There it stood, a three-foot-tall Christmas tree marking the entrance to a litter-strewn encampment in a wooded area near a railroad line on Springfield's north side.
The tree was decorated with about a dozen ornaments, with a dirty pink jacket serving as a skirt. A few steps down a hill from the tree was a cluster of tents, tarps suspended by tree limbs, a makeshift latrine, clothes, empty beer and soda cans, cooking utensils and a burn pit that smelled as if it had been used in the past 24 hours.
No one was at the outdoor site when Springfield police officer Michael Newman and Shanon Allen, the police department's community care coordinator, visited one 38-degree morning in late January. Newman, who had visited before, suspected most of the seven or eight people who used to live there probably had moved to abandoned buildings to escape the recent ice storm and subzero temperatures, though there was evidence one person remained but was gone for the time being.
Newman spotted some holiday knickknacks perched at eye-level on some of the tree branches. He said there was a "sense of pride" amid the squalor.
"That's all a lot of the unhoused have left – pride," he said.
Newman and Allen, who are based out of a makeshift office on the first floor of Lincoln Library near the magazine racks, said they know they are making a difference in connecting the unhoused with housing and health and financial services.
The police department "wants to be part of the solution," said Newman, the department's homeless outreach team coordinator. "We don't want to criminalize homelessness."
Newman and Allen said much more needs to be done. For example, Newman said there needs to be two or three more homeless outreach officers and more social workers such as Allen so all shifts can be staffed.
"If we had that, there would be a much quicker turnaround in serving people," he said. "We could be more intentional on how we handle individuals and their problems."
Newman and Allen are among a cadre of dedicated professionals in a variety of local agencies and organizations trying to do a better job of tackling homelessness in Springfield and the rest of Sangamon County.
Some have seen the problem get worse because of the COVID-19 pandemic, while others said there are signs of progress in reducing the number of unhoused people as officials carry out Springfield and Sangamon County's 2022-2028 Strategic Plan to Address Homelessness.
Moving out of crisis mode
The latest bright spot was the formal opening Jan. 17 of Helping Hands of Springfield's new site at 2200 Shale St., off South Dirksen Parkway. Sangamon County government officials decided to use $9 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to renovate unused space in the county-owned complex.
The county is renting the space, which used to be part of the adjacent Sangamon County Juvenile Detention Center, to Helping Hands for $1 a year so the nonprofit's emergency shelter, housing and administrative services could be put under one roof. The detention center is walled off from the space used by Helping Hands.
The new Helping Hands complex can accommodate up to 140 adults who are homeless, as well as a few intact families with children. The facility is an important piece in the strategic plan to prevent homelessness whenever possible and ensure that when homelessness does occur, it is rare, brief and infrequent, according to Josh Sabo, executive director of a new Springfield nonprofit called Heartland HOUSED.
The opening, supported by Springfield and Sangamon County officials and nonprofits that serve the homeless, marked the first time in almost 20 years that a proposal for a comprehensive site wasn't defeated by neighborhood opposition.
"One of the key strategies to help us reach 'functional zero' in 2028 is an emergency shelter system that functions as a foundation, that provides housing-focused services and helps people ultimately end the experience of homelessness," Sabo said.
"We've worked in crisis mode for two decades," he said. "Now it's time to move out of that so people can have the tools they need to leave the shelter and be supported in housing."
About 1,200 homeless people receive services in Sangamon County each year, a number that has been on the rise in recent years because not enough people are exiting homelessness, Sabo said.
The strategic plan called for 200 more housing units to be made available in 2023 for formerly homeless people who need up to two years of rental assistance and for people needing longer-term units and related case-management service. Similar increases are needed this year and in 2025 and 2026 for the plan to keep pace with the long-term goal of "functional zero," Sabo said.
The 2023 numbers were short of the goal by about 60 units, Sabo said, but he added, "We're making great progress." More local fundraising may be needed to help carry out the homeless-reduction plan, and announcements about such a fund drive may be coming in the summer or fall, he said.
The new 22,000-square-foot complex replaces Helping Hands' 15,000-square-foot, 50-bed shelter for men and other housing-related services at 1023 E. Washington St. Helping Hands is the county's largest provider of shelter services.
Its new 140-bed facility now includes housing for women as well and incorporates the community's low-barrier overflow shelter, which previously served 40 to 90 women and men each night and was operated by the Salvation Army out of its former Adult Rehabilitation Center at 221 N. 11th St.
