“Writing for an editor is a lot harder than writing for a professor.” That’s what one of my favorite “profes” told us in our writing-real-stuff-for-professional-situations class. “You might have an editor who is really good, who brings out the best in you, or who does not have any clue what you are writing about,” he warned us. Professor Plum told us to report on the candlestick and be honest and tell what room it happened in and of course who did it and how you know. “Did you see it happen?”
When I send one piece I’ve written to Dr. Hansen, I’ve been surprised at the feedback he gives me. He attacks me. I defend myself. “Unclear.” It made sense to me! “Who says so?” Well, I did. “If you want StreetSense readers to believe this, you have to either tell the truth or learn how to lie better.” Such great advice.
I secretly wonder if there are not, in fact, different kinds of articles. Some personal, some opinion, some factual, some technical. At least that is what I remember vaguely from a certain basic Journalism course I took once. I guess I will do my best and see what happens.
And I will try to put some objective information in, including facts and figures.
Please understand: writing this piece for StreetSense is thrilling for me. It’s the topic of homelessness that is sickening to me.
Let me explain. I never knew there were so many homeless people out there. Chicago is full of them—and we are not even in a city with that many homeless folks—in comparison with several other and cities in the country—and in other countries. That is a sickening fact to me.
There are many cities in the world with more homeless people than Chicago has. There are many states with more homeless folks than Illinois.
How do I know? I can “google all of it.” I can find reports that make it clear that Chicago has 10,000 homeless families and in fact I can locate a report on the 2021 numbers of “city of wind” homeless directly from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless that tells me that “Immediately prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, an estimated 58,273 people were experiencing homelessness in Chicago, IL.” I can also see the report states, “Many more households will soon face homelessness.” This is more sickening.
And of course in Chicago, the evictions and the loss of income because of COVID-19 and other factors, such as less accumulated capital than among Whites means that Blacks will be harder hit. That same report states, “Due to longstanding structural and historical racism, Black/African-American and Hispanic/ Latiné households disproportionately experience poverty and homelessness.” More such language shows the numbers.
More brown, and especially more Black, persons without housing.
We talk about this quietly on our “overnight” we do on the Red Line to see homeless people, interview the ones who are awake, and count all of them. We are not just a couple chicks making random comments.
We are students who are preparing for the professional world of reporting on factual events and making use of data. When we are guessing, we will indicate this, lest we lead the reader astray and create all sorts of chaos in the universe.
My roommate Claire—who is African-American—insists she be the one responsible for guessing their race. It is not factual reporting.
We do not claim that almost every single person we report on in this article is Black—though Claire will state, “It is my personal opinion almost all of them have at least some Black ancestors.”
I review with Claire the importance of being factual, professional. Logical even.
When pressed for more information on this, especially so it will hold up when we try to get this piece published, she states, firmly, “I think I know Black folks when I see them.”
I decide to move on to other topics. It is early—and the Starflakes Coffee Shop at Addison and Broadway will be open. It is time to drink coffee, try to wake up, and go to class. One of us also has to teach our freshman survey course this morning. Gotta wake up!
Claire has an idea: “Let’s play a game!” she shouts. I immediately roll my eyes and start walking the other way.
She goes on, “No, come on now! Let’s document every non-housed resident we encounter once we get off the train! That way, we will have some good factual info about homeless in the neighborhood.”
I agree, and I get out my notebook.
As we go down the stairs, an older gentleman brushes past us, running and carrying several shopping bags. He is swearing, dark, rushed. He is our homeless guy number one.
Person number two holds the door for us. He is around our age, and he smiles at us. He is wearing a backpack. He is Black, according to Claire. We know he is homeless because of the smell. Homeless have a smell nobody else has. And this is our personal opinion. It is not necessarily a bad smell. It is distinct.
We also think he is handsome. This is an opinion, and we share it. Claire looks back, several times, “just to see if he is okay.” We laugh.
We walk east on Addison. Persons number three and four are sound asleep on the sidewalk in front of the police station—in sleeping bags. We cannot see their faces—only their bodies, a shopping cart, and several different types of bags—plus a backpack. It seems like a terribly safe place to sleep—surrounded by police officers.
I wonder to myself if the police notice there are two homeless persons sleeping there.
Person number five is asleep on the front steps of a large apartment building. That person is also presumably homeless—inside a sleeping bag, asleep, with a large backpack on top of a milk crate with an orange scarf tied to it. The building is dark—perhaps the residents all asleep, but inside.
Person number six is sitting on a cement ledge, drinking coffee outside the little coffee shop in front of the gay Jewel-Osco on Broadway. (This is what my friend Steve calls this grocery store.)
The man is short, Black, overweight, loud, and yelling at the employee who is harassing him about sitting there. (These descriptions are an attempt to describe/document the individual but would be open to interpretation as to the degree of overweight or the volume of the yelling, and see Claire about the color of the skin).
The employee is threatening loudly (most people would say it is not quietly, we agree) to call the police to “drag his worthless ass out of there.”
Claire goes inside to buy some cheap donuts or rolls. I go into the Starflakes and get our coffees. I buy the man a latté made with non-dairy milk—in case he cannot have regular milk. I put 4 sugars in it, stir it, and walk outside. I hand it to the man. Claire shows up, smiling.
The Jewel employee says, “You cannot give him that coffee and he cannot take it from you because he is begging.” I hand the man the coffee and he takes it, thanking me, saying he is glad that “are at least a few polite people left in the world.”
I turn to the employee and explain, “He is my uncle from Poland.” I wish my uncle a ‘good day’ in Polish and smile. The man nods and smiles….
The man looks happy and older (and African-American and Claire can vouch for him) and plays a polite and charming uncle to my look—6’2” and long Blond hair and 100% proud Polish-American.
The employee storms off, grumbling under his voice. The man whispers, “I think he is angry now… he will probably call the police for sure now.”
“F*ck him!” Claire states, and she hands some money down to the man. He thanks her.
“I can’t remember how to say ‘thank you’ in Polish,” he smiles. So I tell him, and he practices it.
He looks at us and says, “Thank you for treating me like a human being.”
We go out to the sidewalk, and persons number seven and eight are standing there, hoping for help, and one of them says, “Good morning, ladies!”
We pass them and stroll to the corner. Claire and I order an Uber so we can take a shortcut to where we are going next.
When we get in the car, Claire hugs me and says, “Do you realize we saw eight homeless people in an upscale neighborhood in less than 30 minutes?”
I start to weep and I weep so hard my stomach hurts.
The driver is concerned, asks if I am okay.
“She got some bad news this morning,” Claire explains.
.
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Source:
David Mendieta, Samuel Carlson (July 2021). Estimate of Homeless People in Chicago (2015-19). Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. Available at www.chicagohomeless.org/estimate