. Ogle and his staff. What conclusion are we to draw from what you learned there? That the case Ms. Wang is pursuing with the assistance of the ACLU is without merit?
What about Mr. Ogle's statements to the press about the "comfort level" of members of his staff with gay people at the time of Ms. Wang's intake? They were very troubling.
My own view is that the appropriate regulatory bodies and/or courts should hear this case and decide its merits. But I hope it is as you suggest, Michael, that this organization has always been true to its non-discrimination policy in both spirit and deed.
Hugh,
I did not ask Ogle about the Good News Church. Good News Partners incorporated separately (they split) from Good News Church over a decade ago. So, they operate as separate entities, with neither accountable to the other. Questions about the church's stance on LGBT affirmation should be put to them.
Rebecca,
I agree totally - the ACLU and the city and state commissions on human relations should follow through with their mandate to investigate the charges. If fault is found they will apply sanctions and remediation measures. I'm not a detective, but so far I trust what I've heard, seen, and know about the organization regarding their policy and practice on LGBT issues.
Ogle understands, as I said Wednesday in Part 1 of this report, that there are some homophobic people, and those who privately harbor other forms of bigotry, in every institution in every community. A problem arises, of course, when those people act on their anti-social beliefs. Neither Good News Partners nor any other institution here should ever be deemed beyond reproach on this. We must always be vigilant.
I think that's why Ogle met with his staff, reaffirmed his "party line" on homophobia, and strengthened the language of his non-discrimination policy.
Additionally, the issue is important enough to him that he's also not waiting for the ACLU or the commissions to act in order to do sensitivity training. He plans to initiate it himself.
The opportunity exists for us as neighbors to inform the process and help those sessions happen.
So you can't accept that this shelter made a simple error? It has to be discrimination and therefore a federal case.
Life is hard enough. No one is allowed to make a mistake. Kids get thrown into Juvenile detention for the least infraction. No tollerance. Make a mistake and your ass is grass.
Just like so much information on this board, judgements are made without the full story. Assumptions are always the worst.
Too bad. So sad. When can we expect then next outrage and tantrum?
No, sweetpea, no one should be willing to just accept that in the wake of this incident. We are not talking about kid's infractions here. We are talking about a publicly funded homeless shelter.
In every organization, staff occasionally deviate from necessary policy, against the direction of an organization's leadership. When that happens, leadership has a responsibility to notice and make immediate proactive corrections.
No one has been judged for anything yet and may not deserve to be - the appropriate authorities will decide this. As a community, we can discuss it and try to prevent discrimination from happening in our institutions, especially to the most vulnerable among us.
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