Warning: The Homelessness issue. The mayor tells us there is only 24 homeless people are living downtown. So, where do they stay? I'm guessing Rogers Park.
While Joe Moore is busy playing a self-appointed world diplomat, solving the worlds problems one meaningless resolution at a time. Our wards problems continue to exist. Take this homeless man for example. Clearly he is in need of help. It was hot Tuesday. He was tired. And the vestibule he found across the street from the Alderman's office looked like it was the best he could do. One wonders if this homeless person didn't first attempt to seek help at the Alderman's office?
* Maybe he tried to call the alderman's office and never got a call back?
* Maybe he e-mailed Joe Moore or a person on the staff and never got a return e-mail response? Or maybe he got one of those fancy office auto-emails that said, "We'll get back to you when we're back from our summer vacation." Signed, Nathan Moore - 49th ward staff.
* Then maybe he decided to wheel himself down to the office personally and found the doors were locked or the office closed for the day? Or maybe, just maybe, he just got turned away at the door by Anne Sullivan?
All those cases have happened many, many times before.
Then again, maybe he knew what happened the last time someone went to the Alderman's office for help. Remember the Ramirez family? They went to the Alderman's office for help. Look what happened to them.
WEEKEND BLOGNOTES: Joe doesn't know what's going on around him at home. This week while Joe wouldn't talk I pointed out a pain-in-the ass lady sleeping on one of the newspaper boxes at the Morse Avenue EL stop.
Joe was totally oblivious to this person. He shrugged off the question about a homeless person with a sarcastic answer like always. Doesn't the clueless wonder listen to anything that's going on at the CAPS meeting? (That's when he actually does attend).
One of the biggest complaints at the CAPS meetings is the unsavory people hanging out on Morse Avenue, day and night. The people that give Morse Avenue the perception of 'Doom & Gloom' when they walk down the street.
This weeks news-box sleeper lady has been hanging out on Morse Avenue for years. For as long as I can remember. She's been drinking, she has been seen pissing, and I'm guessing shitting too in the alleys and gangways that exit off Morse Avenue.
I've photographed her before hanging with the known open air drug market salesmen. I've seen the police have to deal with her. I've seen her aggressively pan-handle commuters who are trying to get to and from work. She's one of the 'Quality of Life' problems on Morse Avenue. She's the female version of Otis.
Why hasn't one of Joe Moore's not-for-profit community groups actively reaching out to help this woman like DevCorp? Why hasn't the Alderman even ask if she needs help, or try to intervene? After all, he's out there for a few hours collecting signatures and talking to most of the people passing by.
Couldn't he have gone up to her and ask her to sign his petition? Then, as he was doing with the others information, put it in his trusty Blackberry with a note saying HELP HER ASAP?
My question today. Where's Joe? Why can't he tackle the issues that face our ward before he goes off to save the world?
Homeless in Rogers Park - Part 1
Homeless in Rogers Park - Part 2
26 comments:
So.... why don't you and the garden ladies come to the rescue?
Oh, Hayzee! There you go again! Are you another member of the anonymous "Know Nothing Gang" that is intent on being too dense to see the nose right on their own face? I think you don't want to "get it" on purpose.
The essence of this blog post was to ask (OK, a more accurate word is challenge) local government and the non-profit sector to DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT than what we've seen to date regarding homelessness in our community.
If Craig or the garden ladies got a $100,000 a year salary to lead and act on our behalf then I'd expect them to do something. I'd hold them accountable for it. If they were (a) part of the multi-million dollar constellation of non-profits here and (b) had a mission to address homelessness then I'd expect them to take action.
It's a wasteful (or purposely diversionary) tactic of denial for you or anyone else to spend time blaming Craig-the-messenger rather than using your energy to ask or assist the institutions that really should be responsible for addressing this issue.
Our homelessness problem (also seen on the lakefront and in local parks) is not so big that it can't be addressed by a concerted effort of public and private agencies working together to create and implement solutions. Local solutions that would take hard work, but are not impossible to organize, include outreach and social workers, shelters, transitional housing and affordable housing development, physical and mental health care services, and job training.
