Despite a fifteen percent reduction to its 2012 budget, the city’s Department of Family and Support Services is planning to open a second overnight shelter for homeless youth.
DFSS officials announced the plan on Monday at a City Council budget hearing. There are currently 189 emergency shelter beds in the city for homeless youth. The proposed shelter would use $250,000 in city funds and add an additional 15 and 20 beds.
“We recognize teen homelessness is a continuing problem in Chicago and we do not have enough shelter beds,” said DFSS commissioner Evelyn Diaz.
Advocates estimate Chicago has more than 11,000 homeless youth, though a precise figure is hard to gather because many move between stays with family and friends. Of those, up to 3,000 need shelter on any given night, said Tedd Peso, the government relations manager for The Night Ministry, an outreach organization. Shelter beds reserved for homeless youth comprise about 5 percent of the approximately 4,000 total shelter beds in the city.
The city’s schools system is seeing an increase in homeless students living without a parent or guardian, according to Chicago Public Schools statistics obtained by the Chicago News Cooperative. Through September, CPS recorded 1,773 unaccompanied youth on its rolls, a record high.
As demand for its services has increased, DFSS has been hit particularly hard by state and federal budget cuts. State and federal grants comprise 96 percent of the department’s budget, Diaz said, and it stands to lose $40 million this year from the expiration of federal stimulus funds.
The department’s projected budget for 2012 is $364 million, down from $427 million in 2011. That includes an expected 10 percent drop in city funding, to $15.5 million from $17.3 million in the current fiscal year.
In August, the Chicago News Cooperative reported that DFSS planned to lay off 24 employees and shut down its overnight emergency services shift for the homeless after a 49 percent cut in its funding from the state. The department now has two service coordinators working to help place individuals seeking shelter, though the van it had used to transport people to shelters overnight is no longer running.
Recognizing the need for more beds, DFSS officials ensured that they would have enough resources in their upcoming budget for the new youth shelter. The proposed shelter will replicate The Crib, a pilot project that opened last January in the Lakeview Lutheran Church sponsored by The Night Ministry.
The Crib is a “low threshold” shelter, which means it does not require referrals, identification or income verifications for admittance and has few rules for its inhabitants. It is open from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. to people between 18 and 24 years old and usually fills up within 15 minutes of opening.
In its first month, the 20-bed shelter operated at capacity, serving 59 youth and turning away 141 due to lack of space.
“It makes sure there is a place for all youth in the housing continuum,” said The Night Ministry’s Peso, who helped launch The Crib.
The new shelter is planned for the city’s South or West Side and is expected to have a similar number of beds as The Crib, said John Pfeiffer, the first deputy commissioner of DFSS. Neither of those areas have drop-in facilities for homeless youth.
“There is no drop-in center on the South Side, nor on the West Side. We have to deport a lot of people,” said Flora Koppel, executive director of Unity Parenting and Counseling Center, a non-profit organization that provides transitional housing for homeless youth. She cited Unity’s waiting list for a bed, which can be up to a year, as evidence of the need for more options.
Liala Beukema, the pastor of Lakeview Lutheran Church, said the city needs similar facilities in other neighborhoods.
“For every one or two that we turn away there are many more who have not even ventured this way because they don’t want to take the risk of not having a place,” Beukema said.
Doesn’t Teen Living Programs have a facility on the South Side? Drop in?
Paul
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your comment. Teen Living Programs does have the Bronzeville Youth Shelter, but residents are generally referred to it from the National Runaway Switchboard, the police or other youth crisis agencies, according to Teen Living Programs, and as such it is not considered a drop-in shelter like the one operated by The Night Ministry.
Thanks so much for reading,
Meribah Knight
Why in the photo where staff member Jasmine Williams checks homeless are half the people holding a cell phone?
If you didn’t have a home, how would you expect people to find you if they needed to? Or if you needed them to?
The Crib in Lakeview causes nothing but problems for the neighbors. When the church operated a homeless men’s, shelter there were never problems. Now there is screaming and yelling at all hours. People loitering and behaving inappropriately – like removing clothing in the gangway, throwing sheets with human feces in the alley, littering, climbing on roofs and balconies, trespassing on neighbors property, vandalism, fighting and more! The funding should be cut! That church has able-bodied youth there every night, but cannot seem to comply with the City Ordinance requiring snow removal on adjacent sidewalks. It is a complete nuisance and a menace to the neighbors.