Inside Story

 

September 25, 2012

 

 

From Inside Story:

 

By Lorraine Ma Seeking refuge in a Botswana camp, a Somali woman found no peace. Known to be HIV-positive, she was subjected to ridicule and threats from her refugee camp neighbors. Stones rained down upon her roof at night. It was but one striking example of how HIV-positive people face increased discrimination without legal status. I learned of the Somali woman’s story in Geneva, Switzerland last month, where the United Nations held its annual three-day NGO consultation to discuss issues concerning refugees and asylum seekers. At a seminar on marginalized refugee communities, I learned that HIV-positive refugees around the world received very different treatments compared to HIV-positive people with legal status. It wasn’t until I returned to Chicago that I came to realize refugees face similar discrimination right here where I lived. But first, let’s look at Botswana, the focus of the seminar I attended. Botswana has long been celebrated as “the African miracle” for having a stable democracy, a profitable diamond industry and ongoing organized efforts in combating AIDS. In 2001, the Botswana government launched a comprehensive free-of-charge HIV treatment program for eligible citizens. At the time, there were around 4,000 refugees and asylum seekers in the country, according to UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency. None of them were included in the HIV healthcare program, according to the Botswana Red Cross Society. In 2005, only one percent of refugees and asylum seekers were assisted to enroll with Catholic services to be treated for HIV/AIDS, according to the Botswana Red Cross Society. After four years of advocacy, in 2009, the Botswana Red Cross Society and UNHCR were finally able to run a parallel HIV treatment program for refugees using government facilities. As a result, the number of HIV positive refugees dropped to 10.7 percent, compared to the national average of 17.1 percent. The Botswana case made me wonder about refugee health care here in Chicago. Not surprisingly, refugees in Chicago also face barriers to health care. Because of the lack of legal status, compounded by differences in language and culture, refugees need interpretation and further explanation when it comes to medical care and treatment.  Most refugees in Chicago come from Burma, Bhutan, Iraq, Somalia, Ethiopia and Afghanistan, according to the Heartland Alliance. Although refugees face limitations when they do not have the legal paperwork to qualify for public insurance, they are eligible for the same HIV services as U.S. residents, said Alice Wightman, associate director of special populations at Heartland Alliance Health.

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Windy City Times

 

September 18, 2012

 

 

From Windy City Times:

The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) has approved a major contract for upcoming LGBT-friendly senior housing in Lakeview.

CHA’s Board of Commissioners voted in favor of the Housing Assistance Payment contract at their public meeting downtown Sept. 18.

All but one of the commissioners, Myra King, voted in favor of the contract, which passed without discussion or argument.

“This is a really big deal,” said 44th Ward Alderman Tom Tunney, who added that the new development is historic.

The award goes to Heartland Housing and Center on Halsted, which are collaborating to bring 79 LGBT-affirming units to 3600 N. Halsted. The project has been years in the making and is expected to open in late Spring of 2014.

According to Tunney, the contract approval required some last-minute maneuvers because commissioners worried that the LGBT-affirming housing would be seen as discriminatory in favor of LGBT people. The housing is not LGBT-specific, which would be illegal. Rather, it is intended to provide housing able to serve LGBT seniors well, also known as “affinity” housing.

The CHA contract, capped at $970,800 a year and $29,124,000 over 30 years, was awarded under the Housing Choice Voucher Program, which assists Chicagoans in renting privately owned housing. The contract means that those on CHA wait lists can opt to live at 3600 N. Halsted if they are 55 and older and qualify for the voucher program. Half the building will also be filled through community referrals.

Hume An, director of real estate development at Heartland Housing said the award is significant and will allow the project to house people of all incomes.

“It’s a project we’ve been working on for a long time and having these subsidies will help us to house people in extreme poverty,” An said.

Michael Goldberg, executive director of Heartland Housing, Inc., echoed those sentiments.

“It ensures the maximum number of units in this building are going to be affordable for a wide range of people,” he said. “This is really a critical step for us.”

Construction on the $21 million project is slated to begin this winter. The property houses the former historic 23rd Dist. Town Hall Police Station, which will be persevered.

The six-floor building will contain studio and one-bedroom apartments, with retail space, common areas and an outdoor patio. Seniors living in the building will be connected to services through Center on Halsted, which is located just next door.

The project is intended to curb feelings of isolation and lack of culturally-competent care among many of the city’s LGBT seniors.

The housing has been a dream of Tunney’s for at least seven years, he said. The alderman had pitched a similar project to federal funders years ago.