Maybe my real question for you Hayzee is this: do you, or we as a community, actually give a damn about this issue? If we don't have the requisite political will or community interest then we can expect Craig and others to continue to send more messages out like this one.
Speaking of not responding to emails, I sent Mr. Harrington an email a few weeks ago and got no response.
Another thing I should point out is each and every morning one of our interns responds to emails. We do not have an automated response system.
A second thing I would like to address is that I don't believe I ever said "We'll get back to you when we return from our vacation." Perhaps I said this in a personal email I sent to someone, but I don't believe I said it to anyone in an email concerning 49th ward matters.
So there you have it people, two more lies from the Broken Heart.
Craig, I've tried to be nice to you. Remember the Spring Cleanup when I shook your hand and helped you carry flowers into the ward office? I'd say thats pretty nice of me considering you've called my father both a murderer and homosexual on this blog.
You can tell all the lies about my Dad you want Craig. Hell, you'll probably get away with it too, but don't start making stuff up about me. You walk a fine line between libel and inaccuracy Craig, don't cross it.
Well put Michael-
For a hundred grand our Alderman does very little-
Like one of the former alderman stated-some of us are hos-
Maybe Joe is busy blogging. This is hilarious: http://thejoemooreblog.blogspot.com/
So Nathan, care to quote chapter, verse and footnote on those emails to Harrington, let alone the 'responses' to folks who have emailed Craig and stated they have seen no responses to their emails to the ward office?
Inquiring minds ya know!
Nathan-
To be clear, an "auto-response" can also be done by a human- it's just not as good a use of time and resources(as an electronic one). An intern can send out generic replies such as, "We have received your request and are working on it..or something like this." And I have received such responses myself from the office. This is just fine, as long as it is followed up by the issue in the email being addressed and responded to. I have seen this happen myself.
But are you saying that all the complainers here are all lying when they say they got no response to their requests? It seems implausible.
It's just too easy to shift the focus to Craig and what he is doing wrong. I think you can do better than that.
So Craig calls Joe a liar and you call Craig a liar. Where does that leave us? Address the issues that are being complained about, and we will have a more peaceful community. Craig's blog is but a symptom of the illness.
Craig-
Why isn't the broken heart listed on the bloglist on rogerspark.com? Do you know if it is an oversight or intentional? It seems odd that the most read RP blog would not be listed.
So Mr. Harrington... There a lots of homeless programs, shelters, cooling centers, libraries where these people can hang out. There are outreach programs by non-profits, for profits, churches and associations. There are still homeless people. How many of these homeless people are out there because they choose not to use these services? Should we have legislation that removes people who make us uncomfortable from our sight? Who will be the "decider" of who makes us uncomfortable?
Jocelyn, I appreciate the clear headed and even handed perspective you provided on this matter. Your comment is clear and direct without adding any fuel to the flame or putting anyone on the defensive.
M’lady, your diplomacy speaks highly of you.
-PEACE-
Hayzee wrote: "So Mr. Harrington... There a lots of homeless programs, shelters, cooling centers, libraries where these people can hang out. There are outreach programs by non-profits, for profits, churches and associations. There are still homeless people."
ACTUALLY, NO. There are only a few local programs that target the homeless, and none employ outreach workers, which I define as "feet on the street." In Rogers Park, there are a dozen or so transitional apartments offered by Housing Opportunities for Women. Good New Partners' emergency shelter never has enough beds for the women (many with children) who call them. Referral and support services are offered by Howard Area Community Center. The two kitchens that feed the homeless - at Good News Church (daily) and my own United Church of Rogers Park (Sundays) - serve several hundred meals every week. All of these ONLY assist the people who show up.
NONE of these social service providers send outreach workers to the parks or streets to deliver assistance. I give them credit and praise for all they do in spite of being poorly funded and receiving minimal community support.
Hayzee wrote: "How many of these homeless people are out there because they choose not to use these services? Should we have legislation that removes people who make us uncomfortable from our sight?"
