Antonio, a 19-year-old who lives in a homeless shelter on the north side, says he rarely sees his mother and only recently discovered who his father is. “My mother had 18 kids and not all by the same father. My mom and I don’t get along too well. My mom would get mad at me and throw me out. I wanted a real life, and she wanted me to stay home all the time to take care of my brothers and sisters. She wanted me to cook, clean, cook, clean.”
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The cycle Burgs describes is documented in a disturbing report called Alone After Dark: A Survey of Homeless Youth in Chicago, which the coalition released in June. Based on interviews with about 200 teenagers and young adults, the report describes the sad reality faced by kids without a home.
In short, they make a living, if you can call it that, by stealing, selling drugs, prostitution, or trading in bottles and cans at recycling centers. Most come from destitute families. Many fought with their parents, ran away, came back home–having nowhere else to go–and ran away again. They sleep in alleys and under park benches. They hate life and contemplate suicide.
About half the young people in the report cited a “conflict with family members” as the cause of their homelessness. Sixty-one percent said their parents were divorced, separated, or never married. Fifty-seven percent said they “felt neglected by the persons who had raised them.”
Wendell bounced back and forth between his mother’s house in Harvey and a one-bedroom apartment in a south-side CHA high rise that he shared with a cousin, her daughter, her boyfriend, and two teenage brothers. “‘There was never enough food,’ says Wendell. ‘I knew what to do. I told them I’d see them later. . . . I slept in vacant apartments for about two or three weeks. I was lucky to find one with heat, running water, electricity and a couch I could bunk on. But I couldn’t keep enough food in my mouth, so I approached getting money in the wrong manner–I started selling dope.’”
