June 2, 2010

JU N E 2-JU N E 8, 2010VOL . 18 NO. 23

$2Buy StreetWiseonly from abadged vendor

JUNE 2-JUNE 8, 2010WWW.STREETW ISE .ORG

MISS ION : TO HELP PEOPLE HELP THEMSELVES TO SELF-SUFF IC I ENCY THROUGH GA INFUL EMPLOYMENT

STREETWISE STAFFEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/PUBLISHERBRUCE [email protected]

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFSUZANNE [email protected]

DIRECTOR OF DISTRIBUTION & VENDOR SERVICESGREG [email protected]

PRODUCTION & MARKETING MANAGERBEN [email protected]

DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING & CORPORATE DEVELOPMENTGRACE [email protected]

ADVERTISING SALES EXECUTIVESMARY FAITH HILBOLDT

PROOFREADERROBERT CASS

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

STREETWISE IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY AND IS SOLD BY THE POOR AND HOMELESS OF

CHICAGO. STREETWISE IS A REGISTERED 501(C)3 NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION AND IS

A MEMBER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN STREET NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION.

1201 W. LAKE, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60607OFFICE: 312.829.2526 FAX: 312.829.2623

ROB FEDERIGHI—PRESIDENTSOCORE ENERGY

PETE KADENS—VICE PRESIDENTSOCORE ENERGY

JUDD R. HORWITZ—TREASURERJUDD R. HORWITZ & CO. P.C.RAY GILLETTE—SECRETARYNONPROFIT CONSULTING

LEE BARRIEKURMAN COMMUNICATIONS, INC.RICHARD BOYKINBARNES & THORNBURG LLPEMILY BRINKMOELLERINTERNATIONAL INITIATIVES

DANNY K. DAVISU.S. CONGRESSMAN, 7TH DISTRICT, ILLINOIS

LATONYA ELLISVERIZON WIRELESS

PAM FRYERETIRED

JOHN J. LEONARDBERNSTEIN GLOBAL WEALTHMANAGEMENT

JUDD LOFCHIE—FOUNDERLOFCHIE & ASSOCIATES, INC. ADAM MEEKBROWNFILED MANAGEMENTASSOCIATES

JASON MERSEYJ.P. MORGANTIMOTHY RAYSONNENSCHEIN, NATH & ROSENTHALJONATHAN REINSDORFSTONEGATE DEVELOPMENTPARTNERS, LLCWHITNEY ST. PIERREEXTENSION, INCPATRICIA TILLMANVENDOR REPRESENTATIVE

KEVIN WARDTHE FORWARD GROUP

ERIC WEINHEIMERCARA PROGRAM

IRA WILLIAMS

2

Where the money goes...Vendors buy StreetWise for 75 cents, and the remaining $1.25 goes directly to the licensed vendor.

From the Director

For questions or comments regarding our vendor force, pleasecontact Greg Pritchett at (312) 829-2526 or [email protected].

Look for the Badge!Please purchase your copy of StreetW isefrom badged vendors only!

By Bruce Crane

Executive Director

Next week, we willunveil a test issueof StreetWise thatexplores some pro-posed changes to ourlook, language andstyle. We are experi-

menting with these new ideas to better con-nect you with the people, places and issuesrarely seen in other Chicago media. Working with Northwestern University’s

Medill School of Journalism, we are reimagin-ing StreetWise so that it not only reflects ourcommitment to social responsibility, but alsopiques your interest and introduces you toplaces in the city you've always been curiousabout as well as some you never knew exist-ed. Our test issue will feature stories aboutlocal, gourmet street food and the best bikepedals for your commute. We also plan toshow you the fun, lighter side of our belovedtown. We are conducting this trial because we

hear too often that our magazine is seen moreas a charitable contribution than as a vibrantand engaging publication. Our hope is that thechanges we are contemplating will continueour quest to be more than a helping hand, butadditionally, a magazine you look forward toreading each week because it is fun and

informative. But the ideas offered up by our friends at

Medill are not set in stone. Next week's issueis a test. We need your feedback to see if weare really hitting the mark or if we need totweak our ideas in the weeks and monthsahead. Please contact me and let me knowwhat you think of the differences you see innext week’s issue!Evolution is nothing new at StreetWise.

Since our inception in 1992, we’ve alwaysstrived to adopt new ways to better the livesof Chicago’s homeless and at-risk population.One thing will never change: our commitmentto our vendors. Our magazine will remain $2,with $1.25 still going to the vendors. Usingour other in-house resources, we will contin-ue to help our vendors lift themselves out of acycle of poverty to achieve self-sufficiency. Your continued support of StreetWise, and

your vendor, will help our mission. In return,we promise you this: We will continue to explore issues that are

under-covered and shed light on people whoare overlooked. We will doggedly pursue thetruth about what’s really going on in thestreets of Chicago, never shying away fromtackling the important social issues that affectyour neighborhood. But most of all, we wantto make you think, laugh and rejoice in thespirit of Chicago.

WorldWise

Event Calendar

The Power of One

Real Change of Seattle interviews

author Paul Rogat Loeb on his updated

edition of Soul of a Citizen.

Also: World News briefs.

page 4

Entrepreneur SpotlightSelf-starter takes next step

An update on StreetWise vendor andshoe artist Alonzo Hall, who is work-ing on giving back to communities byholding youth violence awarenessevents.

newsFrom the Street page 4WorldWise page 5Cover Story page 10-13

streetwiseThe Playground will returnVendor Spotlight page 15

entertainmentFoodWise page 6DineWise page 6-7Theatre page 7Event Calendar page 8-9

volunteerVolunteer Chicago

Opportunities are alwaysonline at www.streetwise.org

page 15

page 8

JUNE 2-JUNE 8, 2010 WWW.STREETW ISE .ORG 3

The History of US Homelessness

Examining the people, policies and

recurring trends from the nation’s

earliest days to the

present. 10page

MIKE-E, AfroTour...

plus Blues on the North Shore

highlights, GospelFest, Friends

of the Chicago Portage Tour,

From DuSable to Obama,

StreetWise benefit, and Ride

Like the Devil 25 mile bike tour.

MA

CM

ILL

AN

US

A.C

OM

CO

VE

R P

HO

TO

: L

IBR

AR

Y O

F C

ON

GR

ES

S

4 JUNE 2-JUNE 8, 2010WWW.STREETW ISE .ORG

Our Contributing Writers

From the Streets

Ginny Erwin has written nutrition and fitness articles for several local andnational publications, such as the Chicago Tribune and On-Health magazine. Shehas a bachelor’s degree in nutrition science and dietetics and a master’s degreein nutrition communications and marketing.

Cindy Kurman Barrie and Lee Barrie are the principals of KurmanCommunications, Inc., a Chicago-based marketing and public relations agency.Please follow all StreetWise restaurant features on Twitter @DineWise and sub-scribe to the blog at: http://dinewise-chicago.blogspot.com. Or visit their blog atgotbuzzatkurman.com

Shannon McFarland is a junior at Roosevelt University majoring in journalism witha minor in political science. She has also written for the university newspaper TheTorch, blogged, and had a short story published in a college literary journal.

Brittany Langmeyer is a student at Loyola University Chicago and a currentStreetWise intern. She is currently finishing her last year in school with double-majors in Journalism and Theatre and minors in Political Science and Dance.During her time in school, she has been President of the LUC Dance Company andhas performed in numerous school productions. After graduation, Brittany hasgreat aspirations for the future. She hopes to pursue both an acting and writingcareer and possibly delve into public relations. In her spare time, Brittany enjoysspending time with her family and friends.

