Resources for the Unhoused

The 100-Day Challenge is now over, but the Village and its partners are turning to a new focus, Yes to the Address.

Update on Challenge: The Alliance to End Homelessness in Suburban Cook County, in partnership with housing and social service agencies, recently completed a 100-Day Challenge and secured housing for 123 individuals experiencing homelessness. (The goal was 88.) Landlords stepped up to provide housing across the south, west and north Chicago suburbs – and we need to do more.

As part of the 100 Day Challenge, Oak Park hosted events to bring together landlords with available units and households that are actively working with a housing navigator to identify a unit. These events helped to expedite the housing search process and provided more information to landlords about the benefits of partnership including: filling vacant units, on-going rental assistance, wraparound services and dedicated staff committed to keeping individuals securely housed, and providing a place for a person experiencing homelessness to call home.

The Village of Oak Park is hosting community forums during fall 2024 to discuss the topic of unhoused persons living within the community and panhandling in Oak Park.

• Panhandling Conversation
  • 6 to 8 p.m.
  • Monday, Nov. 18
  • Veterans Room at the Oak Park Public Library, 834 Lake St.
  • Join the Village for a discussion about constructive approaches to addressing the hunger and homelessness that creates the need for panhandling.
  • Click here for more information

Annually 120,857 persons are experiencing homelessness in Illinois. Of those experiencing homelessness it is estimated that:

• 18% are people living with a serious mental illness
• 12% are people living with a substance abuse disorder
• 5% are veterans
• 8% are victims of domestic violence
• 6% are young adults ages 18-24
• 5% are parenting youth or children of parenting youth

Currently, the average wait time for access to homeless housing resources in Chicago is 802 days (2.2 years) from the initial point of contact with service providers. The goal is to reach ”functional zero,” which is defined as a sustainable milestone where a community has measurably solved homelessness. This benchmark includes making homelessness rare, brief, non-recurring, and equitable. This can be achieved in the State by increasing shelter capacity by an additional 4,551 beds, 9,421 rapid rehousing units (short-term rental assistance with support services), and 6,292 permanent supportive housing units (affordable housing units with supportive services).

Housing Forward shared that since January 2023, 69 individuals have received services through Housing Forward’s emergency shelters located in Oak Park. The emergency shelter can support 15 beds per evening. In addition to the 15 persons in the emergency shelter, an additional six individuals reportedly live in an encampment on North Blvd., two individuals reportedly live at Maple Park, and one individual reportedly lives at Scoville Park. The number of persons at these encampments does fluctuate and numerous other individuals, as many as 30, have been located within the encampments at times. At this time, Housing Forward’s policy is to not ask individuals to relocate from the encampments. Instead, Housing Forward’s two street outreach employees dedicated to the Oak Park community work to engage and build a relationship with the individuals at the encampments and to provide them with assistance to meet their basic needs.

This poster is currently displayed in Oak Park at the Metra station (1115 W. North Blvd.)

Click here to download PDF

Click here to download PDF

Copies are also available at Village Hall (123 Madison St.)

Click here to download PDF

Copies are also available at Village Hall (123 Madison St.)

Village of Oak Park Attorney Paul Stephanides provided what follows regarding the legal parameters governing unhoused persons.

Applicable Case Law

The leading federal court cases on the issue of legal tools concerning homelessness involve two different approaches. The first approach is a wide-spread ban against homeless encampments in a municipality. The second approach is to prohibit homeless encampments only in certain areas of a municipality. 

In the cases of Johnson v. City of Grants Pass, 50 F.4^th 787 (9^th Cir. 2022) and Martin v. City of Boise, 902 F.3d 1031 (9^th Cir. 2018), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that in the absence of adequate shelter beds, people experiencing homelessness can use tents, sleep in vehicles, or use other forms of protection from the elements without being subject to civil or criminal punishment. In both cases, the court held that the applicable municipalities’ custom, pattern, and practice of enforcing anti-camping ordinances, anti-sleeping ordinances, and criminal trespass laws against involuntarily homeless individuals violated the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause. The court in the Martin case stated that its holding was a “narrow one,” and only applied “so long as there is a greater number of homeless individuals in a jurisdiction than the number of available beds in shelters.” Martin, 920 F.3d at 615.

The federal district court in the case of Frank v. City of St. Louis, 458 F.Supp.3d 1090 (E.D. Mo. 2020), did not follow the holding in the Martin case cited above because of significant factual differences. In the Martin case, the City of Boise’s ordinance was enforced throughout the city. In the Frank case, the City of St. Louis prohibited a homeless encampment in a specific part of the city pursuant to a notice and order enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. St. Louis identified the area as especially high risk for the spread of COVID-19. Persons who attempted to inhabit the encampment in the prohibited area were free to sleep in other areas of the city without being in violation of the notice and order. 

Furthermore, St. Louis stated in the case that it did not intend to arrest individuals who had been residing at the encampments. Rather, the city’s intent was to ensure that those individuals move from the encampments to safer alternative housing options. The notice and order posted at the encampments stated that there was sufficient alternative housing available to everyone that slept at the location. 

Bill of Rights for the Homeless Act

The State of Illinois enacted the Bill of Rights for the Homeless Act in 2013.  The Act provides that the homeless have “the right to use and move freely in public spaces, including but not limited to public sidewalks, public parks, public transportation, and public buildings, in the same manner as any other person and without discrimination on the basis of his her or housing status.” 775 ILCS 45/10(a)(1). “Housing status” under the Act “means the status of having or not having a fixed or regular residence, including the status of living on the streets, in a shelter, or in a temporary residence.” 775 ILS 45/10(b).