Jasmine Handley raises six children on her own in a shelter. But it’s not the hardest thing she’s done.
Handley, 30, was sexually abused as a child and taken away from her mother who was addicted to heroin. She was just two years old.
She’s been through foster care, sexual assault, domestic violence, cancer and epilepsy. She’s fought them all. She’s not done fighting.
“I want to work,” she said. “I’m a workaholic to be honest. I want to achieve the goals that I have … I want to be able to succeed.”
For now, she’s staying in a Housing Forward shelter, taking online classes and working to find a place for her and her kids to live.
“When I got here, I was damaged. I had nobody. I felt like everybody was against me … but they [Housing Forward] didn’t give up on me.”
She’s hoping Oak Park won’t, either.
One might think that Oak Park, with its affluence, might be the unlikeliest place to have people who are unhoused.
That would be wrong.
While it’s difficult to count the number of people who are unhoused or who seek shelter in the village, Housing Forward reported that it served 329 Oak Parkers across all of its programs from January to September 2023. Of them, 38% were unsheltered. In fact, more than half of the entire state’s unhoused population live here in Cook County.
One might also think that with Oak Park’s commitment to progressive politics, residents would be fully onboard to find solutions and homes for all who need them.
It’s true that many government officials and nonprofit organizations are working toward those goals. But everyday Oak Parkers have said privately and to Wednesday Journal that they wish the people sleeping in Scoville Park or in the township parking lot could be swept to neighboring villages or Austin on Chicago’s West Side.
People often think homelessness is a problem for the community, but it’s not, said John Harris, facilitator for the Oak Park Homelessness Coalition.
“It’s important for all of us in communities to recognize that it is a societal problem, and it is a problem for that individual,” Harris said. “If we can help change some of the issues in society … then we’ve got a better shot at helping in the community and the individual.”
Wednesday Journal will be exploring how to give that better shot to those, like Handley, who need permanent, fixed housing in Oak Park.
What homelessness is
A person is considered “homeless” under federal guidelines if they lack a fixed and regular nighttime residence or if their main nighttime residence is a supervised shelter, a halfway house, a place not normally recognized as a place to sleep like a stairway or train station, or a temporary stay at someone else’s residence.
It’s that last scenario that people often don’t consider as “homelessness.” But it’s common.
“That’s a population that is certainly unseen and overlooked,” said Lynda Schueler, chief executive officer at Housing Forward.
It’s caused, she explained, by a lack of affordable housing — a perpetual problem in Cook County.
People come to experience homelessness in many ways, Harris said. They might lose their job. The roof could be torn off their house in a tornado. They could, like Handley, be the victim of domestic violence.
“Quite often, what happens is one issue begets another one and then another one,” Harris said. “If people imagine what it might be like to be living in a car, or on the street, it takes a toll on you mentally and it takes a toll on you physically.”
Whatever the case, it’s important for people to understand experiencing homelessness can happen to anyone, Harris said.
It’s often bundled with other complicating factors. Mental health, physical health, substance abuse and loss of support systems exacerbate the struggle those who need housing find themselves in.
“I never got real help,” Handley said.
Then, when other issues arise, such as an unexpected hospital visit or a car breakdown, and if there are no savings to tap into, homelessness is often just a paycheck away.
What homelessness in Oak Park looks like
Between 2022 and 2023, homelessness across the country grew by 12%, figures show.
In Oak Park, from January to September 2023, that number was 32%.
The village is in high demand for anyone looking for a place to live: It’s perceived to have good schools, social services, community programs and other amenities. It’s close to both Metra and Chicago Transit Authority lines, making it easy to get around or get to Chicago.
The demand for housing drives rental fees higher.
Consider this: According to the Illinois Housing Development Authority the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1,225. For an individual classified as extremely low-income in Oak Park, someone who earns less than $23,190 a year, that apartment would be about 63% of their yearly gross income. Contrast that with the median Oak Park income of $103,264. Those earners, however, tend to be homeowners, not renters.
In 2012, there were 4,100 apartments in Oak Park available for $1,000 or less per month, according to the IHDA. In 2022, that decreased by 63% to only 1,520.