By Shannon McFarland

StreetWise Contributor

Anew report on poverty says that thepoorest people before the recessionwere the first to suffer from theeconomic crisis, suffered the most,

and will be the slowest to recover. In themidst of the Illinois budget crisis, HeartlandAlliance’s Social Impact Research Centerreleased its 2010 Report on Poverty showingthe most recent research on poverty in thestate.The report found that 20.6 percent of the

population within the city of Chicago is livingin poverty, with 9.3 percent living in extremepoverty. Poverty in the city is more than twicethe amount in any other county of the Chicagoregion.The report found that in 2008, 11.8 percent

of the people in the Chicago region wereliving in poverty with another 15.2 percent at

risk of falling into poverty. The report foundthat many more households are making lessthan it takes to meet the cost of living in theChicago region. With 12 million people livingin Illinois, 65 percent of the state’s populationlives in the Chicago and the immediate sur-rounding counties. While the economy tumbled, foreclosures

and personal bankruptcies have plagued thestate. Illinois had the 10th worst foreclosurerate among the states, with one out of every371 homes receiving a foreclosure filing inMarch 2010. Personal bankruptcy filingsincreased 163 percent from 2006 to 2009.Form 2000 to 2008, jobs types have rapidly

changed, with decreases in higher-payingindustries and increases in lower-payingindustries. Over 200,000 manufacturing jobshave been lost, with more job loss inconstruction and high-wage service jobs. Bycontrast low-wage service jobs have increased.Overall 88 percent of the state’s net job losswas in the Chicago region.Not even children are spared from the

effects of economic turmoil. In Illinois publicschools, the number of homeless childrenenrolled increased 32 percent from the 2006-2007 to the 2007-2008 school year. Over halfof Illinois school children are eligible for freeor reduced price school lunches because oflow family income. For the past decade, the Heartland Alliance

has researched an annual report on poverty inIllinois. Beginning at a time when many werehopeful about widespread economic prosperi-ty, it showed that many people were still livingin poverty. For over 100 years, HeartlandAlliance for Human Needs & Human Rightshas provided services and advocacy forrefugees and those living in or near poverty.

More than 110 IllinoisOrganizations urgefunding the NationalHousing Trust

In a dramatic show of grassroots support for theNational Housing Trust Fund, more than 2,225organizations representing every Congressionaldistrict in the country sent a letter to every U.S.Senator and Representative urging immediatefunding for the National Housing Trust Fund. TheNHTF campaign knows of no other Congressionalletter that has received support from organizationsall 435 Congressional districts, plus the District ofColumbia and Puerto Rico.

A total of 113 organizations from Illinois, organ-ized by Housing Action Illinois, signed the letter.

The letter calls on Members of Congress toprovide $1 billion to capitalize the NHTF and $65million for project-based vouchers to support NHTFhomes. Legislation to fund the NHTF could beconsidered before the Memorial Day recess as partof H.R. 4213, the American Jobs, Closing TaxLoopholes, and Preventing Outsourcing Act.

H.R. 4213 is more commonly known as the taxextender bill. Both the House and Senate have pre-viously passed extender bills. H.R. 4213 includesadditional amendments, including the NHTF, andthus must be voted on by both chambers again.

The bill was developed by the Ways and MeansCommittee in the House and the Finance Committeein the Senate. The bill would extend unemploymentbenefits and more than 50 special tax breaks thatexpired at the end of 2009. The total cost will bearound $100 billion. Some, but not all, of the costwill be offset by closing tax loopholes and increas-ing some taxes.

The National Housing Trust Fund was created aspart of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of2008, but has not yet been capitalized. Once fund-ed, the NHTF will support the production, preserva-tion, and operation of rental homes for the lowestincome people in the United States. The NHTF is thefirst federal rental housing production program thatis specifically targeted to extremely low incomehouseholds since the Section 8 program wasestablished in 1974.

A copy of the letter is available at www.nhtf.org

Heartland Alliance releases

2010 Report on Poverty

75JUNE 2-JUNE 8, 2010 WWW.STREETW ISE .ORG

Power of 1 is the power of many

International Network of Street Papers Street News Service

By Rosette Royale, Assistant Editor

Reprinted from Real Change, Seattle

Sometimes unknown people do big things.Take Virginia Ramirez. She lived near an elderlywidow in a dilapidated house in San Antonio,Texas, and for years on end saw the woman getsick each winter. The widow couldn’t afford tofix her home, so Virginia sought the aid of cityagencies. But they provided little help, and thewidow eventually died of pneumonia.A 45-year-old mother with an eighth-grade

education, Virginia felt there was little she coulddo. But after a little prodding, she held a housemeeting to discuss the issue. Nine neighborsshowed up. Together they discovered thatmoney earmarked to repair homes in their bar-rio—funds that could have helped thewidow—had been diverted to a more affluentneighborhood.Virginia then led a contingent of 60 neigh-

bors to a City Council meeting to protest. Shespoke her piece, and the council gave theneighborhood their funds. Without even know-ing it, Virginia had become a communityactivist. A wealth of these stories appear in Paul

Loeb’s Soul of a Citizen: Living WithConviction in Cha llenging Times (St. Martin’sPress, $16.99), a reissue of a 1999 book thatuses compassion to invoke the need for a returnto social activism. The book’s reissue means thatLoeb, whose writings also appear on theHuffington Post Web site, has had to hit the roadfor a publicity tour. But before he took off forthe East Coast, the Seattleite had a little chatwith Rea l Change about ordinary people andextraordinary change.

You talk about the civil rights movement. We cansay there’s a women’s rights movement, gay rightsmovement, and now the so-called Tea Partymovement. Do you consider that a social changemovement?

I would say yeah. Social change movements don’t nec-essarily have to be progressive—there can be regres-sive populist movements that are acting to defendpowerful interests. [The Tea Party is] a complicatedone, because I’m not sure where they’d be without Fox[News] and Glenn Beck and Rush [Limbaugh]. I mean,would it have self-organized? I would say there aresincere participants, but it’s a complicated movement,because some of that raw anger against the banks Ishare. I don’t want to just completely dismiss them. Iwould say there’s legitimate grievances, and then largeamounts of misinformation.

One of the things that I stress continually in Soul of aCitizen is you’ve gotta look for unconventional allies,because sometimes that’s what allows you to win.Here in Seattle, my closest friend, activist fishermanPete Knutson, has gotten the fishermen involved inenvironmental issues, and because that involves envi-

WorldWise

The ‘education parasites’By Jörg WimalasenaReprinted from Augustin (Vienna, Austria)

German students are taking over Austrian uni-versities, an oft-mentioned fear in Austria thesedays. Rising university fees in Germany, com-bined with ever tougher minimum-entry grades,have led to more and more German studentstaking up studies in other countries. Austriantabloids are quick to place the blame for recentstudent protests on foreign students; this, how-ever, obscures issues such as the government’seducation policies and severe underfunding.Ironically, migrants coming to Austria are

blamed for not wanting to go back to theirhome countries, whereas German students areblamed for leaving the country after finishingtheir studies. One suggestion for coping withthe recent influx has been to introduce studyfees at Austrian universities. A perhaps desiredside effect of such a move would be getting ridof poorer students who are seen by some as adrain on the system.

Time for mining giants toshare the spoilsBy Munyaradzi MakoniReprinted from The Big Issue South Africa

An abundance of gold, platinum, copper, anddiamond fields have brought more misery toAfrica than wealth. After decades of plowing theearth for its riches, the mining companies’ prom-ises to transform poverty into prosperity havecome to nothing. Instead, the reality consists ofa privileged few lining their pockets, endemiccorruption, abuse of human rights, and a neglectof local communities and their environment.So it’s no surprise that African National

Congress Youth League president JuliusMalema’s call to nationalize the mines and sharethe wealth among the people has been met withelation by many of South Africa’s poor and work-ing classes, and fear on the part of the custodi-ans of big business.Malema is lobbying for the Minerals and

Petroleum Resources Development Act to beamended and make it compulsory for miningcompanies to partner with the state to get a min-ing license. The state would then get no less thana 60 percent stake in a mine as well as right ofdetermination.

