Aleisha Young and Russell Patton, both of whom have experienced homelessness, credited a social worker from the Springfield Police Department with bringing stability to their lives.
“She helped with everything,” said Young, 35, who sometimes was homeless in the three years since she moved to Springfield from Peoria, where she was born and raised. She now has an apartment with a reduced rent and recently began a part-time job.
Patton, 52, who has dealt with substance-use issues, said he was thankful for Shanon Allen helping him get a state identification card that enabled him to land jobs as a roofer and a traveling carnival worker.
Patton, who currently is living with a girlfriend, said he is “working to change my life around so I don’t end up homeless again.”
“I’ve slept in friends’ garages and under bridges,” he said.
Allen, the police department’s community care coordinator who met Young and Russell through other unhoused clients who spent time at Lincoln Library, said the type of assistance she provides will be magnified with $3.1 million in state grants to Springfield social-service agencies serving the unhoused.
Allen often helps clients get birth certificates, identification cards, Social
Security cards and other documents so clients can get access to low-income housing,
employment, Social Security benefits, Medicaid, unemployment compensation and Illinois Link cards.
The grants will expand on the “co-responder” model the department has employed since 2019 in which police work in conjunction with mental health professionals to assist the homeless, Deputy Police Chief Joshua Stuenkel said.
He said the grants, recently approved by the Springfield City Council, will improve clients’ quality of life and at the same time prevent crimes such as disorderly conduct and trespassing, which can occur when the needs of the homeless go unaddressed.
Comprehensive services also will reduce the number of trips police make to bring people to the Sangamon County Jail and Springfield hospital emergency rooms, said Mike Newman, the police department’s homeless outreach team coordinator.
Likewise, money will be saved for health care providers and taxpayers, he said.
“It’s an issue for the police because a lot of the unhoused tend to be a lot of our repeat calls, be it due to mental illness, or be it due to trespassing,” Newman said. “In most cases, they’re not doing it to burglarize properties. They’re doing it to get out of the elements.”
The state grants were part of $10 million allocated in the state’s fiscal 2022 budget and funneled through the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority to be shared among the communities of Springfield, Peoria, East St. Louis and Waukegan.
The Springfield grants awarded by the City Council have been awarded but not yet disbursed, Stuenkel said, and the funding will last for only one year. Department officials hope enough success can be demonstrated to justify future state appropriations.
The city’s written summary of the project says Springfield city government and nonprofit organizations serve a short- and long-term homeless population that ranges in age from adolescents to the elderly and continues to grow.
Springfield and Sangamon County’s 2022-2028 Strategic Plan to Address Homelessness says 264 people are homeless in Sangamon County on any given day.
That number includes people living on the street or staying in emergency and transitional shelters, but not those who may be temporarily living with friends or relatives.
Without changes, 746 homeless people will enter the current system each year and 561 will leave the system, according to the report. That means the homeless population will continue to experience a net growth of about 155 people annually.
A summary of the homeless situation in ordinances doling out the grants says: “Each individual’s reason for becoming homeless is different. Common personal issues that the homeless face are experiencing mental illness, health conditions, loss of employment and aging out of foster care. Additionally, many struggle with substance abuse and domestic violence. While Springfield has resources to provide for some of these needs, we do not have enough.”
Stuenkel said: “If you had $3 million to throw at a problem in Springfield, it’s going to be ‘homeless.’ ... We are hitting this from several directions.”
At Washington Street Mission, 408 N. Fourth St., which was awarded $377,937, the mission has agreed to provide office space for social workers from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and other agencies to meet in-person with homeless people and immediately begin assisting them and referring to services, rather than sending them to Allen.
The money will fund renovations at the mission, which serves 120 to 150 people per day and provides basic services that include showers, laundry, meals, clothing and hygiene products, Stuenkel said.
Allen said the ability for SIU to provide on-site services based at the mission will “help out tremendously” and allow her to offer more outreach services to homeless people on the outskirts of Springfield.
SIU will receive a $768,168 grant to provide mental-health specialists who will be stationed at Washington Street Mission and work with police to provide immediate counseling and other access to services.
Memorial Behavioral Health will receive a $250,505 grant to expand the number of days mental-health specialists ride along with police officers to prevent violence and entry into the criminal-justice system. The grant will expand the days Memorial workers are available for the co-responder program from five days per week to six.
Sojourn Shelter and Services plans to use its $878,104 grant to “enhance and expand our emergency shelter, crisis management, therapy, child welfare and court advocacy services,” according to grant documents.
Solid Rock Youth Transitional Services will receive $587,500 to prepare young people between age 18 and 21 who are aging out of the foster care system so they can avoid homelessness.
Studies indicate that about 40% of people leaving foster care will become homeless within 18 months, according to Marscia Anderson, Solid Rock president. About 70 young people in Sangamon County aged out of foster care in 2022.
“They don’t have the support that most teenagers have,” said Anderson, a part-time youth pastor at Abundant Faith Christian Center, board member for The James Project and real estate agent.
Anderson said Solid Rock plans to hire two caseworkers who will work with clients on life skills and mental health issues and prepare them for job training programs, employment and stable housing.
The $3.1 million in total grants also includes money to hire a program manager, purchase a laptop and buy two vehicles to assist in transporting homeless people to local agencies.
Ward 8 Ald. Erin Conley told Police Chief Kenneth Scarlette at a September council meeting that the expansion of services “is an encouraging step in the right direction ... to meet people where they are.”
Dean Olsen is a senior staff writer at Illinois Times. He can be reached at [email protected], 217-679-7810 or twitter.com/DeanOlsenIT.