THE WORD "CHOOSE" is as erroneous an assumption as the notion that our own personal discomfort is why we are concerned about homelessness. You also assume that the men, women, and children who live by their wits on the streets know of or can get to the few services that exist. Most would prefer safe and clean housing instead of the streets, but they can't afford it. Of course, there are those who don't seek or respond to help due to mental illness or a disabling drug addiction. Nevertheless, they need outreach help too.
Hayzee wrote: "Who will be the "decider" of who makes us uncomfortable?"
OUR COMMUNITY HAS ALREADY DECIDED, and we expect our elected officials and government to take action to assist the homeless in their plight, even those who refuse may it. Again, I take issue with you. This is not about who is uncomfortable by the sight of homeless people. Nor is this a civil rights issue. No one has a "right" to live on the public streets. Instead, the issue is about our social responsibility to each other, and what we do to help people in need.
DOING SOMETHING DIFFERENT includes: (1) making real progress on maintaining and creating affordable housing, because the lack of it is a primary cause of homelessness. (2) adequately funding and staffing services for the homeless (i.e physical and mental health, education and job training, shelters and transitional housing) and (3) funding OUTREACH WORKERS to hit the streets to offer help. The city's human services van, for instance, should be directed to spend more time in Rogers Park, pushing, if need be, assistance to the homeless. It should not be a police job.
I HOPE OUR GOVERNMENT officials will provide leadership, step in to assist, support, and help coordinate a comprehensive response to the need.
NONE OF THIS IS EASY. We probably won't reach all who need help. Yet we must try. We must do something different besides worry, wring our hands, or ignore homelessness in our own community.
I happen to think the agencies do a fine job. Perfect, no. If you expect perfection from government you will never find it.
But let's be realistic here. There is a very small amount of homeless people showing up in RP that are not availing themselves to the services that are offered.
The are other's that use the shelters at night, but frankly, you can't keep them locked up 24/7. How do you know if the person pictured is not using the services that are offered in RP? How do you know if the person pictured isn't mentally ill and refuses to use the shelters?
Sometimes when I'm down on Michigan Ave there's a begger ever 20 to 40 feet asking for money?
Can we honestly lock up or force people who make us uncomfortable to go somewhere else?
And besides, if Joe Moore were to sponsor another homeless/halfwayhouse/drug treatment center in RP people on this blog would be screaming mad.
I just think to use this helpless guy as a metaphore in you're anti-Joe Moore rants is stupid.
mr harrington,
perhaps you can point to a place where these ideas have been put in practice.
and perhaps you could also tell us how many times you voted for ronald reagun.
Question: More services offered does that mean more homeless show up in Rogers Park to take advantage of the services.
Why is the 49th ward being pilloried for not having enough services? Where are all the services in Lakeview, Edgewater and Lincoln Park. Why is everything dumped in Rogers Park and Uptown on the lakefront?
been there said, "mr harrington, perhaps you can point to a place where these ideas have been put in practice. and perhaps you could also tell us how many times you voted for ronald reagun."
Dear been there,
(A) I'm not paid $100,000 a year to do this work or to provide community leadership. Neither am I supplied by the city with several staffers and an expense account to research effective social service programs. However, I believe that you know someone who does fit that description. I dare you to ask them what they are doing next time the club meets.
(B) For your edification, I didn't vote for Reagan or the Bushes. I'm a Chicago Democrat (and more important to my identity, a Harold Washington Democrat) and have voted that way in Chicago since I registered at age 18. However, I have supported one Republican. I did so several times in fact, when during my 3 years as a member of the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization board of directors I worked for the endorsement of State Rep. Susan Catania for re-election. She was a wonderful south side leader and public servant. You may need to look up the definition for that term - PUBLIC SERVANT.
You are truly desperate, and it reveals the vapidness of your position, when your accusation of last resort is to rumormonger that someone is a Republican. I know that you and your ilk were successful in making "Republican" into a smear against the good reputation of lifelong Democrat Don Gordon during the 49th Ward aldermanic race. There are good Republican Party neighbors in our ward, who are just as appalled as I and other Democratic Party neighbors are, by such a twisted and narrow-minded tactic. I know you don't care what venom you spew, but it doesn't wash with me or us.