StreetWise is proud to provide WorldWise contentrepublished by the International Network of

Street Papers’ independent street news wire.This service features stories submitted by the

100+ street papers around the world in an effortto raise awareness for homelessness and to

bring a voice to the underserved.

ronmental accountability, some of the huge industrialinterests are basically gonna try and wipe out a familyfisherman.

In the process of [Knutson creating] this coalition, theyinvolve some usual suspects: the Sierra Club, Audubon,Friends of the Earth. They also involved NativeAmerican tribes who had previously been hostile [tofishermen]. They also involved some of the fishermenwho are members of the Assembly of God Church,which are about as conservative as they come.

I don’t believe in “Oh, let’s all be friends.” On the otherhand, every time you can build a coalition with some-body who’s unexpected, it’s very powerful. That wastrue with the fishermen.

The original subtitle of this book was Living WithConviction in a Cynical Time. You changed “CynicalTime” to “Challenging Times.” Why?

In 1999 when I wrote that, it was in the Clinton yearsand people were cynical. Bush didn’t make them cyni-cal. Bush may have made them more so, but it wasNAFTA, it was welfare reform, it was all that kind ofstuff, and it was well before Monica [Lewinsky].

Then Obama comes in and there’s this wave of hope,and then much of it starts crashing down. With Obamayou have a president who I think is basically sympa-thetic to a lot of social justice impulses. But he’s alsocautious, a little bit conciliatory by nature.

So rather than say “OK, he’s betrayed us,” the goodresponse is to say we have to create this populargrassroots movement—which, to be honest, we reallydidn’t create in the past year—to push the culture, thecountry, the politics, the Congress, the Senate, thepresident to do what needs to be done. That’s our task,and it’s really on our shoulders. I mean, the healthbill—there’s parts that are really good. Thirty millionpeople having health insurance is huge. Having it basi-cally paid for with progressive taxation is huge. Nothaving a public option—that’s not so good.

You have this phrase about “the gated communityof the heart.” Talk about that.

What do people do to prevent engaging with difficultrealities? They slam the doors. I mean, dealing withpeople who are homeless, or dealing with climatechange or dealing with wars—these are not alwayseasy things to deal with. I use a famous Kafka storycalled The Burrow, about this little creature huddling ina smaller and smaller space. We’re encouraged to dothat in our society—huddle in a smaller and smallerspace so we cut ourselves off. But the world is still outthere. Instead, when we try and tackle [our problems],it gives something back to us.

© Street News Service: www.street-papers.org

6 WWW.STREETW ISE .ORG JUNE 2-JUNE 8, 2010

By Ginny ErwinStreetWise Contributor, www.ginetics.org

Before the FoodNetwork and internetfood blogs took overour kitchens, cookshad to rely on recipesfrom other sources. Folks got recipes

from people theyknew or family mem-bers.

The art of recipe creation is the efforts of asingle person constantly tweaking somethingthey loved to eat. Remember, a recipe is reallya set of instructions. It's a guide that showshow to prepare something. Ingredients arelisted, and the order of the steps to preparethe item is of the utmost importance. A goodcook uses the right stuff, at the right time, andin the right order. The traditional "secret recipe" is usually

held in high regard in most families. Mrs.Field’s Cookies, Coca-Cola, and Kentucky FriedChicken all had their secret recipe. Whatmakes these recipes so darn special? Perhapsit's the quality of ingredients, the method ofpreparation, or the history of the recipe. My mother’s secret crumble-crust recipe

taught me is something I know by heart. Ihave never written it down. Yet, it is my "goto" recipe when I needs to make a crust for a

FoodWise with Ginny Erwin

DineWiseBy Lee Barrie & Cindy Kurman Barrie

StreetWise Contributors

Deleece: this restaurantwas always good, but nowit’s approaching amazing

It’s always a pleasure to write about a neighbor-hood spot that’s so good it’s worth a drive or L-ride,no matter where you live. So we’re happy to reportthat Deleece, a favorite among Lakeview residentssince 1995, is better than ever and definitely worththe journey. A casual and beautifully artistic restau-rant, owned by husband and wife team LynneWallack and John Handler, Deleece specializes ingood contemporary American cuisine. With a foun-dation in American comforts, the restaurant brings a

The secret recipepie, tart, or shell. The other day I had a chance to eat at a local

Italian Restaurant. A lovely little place in OldTown; Trattoria Roma is located at 1535 N.Wells in Chicago. The food was delicious, theservice was wonderful, and the prices were agood value. Everything was great. However, the most

wonderful thing on the menu was a plain old-fashioned piece of cake. They call it GrandMother's Cheese Cake. But it's not cheesecake. It looked like a "plain" cake. Square,brown, and simple; however, the taste wasamazing! Moist, soft and delicious, every biteof that cake brought back delicious childhoodmemories. This dessert was a true comfortfood experience. So, of course I asked for therecipe. My server chuckled and said, "We don'tknow the recipe, it's a secret." He was not joking. The owner's

Grandmother makes that cake every day. Shemakes one cake. When the cake is gone, it'sgone. No more secret cake until tomorrow. Nonnie Roma is 91 years old. She is not "yet"

ready to share her secret cake recipe with any-one. Not even with her grand kid who ownsthe restaurant. But that's OK. Sometimes asecret recipe actually tastes better when youdon't know the recipe and the only way to getit might take a few days or a few years.

Hand-made Corn Crepes makes 4 cups

FoodWise Shopping List:•2 eggs•1/2 cup low-fat milk•1/2 cup all-purpose flour•pinch of salt•2 cups fresh corn (or thawed frozen corn)•1/4 cup sautéed mushrooms [sliced]

Ginny’s Cooking Instructions:•In a medium sized bowl, beat together eggs and milk.•Add all-purpose flour, and pinch of salt.•Mix well.•Mix in cooked corn and sautéed mushrooms.•Heat a flat grill or large non-stick skillet to medium-highheat.•Spray the pan with non-stickcooking spray.•Pour desired amount of mix-ture onto skillet.•Cook for two minutes on oneside,•Carefully flip, and cook twomore minutes on other side-or until golden brown on bothsides.•Serve hot! Alone, or with yourfavorite protein [grilled shrimpshown in picture].

Nutritional Info

creative, global sensibility to its menu. The quality ofthe food has always set it apart from the bulk of evengood neighborhood restaurants and these days, it hasraised the bar even further. And topping off the goodnews, the menu continues to be very reasonablypriced.

Four months ago, Deleece brought in a new chef,Brandon Canfield, who was recently at mk in Chicagobut has also cooked in New York and San Francisco.His food is exceptional and we hope he has found along term home at Deleece. We dined there veryrecently and we were very, very pleased, indeed.Canfield’s seasonal menu emphasizes fresh, localingredients and he continues the tradition of present-ing a wide assortment of flavors to please everyone.

Reading the menu, the dishes sound interesting,but not necessarily out of this world. In truth, the foodis marvelous and brings the menu to life in a way wecouldn’t have anticipated. We started our meal withan appetizer and salad. The Herbed Ricotta Gnocchi,with fava beans, maitake mushrooms, in white winebutter, was delicious. The gnocchi were perfectly

done (not an easy feat) and the flavors were complexand fresh. The Arugula Salad was a culinary composi-tion that was even better than the sum of its deliciousparts. The honey-champagne dressing had a tantaliz-ing sweet tartness, the honey glazed figs were a treatand, topped with a rich Stilton blue cheese, the saladwas one of the best we’ve had in a long time.

We both ordered the Caramelized Salmon, a nicely-sized fillet, pan roasted with a somewhat sweet,teriyaki-like glaze, served with herbed black Chineserice and a tasty sauté of fresh spinach and leeks in apear ginger sauce. We were very, very happy. Weasked for medium rare salmon and that’s what wegot. We savored every bite, for this was one of thebest salmon preparations we have ever had.