He noted that the CHA vote was not just significant for LGBT people or seniors but for supporters of affordable housing.

Also approved at the meeting was a contract for a 51-unit housing development for people at risk of homelessness or with mental illness in Lakeview. The building is an initiative by Thresholds, an organization that serves people with mental illness. That development is planned for 3208 N. Sheffield, formerly the site of single-room occupancy hotel, The Diplomat.

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Huffington Post

 

September 14, 2012

 

 

From Huffington Post:

 

Earlier this month, we celebrated a day that’s close to the heart of many social service agencies both here in Chicago and around the world — Jane Addams’s birthday. I like to think she’d have a lot to say about what the poor are going through today, just as she always did. More importantly, I like to think she’d be in the trenches, helping people and making our cities better, safer, and healthier, and that if anyone could get it done, it would be her.

She was truly a woman ahead of her time, someone who wouldn’t accept that gender, ethnicity, and income should decide one’s path. During her lifetime, women could not vote and there was no social safety net for the poor. Discrimination was openly accepted. Education was reserved for the upper crust. She was among the first to ask a key question — if we don’t do something about this, who will?

She spent her life answering that question. She built the famous Hull House, which was one of the first social service agencies to approach poverty in a holistic fashion. It offered schooling for children and adults, a feeding program, art classes, and workforce development amongst other services, believing that if they could give those in poor neighborhoods the opportunity to stabilize their lives, they would.

Recently, Hull House closed its doors, but her legacy lives on in Heartland Alliance, the Midwest’s leading anti-poverty agency, where I work, and within other social service agencies throughout the city. In 1888, Jane Addams created our organization, then known as Traveler’s and Immigrants Aid. She brought with her the wealth of experience that only a lifetime of passionate dedication can. She also brought with her the philosophy that no one solution will end poverty — it takes a holistic approach that addresses the key factors that keep people trapped.

In her time, she perceived that the injustice of poverty stemmed from a social system that fundamentally ignored the poor. She believed that leaders simply ignored health, sanitation, and building codes, and that slums that were filled with danger, illness, and hopelessness were the result. In the 77 years since her death, much has changed, but poverty remains — and at Heartland Alliance, we take the task of ending it very seriously, as she did.

 

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Huffington Post

 

August 29, 2012

The Huffington Post has invited our President, Sid Mohn to contribute a piece to their Shadow Convention. For those who are not familiar, their Shadow Convention has the goal of sparking a national conversation on issues that neither party is seriously addressing, including the persistence of poverty in America. You can read more below.

 

From Huffington Post:

This year, we’re about to begin again one of the most sacred acts of a democratic country — the election of our next president. Ads are sprouting up, the familiar posturing is once again on our screens, billboards, newspapers and websites. The last time we performed this ritual, we were a country swept up in the idea of hope and change — the idea that when all seemed grey, there was a light. As the old adage says, though, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It turns out that’s especially true if you’re one of the 20.5 million Americans in poverty right now.

Even more, this year UNICEF released a report stating that the U.S. had the second-highest level of child poverty in the developed world. Only Romania ranks higher. The second highest in the developed world! If anything, this shows us that, just as some of us lost nothing in the recession, some of us gained nothing in coming out of it — namely the poor.

Nevertheless, this isn’t a topic we’re used to hearing much about, especially from the candidates. Visit Romney’s campaign site and you’ll notice his focus on spending, immigration and defense. Visit Obama’s campaign website to review the issues and you’ll find his priorities around job creation, taxes and reviving the auto industry. No mention of plans to reverse course on the epidemic of poverty that dug its teeth deeper during the recession and won’t let go.

I expect more from any candidate running for president. When Obama first ran, poverty was a cornerstone of his campaign. He cut his teeth as a community organizer here in Chicago, seeing the devastating effects of poverty on the south side. When he ran for president the first time around, he focused heavily on the issue, using phrases like “eradicating poverty” and “working together” to cut poverty in half in 10 years. He visited communities like the ones he organized as a young man, offering hope that things could be better. This campaign there’s little to no talk about hope for the poor…

This year, Romney is our alternative. Forget it. His hack-and-slash approach to social safety net programs would leave those in poverty with nowhere to turn. His budget proposals would require massive cuts to programs like social security, Medicare and Medicaid in order to balance the budget. This shouldn’t be a surprise, though, coming from a man who said to CNN that “I’m not concerned with the very poor. We have a safety net there.” (http://youtu.be/lShAGXOFuQc) That leaves us in an interesting place — with a lot of talk about the super rich and the middle class, and a whole lot of silence when it comes to the poor.