Please keep up the negative trash talk, OK neighbor? It helps us see you for what you are every time you open your mouth.
This is my favorite Joe Moore experience. While he was campaigning he stood at the Jarvis stop, doling out donuts and limp-fish handshakes. As my vote is slightly more expensive than a Boston Creme, I nodded and proceeded into the station to catch the train.
Just inside the door, not ten feet from my alderman was a gangbanger smoking a joint, not a care in the world.
Happy-go-lucky on both sides of the station door.
So Mr. Harrington. You're a good democrat. We had good democrats in office under Clinton. Why wasn't the homeless problem cleaned up then? It isn't a party thing is it?
I don't see IVO doing outreach to the homeless. What's the precentage of homeless in Rogers Park. What's the variance as compared to other wards? Do you want more homeless shelters and services in Rogers Park? Or do you just want them ... as long as they are some place else?
How do you know this person hasn't availed himself to the services that are already there, but isn't ready to make a commitment to sobriety? What are we supposed to do with the homeless that just plain do not want to be helped?
How about Dee Dee's question?
Deedee raises a reasonable question residents in every community ask. Does offering more services mean more homeless people will show up in Rogers Park?
The homeless largely stay in familiar neighborhoods, where they grew up or those in which they lost their housing. (Chicago's downtown is an exception - the concentration of businesspeople and tourists with money is a powerful magnet for begging.) However, in contrast to a retail store that pulls customers regionally, a community-based homelessness program mostly serves local clients unless it targets a larger area (see agencies noted below). Of course a local program can attract folks from other areas, but that's not the standard case.
Think about it: a comprehensive and aggressive Rogers Park homeless program will get most homeless off the street. An effective program with a reputation - one that won't ignore you and won't allow you to languish or deconstruct in the park, beach, or street - would actually keep many outsiders away.
Deedee, I would never pillory Rogers Park for not having enough services. The few we have that target the homeless are doing the best they can. What I said was that they need help and some outreach strategies to serve more of the homeless who are already here. By the way, some residents feel that there are too many social service agencies here already. Sure, there are some flagrant violators (agencies and clients) who disrupt the quality of life we expect. However, most people don't know about the majority of our social service providers because these are the high-quality operations that never cause a problem in our neighborhood - that 3-flat down the block looks and smells like any other 3-flat, and the residents are as quiet and peaceful as you and I.
We also need to stop playing the victim regarding the widespread concern about people with social needs being "dumped" in Rogers Park. Besides the callous tone of the word (we dump trash or garbage, not human beings!), it is not true. Too often we lump together too many unrelated but important issues (i.e. concentration of low-income housing in one particular area, subsidized housing, and slumlord management throughout Rogers Park.) We need to know that once the CHA high-rise slums were torn down, the vast majority of CHA tenants relocated to the south and west sides of Chicago (where many ended up being homeless) not Rogers Park.
Finally, you asked about Lakeview, Edgewater and Lincoln Park. They have been home to some really great service provider agencies to meet needs that existed or still exist there.
I'm familiar, from past volunteer work, with two powerfully effective groups which serve these other neighborhoods. They could teach us a lot about outreach and the solutions we seek. Check them out (sorry, I don't know how to embed hyperlinks here).
The Night Ministry: "We take services to Chicago's nighttime streets from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m., six nights a week. Health Outreach Bus reaches nine neighborhoods each week." http://www.thenightministry.org/
media/about.htm
Teen Living Programs: "We deliver comprehensive, long-term solutions to youth without homes who strive for self-sufficiency and community connection. Teen Living Programs offers housing, job training, educational support, mental health counseling, holistic health care, and life skills training within a community of professional and passionate support."
http://www.teenliving.org/
perl/2/index.cgi
Can't we all just get along?
actually, the reagan comment had nothing to do with the election. it had to do with the fact that it was under reagan that the mentally ill were turned out into the streets in record numbers. lots of democrats voted for him, if you will recall.
