HOUSELESSNESS

From page 1

The

surge

In Houselessness

Fethiya Idris, chief executive director of Family Promise Chicago North Shore, said the organization’s shelter has seen more families in need this year. The Glencoe-based organization provides housing to families with at least one child under the age of 18.

Idris attributed the surge in houselessness to an increase in housing costs, especially since she said incomes largely remain unchanged.

“If rent is now $3,000, and your take-home (salary) is still only $2,000, how is that going to work?” she said. She added that the cost of raising children makes it harder for parents to meet the rising costs of rents.

Harned said the COVID-19 pandemic and the state of the economy further exacerbate housing insecurity.

“Housing insecurity existed even before the pandemic,” she said. “The increase in rental and housing prices in Evanston, and the increase of taxes, does not help.”

Racism as a barrier in the search for affordable housing

According to the 2021-2022 Opening of Schools Report, the district found that out of the 236 students without stable housing, 79% lived in shared housing during the school year. The rest stayed in emergency and transitional shelters, hotels and motels. Two percent of students were reported unsheltered. This marked an 18% increase from the 2020-2021 school year. As a result of increased housing costs, some families turn to loved ones for help. Harned said the majority of families she works with are “doubled-up”: They live in shared housing units with family and friends.

Norbucks

From page 1 transactions at the Starbucks located in the Norris University Center,” Yates wrote to The Daily.

Yates said any students with questions about their dining dollars or specific charges should reach out to Compass Group’s Chef Manager Patrick Cleope.

Weinberg sophomore Tommy Ouyang said he expected the University would charge for items purchased through the malfunctioning register. He also said he noticed longer lines at the Starbucks — along with overflowing trash cans nearby — during the period the items were assumed to be free.

Ouyang said even juniors and seniors who did not have dining plans were able to purchase items from Starbucks without seeing changes in their accounts. For students who didn’t realize they weren’t

Harned works in accordance with the McKinneyVento Act, which allocates federally funded assistance to students without a “fixed, adequate or regular nighttime residence.”

Sometimes, families have to relocate to other parts of the state, said Harned. The McKinney-Vento Act requires that home school districts subsidize transportation costs so students without permanent housing can stay in the same school district, even if they’re temporarily housed outside the district.

However, Harned said this means some students commute for over an hour to attend school in District 65.

“There’s never a simple solution. To find housing, a person needs a great credit score, plus economic stability, plus money saved up,” Harned said. “That’s a pretty privileged position to be in – there’s not a lot of people that fit all of those criteria.”

When Harned makes inquiries about housing for families in the district, she said she noticed that some landlords treat her — a white woman — and families of color differently.

Feuer-Crystal has also had similar experiences as a white woman. She said landlords question Black and brown households more intrusively than white households.

“I get a more positive response from landlords than some of our families who are BIPOC,” Harned said. “It’s really unfortunate, but that’s the reality.”

In Cook County, a majority of the residents without housing are people of color.

Katie Eighan, the continuum of care director for the Alliance to End Homelessness in Suburban Cook County, estimated that 70% of the people her organization serves are people of color.

“A larger portion of people we serve are Black and brown families,” Feuer-Crystal said. “And it’s because of institutionalized racism.” being charged, Ouyang said they may not have noticed how many dining dollars they were actually spending.

This trend is mirrored in District 65: Harned said a large proportion of the students she assists are from Black and Latine families.

“I do realize that it’s hard to distinguish between the people who decided to take as much advantage of the system as they could and the people who just genuinely didn’t know,” Ouyang said. “But I think that because part of it was just a mistake, they should not charge every single person beyond their dining dollar balance.”

Hill said she and her friends were excited about the seemingly free food and coffee during the stress of preparing for and taking midterm examinations.

But, she added that she feels the University has other problems to deal with instead of missing dining dollars.

“Nothing happens to (the University) if they don’t charge us dining dollars — it’s fake money,” Hill said. fionaroach2025@u.northwestern.edu

Finding solutions for students

But finding long-term solutions depends on money, bureaucracy and other challenges. Although McKinney-Vento provides District 65 with federal assistance, funding is limited.