Which leaves me with one question — how can it be that we as a nation aren’t having this conversation? How can we accept the fact that we’re sweeping more than 20 million people, those who are suffering the most among us, under the rug?

I can’t accept it, so I’m changing that fact.

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Lake View Patch

 

August 18, 2012

Lake View will soon be home to an innovative senior community, but officials explain the complications behind planning for the first generation of older gays and lesbians.

 

From Lake View Patch:

Chicago will soon break ground on one of the first affordable housing centers in America meant for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered seniors, and to some, the adventure is seen as a new frontier.

 

With construction slated for this winter, the senior housing development at 3600 N. Halsted in Lake View is addressing a booming need for the aging LGBT community.  

 

Brian Richardson is the Director of Public Affairs for the Center on Halsted, a community group in Lake View dedicated to the LGBT community. He says addressing the aging population has been a concern and a challenge for some time.

 

“This is the first generation that fought at Stonewall,” Richardson said. “They were the first generation that woke up everyone about AIDS. They came out of the closet first and really changed the world for generations behind them. They’re also now the first generation, in large, who are aging.”

 

Joined by the Heartland Housing, a nonprofit specializing in affordable housing, the Center on Halsted will open a six-story LGBT-friendly senior facility directly next to its community center in the heart of Boystown.

 

The Chicago Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners voted in favor Sept. 18 of the $21 million project. It will feature almost 80 units for seniors with retail space on the first floor.

 

And while half of the new housing center will be built on a vacant lot, the other half will renovate and use the more than 100-year-old vacant police station, a move that has deeper meaning than preserving a historical building.

 

“That is the same building where some of our seniors were once arrested and held for being gay,” Richardson said. “Now they’ll be living in an LGBT home that’s sprouted from that very police station. That is a fantastic metaphor.”

 

The project is slated to be finished sometime in the spring of 2014, and according to Richardson, everything down to the paintings on the walls will be catered to the gay and lesbian crowd. While the new center won’t discriminate based on gender identity or sexual orientation, it will be clear to seniors that community life at this home will be very different.

 

The Center on Halsted is currently holding focus groups with LGBT seniors to identify what aspects should be different than a traditional housing facility. Survey results show the generation with long history just wants to feel accepted.

 

“If you go to most residential communities for seniors, there are pictures of straight families on the walls,” Richardson said. “There are activities like the Sadie Hawkins dance where the girls ask the guys. Those types of memories aren’t always good ones for this generation… So it’s about making a place where you can be trans, gay or a lesbian.”

 

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Huffington Post

 

July 18, 2012

 

 

From Huffington Post:

This week, by seven a.m. it’s been nearing 90 degrees, and by noon, temperatures have hit the 100s. Even in the Chicago summer, that’s the kind of heat that stops you in your tracks. It’s the kind of heat where you can’t imagine not turning on an air conditioner, or at least a fan. That’s what Chicago’s poor are dealing with this summer, though — life threatening temperatures and dangerous conditions that they’re unable to escape.

 

In Chicago, winter is often considered to be the most dangerous season, but it’s just the opposite for those in poverty. At Heartland Alliance, the Midwest’s leading anti-poverty organization, where I work, heat produces a complicated and dangerous set of issues for our participants and for anyone who can’t afford to cool themselves.

 

Much of this danger stems from the decrease in community resources. In the winter, more beds are available in shelters, and every effort is made to ensure people have a decent meal, whether it be from a soup kitchen or through school breakfasts and lunches. In the summer, many of these resources shrink and disappear. Extra beds are put away under the assumption of more hospitable weather, and children are released from class for the summer.

 

As the Chicago Tribune has noted, the result is a dire hardship on those in poverty. The lack of available cooling centers makes them subject to the dangerous conditions outside. For those who have a home in which to place them, air conditioners and electricity bills are expensive and fans aren’t enough to keep an apartment cool in such extreme temperatures.

 

The intersection of finances and heat shouldn’t be this rife with tragedy. Every year, we read stories of people who died quietly in their homes, overcome by a 105 degree day. Often they are elderly, infirm, poor and while they may have died from overheating, the root cause is greater — poverty. And during every heat wave, as the evening news reminds us, gun violence increases and the death toll rises, scarring not only those whose loved ones are taken from them, but those who witness it.

No one should have to live and die like this — too poor to survive the summer. As you find yourself outside this weekend, I encourage you to share your resources with those who struggle in this heat wave. Share a cool bottle of water if you can — everything helps. More than anything else, though, have compassion and remember the kindnesses we offer during winter’s holiday season — they’re needed right now more than ever.

