Half the kids at DuPage's homeless shelters are under 5

A new report indicates almost half of the homeless children in DuPage County are younger than 5.

That statistic is part of an initial report card the DuPage Homeless Continuum is presenting to the county board today. The group is made up of more than 50 social services agencies and municipalities in DuPage County, including shelter provider DuPage PADS and addiction treatment provider Serenity House. Continuum officials plan to use these initial figures as a baseline to chart annual homeless figures for the county in the future.

The report also indicates that between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009 more than 1,500 people utilized emergency shelter services provided by the array of county social service agencies.

"DuPage is one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, and homelessness does exist here," said Carol Simler, the continuum's community outreach committee chairwoman and executive director of DuPage PADS. "Whether people think that's a large number or not, that's only people who have stayed in emergency shelters, which is the only way we can collect the data."

Of the 1,512 people who stayed in shelters during that same time period last year, 368 were children. Of those, 169 were children under the age of 5, said Lisa Snipes, vice president of Serenity House and Simler's assistant on the outreach committee.

"That shows families are turning in larger numbers to social service agencies," she said.

Simler said the stigma attached to being homeless stays with children throughout their lives.

"I've talked to a number of adults who can still remember that time when they were homeless as a child," she said. "This has a profound influence on their future as it affects their self-esteem, health and education.

Many emergency shelters aren't equipped to deal with children. During the colder months, DuPage PADS has 140 beds throughout the county at emergency shelters and 80 in the warmer months. There are another 14 beds in its transitional housing program and 51 units of permanent supportive housing, Simler said. DuPage PADS will add another four units in supportive housing in July. The organizations also recently partnered with the DuPage Housing Authority on a program providing housing and counseling for disabled residents or families with a disabled person who have been homeless for more than a year.

Continuum officials hope to work with the county to provide more resources for homeless residents, especially as more families struggle to maintain housing in the current economic climate.

"We're in a perfect storm for creating homelessness, and children are the collateral damage," Snipes said.