i have a big problem with your pontification on this issue for the simple reason that the joe bashers never tire of putting complex social problems, which i have yet to see really solved ANYWHERE, at the foot of any single politician. the war on drugs is a 40 year debacle. it has destroyed more lives than the drugs themselves ever could. there was a story up on the bench about the city without fathers. no where in that article does it mention how many of those fathers are in prison for drug crimes. hmmm.
the guys on morse avenue are the modern day capones. no one is shooting people over which corner they can occupy to sell cans of beer. but still we persist in this idiot charade. i could put on my tinfoil hat and ask why. why are we spending millions on prisons and pennies on either research to find successful treatments, or expanding what we do have to all the buyers who line up. we know where they are buying, why aren't we there with help? probably, in part, because we have no real help to offer. treatment for drug and alcohol addiction is spotty at best, even if you can get people into treatment.
but, you know, these are decisions that are not part of the alderman's portfolio. these laws are made in d.c. and in springfield. knowing joe, i have no doubt that he would choose a different, more compassionate and sensible path. which really makes this rant of yours pretty disingenuous, and unfair. you puff yourself up with this righteous indignation, as though joe were just refusing to wave his magic wand at these problems. these are mostly insoluble problems. that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to work harder on them. but it does mean that you cannot lay the blame at the feet of the guy who is hardly culpable for creating them in the first place. unless you are now going to try to tell me that joe created human misery and mental illness. maybe i wouldn't get so frustrated with all of "you" if you were a little more realistic. and intellectually honest. maybe then we could make some progress, instead of tearing each other apart.
and fyi, i know very well who susan catania is. i also still have my blue button from harold's fist campaign.
see, you don't really know jack shit about me.
I wish Joe would devote as much time to fighting to have drugs legalized as he has: 1) fighting to have foie gras made illegal; 2) protesting the war in Iraq.
Been there, you say that Joe has 0 influence on national policies yet he devotes time to protesting where he disagrees. I have no problem with this except that his fights with foie gras eaters and the Bush admin on the war have pretty much zip to do with the 49th ward. If he spent time working to get drugs legalized, then at least it would be a fight for a policy change that would impact us -- in a good way. Legalize drugs and a whole lot of problems would go away from gang bangers on street corners to overcrowded jails. Drug abuse would also decline.
pearl,
i did not say joe didn't have anything to do with these decisions, i said they are made in springfield and d.c.
now can all the whiners in this thread admit that things "outside the 49th ward" DO have an impact here?
maybe the iraq vets won't end up sleeping in the park because all the joe haters will pick them up and take them home with them. good luck getting treatment for their ptsd.
I am getting PTSD living here!
mr harrington,
i would appreciate it if you would put up a link to any news story, study, or other verifiable evidence of any organization, public or private, where a
"a comprehensive and aggressive ..homeless program will get most homeless off the street."
i find your insinuation that this is a problem that the alderman ought to be able to solve, (and solve without input form any larger government body, i presume, since this seems to be verboten in RP) to be a classic trumped up charge, aka a smear.
and mannis- can't we all just get along- that's a good joke coming from you.
Nathan Moore -
Of all the things Craig publishes on this blog, and all the comments that are made, the one thing you choose to respond to is he said you said you were on vacation, and you single out one poster who may not have responded to an email of yours?? Please! How about instead of trolling on Craig's blog, you and your father (if he's not too busy in Washington, of course) go clean up Morse Avenue.
I had a friend visit me over the weekend, and on one trip from my condo at Farwell and Wayne to Morse Fruit Market and back at about 6:00pm on Saturday evening, he was offered drugs THREE times. Do you think this is how I want my guests to be treated when they visit me? Do you think that this is what I or anyone else living here wants to have to deal with on a daily basis?
As Jocelyn said, albeit more diplomatically, address what's being complained about. Quit nitpicking about what Craig says, put your money (taxpayer money, campaign contributions, whatever) where your mouth is, and clean the 49th up. Get the drug dealers out of our ward. Put traffic calming measures on Sheridan. Get better maintenance in the parks. Etc Etc. These are the REAL issues, not Craig's so called libel against you and your father.
rp4life...
you're funny. :-D
thanks for the chuckle. ;)
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