The mission of this news source and blog is straightforward. We aim to help people who are themselves helping—helping homeless persons with a variety of needs. Our motive is clear enough: we believe it is important to help.
Our purpose is easy enough to understand: “The mission of the new publication StreetSense is to educate and inform homeless people, community members, researchers, and social service professionals about issues facing homeless persons and resources available to help them. There is a huge need for information helpful to homeless persons – and to those who endeavor to assist them (StreetSense Mission - by Thomas Hansen - StreetSense (substack.com)).
As of today, anyone may read FOR FREE any of the pieces currently on the blog, including an exposé on one rough night on the Redline train (StreetSense | Thomas Hansen | Substack) written by one of our newest writers, Jessika Bialak.
Or one might choose to read an interview (Interview with Tracy - by Thomas Hansen - StreetSense (substack.com)).
Or perhaps you would like to read about things happening in Russian shelters (Interview with Asya Stepanosova - StreetSense (substack.com)). This piece was written by our own Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad.
We have reporters working on new pieces all the time. I have tried to explain to people that we do not really work on “direct services to the homeless, there already being so many persons and agencies concerned with that…” I hear myself saying this every day. We DO provide referrals, however, and we DO connect people with the agencies and offices where they need to go to get help.
There is a huge and extensive network of helpers out there. There is a big network of word-of-mouth assistance in Chicago—and in other large cities with lots of unroofed individuals. That street force—with or without formal education—is experienced in helping and is essential for the survival of unhoused persons.
A famous professor of Social Work once said that a lot of the students going into the profession came from middle class backgrounds, two working parents in the home, their own bedroom, two cars in the garage, heat working, hot water splashing, and big hot meals for dinner. That prof also said, “How can they possibly know what it is like to have to trade sex for a place to sleep or trade a beer to get a hamburger?”
Helping those students—and some of their professors—is some of the work we do with our StreetSense pieces. Always revealing more information about life on the streets is central to our work. We enjoy meeting more unroofed persons and ask them constantly about their stories and their lives and their needs.
As advocates and counselors, those of us who are out on the street trying to help (Do you want this sandwich? Do you need dry socks?) have to deal with every kind of unhoused person possible…
We try to help people who are confused and anxious, people simply evicted because of having no money left… violent criminals… new arrivals to town who don’t know where to go… people who have been waiting a week to get into a shelter… women scared to death of what might happen to them on the train at 3 AM… young men who are scared they will be killed or raped or robbed on the Redline… single elderly travelers who have to figure out how to avoid attacks from a dozen teenagers on the street… new arrivals who cannot speak a word of English… people who were sleeping in O’Hare Airport but no longer can, people thrown off the Blueline, guys thrown out of shelters for fighting, and a cast of thousands (literally) who have issues in the areas of addiction, anger, mental illness, domestic violence, guns, knives, no health insurance but plenty of booze, fear, drugs, and the dangerous factor called “owing somebody money…”
There are two pieces to the assistance puzzle. One is timeline and one is theme. Regarding timelines, there is immediate help necessary in the form of hot drinks, food, places to sleep, information on places to avoid. Providing hints and advice to get an unroofed person through another day or another night is essential to their survival. Helpers on the street need to be able to handle Narcan, know the best pantries, and know how unhoused people can get resources like bus cards, money to get an ID, and simply where to get sack lunches, soap, dry socks, and winter coats.
There is also longer-term help needed—usually a focus on getting the person housing… whichever way and of whichever sort makes sense. The StreetSense group revolves around the belief in “Housing First” approaches to getting people indoors, connected with necessary services, and individualized counseling and advice to help the person live an improved life (https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/).
We realize that the percentage of homeless persons who wish to remain living outdoors is very small; most all homeless persons want to dwell indoors, cook indoors, sleep indoors, and stay safe indoors.
One enormous theme that comes from interviews and meetings and feedback is the “loneliness and danger of the dark night.” Homeless people are often thinking, sometimes almost chanting, “Just gotta get through this night…
only a few more hours… very soon comes safety…” and other mantras to steel themselves to dawn.
In a violent, rough, deadly city like Chicago, the dark night poses terrible dangers to people with nowhere good to hide… not much money to take taxis to escape bad situations… sometimes not much money to get on a bus to go to another location… usually zero friends to rely on when it is dark and cold and foreboding and lethal out there.
Almost 700 people died in Chicago—and 800 the year before that (Chicago crime spikes in 2022, but first drop in murder since pandemic (illinoispolicy.org)). With increased resentment about homeless people—and crimes being committed against them increasingly, is it any wonder homeless people are nervous? The stress of surviving one more night is huge.
This stress—in addition to the daily hassles and harassment of being homeless—are rarely understood by most people (PowerPoint Presentation (va.gov)).
Already have been through hell on the streets, in the stores, and on the trains, the average homeless person is exhausted by the time they come up to the counter to ask for their money back when they have received the wrong sandwich or a cold coffee. Impatient, the unhoused can tire or being treating poorly in a McDonalds or in a restaurant or shelter. There is often an argument in the wings…
Information is priceless. Our blog winds up being a source of news, notices of grant opportunities and news about important books and directories showing up on a regular basis in our work.
There are many places you can read fantastic accounts of crazy things the homeless are doing in Chicago. Some publications even claim to be advocates for the unhoused, pulling for them against the machine. However, that is simply not true.
Most Chicago publications focus of the “homeless problem” meaning the fact that those darn unhoused folks are still around and will not go away. They do not think of the “problems” like lack of affordable housing, services from the city being provided with an eyedropper, or a total lack of understanding of what the homeless want and need on the part of most every alderman and the mayor.
In short, they do not provide much hope.
We are different. “StreetSense is candid and real. All persons working on StreetSense are devoted to providing essential and timely information not being covered by more traditional publications – and by those masquerading as community newspapers supposedly aimed at helping the homeless” (StreetSense Mission - by Thomas Hansen - StreetSense (substack.com)).
We persevere and enjoy the questions people pose to us—by email and in person on the street. It is through that grassroots effort that most work gets done. Of course, we value donations and subscriptions—for we have our expenses like travel and gift cards for interviews.
I would like to remind the reader that “StreetSense is funded by blog subscriptions, contributions, and donations” (StreetSense Mission - by Thomas Hansen - StreetSense (substack.com)). We are interested in forming partnerships with Schools of Journalism and with social service agencies.
Our mission is clear: to help the helpers.
We all thank you for reading and trying to assist our homeless brothers and sisters out on the street. We need your help, since for example “…An estimated 65,611 people were experiencing homelessness in Chicago in 2020” (Estimate of People Experiencing Homelessness in Illinois - Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (chicagohomeless.org)) Current numbers are still being compiled—and are not much better.