Column: Overnight count showing more homeless on the streets of Aurora reflects growing national crisis
Standing outside a crude but somehow impressive hovel in a wooded area along the Fox River in Aurora, Jose acknowledges he’s learned how to survive.
Using his skills with simple construction tools, he knows how to create makeshift shelters like this one that uses multiple sleeping bags as insulation over scavenged particle boards.
Using face coverings and his own breath, he knows how to create additional body heat when the temperature drops dangerously low.
And when “I can no longer feel my toes,” Jose knows it’s time to come in from the cold.
That’s when he heads to Hesed House in Aurora, where the 38-year-old immigrant from Mexico not only finds a warm bed and meal but the assurance that even when he is out of sight, he is not out of mind.
“Thank you, thank you,” he says through a translator Thursday night as a team of Hesed House staffers and Aurora police officers stop by to drop off bags of food and other supplies for him and four others who huddle inside this secluded – and hard-to-reach - shelter not far from the North Avenue bridge.
The goal of this visit, however, is more than a wellness check.
Each year on the same date in January, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires a Point in Time count to be made across the nation of those living on the street.
Seven years ago a photographer and I accompanied a Hesed House team on this mandated census that also is used to help determine state and national policy decisions. But I wanted to go out again this year because things have changed significantly since then. And not for the better.
“The drastic increases in numbers of men, women and children in our community experiencing homelessness and experiencing unsheltered homelessness is terrifying,” says Hesed House Executive Director Joe Jackson, not holding back when he describes this “gut-wrenching” situation.
“There are people on the streets here locally, across the state, and across the country fighting to survive in horrific conditions because there’s no place for them to live,” he said.
The impact of the pandemic lockdown, the affordable housing crisis and most recently the influx of those seeking asylum hitting Chicago have put added pressure on shelters that are not only filled to capacity now but have formidable waiting lists.
Despite record-setting numbers for successfully providing shelter, Hesed House for the first time in its 41-year history also has a waiting list. Associate Director Neil McMenamin, who has worked at the Aurora shelter since 1998, tells me he’s “never seen anything like it.”
As the influx of asylum seekers overcame Chicago shelters, it pushed the problem further out, said McMenamin. And as those collar shelters became overwhelmed, “people were told to go to Hesed House because it always had room.”
Until it did not.
“They drive an hour to get out to us … but we can’t take anyone else,” says McMenamin. “And we don’t even have places where we can tell them to go.”
What makes the issue even more concerning, adds Jackson, is the success his organization has achieved in the past several years. “Total housing outcome,” which includes homeless prevention, finding homes for people and family reunification, went from 587 in 2019 to 1,130 in 2023, according to Hesed House numbers.
“We are doing more work and doing it more efficiently and effectively than we’ve ever done before to end homelessness,” says Jackson, citing affordable housing as the “bedrock of a solution” to this crisis.
“Yet we still cannot keep up with the growing demand.”
On this 2024 Point in Time survey, 23 unsheltered adults were counted on the streets of Aurora, compared to seven in 2021, 13 in 2022 and 14 in 2023.
A dozen more were taking refuge Thursday night at the overnight warming center that was quickly opened Jan. 20 at Wesley United Methodist Church after the city-run warming center at the Aurora Transportation Center unexpectedly closed following an incident with a man accused of wielding a gun.
There are also 297 men, women and children now sheltering at Hesed House. But a growing number have simply learned how to survive outdoors since the pandemic lockdown.
“They enjoy that independence,” says McMenamin. “For some, being around two or eight people is easier than being around 100.”
Included in that group is Brenda, who on Thursday night was found hunkered down in a small tent with her friend Henry inside a closed park district area. Understandably startled by this 10:30 p.m. invasion, only her face appears from inside the dwelling until she recognized McMenamin. Then she reaches an arm out to gladly accept the bag of supplies, asking only for more hand sanitizer the next time anyone comes checking on the pair.
“It is nice and cozy in here,” she insists as the cold rain creates a steady rhythm atop the nylon tarp she calls home.
“We got food … been eating all night and sleeping,” Brenda says, admitting there’s not much else to do in this kind of weather.
And when it gets really cold, “I stay with a friend. ”
The Hesed House staff are very familiar with Brenda, as they are Jose and the majority of those who are counted in this survey. But more than ever, admits McMenamin, “there are people out there we don’t know.” And he will be the first to admit “we know there will be people we miss.”
Jackson says if there’s a silver lining in any of this, it’s that elected officials, social service organizations, as well as the general public, are starting to understand how drastic this affordable housing crisis is and that plans are being put in place to address it.
“I’m excited about the local projects with Lincoln and Todd schools,” he says of the work to remodel two former West Aurora elementary schools into affordable housing. “I’m also excited about our partnership with the Neighbor Project and (Association for Individual Development) to create an innovative approach to affordable and supportive housing locally.”
But we can’t stop there, he adds.
“We as a society have to do better,” he said. “If we can get over the stigmas and inaccurate stereotypes of what it means to be a person experiencing homelessness and instead start to believe that housing is a basic human right, our communities will become stronger, healthier, more diverse and better in just about every sense.”
On this miserably damp night, Jose seems to enjoy the visit from the Hesed House team, chatting easily in the dark while standing outside his shanty with a shadowy tapestry of bare trees serving as a backdrop.
More talkative than usual, according to translator Cristhian Alvarez, at one point he becomes emotional when asked what it is like to be in this situation.
“I wish to not have to live with my head down,” he says, adding that his hope is to someday be “someone important.”
But even of greater significance, adds Alvarez, “he wishes to be loved.”