So, without dwelling on the many superlatives atDeleece, let’s run down other menu items, but keep inmind that the menu will change frequently and thereare daily specials. Other current appetizer choicesinclude Crab Risotto Cakes with truffle aioli; Chickenand Vegetable Potstickers with ginger, coriander, mus-tard seeds and honey; Rosemary Scented Polenta lay-

The Yeomen of the Guard tellsthe story of Colonel Fairfax,soldier and aristocrat, imprisonedand condemned to die throughthe false accusations of a schem-ing cousin who will gain theColonel's fortune upon his demiseat the hands of the executioner.A pair of strolling players, the out-of-work jester Jack Point andstreet singer Elsie Maynard, aredrawn into the plot when Fairfaxdecides to thwart his cousin'sdesigns by getting married beforehis execution. When the opportu-nity arises for Fairfax's escape, thenewly wed Elsie finds herself in avery difficult position.The Yeoman of the Guard is

directed and choreographed by Light Opera Works artistic director, RudyHogenmiller. Hogenmiller has directed and choreographed many produc-tions for the company including The Pira tes of Penzance; My Fa ir Lady;A Little Night Music; Kiss Me, Ka te; South Pacific; The Mikado & TheSound of Music. He has been recognized with six Joseph JeffersonAwards and 17 nominations for best direction and choreography inChicago. Hogenmiller has been a member of the Society of StageDirectors and Choreographers for more than 25 years.Ticket prices for The Yeoman of the Guard range from $32 to $92.

Ages 21 and younger are half price. To order tickets, or for more informa-tion, call the Light Opera Works box office at (847) 869-6300 or order 24hours a day online at www.lightoperaworks.com. Yeoman runs: Friday,June 4, 2 p.m.; Saturday, June 5, 8 p.m.; Sunday, June 6, 2 p.m.; Friday, June11, 8 p.m.; Saturday, June 12, 8 p.m.; Sunday, June 13, 2 p.m. at Light OperaWorks, Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson St. Evanston.

StreetWise Theatre

7JUNE 2-JUNE 8, 2010 WWW.STREETW ISE .ORG

ered with sun-dried tomato and garlic pesto, wiltedspinach and Ancho chili oil; Veggie spring rolls in but-ter lettuce salsa verde and nuoc cham.

Salad selections also include California ButterLettuce with spiced walnuts, goat cheese, roastedpeppers in a sherry vinaigrette; a Caesar salad withpolenta croutons, and an entrée-sized SzechwanSalad with New York strip, napa cabbage, red cab-bage, carrots, red peppers, peanuts, fried rice noodlesin a basil-cilantro-mint dressing.

Additional entrées include Boneless Half AmishChicken with a salad of fingerling potato, caramelizedonion, bacon and celery, in a fig mostarda sauce;Grilled Pork Tenderloin stuffed with spinach andbacon, garlic green beans, savory apple bread pud-ding and champagne-caramel demi glace; GrilledNew York Strip with sautéed spinach, truffle mashedpotatoes and port wine demi glace. Fish lovers shouldalso try the Grilled Halibut Steak with peas, baby car-rots, chickpea fries and arugula-mint pesto. Note alsothat many of the sides which come with the entréesare available a la carte as well.

The Yeomen of the GuardRICH FOREMAN PHOTO

Human Rights FestivalBenefit Screening features a screening of The Oath Thursday June 3

The Oa th tells thestory of Abu Jandal,Osama bin Laden'sformer bodyguard, andSalim Hamdan, a pris-oner at GuantanamoBay Prison and thefirst man to face thecontroversial militarytribunals. Filmed inYemen and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, The Oa th is a family drama about twomen whose fateful encounter in 1996 set them on a journey that wouldlead to Osama bin Laden, 9/11, Guantanamo Bay Prison, and the U.S.Supreme Court. The film begins as Salim Hamdan is set to face war crimecharges at Guantanamo, and Abu Jandal is a free man and drives a taxi inYemen.

We enter the story in a taxicab in Yemen. Here we meet Abu Jandal,the film's central protagonist, as he transports passengers through thechaotic streets of Yemen's capital city, Sana'a. Salim Hamdan is thefilm's "ghost" protagonist. He was arrested in Afghanistan shortly after9/11 and taken to Guantanamo. His seven-year captivity at Guantanamois narrated through his prison letters.The festival includes 5:30 p.m. reception, 6:30 p.m. screening at the

Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 East Chicago Ave., Education CenterEntranceAfter the show there will be a discussion with Laura Poitras, director

of The Oa th and Joanne Mariner, Human Rights WatchTerrorism/Counterterrorism director. All proceeds benefit Human RightsWatch. For further information please contact Jobi Cates at 312-573-2451or [email protected]. View the trailer www.theoathmovie.com/the-film.

Deleece also presents a special $20 three-courseprix fixe dinner menu on Mondays and Tuesdays andbottles of wine are half-priced on Wednesdays.There is a kids menu and the restaurant is family-friendly, with a nice outdoor seating area.

Also keep in mind that there is a second Deleecerestaurant: Deleece Grill Pub, at 3313 N. Clark inWrigleyville, which focuses more on high-qualityburgers, mac-and-cheese and other comfort fare.

Deleece4004 N. Southport, Chicago(773) 325-1710; www.deleece.com

Hours: 5:30-10 p.m., Mon.; 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.and 5:30-10 p.m., Tues., Wed., Thurs.; 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 5:30-11 p.m., Fri.; 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m.and 5:30-11 p.m., Sat.; 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 5-9p.m., Sun.

Prices: most entrees are less than $20

PLANET99.COM

8 WWW.STREETW ISE .ORG JUNE 2-JUNE 8, 2010

Events Calendar June 2-June 8

By Suzanne Hanney

Editor-in-Chief

Interspersed between a swirling, danceableEthiopian drumbeat and wind instruments, hip-hop and spoken-word artist Michael “MIKE-E”Ellison jabs a cigarette at his AfroFlow Tour audi-ence. “Pow!” he says. “You’re holding a loadedweapon.”

Developed in partnership with the American CancerSociety (ACS), Ellison and his fellow performers onthe AfroFlow Tour performed at high schools, universi-ties, and community events across Illinois May 5-24,including a May 8 concert at the Illinois Institute ofTechnology that attracted 825 people.

Ellison’s message centers on tobacco prevention,proper nutrition, and physical activity. ACS officialsstress his ability to connect with young adults as wellas the urgency of his message: every day about4,000 children under 18 try their first cigarette, andanother 1,500 become regular smokers, leading to443,000 premature deaths annually. Obesity is anoth-er health hazard—nearly one in three kids in the U.S.is overweight.

“Do it for your mother, do it for your father,” Ellisonsays on a public service announcement with multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Kenny Watson. “Do it foryour loved ones, do it for yourself. Cancer is affectingus in record numbers, but it can be treated, can beprevented, can be defeated.”

In a telephone interview with StreetWise, Ellisonwas as passionate about his anti-cancer message ashe is about Africa, where he spent his early childhood(his father worked for the U.S. government inEthiopia). He went to college at the University ofVirginia, then worked in public relations for the U.S.Tennis Association and sports management in Detroit.

It was in Detroit’s Latino and African-Americanneighborhoods that Ellison first became angry aboutwhat he terms “legalized genocide.” Specifically, hepoints to advertisements for liquor and cigarettes thatare placed at the eye level of children “by companiesthat have billions of dollars to advertise, to break

down every segment of society by age, gender,ethnicity, social habits, economic status.”

Simultaneously, he says the tobacco industry callschildren “replacement smokers”—they take the placeof adults who prematurely die from lung cancer andother smoking-related diseases. Ellison’s passion forprevention partly comes from seeing family memberssuccumb to these diseases, though a roughly equalnumber have survived them.

