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DISCOVERY


Housing first for those in need


CURL evaluates Chicago’s Plan to End Homelessness and sets a course for the next 10 years


I


t’s difficult to say exactly how many people are homeless in Chicago. Strict definitions of homelessness place the number at around 5,000; those that account for people who are


staying with others and seemingly on the brink of having nowhere to sleep tally at least 21,000.* It may seem that homelessness at these levels


is a fact of life in a major U.S. city, but according to Christine George, PhD, of Loyola’s Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL), there was a major increase in the urban homeless population in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, and it is this same trend that Chicago is experiencing today. Charitable organizations set up emergency shelter and soup kitchens, but the situation did not improve. In the mid-‘90s, according to George, the prevailing wis- dom held that other underlying problems, such as mental illness, drug addiction, or financial collapse had to be solved before the homeless population could re-enter stable housing. George and her colleagues at CURL, along with


Susan Grossman, PhD, of Loyola’s School of Social Work, and Michael R. Sosin, PhD, of University of Chicago’s School of Social Work Administration, recently finished a two-year study, in collaboration with the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness, on the efficacy of Chicago’s 10-year Plan to End Homelessness, launched in 2003. Betsy Benito (BS ’98), who in her time at Loyola


was one of CURL’s first undergraduate fellows, is now the Illinois director of the Corporation for Supportive Housing and was the manager of the City’s Plan to End Homelessness from 2005 to 2011. “The plan was really about systems change,” says Benito. “That’s something that’s different about


Christine George, PhD, and Betsy Benito (BS ‘98) collaborate to analyze and improve Chicago’s Plan to End Homelessness.


CENTER OF EXCELLENCE


CENTER FOR URBAN RESEARCH AND LEARNING


Chicago’s approach, compared to other cities that adopted this mission early on.“ The plan takes a “housing first” approach,


based on research showing that it is access to stable, permanent housing, with supportive ser- vices when needed—as opposed to temporary


housing, rehabilitation alone, or other programs, that leads to the most people leaving the homeless system and becoming independent. “They had developed new services and


put money into permanent housing and less into emergency housing. So they wanted to see how it was doing—did they need any midcourse corrections?” says George. CURL’s research involved 16 in-depth


focus groups with homeless people across settings, organizations, and geo- graphic regions. They then interviewed a


30 LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO


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