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Huffington Post

 

June 26, 2012

 

 

From Huffington Post:

Torture is often described as ‘unspeakable,’ ‘unimaginable,’ and ‘incomprehensible.’ This description makes this despicable act seem unknowable, impenetrable — so horrifying that we must avert our eyes. As today is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, I believe we owe these survivors compassion, care, understanding and a chance to believe that, just maybe, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Earlier this month, however, that light became a little dimmer as we took a step away from supporting the survivors of torture right here in our own backyards. The Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission has announced that it’s closing its doors, leaving Illinois with one less way to make reparations for the victims of police torture.

 

For those who claim to have been tortured under the watch of the Chicago police, this was an invaluable opportunity. Still today, more than a dozen people — by and large African American men living in poverty — languish behind bars for crimes due to confessions gained under torture. As Chicagoans, this case hits home more than most, but it’s by no means unique.

 

We often think of torture as something that happened long ago and far away. To our western minds, the idea of someone raping and beating us, or sentencing us to slave labor in a concentration camp for something as simple as speaking our minds or being in the wrong place at the wrong time is so foreign that it’s almost incomprehensible. That’s exactly why it’s such an important topic — because right now, on this day, torture is still a common method of extracting information or silencing communities and each day this continues, it becomes more ingrained.

 

I can speak to how common torture is today personally because I see the scars it creates at the Marjorie Kovler Center, a torture treatment program of Heartland Alliance, the leading anti-poverty organization in the Midwest. There, in a quiet unassuming building on a residential street, social workers, therapists and doctors team up to take on the complicated work of helping torture survivors rebuild their lives.

 

I say this is complicated work, but that’s an understatement. Often, survivors come here as refugees or asylum seekers, fleeing their homelands and desperate for their lives and past their breaking point. Their experiences are varied. Some refuse to change their religion, others have fought back against corruption, still others have taught their communities to read. For that, they have been threatened, beaten, violated and starved within an inch of their lives.

 

It would be unfair to say any case or method of torture is typical — each one is different and requires an individualized care plan. What is common, though, is that most survivors come to us with crises on all fronts — nowhere to live, no way to work, physically ill, emotionally scarred, and living under the constant worry that, without help, they may be forced to return to their homeland — a fate worse than death.

 

That’s why we do the work we do at Heartland Alliance, and at the Marjorie Kovler Center. Because everyone deserves a chance to survive — a chance to thrive. Some people need help finding a place to live, some need help to combat illness, others need help finding a job, and yet others need help obtaining legal protection. More often than not, torture survivors come to us with all these needs and more.

 

That’s what makes them exceptional, though. They saw their life crumble under the hands of those who would oppress and silence them, and still, they held tight to the hope that somewhere, somehow, things could be better. Then they kept fighting to make that dream a reality — to keep believing there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

 

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The Daily Muse

 

June 14, 2012

 

 

From The Daily Muse:

The Daily Muse selected Heartland Alliance as an inspiring place to work.  Check out this piece to get a sneak peak inside our office!

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Huffington Post

 

May 31, 2012

 

 

From Huffington Post:

The United States ranks second in the world for highest relative child poverty rates at 23.1 percent, according to a recent study by UNICEF.

 

Find out what you can do to help fight hunger and poverty at home.

 

ORGANIZATIONS FIGHTING POVERTY:

 

Feeding America
Teaming up with food banks across the country, Feeding America takes a local approach to national hunger. It provides public assistance programs and pays particular attention to child hunger in the U.S. with meal programs during and after school, as well as in summers.

 

Get involved with Feeding America here.

 

Save the Children
This international organization fights child poverty in the United States by focusing on early childhood education outreach, healthy eating and exercise, disaster relief efforts, and child sponsorship opportunities.

 

Get involved with U.S. Save the Children or sponsor a child here.

 

Children’s Defense Fund
Working with local and state organizations, the Children’s Defense Fund provides after-school and summer school programs, youth leadership development, and faith-based action programs.

 

Get involved with Children’s Defense Fund here.

 

Heartland Alliance
Heartland Alliance is fighting homelessness and poverty in the United States through housing and health care programs, as well as providing or promoting legal action on behalf of marginalized groups such as refugees, immigrants or asylum-seekers.

 

Get involved with Heartland Alliance here.

 

Salvation Army
The Salvation Army works across the country, implementing programs of youth development, disaster relief, elderly services and sponsorship to meet the needs of Americans in need.

Get involved with Salvation Army here.

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