In another PSA, for example, he speaks of his aunt,whose breast cancer treatment damaged her heart,requiring a transplant. “For confronting fear as broadas the mountain is tall, for my aunt Ronnie, whoproudly emerged from it all,” he says, at which pointshe steps into the frame, smiles, and says,“Victorious.”

Ellison’s message is one of self-empowerment.“We’re not preaching ‘holier than thou,’ but givingpeople who come to our shows alternatives to whatthey are overexposed to in popular media.”

The AfroFlow Tour brings together all elements ofhip-hop, from rapping to breakdancing. Ellison isjoined by Kenny Watson, master drummer-percus-sionist Sowandé Keita, Senegalese bassist and singerPathé Jassi, and two traditional Ethiopian dancers. DJInvisible ties it all together.

Indeed, AfroFlow is about community. AlthoughEllison only spent his toddler years in Ethiopia, he’sreturned two to three times annually over the lastseven years. He even reunited with the woman who’dbeen his nanny, assisted by a photo he took with herlong ago that appeared on Ethiopian television—acooperative TV station staff used information he pro-vided to vet hundreds of pretenders.

Bringing his mother and his nanny together againat Ethiopia’s Blue Nile Falls is among Ellison’s proud-est moments. Surrounding them were children whorecognized him from a video he did on Ethiopia’sHIV/AIDS victims and orphans. “Everything will be allright,” the children sang in a line from the song.

W e d n e s d a yEnjoy free general admission at the FieldMuseum, open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. 1400 S. Lake ShoreDr. For more info, call 312-922-9410 or visit field-museum.org.

T h u r s d a yJoin Emily Teeter, an Egyptologist at the OrientalInstitute, and Judith Dunbar-Hines, director ofCulinary Arts and Events and the World Kitchenprogram at Chicago’s Department of CulturalAffairs, for a richly illustrated slide lecture and pri-vate tour of the Egyptian Gallery, based entirely onthe culinary clues hidden there, at Dine Like anEgyptian. Don’t miss this unique opportunity toexplore the cuisine and culinary lifestyle of theancient Egyptians. Program includes a light recep-tion. 6-8:30 p.m., Oriental Institute, 1155 E. 58thSt. Free (pre-registration required). For more info,call 773-702-9507.

F r i d a yBeer Hoptacular! kicks off its first year with beersamplings and demonstrations from craft brewers,home brewers, beer experts, and local artisans.Attendees can enjoy a select variety of more than200 small-batch beers—the best of the best fromacross the midwest, the U.S., and abroad—interactwith brewers, and cast their vote for the “BeerHoptacular Beer of the Year.” 6:30-10:30 p.m.,Aragon Ballroom, 1106 W. Lawrence Ave. $45-$55.For more info, call 1-800-745-3000 or visit beer-hoptacular.com.

S a t u r d a yFriends of the Chicago Portage host a free publictour of the Chicago Portage National HistoricSite. One of only two such sites in Illinois (theother is the Lincoln Home in Springfield), the

Saturday June 5Jay Pritzker Pavilion Stage4:30 p.m. Ricky Dillard & New G.5:20 p.m. Bishop Darrell McFadden & the Disciples6 p.m. Kathy Taylor6:40 p.m. Byron Cage featuring Mark Hubbard & TheVoices7:55 p.m. Hezekiah Walker & Love Fellowship Choir

Walgreens Day StageNoon Slayton Palms and Little Mount of Hope12:45 p.m. Mind Over Matter1:30 p.m. The Brown Brothers2:30 p.m. God’s House of All Nations3:30 p.m. Kenny Lewis & One Voice with SpecialGuest JJ Hairston

Inspiration Youth Stage12:30 - 4:30 p.m.

Gospelfest Schedule

MIKE-E, AfroFlow tour for positive change

SU

BM

ITT

ED

PH

OT

O

JUNE 2-JUNE 8, 2010 WWW.STREETW ISE .ORG 9

Events Calendar June 2-June 8

Portage is the only place where you can stand onthe same ground walked upon by all the explorers,early settlers, and creators of Chicago. Tours areapproximately a half mile long on a gravel paththrough the woods, and take about two hours;wear long pants and walking shoes or boots. Toursrun rain or shine. The Chicago Portage NationalHistoric Site is located at 4800 S. Harlem Ave. inLyons; meet at the statue of Joliet and Marquetteand their Native American guide at 10 a.m. Free.For more info, call Gary Mechanic at 773-590-0710or visit chicagoportage.org.

Join the StreetWise junior board at the Town HallPub for a StreetWise benefit show, featuring livemusic by Stealth Like a Canoe and a DJ set byChaz Evans. 9 p.m., 3340 N. Halsted St. $10 cover,with all proceeds going to StreetWise, a nonprofitorganization. For more info, visit streetwise.org.

S u n d a yA 25-mile cycling tour of sites related to the 1893World’s Fair, Ride Like the Devil includes a casualhistory lesson on the people of the era, including theinfamous H.H. Holmes. Bring your own bike and hel-met; participants must be able to maintain a moder-ate 12-14 mph pace. 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., ChicagoHistory Museum, 1601 N. Clark St. $20-$25. Formore info, call 312-642-4600 or visit chicagohs.org.

M o n d a yCatch a new original documentary, DuSable toObama: Chicago’s Black Metropolis, on WTTW,Channel 11, at 7:30 p.m. Laced with interviews,archival footage, and dramatic reenactments, thefilm celebrates the remarkable history of African-Americans in Chicago, capturing the extraordinarystories of the eminent and the unsung, the every-day men and women who’ve helped mold the citythrough politics, culture, and business. (Repeats:Sun 6/13 at 4:30 p.m., Wed 6/16 at 7:30 p.m.)

Blues on the North Shore Fest brings artists homeBy Brittany Langmeyer

StreetWise Contributor

Making its way up from the Deep South,traveling and morphing for over sixdecades, the soulful sound of Americanblues music rests its head in the heartof Chicago. This year Blues on the North

Shore, a festival comprised of three unique events, willhonor some of the greatest names in the blues family. Harp and Soul, the first event, takes place Thu 6/10

at 8 p.m. at SPACE, a venue located in Evanston, withperformances by prominent harmonica-wailing musi-cians like Sam Lay, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, and BobCorritore.

Lynn Orman, the producer of the festival, hopes tonot only pay tribute to these great blues harp playersbut also honor her late father, who “always had aharmonica in his pocket,” she recalls. “This is a greatopportunity to give recognition to this little, wonderfulinstrument.”

Rob Stone, another performer at “Harp and Soul,” isone of the youngest in the bunch. At the start of hisharp-playing career he was mentored by bluesdrummer and singer Sam Lay, and he truly values thelessons he learned from that relationship.

After Stone joined Lay’s band, his confidence wasshaken one night in Louisville, Kentucky, when anunnamed harmonica player stole the show with fero-cious technique. Stone told Lay, “I can’t play like thatguy,” to which the bandleader replied, “Well, he playshis notes and you play your notes. You just have todecide if you wanna play like him or if you wannaplay like you.”

And that is the true beauty of passing down theblues from generation to generation—each new agehas its own musical interpretation.

“The thing about the blues is that it’s very resilient,and no matter what generation embraces it, it will liveon, but it will live on through a different lens,” saidCorritore, a blues producer and harp player. Althoughhe currently resides in Arizona, where he hosts ablues radio show and runs his own venue, Corritoregrew up in Wilmette, on Chicago’s North Shore.

Orman has playfully started to call this event “TheWelcome Home Party” because so many of theseartists are coming back to the city where they begantheir careers, and where the founding fathers of theblues—Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf—discovered success.

But as the old acoustic tones of Delta blues trans-form into the electrified rhythms of a more modernsound, one thing will always remain important. “If youwant to play the blues, learn the history,” said drum-mer Kenny Smith, son of Willie “Big Eyes” Smith.“Find the artist you like and make it your own. Speakthe language, but speak it in your own tone . . . Youcan take it to the sky if you know the history of theblues.”

