Compassion during untenable cold
"Just one more text to EPD, as I heard they were out here trying to get the last of us to leave, to let them know I'm fine," says the blogger, adding he didn't want the Elgin Police Department to have to send someone "all the way out here just to check on me."
The note came at 6 p.m. Tuesday, just as temperatures began a steep slide that ended Wednesday at minus 23.
The comment, and several articles in our pages in recent days, shows an approach to homelessness in the suburbs that starts with services that can be lifesaving but also includes building relationships based on understanding.
The blogger, who kept an apparent promise by writing, "Told you I'd check in," during the night spent in his tent home, is one of about 2,136 homeless people in the suburbs, plus 5,657 in Chicago, who were counted in 2017, the last year of a full census of the homeless in the area.
A new census is under way, providing data for federal funding requests but also linking homeless men and women to police agencies, social services and volunteers in their towns, the Daily Herald's Jim Fuller wrote on Wednesday.
"Here, people are proactive with the homeless," James Harvey told Fuller. Harvey represents the formerly homeless on the Aurora/Elgin/Kane County Continuum of Care Board, which was organized 20 years ago to coordinate agencies working on outreach, shelter, permanent housing and support services for people who are homeless or nearly so.
In Elgin, officers have been out in force, checking areas where people are known to stay outdoors. They'll drive anyone to a warm place including the police department lobby, which is being kept open overnight this week.
"We will be checking all the areas to make sure we don't miss anyone," Cmdr. Frank Trost told us.
Bill Middendorp of the Salvation Army Des Plaines Corp Community Center distributed extra supplies and blankets during a homeless count of the Northwest suburbs Tuesday and Wednesday, and the agency took the rare step of putting some people up in hotels for the duration of the extreme cold. Other organizations, like PADS, lined up extra shelters and volunteers to run them.
The problems and heartaches that contribute to homelessness are no different from the issues facing many of us who live within solid walls - broken relationships, substance abuse, mental illness, lack of funds. Those challenges might be temporary or lifelong, but they should be addressed and those who suffer from such difficulties must be treated with compassion and respect.
We're proud of our suburbs for taking such an approach and grateful to the many volunteers who care about what happens to these residents on bitterly cold nights.