Where I Stay

There are 50 wards in Chicago, but more than 65,000 people living within its limits lack a home of their own - a group activist Carla Johnson refers to as the “51st Ward.”Our intrepid reporters: Jesse Betend, Streetwise Editor Suzanne Hanney, and Streetwise vendor A. Allen set out to track down Tom Gordon, the so-called “Mayor of Uptown” in hopes of discovering what's causing a rise in homeless camps throughout the city. What they find is a community formed in the absence of adequate city services, existing in a legal limbo, and often in conflict with both local leaders and their housed neighbors. But also an unmistakable family. Just who is Tom Gordon? And who exactly made him the Mayor, anyway? Meanwhile, the forming of a new tent city in a nearby park hits close to home, prompting difficult questions about what, at the end of the day, communities owe each other.Welcome to the 51st Ward. 

For most, living in a shelter or on the street is the last resort. As a result, the majority of people experiencing homelessness are “defined out” of accessing aid. In fact, the Department of Housing and Urban Development doesn’t even consider them homeless. Are we obscuring an exponentially larger looming crisis? On this bonus episode Host Jesse Betend and StreetWise Magazine Senior Editor Suzanne Hanney, host a live panel to discuss these and other issue’s behind the series.  Featuring: Dr. Molly Brown, Assistant Professor of Clinical-Community Psychology and Director of the Homelessness Advocacy, Research, and Collaboration Lab at DePaul University;  Erin Ryan. Senior Vice President of Operations at The Night Ministry, a social services organization that works with many of Chicago’s most vulnerable homeless citizens;  And Lee and Paula, who are both Streetwise Magazine Vendors who are currently experiencing homelessness.    Sources:  The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless’ Estimate of Chicago Homelessness Report --  https://www.chicagohomeless.org/new-analysis-shows-76998-chicagoans-impacted-by-homelessness/ DePaul’s HARC Lab -- https://harclab.com/publications/ The Night Ministry -- https://www.thenightministry.org/support-us?gclid=CjwKCAjwv_iEBhASEiwARoemvOuEzrez6RUNyb4BVFGKQ-JpIlmDZ1PPfbBIaYI6_LU17Q1WQHKHahoC-pQQAvD_BwE StreetWise -- https://www.streetwise.org/

A Shorty Award finalist -- please vote here: https://shortyawards.com/13th/where-i-stay-2 Angelica meets Anthony.  

A Shorty Award finalist -- please vote here: https://shortyawards.com/13th/where-i-stay-2 A fateful encounter in Arizona changes everything.

A Shorty Award finalist -- please vote here: https://shortyawards.com/13th/where-i-stay-2 On the run.

A Shorty Award finalist -- please vote here: https://shortyawards.com/13th/where-i-stay-2 Angelica is headed to prison, but what does that mean for her son, Anthony?   

A Shorty Award finalist -- please vote here: https://shortyawards.com/13th/where-i-stay-2 There was someone who could’ve prevented a lot of what was going wrong in Angelica’s life. This week: who they were and why they didn’t.

A Shorty Award finalist -- please vote here: https://shortyawards.com/13th/where-i-stay-2 Angelica moves in with the queen-pin of an Iowa drug ring.

A Shorty Award finalist -- please vote here: https://shortyawards.com/13th/where-i-stay-2 Angelica decides the quickest way to get help is to lie.

A Shorty Award finalist -- please vote here: https://shortyawards.com/13th/where-i-stay-2   Fourteen places, two-toothless threats, one diary and countless family secrets. How does a 12-year-old become homeless, anyway?    

Angelica first became homeless at the age of 12, but she never lived on the street. Prisons. Vegas condos. The living room of an Iowa drug queen-pin, and an inpatient facility for adolescents. This is WHERE I STAY.   From Rivet + StreetWise