On the Way Home

On the Way Home

Youth who are experiencing homelessness in Chicago are undercounted and frequently clumsily represented. This story’s intent is to counteract public bias around what someone experiencing homelessness looks like. The story of Shawne Hinkle winds us through a personal account of housing difficulties. Her story is one that is incredibly specific to her situation, but also speaks to broader experiences of homeless youth. Shawne is now an employee at the drop-in center for the Lyte Collective in South Side Chicago.

This story explores the Lyte Collective to gain a better grasp of alternative aid provided to homeless youth in Chicago. This organization implements unique solutions to some of the modern problems in the youth homeless service sector. This episode elaborates upon these problems and potential solutions.

Transcript

Executive Producer - Judith McCray: [00:00:00] Welcome to Change Agents, the podcast series looking at grassroots actions and solutions from the inside out. Real people making real changes in communities of color and others right where they live and work. Stories about folks transforming their neighborhoods and the narratives about them.

Jeb Backe: I'm Change Agent's producer, Jeb Backe, with On the Way Home.

I'm here cooking with Shawne in a community kitchen and cafe that was largely created because of her.

Shawne Hinkle: I just sprinkle until my ancestors just say, enough child. 

Jeb Backe: Here in Greater Grand Crossing on the south side of Chicago, a cafe [00:01:00] space may not seem like a big deal. After all, there's a Dunkin Donuts just around the corner. But there's a lot more beneath the surface of these shiny tabletops and cozy nooks.

This cafe is located in the LYTE Collective Drop In Center for Homeless Youth. That's L Y T E. And it's free for anyone to come in and use at any time. But before we get too ahead of ourselves, I want to introduce you to our chef. 

Shawne Hinkle: My name is Shawne Hinkle. I mean, I don't really have like a specific title, but I'll say I'm like a youth staff, youth advocate here at the LYTE Collective, specifically working on building the food and nutrition program here.

Jeb Backe: Shawne made a strong push for this cafe to be built when they first began constructing the drop in center. Her passion for food not only comes from her professional background, but also from a deeply rooted connection developed over the course of her personal history. And this cafe is [00:02:00] inspired by the book of her life.

Shawne Hinkle: All the stuff, like a series of books. 

Jeb Backe: Right, like the series of books that has been Shawne's life so far. Because much of what the youth entering the building are experiencing, Shawne has known firsthand. 

Shawne Hinkle: For the most part, like, I, I have experienced pretty much whatever you can think of in the next sector as far as homelessness, unstable housing, endangered housing, couch surfing.

You know, I've had to stay with people I didn't exactly want to stay with. I've rode the train all night because I had nowhere to go. There were even other circumstances where we would have like overnight shelters, which is basically shelters you stay overnight and You had to get up and go take everything with you.

There's not guarantee you're going to be, you're going to have a bed. And so in those moments, those are the times where it's like, okay, where do I go? And it's like, I don't want to go to this library again because that's where everybody else is. So [00:03:00] let's hang out at Starbucks because I feel like if I go there for one second, it will kind of take me away from what it is that I'm going through.

Because it'll make me feel like I'm a part of this. I'm a part of the community because that's what regular people do. I didn't feel regular because of what I was going through. And I wanted to feel regular because I didn't want to think about what I was going through. And for me, going to like spaces like that would Help me with that.

Jeb Backe: This cafe provides a space of normalcy and safety that Shawne craved all those years ago, but the sense of comfort and support is not easily found for the homeless youth of Chicago. And Shawne knows what it's like to go through the world without a safety net. 

Shawne Hinkle: Even as a young kid, like, you know, you come from the inner city, you know, you don't really have access to the same opportunities that other people have.

So just lack of resources, lack of opportunities growing up in scarcity. Like I grew up in probably one of the [00:04:00] poorest neighborhoods in Chicago, like on the West side, East Garfield Park. Then, you know, I moved around a lot. It's weird. As a child, I didn't know that. We were, I guess, quote unquote, I, I don't like saying it, poor.

I was pretty much just born into like a broken home. My parents had divorced when I was really young. Well, separated technically. 

Jeb Backe: Shawne bounced around a lot between parents and other family members living in unstable conditions. Shawne pushed through it all, continuing with her work in school. But midway through high school, 

Shawne Hinkle: I was trying to overcome another adversity, like I lost my dad my sophomore year, and I knew how important it was for him, for me, to finish school.

