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Aug 4, 2007 1:27 pm US/Central
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Mean Street Diary: Living Homeless
Former CBS 2 Anchorman Walter Jacobson Spent 48 Hours On The Streets In 1991
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
Across the country, homelessness is a perennial issue, inspiring compassion and charity, fear and hostility all at once.
Experts have spent decades debating the causes of homelessness –- whether to blame drug addiction, untreated mental illness or other problems that lie with the individual, or societal problems including discrimination, skyrocketing housing costs and unemployment.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless estimated there were 73,656 homeless people in Chicago as of December 2006.
In February 1991, former CBS 2 anchorman Walter Jacobson approached the issue of homelessness using a method that went far beyond only reporting. He spent 48 hours walking the streets and looking for food, a place to sleep, and a way to survive in this six part series entitled "Mean Street Diary."
•
Danger And Slammed Doors•
A Search For Shelter Fails•
Shooed Away In Public Places•
Moments Of Generosity•
Finding A Shelter Without An 'In'•
Reaching The Breaking Point•
The Homeless TodayPart I:
VIDEO: Danger And Slammed DoorsJacobson began his project on Lower Wacker Drive, where he had been many times before interviewing the homeless under the warm air vents in the garages above, and in the cardboard boxes.
But this time, Jacobson was looking for warm air and a cardboard box for himself, and some understanding, if possible, of what it is like to be homeless. It turned out that many of the homeless are driven underground – literally – by perceptions of danger in shelters and soup kitchens and constant rejection in places where the rest of the world is free to go.
Jacobson donned a ratty coat and hood, and wore a disguise in which a makeup artist turned his teeth yellow, fashioned bags under his eyes and gave him a scruffy artificial beard. And then Jacobson set out on the streets of Chicago with just $3 in his pocket, accompanied by a hidden camera.
"I think the hardest part is going to be finding a way to relate honestly to people who are homeless," Jacobson said before he started the project.
But when Jacobson began his project on an overcast afternoon with the mercury dropping below zero, his thoughts quickly turned to more immediate needs.
By just the sixth hour of Jacobson's project, the temperature had dropped to -11. In search of some heat and a meal, he headed for the Olive Branch, a shelter on Madison Street near Morgan Street.
But he found looking for food is never simple for the homeless, and can even be dangerous. At the Olive Branch, security guard checked everyone for weapons, because on the street, you just never know.
"I need your gun, your pistol, knives, ice picks, whatever," the guard said.
Jacobson was surprised at the concern in the Olive Branch about weapons. His next stop was at Nick's Fishmarket, a high end restaurant in what is now the Chase Bank Plaza downtown, where he asked a valet whether he could go in and buy some coffee.
"They don't let you in there like that," the valet replied. "They only let you in there if you have a suit."
But it was not just fancy restaurants where the homeless were made to feel unwanted. Jacobson was turned away at an inexpensive restaurant on Clark Street near Fullerton Parkway.
Even at City Hall, which seemed like a good place to get in out of the cold and possibly even find help, a police officer told him to move along.
With the attitudes he encountered, it was no wonder the homeless go underground.
Back on lower South Water Street, Jacobson asked a homeless man why he would not go to the shelter, which made the man upset.
The man could not explain why he would not go to a shelter, but in 48 hours, Jacobson came to understand his own feelings about it. He got visibly upset himself as he walked through Clarendon Park in the Uptown neighborhood.
"You may think this is an act for the television camera, but I'm telling you I am really miserable, really, really miserable," Jacobson said. "I don't even know – where do you go? Where do you go next? What do these guys do?"
The answer is that many just stayed on Lower Wacker Drive, where they are out of sight and out of mind.
Part II: VIDEO: A Search For Shelter FailsAs Jacobson wandered Lower Wacker Drive, he met several homeless people who appeared hardened to their situation.
He found one man who for that night appeared content sleeping in a cardboard box. The man said: "I don't put all that time worrying. My problems are in the hands of Jesus and God."
Jacobson began looking for somewhere to spend the night himself. It was 1 a.m., and he was out of money as he walked the street. He was tempted to walk into a restaurant serving gyros and ask for a sandwich, but decided not to.
