OPINION: Questions about how city homeless shelters handle people with disabilities go unanswered

April 09-- Apr. 9--There are some well-documented concerns about whether the city of Chicago's homeless shelters are properly equipped to accommodate homeless people with disabilities.

The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago recently filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Chicago woman who claims she was turned away from several shelters because she has rheumatoid arthritis that prevents her from climbing stairs and carrying her own bags.

Beyond that, officials at Access Living tell me homeless people with disabilities in Chicago have struggled with this issue for years, regularly getting turned away from shelters for reasons ranging from elevators that don't function to a lack of staff properly trained to assist people with physical or intellectual disabilities.

Cathleen O'Brien is Access Living's housing organizer and facilitates the group's Disability Rights Action Coalition for Housing, or DRACH.

"About half of DRACH members have either experienced being turned away from a homeless shelter or have been neglected at a homeless shelter," O'Brien said.

When that happens, the outcome is something none of us should find acceptable: people either stay on the streets or wind up in a hospital, assuming they can even get admitted.

If this is indeed a problem with Chicago's homeless shelter system, it's significant, because people with disabilities make up a large percentage of the homeless population.

According to a 2018 federal report by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, "it is estimated that on any given day nearly one-quarter (24 percent) of individuals experiencing homelessness (86,962 of 369,081 individuals) are people with disabilities."

Past federal estimates have put that percentage even higher, and many advocacy groups who have studied the issue estimate that about 40 percent of the homeless population are people with disabilities.

Whichever percentage you choose, it's high, and it seems reasonable to expect a city like Chicago to make sure its shelters comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and are set up to accommodate people with varying needs.

So I decided to ask the appropriate city office -- the Department of Family and Support Services -- a series of questions unrelated to the aforementioned lawsuit.

These are the questions I emailed:

1) I understand from members of the Disability Rights Action Coalition for Housing that you all met with representatives of that group in January of last year to discuss the physical accessibility of shelters that are funded by the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services and other related issues. They said it took them about a year to get that interview with you all and they still have not been able to secure a follow-up interview to continue discussing these issues. Can you explain that delay?

2) Can you please tell me how many of the city-funded shelters are ADA compliant.

3) Are any of the city-funded shelters equipped with aides to assist people with physical or intellectual disabilities? If so, which ones and how many people with disabilities would they be able to accommodate?

4) According to DRACH, a number of their members or people their members have tried to assist have been turned away from shelters that are identified as ADA compliant and told to call 311. Some of those shelters include Safe Haven, Cornerstone, Olive Branch, The Night Ministries and San Jose Obrero, which turned away people who are deaf, blind or in manual wheelchairs. Is there a city policy for turning away people with certain disabilities at certain shelters, and if so, can you tell me how that policy works? What is the safety net if a person with a disability arrives at a shelter that isn't able to accommodate that person?

5) What is the city's policy on reserving space at city-funded shelters for people with disabilities?

6) Are there any efforts underway to make shelters more accessible for people with intellectual or physical disabilities?

Pretty reasonable questions, right?

Apparently city officials didn't think so.

Cristina Villarreal, the department's director of communications, would only answer one question fully -- No. 2, the one about shelters that are ADA compliant.

In an email back, she wrote: "The city has 5 ADA compliant Shelters across the city and other shelters make reasonable accommodations for residents."

In the same email, Villarreal provided this statement: "The city of Chicago is committed to a compassionate and consistent approach to providing homeless services while respecting the rights of this vulnerable population with the goal that all incidents of homelessness are rare, brief and non-recurring. DFSS works with a community of partners towards ensuring all Chicagoans have a place to call home, while treating homeless residents with respect and to connect them with the programs and services they need to move from crisis to stability."

OK, but if the city is working with "a community of partners," why did it take the Department of Family and Support Services a year to meet with members of DRACH to discuss issues relating to homeless shelter accessibility, and why has there been no follow-up since that one meeting last January?

I couldn't get an answer to that question.

Villarreal's email also highlighted a number of things the city has done to help people experiencing homelessness, including: "Since 2016 the city has successfully housed nearly 5,000 homeless veterans through the End Veterans Homeless Initiative"; "According to the 2018 Point-in-Time count, homelessness has steadily decreased for the last 3 years"; "The 2019 budget includes a $1.1M additional support for homeless services"; and "In 2018 the Salvation Army partnered with DFSS to open the shield of hope Family Shelter, it is the nation's first rapid-response emergency homeless assessment and response center, providing intake services and interim care for families awaiting shelter placement."

That all sounds great, and I certainly applaud any steps the city takes to help individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness.

But none of that directly addresses the issue at hand, which is whether the city is properly equipping its homeless shelters so people have equal access to a crucial safety net.

I'm not asking anyone to take what advocacy groups like Access Living and the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless are saying as gospel. I'm just asking city officials to answer some questions and be transparent about how they work with people who constitute a large percentage of Chicago's homeless population.

If those officials don't want to answer, or if they want to hide behind a broad interpretation of the "we don't comment on pending litigation" excuse, that's up to them.

But I'm going to keep asking the questions. Something tells me there are plenty more to come.

rhuppke@chicagotribune.com

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