And so that's kind of what drove me. I was like, okay, I gotta do this, like, for real, for real. 

Jeb Backe: Shawne did finish high school and had plans to go to college. 

Shawne Hinkle: I applied to seven, and I [00:05:00] did get accepted to five of them. And I, I picked the one I wanted to go. I was like, I'm going to Carbondale. That was the plan I had.

You know, I was like, OK, because this is what you do. You go to high school, finish high school, you go to college. 

Jeb Backe: Shawne doesn't really like to speak in too much detail on this part of her life. She did not end up going to Carbondale. 

Shawne Hinkle: The thing is, when you are a teenager, you don't really have any say so in anything.

You have to get consent from a parent, and it's like, okay, the one that I know is gonna give me consent is no longer here, so what do I do? And at that point, it's like, okay, I couldn't do anything. 

Jeb Backe: Consent for? 

Shawne Hinkle: For like, leaving, going to school. 

Jeb Backe: So Shawne continued to live with family after high school. But a different struggle became hard to bear.

A struggle between who Shawne is and what her family wanted her to be. 

Shawne Hinkle: I really don't label myself, but, you know, I am, like, a part of, like, the LGBTQ community. [00:06:00] 

Jeb Backe: And as Shawne began to know herself better, she found that her homes were refusing to accept her as she is. As a result, her self worth plummeted.

Shawne Hinkle: Not accepting myself. Not knowing who I was, because I was so clouded with the distractions of everything that was going on around me. Like, in the beginning it was like, I'm not talking to anybody about this because they're going to look at me like something's wrong with me. And that was a point where I did attempt to do it and it just, it was not, like, it didn't go well.

Jeb Backe: Any effort to speak about her identity was met with criticism and rejection. Shawne doesn't like to speak in too much detail about this either. My impression is that there's still a lot of pain in this history that feels a bit too close to touch. Suffice to say, the difficulty Shawne faced for wanting to be herself was becoming too much.

Shawne Hinkle: What I do remember is just Just feeling completely out of place, feeling isolated, [00:07:00] just feeling kind of just torn. And that was when I knew, like, I had to escape. I had to get out of here. But having to go through that process of bouncing and moving from place to place to place, that was something that I, I didn't expect to have to experience because I looked at it as such a simple thing.

Like, hey, I just want to be free. Be me. I had no choice. If I wanted to become better and have a better life and kind of change the environment that I was in, it would be like that. 

Jeb Backe: Like so many people in Chicago, Shawne had no support systems in place to help her attain the basic necessities of a home and food.

With lacking help from friends, family, and community, Shawne would have to rely on the homeless support programs and non profits. But navigating these systems is no easy task. Not to mention, the bureaucracy and unfeeling policies often bring out whole other [00:08:00] traumas. To get a greater sense of homeless support systems in Chicago, I sat down with someone who knows a lot more about this than me.

Carl Wiley: My name is Carl Wiley, and I am the Chief Creative Officer for the LYTE Collective. 

Jeb Backe: Carl has worked in the homeless service sector for over a decade, and he's seen a lot of angles of the help homeless youth are provided with. From government funded programs like the COC or Continuums of Care, to organizations that stray from government funding.

Carl Wiley: So I've seen both sides. I've had a chance to like, be a manager at the COC and see how the funding operates. I've also had an opportunity to be a higher up in LYTE Collective and be outside of the system. 

Jeb Backe: The U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, is the main force behind most government support for homeless youth.

The COC is one program among a multitude that HUD provides, which by all accounts, is a good thing. Government support for folks experiencing homelessness is a key factor in providing somewhat consistent funding and support, so that folks aren't relying upon [00:09:00] programs that can lose donors or outside financial support.

But these government programs are flawed. Their main issues lie in how they are implemented and who they apply to. But before we get into any of that, let's get down to basics. Among the countless types of care, the obvious first support to provide to folks without homes is a home. Let's look into what that government housing program looks like.

Carl Wiley: So it's called the one list. And basically there is a governing body that oversees that list. And so everyone who calls, you get placed in that wait list. Then they have a matching department that matches you based on your need. 