But finding a place to sleep was even harder, and turned out to be impossible.
He headed for the shelter that operated at the time at the Clarendon Park Field House in Uptown, looking forward to experiencing the comfort of a warm bed. But there was no such luck.
"We're full," a shelter operator said. "We already had to turn away a dozen guys."
The shelter operator was sympathetic, and told Jacobson to go to a police station where the city's Department of Human Services would pick him up and take him to the nearest shelter. He also said to flag down a police officer.
Jacobson flagged down some cops, and they waved him away. So he went to the Town Hall District police station at Halsted and Addison streets, and made his call to the Human Services Department.
They told Jacobson to sit tight. But he was left in the vestibule.
"I sure don't feel wanted (inside the police station), I'll tell you that," Jacobson said, "like I'm the plague."
The worst, Jacobson said, was the officers inside, who told him to dial the state Department of Human Services on a pay phone. By the time he found one, it was 5 a.m., and too late to sleep.
Part III: VIDEO: Shooed Away In Public PlacesAs Jacobson also discovered, many public places are not so public for the homeless – even ones where homeless people are seen often.
Nobody gave it a second thought when Jacobson did a live stand-up from Union Station in a suit and tie, but when he was incognito as a homeless man two weeks earlier, the train depot was not so friendly.
That is despite the fact that Union Station is a place known for the homeless, along with Lower Wacker Drive, the old Madison Street skid row on the Near West Side, and O'Hare International Airport.
But after a few minutes, a security officer ejected Jacobson.
"There's a lot of the homeless people that cause problems, unfortunately, which makes it bad for all of you guys who aren't so bad," the security officer said.
But some homeless people who know the streets and know the system are able to beat the public rejection Jacobson was encountering.
One man named Dennis was found panhandling in the Loop. He had made $82 in just under four hours.
Of that time, Dennis said he spent "half the time in church warming up, so say like two and a half hours actually with hands out."
But not all days were that good for Dennis. And Jacobson was seeing what the homeless experience when they are not so lucky.
Briefly thinking he had lost the little money he had left, Jacobson walked through the food court at the Thompson Center, then known as the State of Illinois Center. He found it, but was not comfortable sitting at a table with strangers.
But with rejection and alienation also came kindness and the beginnings of camaraderie.
Part IV: VIDEO: Moments Of GenerosityHomeless shelters often close at the early hour of 6 a.m., at which time everyone must leave. So it is back into the streets.
Many of the homeless are well-educated and spend the day at the Cultural Center. When Jacobson stopped there, several people were sitting at tables, keeping up on the Persian Gulf conflict at the time and waiting for their shelters to reopen.
Andre, the man in the cardboard box on Lower Wacker Drive, read a gossip column, and offered to share his resources with Jacobson.
Andre offered Jacobson a gift certificate for a restaurant, which Jacobson did not take. Another man talked with Jacobson about where to get food, but when Jacobson asked him why he did not go to a shelter, the man became furious.
"I don't want to go to no damn shelter!" the man said. "Don't ask me about no damn shelter!"
Many homeless individuals do not go to shelters because they do not want the regimen or to attend church services that may be required. Often, they prefer only to be alone.
Then there are the homeless who seem always silent. They are willing to share their space, but not their thoughts.
After warming his hands over a fire a man had made in an empty steel drum, Jacobson offered the man a dollar, which the man hesitantly took, barely speaking as he did so.
Jacobson's generosity was returned when a young man handed him some spare change without his even asking in the Washington Street Red Line station downtown.
His spirits were lifted again that night in, of all places, the nearly deserted Wilson Avenue Red Line station in Uptown.
"Just have a seat, get warm, leave whenever you feel like leaving," a CTA security officer said.
If not for such acts of kindness, Jacobson reported, there are many homeless people who would not make it through the winter.
And often, finding a shelter is difficult, even though shelters are set aside especially for the homeless.
Part V: VIDEO: Finding Shelter Without An 'In'Mayor Richard M. Daley said in 1991 that there was enough shelter for all the city's homeless. But that was not what Jacobson found, and he compared the plight of the homeless trying to find shelter to old-time Chicago politics.
"This is the Windy City, remember, where even among the homeless, it is the clout that counts," Jacobson said.
