Youth Transitional Housing Heading for North Lawndale (uncut version)
If you read my mom’s LJ, you probably know that my mom is a big supporter of the Night Ministry - and for a good reason. The North Side organization works to provide housing for homeless youth, especially LGBT youth, as well as various services for the poor and the homeless in general, often in the face of limited resources and limited space. The Night Ministry has been around for four decades, and it expanded quite a bit since it started its first Boystown facility. But, in all that time, all of its facilities were north of Madison Street… until now.
I didn’t actually hear about this from my mom. I found out about this while looking through the classifieds section of the Chicago Sun-Times’ Cubs victory issue. Amidst the long list of cases that were going to go up before the Chicago Zoning Board of Appeals, the “Night Ministry” caught my eye, and once I realized that the address fell within Austin Weekly News’ coverage area, I knew I had to pitch it to my editor.
The ZBA meeting took place on November 18. I submitted the article a week later - but it didn’t actually get published until last Wednesday. The version that wound up printed got the basics across, but a lot of interesting stuff got left on the cutting room floor. So if you want the shorter version, follow this link, but if you want to see the whole thing, read on.
The building (photo by yours truly)
For most of its existence, the gray building at 1922 S. Avers Avenue hasn't been that much different from the surrounding two-flats on a quiet residential block between 19th Street and Ogden Avenue.
But, in a few months, it will become something its neighbors have never seen before.
The North Lawndale College Prep school has teamed up with the Night Ministry and Empowered to Succeed non-profit groups to convert the building into co-ed transitional housing for homeless students. It will be able to house up to eight students at the time, and the Ministry staff will be on site to help them. The students will be able to bring their children, but the facility won't have more then three children in total.
Before the project could get off the ground, it had to be cleared with the Chicago Zoning Board of Appeals. While the board ultimately approved it on Nov. 18, it came after nearly an hour and a half of extensive questioning. One resident spoke against the project, and two of the board members wondered whether the Night Ministry was presenting the full picture of what its programs were like.
As John Horan, the president of NLCP, explained to the zoning board, student homelessness has been a recurring issue at his school. Some of those teens were homeless in the sense most people understood, while others spent the nights at friends and relatives but didn't have a home to call their own.
“We figured out early on that between 5-8 percent of our students, at any given time, were unstably house, in dangerous position or straight-up homeless,” Horan said. “We figured out pretty early on we needed systemic outreach to those kids.”
He said that 5-8 percent is about 50-70 students a year. Most of those students are from either Austin or North Lawndale.
The lack of stable housing hurt those kids' ability to do well academically. After all, Horan said, it was hard to concentrate on studying when they had to worry about where they were going to sleep.
At first, he simply asked teachers to take students in. While it worked at first, it became clear that it wasn't sustainable.
As previously reported by the Austin Weekly News, NLCP is part of the North Lawndale Kingship Initiative, a partnership between West Loop's St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church and a number of North Lawndale institutions and community organizations. Horan reached out Old St. Patrick's for help. The church set up Empowered to Succeed, a non-profit specifically designed to address youth housing instability in the community. It wound up buying the house at Avers Avenue.
The Night Ministry is a Ravenswood-based non-profit that has been helping the homeless for the past 40 years. It already runs several youth transitional housing and emergency housing facilities on the North and Northwest sides. As Horan explained to the zoning board, Night Ministry had the experience to help his students, so partnering with them was a natural choice.
[In the interest of full disclosure - this reporter's mother is a regular donor to the Night Ministry]
He told the board that he hopes that this project would be the first step in addressing youth homelessness in North Lawndale.
“We start with NLCP and based on what we learn, we'll see if we can expand to other schools,” Horan said. “We hope we'll have statistical of 100 more kids and start 10 more of those [facilities].”
While the Avers Avenue house will be the first project of its kind of this particular group of organizations, it won't be unique to North Lawndale. As previously reported by the Weekly, Project Fierce Chicago is currently working to turn another residential building into transitional housing facility for LGBTQ youth. According to the organization's Facebook page, they are currently raising money for the interior remodeling.