Jeb Backe: That means you'll get different types of housing based on factors like how many kids you have, your employment, and your health condition.

When Carl and I initially talked facts and figures, getting matched with housing looked a little something like this. 

Carl Wiley: I believe it was averaging like at the soonest it would be matched was 290 days. 

Jeb Backe: A grueling amount of time to be without a home. However, the data providing that figure has [00:10:00] been taken down for some time.

It was my hope that perhaps the process had improved. Thanks to the help of Carl's internet sleuthing, more up to date statistics have come to the surface. Here's a follow up from Carl. 

Carl Wiley: They have published a report that includes some of this new data. It's in their new report called, Data Highlights from Chicago's Homeless Service System Q1 and Q2.

But in that report, they mention that the average number of days It takes to get connected to housing was around 1, 500 days. I was shocked. 

Jeb Backe: Though, once the shock wore off for Carl, things did start to add up a bit more. 

Carl Wiley: It is more reflective, I think, of my experience in supporting people, but it's just sort of shocking to see that that's the, that's the average number of days, meaning that there's a proportion of people that it's taking longer than 1, 500 daysto get housing support through the City of Chicago.

Jeb Backe: It's one of those times that first learning new information can feel so terrible. But once settled into the reality of the situation, it kind of makes it all make sense. Carl has seen people struggle for an [00:11:00] unrelenting amount of time. Think about it. 1, 500 days that's over four years 

Carl Wiley: and that doesn't mean you have keys in hand at that point That means you're matched with a housing outcome So like you're a single adult or you're single, you know Youth head of household and you've been matched with this rapid rehousing program.

You've been matched But you haven't been given keys, you haven't been told what program you're in, so there's still more time there. So it can be a really long time, and I think that's why, for people who are listening, that's why a lot of folks can be on the train with their luggage. That's why you'll see a lot of people that are out in public, because these lists can take an extremely long time, even when they work.

Jeb Backe: And there's a reason why Carl says, even when they work. That's because most of the time, they don't. 

Carl Wiley: The first hardest part is just the fact that sometimes you'll just get completely lost in that system. A lot of the time my job is following up and contacting the people that I know that are overseeing this list and saying, hey, what's going on with so and so?

Hey, why has their case not [00:12:00] moved? You know, it's been several weeks and they haven't heard anything back. So that has been sort of a problem, is just the constantly maintaining and pushing that through. Another, I think, issue that youth are falling into with the one list is the fact that, particular to youth, they have to constantly call to stay on the list.

So it's considered an active list, whereas, you know, in the past, if you just, you got your name on your list, you could, it might be a year or two, but they'll eventually call you. Now, if you get your name on the list, you have to call every month and say, I still need housing. And if you don't call back and say, I still need housing, they take you off the list.

It puts kind of another hurdle in place for youth. If you have an unstable phone connection, if there's a lot happening in your life where you forget to call, you can fall off that list. 

Jeb Backe: So even if we presume that someone will get housing on the one list, what do they do in the meantime? Aren't there housing shelters?

Carl Wiley: The shelter system, it's pretty tough for young adults and the youth that we serve. It's, a lot of times, the shelters are mostly catering [00:13:00] towards older adults. And so, if you're a young person, if you're, you know, 24, 25, you may feel uncomfortable in some of those spaces. I've heard a lot of youth reporting that it's just tough to be in there.

There are some youth overnight shelters, which are great. They're more catered towards young people. They're much more fitting what the youth are needing at the time. 

Jeb Backe: But those are few and far between. So for the rest? 

Carl Wiley: The majority of young people that I've supported over the years tend to just not engage with the shelter system at all.

When you look at the data, the vast majority of youth that are housing unstable are sleeping on couches, and they're bouncing from couch to couch, from friend's house to friend's house. 

Jeb Backe: This makes sense. It's definitely so much more comfortable to stay on a friend's couch rather than sleeping in an uncomfortable shelter.

Carl Wiley: That's typically not counted as experiencing homelessness by the HUD definition. 

Jeb Backe: The majority of youth experiencing homelessness are not counted and not provided with support. And that's just one of the barriers. There are also age cutoffs for who can receive youth specific [00:14:00] support. These restrictions can pile on top of the difficulties a young person would already be facing.