“[Housing] is not as affordable to those folks that are barely making a living wage,” Schueler said. “You’ve got renters and homeowners that are really struggling to just keep pace with the increase in housing costs.”
For those in dire need of help, Oak Park may be even more attractive.
In the winter, many people experiencing homelessness ride the trains to stay warm, safe and get rest, Harris said. They also often believe Oak Parkers will help provide money and services, he said, a result of the community’s reputation of generosity.
Handley can attest to that. She said she came to Oak Park with nothing. She drove here from Minnesota with five kids in tow while seven months pregnant.
Now she’s staying at The Write Inn, one of Housing Forward’s temporary shelters. They’ve been able to help her get clothes and diapers, necessary identification and even found childcare for her while she recovered from a cancer-related surgery.
“This whole building, it’s like a village,” she said. “You got one kid, or you got 10, it’s always going to take a village to raise a family, or anybody. I’m going to need that support; I didn’t have none of it.”
Three of Handley’s kids attend Oak Park schools. While she takes classes, she’s also watching over her younger three. She’s been looking for a job, too, but said it’s hard to manage without childcare.
Her dream is to one day open a homeless shelter that does not discriminate in any way and welcomes everyone.
“I want to be able to help people like I was helped,” Handley said.
For Kirstein McGhee, Oak Park is a safe haven in a storm. The 39-year-old, who suffers from frostbite that could result in finger amputations, said he was staying with his mom in a senior building on the south side of Chicago when he was forced out because he wasn’t officially on the lease.
He has cardiomyopathy, a condition that causes the heart to have a hard time pumping blood, according to the Mayo Clinic. In January, McGhee had an episode outside that left him unconscious in the cold for nearly 20 minutes. That’s when he got the frostbite.
As someone who worked in construction for years, having frostbite on his fingers makes McGhee’s job nearly impossible now. He said his new plan is to go back to school and become an entrepreneur. In the meantime, he’s applied for disability benefits.
McGhee said he’s been trying to cope, but he’s constantly in pain from his condition. He’s been battling with depression, too.
“I haven’t been able to really go outside,” he said. “Just from being outside for a certain period of time, the weather’s 40 … I’m crying like a baby.”
Both Handley and McGhee said they’d like to stay in Oak Park.
They want a chance to start a new life, just like many others in the village have done.
The Oak Park difference
Unlike other municipalities that have driven unhoused people out by forbidding panhandling, demolishing tent cities or other tactics, the Village of Oak Park has opted to make policy decisions that aim to address the problem.
For example, in 2019, officials approved an affordable housing ordinance that requires developers to make 10% of their apartment or townhouse units affordable to residents who earn 60% of the area median income.
Developers also can pay the village $100,000 per affordable unit they don’t include in the building, an attractive option to earn more money for the affordable housing fund.
That policy doesn’t go far enough, critics said.
“Do we need to do more?” Harris said. “We absolutely do, because we need to help prevent people from entering homelessness.”
Housing Forward has an emergency shelter, which is a mass congregate situation with 20 beds, but it is usually full, Schueler said. At The Write Inn, where Handley and McGhee are staying, Housing Forward also provides temporary shelter and interim housing for individuals experiencing homelessness.
An emergency overnight shelter is also available at St. Catherine of Siena – St. Lucy’s campus at 38 N. Austin Blvd. from 7 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., according to Housing Forward’s website.
Housing Forward’s street outreach team can also provide other short-term assistance. One example is buying a bus ticket to help an individual experiencing homelessness get to a friend or family member, Schueler said.
“We [Housing Forward] are fully committed to ending homelessness for each and every person that comes to us in need,” she said.
Prevention is an important step to reducing homelessness, too, but there are limited resources for that effort, Schueler said.
Education and awareness around housing affordability and income, services for people struggling with substance abuse or gambling issues and resources for short- and long-term housing are essential to help prevent homelessness, Harris said.
“Let’s not victimize the individual, let’s call on our elected officials to do more to provide more resources to help those people experiencing homelessness,” he said.
In all, they agreed, there’s more work to be done.