On Sun 6/13 at 2 p.m., the House of Blues will hostthe festival’s second event, Three Faces of theBlues: A Gospel Truth, in the city where gospel blues

David “Honeyboy”

Edwards

John Primer

Grady Champion

Sunday June 6Jay Pritzker Pavilion Stage4:30 p.m. The Caravans featuring Albertina Walker,Dorothy Norwood, Inez Andrews & DeloresWashington5:25 p.m. Evangel Celebration Choir5:55 p.m. Pioneer/Legends featuring Elsa Harris andPaulette Bush6:35 p.m. Richard Smallwood and Vision7:50 p.m. Fred Hammond

Walgreens Day StageNoon Doc and the New Heavenly Band12:45 p.m. Chicago Travelers1:30 p.m. The Chosen Ones2:30 p.m. Tony Tidwell and Favor3:30 p.m. Malcolm Williams & Great Faith

Inspiration Youth Stage12:30 - 4:30 p.m. Walgreens Day Stage & Inspiration Youth Stage are all Chicagoland talent

originated. The show will include performances by theCharlie Love Band, Sherry Pruitt, and Jeff Stone.(Times will be announced on the Blues On The NorthShore web site.)Three Generations of the Blues: Mississippi to

Chicago will conclude the festival later that eveningat 8 p.m. at SPACE. Performing will be Chicago bluesguitarist John Primer, Mississippi harp player andInternational Blues Challenge winner GradyChampion, and Delta blues legend David “Honeyboy”Edwards, who will be celebrating his 95th birthday.

Not only will the Blues on the North Shore festivalhonor decades of blues history, it will also reach outto those in need—proceeds from the events at SPACEwill be donated to the MusiCares Foundation, andearnings from the House of Blues show will be givento A Safe Haven, a Chicago charity.

According to many of the performers, the greatestthing about Blues on the North Shore is the chance toreunite and play together once again. “I get to hangout with some of my friends and we’ll all be in thesame room, as opposed to seeing each other on theroad, waving from a van window,” said Kenny Smith.He concluded, “It’s gonna be an honor to play [drums]behind whoever it is. I’m gonna take that in. I’mgonna soak that up. And I’m gonna play some blues.”

PH

OT

OS

CO

UR

TE

SY

OF

BL

UE

S O

N T

HE

NO

RT

H S

HO

RE

10 WWW.STREETW ISE .ORG JUNE 2-JUNE 8, 2010

By Ben Cook

StreetWise Staff

What do you think the current perception of the homeless is?

There is no such thing as “the homeless.” It’s a group of people just like any othergroup of people—they’re individuals, they’re families, they’re old, they’re young,they’re sick, they’re healthy. People are much more complex than the diagnosis thatthey have. When we think about the history of homelessness in the United States, alot of times the perception is that homelessness is a new phenomenon, that weessentially created it 30 years ago with cuts to housing or with the institutionaliza-tion of the people from backward hospitals or with devastated veterans returningfrom Vietnam. While all of those issues certainly contributed to the current wave ofhomelessness that we find ourselves in, we didn’t create homelessness in the late1970s and early 1980s. We’ve certainly made decisions as a society where weplace our funding—toward long wars, toward corporate tax breaks. Those thingshave a direct impact on homelessness and how many people slip through thecracks.

When were the first reported cases of homelessness in the U.S.?

The first cases of homelessness date back to the 1640s. These are [reported] injournals of the day, in public records—mainly in the northeast, in the bigger citiesof the original 13 colonies.

Who was homeless during this time?

Wars fought between the settlers and the Native Americans displaced people onboth sides; many of those new settlers became displaced in the big port cities.European settlers were moving further inland, and these skirmishes were making

Native Americans homeless and immigrants homeless.In Boston, New York, and Philadelphia you see manycases in the 1640s-’60s.

What types of individuals were homeless?

At this time you had to essentially show up to a townand make your case for why you should be allowed tosettle there. Some people are still forced to do that—refugees, asylum seekers—people who must maketheir case for why they [deserve] to be a part of yourcommunity. In most New England towns in the 1600s-1700s you had to go sit before the town fathers—andmake no mistake, they were fathers, not mothers, andthey were all white—and you basically had to say,“I’m going to be able to pull my own weight. I’m goingto be able to farm my land and build my house, andI’m not going to be a drain on everybody else.” And ifthey didn’t believe you, they would not allow you tosettle there.

So who do you think was told to move on? Catholics,people with physical disabilities, mental disabilities,alcoholics, widows, orphans, the elderly . . . anyonewho was perceived to not be strong enough to carrytheir weight in society. So what we ended up with wasa transient class of people experiencing homeless-ness, moving from town to town, trying to find someplace to settle down. It was a new world with newopportunity, but not for everybody.

Was there a guiding national precedent for how totreat immigrants, settlers, and established NativeAmericans?

One policy decision that we made early on as a nation,perhaps the first federal policy that caused massivehomelessness, was the displacement of NativeAmericans, especially Native American tribes in thesoutheast. The Native American tribes were essentiallyuprooted and moved west to Oklahoma. That was theTrail of Tears, and Andrew Jackson got famous for itand became president.

From 1640-Present: A Q & A with Jeff Olivet

Background:

Jeff Olivet has beenaddressing issues ofhomelessness, poverty,and HIV since the early1990s—as an outreachworker, case manager,housing director, activist,writer, lecturer, andtrainer. He serves asdirector of training at theCenter for SocialInnovation in NewtonCentre, Massachusetts,and has worked withpublic hospitals andclinics around thecountry to improvehealth-care access forpatients who are poorand underserved. He’salso been involved withinternational health workin South Africa, Kenya,and Nigeria. Find outmore about the Centerfor Social Innovation atcenter4si.com.

The history of

U.S Homelessness

Cover Story

CO

UR

TE

SY

OF

TH

E L

IBR

AR

Y O

F C

ON

GR

ES

S C

OL

LE

CT

ION

At Right: A wood engraving showingveteran with one leg, Illus. in:

Harper's weekly, 1867 Jan. 5, p. 4.

Pictured: Improved medical technique duringthe U.S. Civil War meant that soldiers wereliving through severe battle wounds.

JUNE 2-JUNE 8, 2010 WWW.STREETW ISE .ORG 11

Who else besides Native Americans were facinghomelessness by this point in history?

Around the same time the Industrial Revolution wasstarting in the 1820s-’30s, about the time thatChicago was popping up as a serious contender fortrade and industry in this part of the country, peoplewere moving from farms into the cities, a movementthat automatically created a poor urban underclass.People moved into the cities with the hopes of findingjobs; many became homeless. Again, people withdisabilities, people who are physically unable to workwell, people who couldn’t get along with other peoplebecause of what we today call borderline personalitydisorders, ended up homeless.

During this time there were reports from Philadelphiaand New York of masses of people wandering thestreets. This is the first time that we saw anti-panhandling ordinances.

The city jails became the de facto shelter system—sound familiar? We’re kind of going down that roadagain; we’ve criminalized homelessness and we lockpeople up. It’s a kind of stupid way to deal with home-lessness, but that is what has happened in cities allover this country. The criminalization of homelessnessis not new.

The Industrial Revolution started a huge economicboom. Didn’t it create jobs, help people out ofpoverty, and bring about positive change?

The Industrial Revolution caused a lot of physical dis-ability as well—people lost lives, people lost limbs,and there [wasn’t much of a] social safety net to keeppeople from becoming homeless.

It was in the 1850s that we started seeing the firstdocumented cases of youth homelessness, mostlyamong adolescent boys who were kicked out of thehouse because the family didn’t have the resources totake care of everybody. There were runaways, therewere throwaways, there were homeless youths.

Also in the 1850s you saw a massive recession verymuch like the one that we’re in now, and we knowthat when the economy tanks, people become home-less . . . they lose jobs, they lose homes, their familiescan’t take care of them because they’re no better off,either. So they become homeless.