Carl Wiley: When I was working at a housing program on the north side and it was a large international agency that also had this youth transitional housing program for people who were 18 to, it was 18 to 21 was the demographic for this housing program. And there was a young man who was working on an immigration case.

He was here on actually asylum. He'd fled violence in a different country. He was staying in this youth international program as part of this large organization, but he turned 18 in that program. And because of the limitations of that program, he had no stable place to go, and he turned 18. He was considered by the system to be a homeless adult.

And so then he got moved. He was no longer able to go into those youth programs. 

Jeb Backe: Which led to him being transferred to where Carl was working, where the age cutoffs were a little bit higher. 

Carl Wiley: He showed up on his 18th birthday, the caseworker brought a cake with him, and he was emotionally distraught, [00:15:00] and it was where this like arbitrary number that said, now you're 18, you cannot be in this youth program, you have to be in this sort of older adult program, that really had a huge impact on this young person.

Jeb Backe: Imagine, your 18th birthday comes and that morning you're forced to leave the very place that was supposed to support you. Young people who are in dire need of help are knocked around between establishments because of arbitrary limits of age. They aren't allowed to receive support because of unrealistic definitions of homelessness.

Not to mention, this system is riddled with flaws where young people fall through the gaps. And these are just a few pieces of the puzzle. So what do we do? It's obvious that the systems in place aren't doing everything we need from them. Should we rely on organizations that work outside of government funding?

What happens when they lack consistent finances? Or they aren't able to pay a high enough wage to adequately support their staff? It also brings into question, why are so many people living without homes in the first place? [00:16:00] The data is clear. There is enough vacant housing to provide a home to every person in need.

But for some, the solution to homelessness isn't that simple. Land ownership, economic concerns, and larger moralizing arguments are made. But on the flip side, In a scenario where the U. S. moves forward with a solution of blanket housing support, the tax dollars spent providing homes could offset the amount that would have been spent on things like health care and law enforcement systems, to move beyond the entanglements of the economy and work ethic philosophies.

Let's consider the core of the issue. Is housing a human right? Settling into the reality of our current situation, no one is guaranteed the right to housing, and no one is even guaranteed a good shot at getting it. So what do we do to help today? After all, This is the world that we live in, and we can make a difference for people here and now.

Let's return to the building where I've been cooking with Shawne, and speak to [00:17:00] Dr. Casey Holtschneider, who founded the support center. Similar to Carl, Dr. Holtschneider has seen the many faces of the homeless service systems. Well aware that homelessness can't only be solved by the work of non profits, Dr.

Holtschneider focuses her aim toward harm reduction. But she's also seen the ways where in many instances where people are housed, In some regards, they're destined to struggle again. 

Dr. Casey Holtschneider: These are systemic and structural issues. The fact that you could work three part time jobs and still not have health insurance or be able to afford your rent, that's a structural issue. You're not failing because that's happening. 

Jeb Backe: In 2016, Dr. Holtschneider researched the long term turnout of folks who had been assisted into housing. The research revolved around interviews with folks that she'd worked with directly about five, ten years prior. Here's Dr. Holtschneider. 

Dr. Casey Holtschneider: That was a very deep moment for me in the study.

When I had young people start to tell me that, you know, they had left the program and things were pretty good. They had all the supports [00:18:00] around them, but then it was like, okay, you turned 21. Bye. And then they hit crisis again, and I would say to them like, why didn't you, I was still, like, why didn't you call me?

And I heard from young people saying, I felt ashamed that I felt that I had screwed up. Because I had left and things were good. I was supposed, I was, had the independence and I felt like I had failed. 

Jeb Backe: Inspired by these stories, Dr. Holtschneider set out to create lasting support. Her approach applies what she calls accompaniment, in which folks are never simply left to their own devices, but rather, continuously connected to a network of support.

For years and years after they leave direct care, individuals are checked in on. The LYTE Collective, now with a physical drop in center, gives comprehensive connections beyond housing support, be it health care, lawyers, child care, you name it. Moreover, [00:19:00] LYTE believes in additional support beyond people's material needs. They intend to invest deeply into the folks that they serve. 

Dr. Casey Holtschneider: You have drop in centers, right? That's not a new program model for homelessness services. That's sort of all over. Once you go in, it's sort of, you line up for this thing, which is like the food line, or for the shower line, or the laundry line. And all of that was like, just really incredibly demoralizing for a lot of people, and didn't have a lot of dignity and humanity in it. 

