Apartments give women homes

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Fewer than 1,000 found homeless

March 25, 2004

BY FRANK MAIN AND FRAN SPIELMAN Staff Reporters

At least 958 people were living on Chicago's streets Wednesday morning.

Hundreds of volunteers and city workers fanned out across Chicago between midnight and 3 a.m. to count the homeless and survey them about their personal circumstances.

The massive head count did not cover the estimated 6,000 people who use homeless shelters every night.

Still, the city official in charge of the census said he does not think all of the city's street people were tallied.

"I expected the number to be much higher based on my experience working on the streets," said Carmelo Vargas, head of the city's Department of Human Services. "I get the feeling there might be another couple hundred people out there."

The census and the 23-question survey are part of the city's goal to eliminate homelessness in Chicago in 10 years.

"This gives me an idea of how much housing we may need and what types of programs we must develop -- how to spend our money," Vargas said.

Like other attempts to quantify the level of homelessness in Chicago, this one is already running into controversy.

The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless has estimated that as many as 80,000 people in the city are homeless in the course of a year. The coalition's definition of homelessness includes people living on the streets, in shelters, in relatives' homes, in jail, in abandoned housing, in mental institutions and in substance abuse facilities.

"It sounds like their number is a gross undercount," said Samir Goswami of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. "I would hate to see them use that number as being the number of people who are homeless on a given night."

Goswami pointed out that one group distributes 650 dinners to homeless people every Sunday within a 2-mile radius of the Loop.

"I'm sure there are more than 400 homeless people in the rest of the city," he said.

Goswami, however, said he is excited about the questionnaires that were completed Wednesday morning. The census takers asked homeless people about their age, whether they have been arrested, how long they have been homeless, whether they have HIV, whether they use drugs and other personal questions.

"The responses will probably give us a good representative example of why those people are homeless," he said.

One of those people is Tyrone Carter, 43, who does not remember any census takers talking to him early Wednesday.

Carter lives under a donated gray blanket next to a cluster of blue trash bins near Lower Wacker Drive. He avoids shelters because he doesn't like their rules and regulations.

He walks to the Jewel Food Store at Clark and Division to buy salami, bread and mayonnaise on his $30-a-week budget, which also pays for cigarettes and booze.

Carter said he used to hang drywall, but he lost his job and hasn't seen his family members for two years. "I'm on my own out here," he said.

James, 38, lives a few blocks away. He said he's been homeless since 1990.

He does odd jobs such as selling newspapers on street corners and keeping an eye on construction equipment that contractors leave overnight along Lower Wacker.

James, who estimated about 40 people live along Lower Wacker Drive every night, said he talked to the census takers.

"I welcome anything that's going to help me," he said.