“There’s an impending crisis,” Harned said. “(Partner organizations) predict that funds are going to dry up by March.”

She said she expects more financial assistance to arrive in July, but she is unsure of how much. Families in crisis cannot wait for more money to come in and grant applications to be approved, she added.

Harned said she hopes Evanston residents will assist families by donating and volunteering. She asks residents to join the Facebook group Back On Their Feet, an organization raising awareness of homeless, transitional and crisis resources in Evanston. But grassroots efforts like Back On Their Feet are struggling to meet high demand.

Eighan said she encourages residents to demand change from officials.

“The solution to all of this is more affordable housing,” she said. “To make those changes, that means speaking to our local decision makers.”

Eighan added that more attention is being given to the issue of affordable housing, attributing this to advocacy efforts.

Feuer-Crystal said she is optimistic about the future of housing in Evanston.

The simplest of actions, like organizing donated clothing or making sandwiches, have an enormous impact on the community, she said.

“We are super hopeful about our work. We believe we can end homelessness. That’s why we do this,” Feuer-Crystal said. “We hope we’re out of work one day.” skyegarcia2025@u.northwestern.edu beatricevillaflor2026@u.northwestern.edu

Northshore

From page 1 said the two organizations have worked together to address issues in the past, including the ongoing opioid epidemic.

Bullock said he hopes the new program will be up and running by September.

“It’s awesome because it’s two organizations working side by side, really looking at a vulnerable group of people to address needs on the ground level by getting them linked to the immediate services that they need,” Bullock said.

Howard Brown Health, which provides healthcare services for the LGBTQ+ community, also received a grant from NorthShore this year.

Wren O’Kelley, communications manager at Howard Brown, said the center plans to use the money to fund a new two-year project within their behavioral health department. She said the project will allow the staff to perform

GRADUATE

From page 1

Once she realized she could graduate from NU early, she said she wanted to join the workforce earlier.

“A lot of tech companies are having layoffs along with hiring freezes,” she said. “Of course, I didn’t know about that when I realized I could graduate early, (but) I’m happy that I was able to start before a lot of this happened.”

This past year, major tech companies including Google, Amazon and Microsoft have laid off over 70,000 employees.

Talia Schulhof (Medill ’22) said she was also drawn to the professional world after she graduated from NU early in December.

After working both part-time and full-time alongside a course load during college, Schulhof said she began to enjoy work more than her academics.

“I didn’t want to be tethered down by another quarter of classes,” she said. “I didn’t want that to stop me from taking a job that I was really passionate and excited about.” katiejahns2023@u.northwestern.edu two types of advanced trauma therapy: eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy.

She began a job in January as a TikTok content strategist at MrBeast in North Carolina. Schulhof said she’s confident she made the right decision.

But, for some, graduating early could result in lost academic opportunities. Makedon said because she graduated early, she chose not to pursue a Segal Design Certificate.

Meanwhile, Xie said he felt “a little overloaded” at certain points while squeezing extra classes into his already busy schedule.

But for Schulholf, she said she’d even have graduated earlier if she could.

“If you feel like you’ve accomplished what you wanted to do, and you have the chance to do something great, I say do it, (but) I really don’t think there’s a wrong choice,” she said.

“The idea is to enhance the behavioral health team’s ability to track and treat complex trauma, rather than just having a couple specialized team members equipped with these skills,” O’Kelley said. “The overall goal is to reduce health inequities and disparities and drive impact on the communities we serve.”

Both O’Kelley and PEER Services Executive Director Noy Frial-Lopez emphasized that the goal of each of their programs is to improve treatment for their clients. As recipients of the fund, the groups are also part of NorthShore’s goal to form meaningful and lasting partnerships through their community impact efforts, according to NorthShore’s press release.

“We’re very happy and honored to receive the grant,” Frial-Lopez said. “I think we’ll be able to reach a good number of folks that really need support.”

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