What effect did the Civil War have on the homelesspopulation?

During the Civil War, field medicine became quitegood—they started using morphine, amputated limbswere survivable. That was new—you’d [have been]dead before that.

We’re seeing similar medicine advances now with thewars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Things like traumaticbrain injury—people are surviving who wouldn’t have10 or 15 years ago, and we’re beginning to see themon the streets. More people with physical injuries,more people who are mentally disabled—we saw thatin the Civil War too. It’s not new for veterans tobecome homeless.

What did these survivors do after the war?

This is when the terms “tramp” and “bum” were born.The terminology among the soldiers is that [when]they would go out and get food—chickens fromfarms, fruit from orchards, wood for fire—that wascalled “going out on a tramp” or “going out on abum.” So when those people took those survival skillsthat they had honed during that war into everyday life,they became “tramps” and “bums.” “Hobo” is anotherterm from those days.

Were the homeless still primarily located in EastCoast urban areas after the war?

At this time the train system was taking off in thiscountry. The railroad expands, and all of a sudden youhave people moving from small towns to big towns toother small towns; Chicago is clearly a hub of transit.People from small towns in Ohio and from the South,especially African-Americans, were moving north.

The expansion of the train lines had a huge impact onhomelessness in this country . . . a massive numberof veterans with survival skills and post-traumaticstress disorders went out riding the rails. Often thesewere single adult men, often with drug and alcoholproblems, some with mental illness.

What about urban homelessness?

You paid a couple cents to stay on the sticky, dirty,alcohol-and-vomit-covered floor of a tavern. Peopleoften say that family homelessness is new, and we’recertainly in a wave of increasing family homelessness,but it’s not new—it has been with us throughout ourhistory.

Here’s an image (see picture above) of what cheaplodging houses looked like in New York in 1882—people are stacked like sardines. We saw children out

living on the street, even during the good times. Thecountry’s economy was turning around in the earlypart of the 20th century; it was called the ProgressiveEra. People in Chicago were a huge part of this—building skyscrapers, industry all over the place. Wewere really rocking as a country, but people were stillpoor. Homeless people were still homeless.

How did Chicago homelessness look compared toother big cities at this time?

Chicago was one of the first hubs of academic studiesabout homelessness. The field of social work wasstarting to develop. The movement of sociology wasbeginning to come together. We had people like AliceSolenberger writing One Thousand Homeless Men,which was one of the first large-scale studies ofhomelessness. Her job, as she saw it, was to dispel allof the stereotypes and all the myths and say, “Look,here are people who are unique and full of stories.They have hopes and dreams just like anybody else.”They are bigger than their issues.

2 men standing in foreground, at Northwestcorner of Washington and LaSalle St after the

Great Chicago Fire of Oct. 1871.

LIB

RA

RY

OF

CO

NG

RE

SS

Underground lodgings for the poor, Greenwich Street NY

LIB

RA

RY

OF

CO

NG

RE

SS

12 WWW.STREETW ISE .ORG JUNE 2-JUNE 8, 2010

Who else was involved in earlyChicago social work?

Nels Anderson was writing aboutChicago’s skid row in The Hobo. Thiswas in 1923 on Madison Street (seepicture on page 13), called “the mainstem” by hobos; you could find cheaprestaurants, secondhand clothes, andhostels. This area is where a lot of theinitial rescue missions popped up in the1870s. The Salvation Army and a lot ofthose other first-wave efforts werelocated there. We know that skid rowremained a problem [up through] the1960s, when the whole movementtoward urban renewal started demol-ishing poor parts of town and displac-ing a lot of people who were living incheap housing.

What historical event marked thenext big wave of homelessness?

In 1927 there was a massive flood ofthe Mississippi River, from Ohio and

Missouri down through New Orleans. Ifyou’re a fan of Johnny Cash, he wrote asong about this flood called Five FeetHigh and Rising. The 1927 Mississippiflood displaced about 1.3 million people.

The amount of homeless people inTexas, Mississippi, and Louisiana isalmost double what it was beforeHurricane Katrina in 2005. There’s adirect correlation between naturaldisaster and homelessness: you canput the Chicago Fire in that category[1871], the 1906 San Francisco earth-quake, the tsunami in Asia in 2004 . . .These directly impact people. For many,things are never the same. If you go toNew Orleans now, things are not whatthey were before Katrina; some peoplestill don’t have housing.

How did the country respond to thosedisplaced by the flood?

What we know from the federalresponse to the 1927 flood is that this

was the first massive relief effort coor-dinated by the federal government. Itwas overseen by Herbert Hoover. He gotfamous for that and became president.

We also know that the refugee campswere segregated. You’ve got to believethat they were separate but not neces-sarily equal. Black men in particularwere forced to work at gunpoint torebuild the levees throughoutMississippi and Louisiana. We have aperiod of about a year and a half offorced slavery in this country in 1927-’28. This was our federal response tothe Mississippi flood.

Very much like with Hurricane Katrina,people did not go back home a weeklater, like we might expect. They werein camps and shelters for months—insome cases, years. This flood was adeciding factor—with African-Americans, especially—in driving peo-ple north during the 1920s and ’30s. Soplaces like Chicago, Detroit, andCleveland saw a huge increase inAfrican-American population at thispoint.

So, with the Depression, Americawas kicked while it was alreadydown?

With the Great Depression of 1929 wesee massive numbers of homeless peo-ple like we’ve never seen before, andpossibly have never seen since.

Now, one of the upsides of theDepression is that it was the firstopportunity for the United States gov-ernment to jump into action to addresshomelessness—and they did. From1933 to ’36 the U.S. government insti-tuted the FTS, or the Federal TransientService, and it was a fantastic federalprogram that funded shelters and artsprograms and health centers and jobtraining and work camps and housingfor people who were homeless. And itwas remarkably effective.

When you read the journal entries ofthe people it affected, you see sheltersthat treated people with dignity, thatwere well run. They didn’t have a lot ofthe religious requirements that some ofthe evangelical programs had. Theywere really good.

If it was such a good program, whathappened to it?

In 1936 the program was shut down.The Roosevelt administration wanted tofund Social Security, so it cut a bunchof emergency response programs,

much like we’re seeing stimulus fundsdo now. They folded a lot of thoseresources into Social Security. What theprogram showed is that the federalgovernment can do something right ifthey put their minds to it and putenough resources toward a solution.

What effect did World War II have onhomelessness?

What we saw through the ’40s, ’50s,and ’60s was the country went to warand back to work, often building thingslike airplanes and tanks. The countryessentially pulled itself out of the GreatDepression with a huge economicrebound.

So from the ’40s through the ’60spoverty decreased?

But not everybody felt that—somepeople were still very poor, very muchon the edge. What we saw then in the’60s and ’70s was the groundwork forthe current wave of homelessness: theVietnam War. People were coming backdevastated, both physically and mental-ly. Plus, we were closing down . . .mental hospitals without offeringenough effective community responseto catch all of the people who wereleaving.

Wasn’t there policy in place to counter this trend?

Compounding the current situation wascuts in federal funding to affordablehousing in the ’80s and ’90s. The cur-rent homelessness wave is absolutely aresult of the fact that we don’t do agood job taking care of people withmental and substance-abuse problems.

You can make a direct line between thepolicies we make at the federal level,state level, local level and increases inhomelessness. We know that homeless-ness always hits minorities, people withdisabilities, women, and certainly poorpeople harder than it does anybodyelse. We know that the homeless arealways thought of as one group, andthey never are—there’s no such thingas “the homeless,” there’s no suchthing as “What are they like?” We’retalking about people with individualhopes, dreams, joys, and pains, andevery story is absolutely unique andunlike any other story.

What solutions do you think arepractical for fighting the currentwave of homelessness?