Paul Hamann, the Night Ministry's presi dent and CEO, told the board that his organization did extensive outreach in the community for the past 14 months
“We attended a lot of community events, hosted community events. barbecues, pizza nights,” he said, adding that they went door-to-door and talked to North Lawndale elected officials and church leaders.
Jennie Merritt, who will run the facility's day-to-day operation, said that the outreach will continue once it opens.
“Continue my position as the community liaison,” she said. “We want a full-time person to continue engaging with the community.”
In response to a question from the Night Ministry attorney Joseph Gattuso, Horan said that he believed the facility will benefit the community.
“I think this will be a real blessing for neighborhood,” he said. “One of [NLCP] board of directors [members] lives across street, so we have skin in the game. I think it's going to be terrific benefit to community.”
While some of the zoning board members supported the application, others were more cautious. Board chairman Blake Sercye said that, as someone who grew up in Austin, he was sensitive to issues on the West Side, and he wanted to make sure the board does right by the teens the facility would house. He asked multiple questions about federal oversight. Hamann replied that all Night Ministry facilities get inspected by several agencies, which check their paperwork and interview residents.
Sercye also asked about whether there was a policy for addressing student grievances, and what role the students have in the facilities' operations. Hamann said that that there was a multi-step process, and students do, in fact, have a voice in the operations.
“[We have] a youth advisory group, called Youth for Truth,” he said. “We also have youth leadership programs.”
Sercye also said that he would have liked to hear testimony from current and former students, because they might be able to talk about issues staff may have missed.
“I think just, as a West Side, Austin kid, I feel it would be better to have actual students testify,” he said.
Finally, Sercye said that he was concerned about the fact that there can be no more then three students' dependent children at the time, because he was worried that, if one of the students either gets pregrant or gets someone pregnant during their stay and there are already three dependent children living there, he or she could be thrown out.
Hamann acknowledged that this might become an issue, but said that Night Ministry wouldn't just toss them out in the cold.
“If anyone has to leave our program, we'll link them up with other resources,” he said.
Board member Amanda Williams wondered why there wasn't more effort to provide housing for the entire families. Horan replied that, while they want to help families, students take priority
“The hope is to do the least damage to families and get them the help they need,” he said. “But there's going to be a number of kids who need intimidate housing while we work on long-term solutions.”
Williams was also worried that the age range of the students allowed to stay in the facility - 14-24 - would create problems, especially since it will have both girls and boys.
“Extending to age of 24 provides us an opportunity to serve people who go off to college and need a place to stay during the break,” Hamann said. “We never had any issues, because of close supervision the young people are under. And I think there are families where we have 14-year olds living with 24-year olds.”
Steve Valenzeano, of the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, told the board that his department's policy was to only grant permits for such facilities if they are single-sex, but the Night Ministry had a proven track record with a co-ed facilities. He would recommend granting them the permit, so long as it comes with the condition that it would only apply to the building when the Night Ministry operates it.
While several people who lived near the building attended, only one testified. Carol Everett, of 1952 S Avers Ave, said that she was concerned about how the presence of teens, some with kids of their own, would disrupt the block.
“We watch our area, and now we got to be concerned about children we don't know,” she said. “There was point [made earlier during the meeting[ about children not being happy with curfew - that happens with a lot of families. They cause problems even with their parents.”
Everett added she was concerned about how the facility would affect the taxes and property values. She also said that Night Ministry didn't do as much outreach as Hamann said, and that she didn't get any notification about the project until a few days earlier.
Gattuso responded by saying that Everett's complaint about outreach wasn't true, and that the Night Ministry did send a letter to her address in July 2016.
Hamann said that his organization was ready to address whatever concerns may arise
“We're very accustomed to this,” he said. “We've been doing this work for 40 years, so we know there are concerns.”
The board ultimately voted to approve the application, with conditions. Hamann told the Weekly that they hope to open the facility by March 2017, but added that it could be later.