By serving more clients at one location, offering up to three meals a day, offering more space for mental-health services and accommodating all of Helping Hands' staff members under one roof, officials from the organization said clients will have more incentives to stay, and as a result, receive comprehensive services and gain access to short- and long-term housing quicker.
"This provides one location that allows us to connect with people who are most vulnerable, and it will streamline services," Helping Hands Executive Director Laura Davis said.
The agency's workers "won't have to wait months and months trying to find somebody before we can move onto the next name," she said.
A tearful Ronetta Hamilton, Helping Hands' director of shelter services, said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony: "To a lot of you, this is just a new building. But to us, this is a place where people who have been forgotten can heal, so we are grateful for that."
But Hamilton cautioned the public that reducing homelessness isn't any one group's responsibility, clients are in charge of their own lives, and American society lacks a cohesive system for treating the depression, anxiety and mental-health conditions that burden many of the unhoused.
"So to expect a homeless shelter to 'fix' people, that can never happen, because that's not our job," she said. "Our job is to be a safe place for people to be able to heal and connect them to the resources ... so that they can be that person you're sitting next to in church, or the person you walk by in a grocery store, or the person you sit in a meeting with."
Helping Hands will have doubled its staff – which will total 40 by later this year – to accommodate the new site and expand development of relationships with landlords to create more short- and long-term housing opportunities, Davis said. The agency also is spending more to help pay clients' rents.
By mid-2024, Helping Hands' annual budget will reach about $3 million, a tripling in previous spending, to pay for additional staff and rental costs. The increase largely will be funded with state grants, though donations are always welcome, Davis said.
The new complex is 3.5 miles from Helping Hands' previous shelter, which Sangamon County purchased for $250,000 and plans to tear down so the county can construct a new $3.5 million garage for the Sangamon Menard Regional Transit Program.
Helping Hands is using vans provided by the county to operate a shuttle service that gives regular rides to and from downtown Springfield for clients of the shelter, and clients receive free passes from the Sangamon Mass Transit District to take buses back and forth.
Hamilton, the shelter director, said clients are using those options, and the shelter hasn't had to turn away anyone because of a shortage of space.
Julie Benson, founder and director of nonprofit Helping the Homeless in Springfield, supported Helping Hands' former plan to open the proposed Center for Health and Housing in the 500 block of South 11th Street. But that plan was killed in 2019 by resistance from nearby residential neighborhoods and Springfield's NAACP branch. The branch didn't oppose the new site.
To Benson, the opening of the new site has been "a little chaotic," but she wants Helping Hands to succeed.
"There are far more people on the street than when I started eight years ago," she said. "It's taking too long."
Sabo anticipates local data demonstrating improvements in reducing homelessness by late 2024.
The number of people panhandling on street corners with signs saying they are homeless is a separate issue, police and homeless service providers said. They said some panhandlers are homeless, others are trying to supplement the disability benefits they receive, and some may be poor but are members of panhandling rings.
Hamilton said each homeless person has a story, some more complicated than others, and many are dealing with mental-health struggles, addictions, abusive relationships and a history of emotional and financial trauma.
"We get it all here," she said. "People don't understand how hard our jobs are. ... We never know what we're dealing with, but we know we're dealing with broken people. People don't show up at Helping Hands because it's the place to be. They show up because something has happened in their lives that has brought them to our doors."
"I'm looking for the next step"
Charles Kellman, 61, is from Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, but came to Helping Hands three months ago. Formerly employed by an exterminating company and recovering from a crack cocaine addiction, he said he moved to Springfield to be with a woman he met online.
He said he had to leave the mobile home he purchased when the woman's adult daughter filed for an order of protection, alleging he was neglecting the woman, who has disabilities. The allegation isn't true, he said.
Kellman said he is trying to get a state of Illinois identification card so he can get a job and get a place of his own. "I want to work," he said.
He deals with depression and back problems but has been denied Social Security disability benefits. He said he has appreciated the kindness of the staff at Helping Hands.
"Without this place, I'd be living on the streets," he said. "Even though this place is great, I don't want to be here."
Another Helping Hands client, Frankie Jones, 54, is from Kansas City and also moved to Springfield to be with a woman he met online. He was living with her in her mobile home for four years but became homeless in summer 2023 when the relationship ended and health problems interfered with his ability to work for a nearby horse stable.