Ultimately, homelessness in this country

Among the unemployed of Chicagodrawn by Charles Mente

Four scenes showing homeless men: in corridor

of the City Hall at night, working with brooms

for meals and lodging, receiving meals at Lake-

side kitchen, and in bunks in lodging house.

Origially published in Harper's weekly, 1894

Jan. 13, p. 37.

LIB

RA

RY

OF

CO

NG

RE

SS

13JUNE 2-JUNE 8, 2010 WWW.STREETW ISE .ORG

“

is a result of a lack of affordable housing, and a gapbetween rich and poor people. We know homeless-ness is like a game of musical chairs, where you haveaffordable housing units as the chairs. There aremany factors that go into homelessness, but if youhad enough affordable housing that would be a bigpart of it.

A pre-recession study projected that we have 10million extremely low-income renters in this countryand 3.5 million units of housing they can afford. That’sa gap of 6.5 million units of housing.

What’s being done to bridge this gap?

What we’ve seen over the last 8-10 years is a slightincrease in homeless-specific programs and huge cutsto safety-net programs that prevent people frombecoming homeless in the first place. Under the Bush administration we saw an increase inhomeless assistance dollars but cuts to Section 8,Housing for the Elderly, housing in rural areas. It’s anapproach that tries to solve homelessness oneperson at a time, but if we’re cutting Section 8 by$716 million over a decade, that’s going to causehomelessness.

Is any of the federal stimulus money going tohelp?

I’m cautiously optimistic about the stimulus moneyand homelessness prevention, and also some of theHUD budgets being proposed right now—there’s somegood stuff in there. We’ve got a lot of advocacy workto do to get this thing right on local and national lev-els. We know from our friends at the National Low-Income Housing Coalition that there’s not one countyin the United States where someone can afford even aone-bedroom apartment on minimum wage. Not inChicago, not in Alabama, not in Alaska, not inMassachusetts. Nowhere.

We also know from the U.S. Conference of Mayorsreport that homelessness and hunger are on theincrease at a time when city budgets and state budg-ets are in shambles. There’s a new report from theNational Center on Family Homelessness that foundthat 1 in 50 children in the United States experienceshomelessness each year.

Are improvements being made to our infrastructure and perceptions, and where?

Where’s the hope in all this mix? I think we’re gettinga lot better on how we coordinate systems, how wedo advocacy, and how we fund programs. Not thateverything’s perfect, but if you look where we are nowversus where we were 25 years ago, a whole lot ofgood pieces are in place.

Now people are talking about homelessness preven-tion—that’s pretty new. Not just talking about movingpeople off the streets or out of the shelters, but pre-venting them from becoming homeless in the firstplace. That’s a great thing that we’re talking about . . .actually funding programs for prevention.

Housing first, rapid rehousing, and the notion of per-manent supportive housing are huge factors in endinghomelessness. We’re talking about how some peopleare going to need ongoing support and treatment,access to health care, job training, psychosocial rehab. . . it’s permanent a lot of times. Some people want orneed a variety of connections to stay housed.

What about improving stereotypes of homelessness?

There’s been a shift in language the last few years. Weused to talk about managing homelessness or how weaddress homelessness—now community upon com-munity across this country is talking about ending

homelessness. It’s a real shift. Some people were talk-ing about this a long time ago, but the nation hascaught on—we could end homelessness if we reallyset our minds to it. Now what we need is for the dol-lars to follow that language.

Do these shifts in perception give you hope aboutthe future of homelessness? Is there a future ofhomelessness?

There’s a huge set of challenges before us. We’re in adaunting economic climate right now in which towork. On the other hand, people have created somepretty fantastic new ways of dealing with and endinghomelessness. When you talk about human rightswork, I think that one of the most important things thatyou can do is hold out hope for people. It’s like theOlympic torch—a torch that can reach through com-munities. You take hold of that torch of hope for folksthat everyone else has given up hope on; you givehope to folks who have even given up hope on them-selves.

I believe we [homelessness prevention advocates] areon the verge of a very different way of working. Weestimate that there are as many as 300,000 peopledoing homelessness service work in this country. It’snot a few hundred across Chicago—it’s 300,000.That’s an army of people changing things on their cor-ners of their communities every day, just like you are.You’re part of something much larger than yourself.

You can make a direct line between the

policies we make at the federal level,

state level, local level and increases in

homelessness. We know that homeless-

ness always hits minorities, people with

disabilities, women, and certainly poor

people harder than it does anybody else.

COURTESY OF NOAAVicksburg labor camp, May 3, 1927

This 1923 map shows the types of businesses cateringto the homeless in Chicago’s “main stem” section. ( From Nels Anderson’s The Hobo )

UN

IVE

RS

ITY

OF

CH

ICA

GO

PR

ES

S

7WWW.STREETW ISE .ORG

Entrepreneur Spotlight

Self-starter takes the next step

JUNE 2-JUNE 8, 2010 15

He

lp yo

ur k

ids h

ave

a p

ositive

sum

me

r

pm

ae

veryd

ay.c

om

“We need young

people giving

back to youth

because they

can connect

easier...

By Ben Cook

StreetWise Staff

Alonzo Hall Jr. has been familiar withStreetWise for a long time: it’s theorganization that allowed his father,Alonzo Hall Sr., to reassemble the

disjointed pieces of his life.“StreetWise has really helped him get it

together,” Alonzo Jr. says. “He wasat rock bottom, being self-destructive by using drugs.StreetWise helped him get ittogether and become a better cit-izen. Before StreetWise he didn’tthink he had any opportunities,and that basically his life was overwith, [that] he wasn’t going to geta job because of his background.But by selling StreetWise he’sbecome responsible and a betterperson overall.” Alonzo was featured in

StreetWise last September. He talked about theshoe business he started by using his magazinesales proceeds to procure raw materials; CustomCreations makes customized shoes using specialarmatures and fabrics. While it’s getting off theground, he’s turned his attention to giving back.“I’m doing a promotion for financially disad-

vantaged children,” he says. “I have started a foun-dation [Save Our Youth foundation] and a chari-ty [Creative Kids] to help raise awareness aboutyouth violence. What I want to do is host a week-ly seminar where I talk about what’s going onwith the youth in each particular community,asking ‘What can we do to create solutions tothe violence?’ Each week I want to go to a differ-ent community and do a talk. Also, I’ll bring mycustom shoes with me, and for every two pairs Isell [discreetly, before the presentation], I’ll giveone pair away to someone who needs them.“I want to tell youth that it’s about investing

positive energy into things. I want to promoteeconomic development in the communities.These kids have a lot of idle times, and they’reusing it to create negative violence. They don’thave a positive outlet; they don’t have the toolsor the positive role models. So basically what I’mtrying to do is give them some motivation andhope.”

He lamented, “Right nowthere’s not a lot [for them] to do.If there are positive clubs theycan join, they often have a mem-bership fee that a lot of motherscan’t afford. “I want to go where people

need help. Our politicians are soalienated from the kids, and theydon’t know anything aboutthem. The youth are the future . .. and at the rate they’re going,they’re going to need somehelp.” When asked what motivated

the 22-year-old entrepreneur to give back,Alonzo said, “We need young people giving backto youth because they can connect easier . . . Idon’t have anything against the older cats whoare trying to help out, but they don’t have asmuch in common. “I know how privileged I am to have a pair of

shoes. I want to give back because it’s the rightthing to do, and I started with the youth becauseI feel they need the attention.”Alonzo is currently setting up his first event

and aiming for a launch date of early June.Anyone who wants to help out can contact himat [email protected] or 847-533-7081. As for his StreetWise magazines, he can be

found with the latest edition outside theWalgreens at 2100 Green Bay Rd. in Evanston,where he works from noon to 6 p.m. most week-days.

Haven’t seen it yet?

StreetWise the Movieis available at

www.streetwise.org

Update on: Alonzo Hall, Jr.