Jeb Backe: Dr. Holtschneider found that while, of course, having food and shelter are necessities for people. 

Dr. Casey Holtschneider: It still kind of knocks me on my feet when I think about it. 

Jeb Backe: When she asked young people what the most important parts of homeless service systems were, 

Dr. Casey Holtschneider: It was these other parts of the services that saw them as whole human beings and fueled their souls.

And part of what I took from that was young people really saying that this was about other people investing in them as whole human beings. And that also those were things. That helped give them the strength to get through the other, the struggle that they were going through. 

Jeb Backe: LYTE provides [00:20:00] opportunities to make music, write poetry, create art, go on camping trips.

Experiences where folks are valued and valuing themselves for more than the difficulty they're experiencing. Shawne was once a person in dire need of a space like this, where she could value herself and be valued. Now, Shawne is significantly more secure than she was when she was younger. 

Shawne Hinkle: I feel like we're constantly having to discover.

a variety of aspects of ourselves every single day as long as we're here. And so I feel like now that I am in a better space that is definitely something that I can do more versus back then because I feel like the environment and everything that I was experiencing did contribute to me not being able to do that as much as I can now.

Like, now I can actually, like, sit and just kind of think and sit with myself and just really figure out, [00:21:00] like, who am I? Like, what are these parts of me specifically? 

Jeb Backe: And Shawne's not alone in that feeling. What Shawne is describing is the very real mental shift that social workers like Carl and Casey fight to provide.

Our brains tend to have a harder time self actualizing when in a constant state of fending for ourselves. So, in the name of self actualizing, I ask Shawne the following question. I also can't help but notice that you know yourself as a member of the LGBTQ community, but don't necessarily, you haven't necessarily said if there's anything in particular that you identify with, and I don't want you to feel pressure, but just wanted to leave you space if, if you want to, you know, clarify what your journey has been with that.

Shawne Hinkle: Oh yeah, absolutely. So, that really is kind of why I was like, I don't feel like I have a specific label. Cause my thing is, I don't believe in boxes. [00:22:00] Like, I'm not into boxes. 

Jeb Backe: And with this newer, more secure stage in Shawne's life, she won't have to conform to boxes anymore. Relating it back to her culinary knowledge.

Shawne Hinkle: You know, people are a believer in quality over quantity. But at the same time, if you don't have access to certain things, it's kind of going to be more quantity. Like what can I have that's going to last me? And we're going to constantly be in that survivor mode. But when we have like the options, like to go shop and get like fresh fruits and vegetables and eat, you know, more seasonally, then that's kind of like the mindset would change for people.

Jeb Backe: Shawne knows how much a change in environment can affect your life, be it toward food, self acceptance, or health. 

Shawne Hinkle: Basically it's saying like the more you take care of yourself, the more you're protecting yourself. So I definitely feel like that's how I know that I'm really putting more into me [00:23:00] just, literally just by being more mindful of what I consume.

And not just like food, but even like the music I listen to. Shows I watch, like just the environment I'm in, um, going back to what I had to experience throughout my whole life is having that insight of, okay, I don't want to be in this environment because it does take a toll on all those different assets.

So even kind of taking yourself out of certain environments, that's another part of it. But just being mindful of what you consume. Being mindful of what you do, just making your body feel good, that's how you'll know, for sure. It's just what I'm doing to better myself.

Jeb Backe: From the meals she makes to the love she can now give herself, Shawne's life can finally flourish the way she wanted it to all those years ago when she left home. And if things get hard again, she'll know that people like [00:24:00] Carl and Casey will have her back. As she will theirs.

This has been On The Way Home. My name is Jeb Backe. 

Executive Producer - Judith McCray: Thank you for joining Change Agents, the podcast series looking at grassroots actions and solutions from the inside out. Produced by Juneteenth Productions. Theme music composed by Sara Abdelaal. Funding support provided by the Chicago Community Trust, the Field Foundation, and DePaul University's Center for Communication Engagement.

Subscribe to this series on Apple Podcasts. Stitcher, Spotify, and wherever you find podcasts. Follow Change Agents on Facebook, [00:25:00] Instagram, and Twitter.