Jones, who also deals with anxiety, said he is trying to secure SSI benefits and soon will look for a job as a landscaper or some other type of outdoor employment.
"I try to stay to myself," he said. "I try to keep out of drama. If it weren't for the staff, I don't know what I'd be doing."
Many adults who are homeless or formerly homeless congregate each morning at Springfield's Washington Street Mission, 408 N. Fourth St., for a warm, safe place to spend time, drink coffee, eat doughnuts, attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and religious services, shower and get their laundry done.
The longtime charity also provides free clothing and is always looking for donations.
Colton Bradley, 25, who said he stays at the Helping Hands shelter and deals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, said he often goes to Washington Street Mission for a "breath of fresh air."
Pastor Steve Ohl, 63, a Baptist minister who is the mission's chaplain, said as many as 150 people visit the mission each morning, up from the 70 to 100 who visited before the COVID-19 pandemic.
No one knows for sure, but he believes COVID led to more homelessness.
"I think COVID isolated a lot of people," he said.
The isolation and gaps in mental-health treatment caused mental health conditions to get worse, he said. And pandemic-fed inflation boosted rents, resulting in many people losing their homes, he said.
Christopher Jackson, 30, was at the mission after being paroled to Helping Hands after serving time in state prison in Jacksonville for theft and domestic violence in DeWitt County.
He said he wants to move back to Decatur to be closer to his two toddler daughters, who live with their mother, and appreciated meeting at the mission with Newman and Allen, the social worker and cop, respectively.
Newman and Allen visit the mission and other spots where the unhoused congregate. They said they are looking into options for Jackson, who said he doesn't like living at the shelter.
"I don't need to be at that shelter," Jackson said. "I'm looking for the next step." That step would be a job in landscaping, a field in which he has experience, he said.
Newman and Allen try to spend part of their days in their Lincoln Library office. Many people need help getting birth certificates or other documents that can help them get jobs and government benefits for income support and housing. The unhoused often have lost those documents over the years.
The pair sometimes are dispatched by police to emergencies, and sometimes they just meet random people on the street in need of help. They responded to a report of a man walking along the Third Street railroad tracks downtown but never found him and instead found William Larion, 46, and his wife, Carrie, 33, in a CVS parking lot along Carpenter Street.
The bundled-up couple, with Carrie in a wheelchair and all of their possessions loaded into a cart and a backpack, had been sleeping in various outdoor locations the past two months after losing their rental home, William Larion said. They were able to stay in a hotel a few nights during the recent cold snap, but money they received from Julie Benson's organization for that stay was temporary.
Heart problems interrupted William Larion's ability to work, according to the U.S. Army veteran. Larion said his post-traumatic stress disorder from combat overseas made him reluctant to use a homeless shelter, where he might have to be housed in separate quarters from his wife. She suffers anxiety when they are apart, he said.
William Larion said he hates the way people look at him in stores when they see his backpack and suspect he is homeless. "It's degrading," he said.
Newman, who met the couple in the morning, gave Larion the phone number of a veterans' assistance service, and Allen met with the couple in the afternoon, but it's unclear what happened to them. William Larion gave Illinois Times his cellphone number but didn't return messages.
More staff for the homeless outreach team would help with the follow-up of such situations, Newman said.
People who are unhoused sometime embellish stories and minimize the role their own flaws played in their situations, but they all deserve to be offered assistance, he said.
Newman and Allen walked down a long trail in a wooded area, about a mile from the first encampment they visited, to check on Danny Schwartz, 45, who had constructed an outdoor camp of tarps, tents and coolers.
Schwartz said he was born and raised in Decatur and has been homeless for 13 years, mostly living outside, and occasionally has worked at restaurants. He told Allen that he doesn't like living in shelters.
"I really don't feel comfortable in there," he said while wrapped in blankets to protect against the cold.
Schwartz told Allen that he could use help getting a birth certificate so he could apply for public housing. Allen said she could help him out but that he would need to come to her office to sign documents.
It's unclear whether or when Schwartz will follow up. Despite his request, he is distrustful of the government and government programs, according to people who have tried to assist him.
Schwartz told Illinois Times, "I would rather be in a home, but I can't afford it."
Living at his encampment, he said, is peaceful.
"The weather is the downfall," he said.
Dean Olsen is a senior staff writer at Illinois Times. He can be reached at [email protected], 217-679-7810 or twitter.com/DeanOlsenIT.
