Homelessness In Chicago Summary

During the frigid Chicago winter, there are many people who are living on the streets, wearing dirty clothes that are not nearly thick enough to keep the cold from biting their skin. The people who are in these tough situations, are from all walks of life and just need a hand getting back on their feet. Every town has different ways that they handle the homeless and some places put a lot of effort into getting these people off the streets, into jobs, and good living situations. Chicago has an outrageous amount of people on the streets and this will explain a bit more into what is being done to assist in getting these people off the streets. With the city of Chicago being one of the largest cities in the United States, there is a large population …show more content…
Amy Cooper in, Time Seizures and the Self: Institutional Temporalities and Self-preservation Among Homeless Women gives an in depth look at the homeless women in Chicago and how mental illness affects their lives. Cooper spent several weeks in Uptown, a neighborhood that has the highest amount of homelessness and evaluated the cities efforts. During her time in Uptown, she found that there are places where there are a several organizations clustered together, which locals call service ghetto 's. It is within these ares where the majority of people with mental illness go for treatment. These organizations though only have a certain amount of resources, someone might be able to meet with a counselor once a month but in reality they really should be getting treatment once a week. Cooper wrote, “Homeless women are well acquainted with the experience of “enforced idleness,” because they spend much of their daily life being made to wait”(Cooper). Since they are only helped every so often, the majority of these women are left to try and make a daily routine for themselves. Cooper really is trying to show that even though many homeless women have some disabilities, they still take pride in who they are even through the difficulties when trying to receive help such as, long delays getting social assistance, and only be able to receive part of the …show more content…
Chicago 's House of Hope written by Connie Driscoll who runs the shelter, describes how they run their facitlites and the impact that they have on the community. Driscoll writes about how they run a strict shelter where they have their residents work on their education, work with organizations to find jobs and permanent housing, take classes on life skills, financing classes, as well as giving them jobs around the shelter. Driscoll stated that, “St. Martin 's is different from other shelters because— to put it bluntly—this is not a place where homeless women are going to be coddled”(Driscoll). Most of the people who have come through their doors don 't understand the concept of accountability because of they always relied on public assistance. St. Martin de Porres House of Hope also sees a good deal of people with substance abuse and they require those individuals to take Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous Sessions. She continues to write that homelessness has been used news outlets for politics to have more money be sent towards helping get people off of the streets or to inform the public that the problem has become worse and action needs to be take and many organizations have be created because of these stories but sometimes these groups, “some of whom have never even worked with the homeless population—believe the solution to homelessness is simply to provide