On his second night on the streets, Jacobson returned to the shelter at Clarendon Park, but not before trying some other options.
Jacobson first went to a church at Wellington Avenue and Broadway, which was full. He was turned away, and told he needed a referral to be there.
At the Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church at Fullerton Parkway and Geneva Terrace, a shelter worker said Jacobson was not a regular and there was not room for non-regulars. But Jacobson got the impression that it was because the worker did not like the way he looked.
Jacobson spent the next four hours and seven or eight miles looking. He was turned away from shelter after shelter, many of which wanted references from other shelters and would not consider taking him in without one. They did not want a risk of trouble.
Ultimately, Jacobson was told he needed to go back at the Clarendon Park Field House, operated by the Chicago Park District. It opened at 11 p.m. on a first-come, first-serve basis, and Jacobson was determined to arrive on time.
He met another man waiting to get in who said he had slept under a church the night before.
"It was easy. I got a blanket; a little mat," the man said. "My feet didn't freeze. That's what I was worried about."
Jacobson was told to wait at the door, and intended to be the first in line. But some others waiting for the shelter said people who did not sleep there last night should move back, and Jacobson did not feel it was safe to refuse.
This time, Jacobson got in the 45-bed Clarendon Park shelter. Those who did not likely spent the rest of the night walking the streets.
Part VI: VIDEO: Reaching The Breaking PointAt 11 p.m., Jacobson entered the shelter. Everyone who came in was asked for his name and whether he had been at the shelter before.
Upon beginning the Mean Street Diary project, Jacobson knew the statistics on the homeless. The figures in February 1991 were 10,000 to 40,000 in Chicago on a given night, and the national figure was a third of them suffering from some sort of emotional disorder. And between October 1990 and February 1991, more than 20 homeless people had died from exposure to cold.
But now the faces had been made familiar, and resting at last, Jacobson recalled the people he had seen in 36 hours.
"This just isn't how life is supposed to be," Jacobson said as he concluded his project. "There is no way that these people can help themselves. Somebody else, somehow, has to help. It's enough to unhinge me, and when I wake up and go home tomorrow, I'm going to do something. I don't know what, but something."
As to the solutions, Jacobson said, the first thing was to admit there was a problem.
"People in the neighborhoods are so cold and hungry tonight that they're numb," Jacobson said. "We see them all the time, but we don't really see them."
Additionally, it had to be determined where the system was breaking down and why, whether because of too much bureaucracy, not enough expertise, or other factors.
The Homeless TodayIn the 16 years since this story aired, the problems have not gone away. The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless says they have gotten worse in recent years. Requests for emergency shelters for families have increased 10 percent in Chicago between 2004 and 2005, according to statistics from the U.S. Conference of Mayors quoted by the coalition.
Meanwhile, according to advocates, there are threats the homeless face that are far worse than those seen in Jacobson's report.
Last month, three men were charged with brutally beating a homeless man downtown with what was believed to be a sign or a metal cable.
The victim lived at the Pacific Garden Mission on State Street, where staff said awareness of such attacks needs to be heightened.
"You want to heighten awareness to situations like this because these are members of society that feel at times that they are not empowered," Pacific Garden Mission's Reverend Philip Kwiatokoski said last moth.
Meanwhile, homeless advocates say this kind of crime is on the rise.
"I think there's something in our culture that is dehumanizing people, making them less than people," Ed Shurna of the Coalition for the Homeless said last month.
"People are afraid of people that are homeless because they're afraid that something's going to be done to them," Shurna added. "The truth is the opposite. The people that are on the street are the ones that are victimized 95 percent of the time."
But some organizations continue to provide hope and comfort to many. In addition to traditional shelters, the Night Ministry – for one example – has traveled the streets of the city's North Side for more than three decades. On board people in need can get everything from condoms to cookies and nurses tend to health needs that include HIV testing and writing prescriptions.
In 2003, the City of Chicago unveiled a 10-year plan to end homelessness, with the goal of replacing shelters with permanent housing and providing job training, medical assistance, and substance abuse treatment, among other services. But the plan has been criticized by the Coalition for the Homeless due to a lack of funding, but Mayor Daley has endorsed it.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)