Outreach workers will be riding the trains and hanging out at stations on the section of the Blue ‘L’ line that serves the Chicago West Side, Oak Park and Forest Park.
The Chicago Transit Board extended the existing contract with Chicago Department of Family and Support Services in November, doubling the amount of money nonprofits get to provide services to people sheltering on the trains. DFSS contracted substance use disorder and mental health treatment services organizations Haymarket Center and Thresholds to provide services on the Blue Line and Red Line, respectively.
Tom McKone, CTA’s chief administrative officer, told the transit board that Haymarket outreach workers work in two shifts – a 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. day shift and an 11 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. night shift. Both shifts operate seven days a week as of November. Under the current contract, they only serve the section of the Blue Line between O’Hare Airport and UIC-Halsted stations. The extra funding will allow it to cover the entire line effective the start of 2024.
Jeffrey Collord, Haymarket’s vice president of operations, told the transit board that while his organization specialized in treating addiction and mental health issues, it was only natural that they help homeless individuals as well.
“We serve 12,000 [clients] a year, the majority of whom are experiencing or have experienced homelessness,” he said. “Almost all of them have no resources or are on Medicaid.”
McCone said that the workers travel in teams of 4 to 5, so they could engage with several people at once, if necessary. The teams ride the trains, get off at certain stations, and engage with people experiencing homelessness. Collord said that they focus on “hot spots” based on what they heard from the CTA and residents living near the stations.
The outreach workers start out simply talking to unhoused individuals, asking them if they are interested in food, hygiene supplies, or harm reduction materials such as drug testing strips. From there, the conversations may progress to connecting them to medical services and shelters.
The goal is to try to get unsheltered individuals into stable housing. But McKone’s presentation to the board showed that it’s easier said than done. According to the 2023 Point in Time Count, the annual survey of homeless people conducted in Chicago in January, 546 unhoused people were sheltering on the CTA. Threshold and Haymarket outreach workers report that 80 people were placed in shelters. Out of 236 people who signed up to get more permanent housing through the city’s Coordinated Entry System, only 24 have been placed, and five people were in the midst of the placement process in October.
Last fall, the Chicago Transit Board approved a $2 million intergovernmental agreement with the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services. This allowed the department to contract Thresholders to send workers to the entre Red Line, and for Haymarket to send out outreach workers to the Blue Line. But their service never went as far as the Forest Park branch, the section of the line that mostly runs in the median of or alongside Eisenhower Expressway, between UIC-Halsted and Forest Park stations.
The transit board’s decision will permit Haymarket to send outreach workers along the entire line effective early January 2024, as well as boost funding for Thresholds, allowing it to increase its service.
The Blue Line is one of the two ‘L’ lines that runs at night, so it’s not unusual for homeless individuals to shelter on the trains. Many unsheltered riders disembark at the Forest Park terminal and use the nearby Forest Park Public Library and Mohr Community Center.
The Forest Park branch runs through West Side community areas that have the highest rates of overdoses in Chicago. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart previously told the Forest Park Review, Wednesday Journal’s sister newspaper, that isn’t unusual for riders to buy drugs on the West Side, use them on the trains or in the areas near the ‘L’ stations. According to Sheila Haennicke, who co-chairs the West Side Heroin Opioid Taskforce’s Narcan committee, Kedzie-Homan, Pulaski/Eisenhower and Forest Park stations in particular are overdose hotspots.
Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins has long complained that responding to those sometimes-overlapping issues has strained the village resources. He has lobbied CTA to do more “to provide services to unhoused persons and those with opioid addiction.”
“Our police and fire personnel have been responding to steeply increasing call volumes originating from [the Forest Park terminal, Harlem/Lake Green Line ‘L’ station and Harlem/Eisenhower Blue Line L station],” Hoskins said in a recent interview, adding that the fire department responded to seven CTA-related calls overnight on Nov. 20 to 21.
Forest Park has been working with Housing Forward, ShowerUp Chicago, the Night Ministry and Loyola Street Medicine team to provide services for individuals using the Forest Park terminal, but much of that outreach only one day a week.
Collord said that he was happy to see their outreach expand.
“Haymarket CTA outreach teams are some of our most passionate staff and we’re fortunate to partner with the passionate staff of Thresholds, and the passionate staff of DFSS and the passionate staff of the CTA,” he said.
Haennicke, who attended the Nov. 15 meeting, said that she welcomed Haymarket’s service expansion, saying that the more service providers are trying to tackle the issues the better.
“I think it’s sort of leading toward the same goal of making the CTA safer and more attractive and just really fulfilling its potential as a positive force in the city,” she said.
Hoskins said that he will have to wait and see if the expansion bears fruit.
“We appreciate the CTA taking steps to better serve the unhoused and those suffering from addiction,” he said. “Unfortunately, we do not see any indication that the number of emergency calls to CTA locations is trending downward.”
