What happens when sleeping inside feels even scarier than staying on the streets? When Angie Walker and her team joined our Built for Zero initiative and set out to end homelessness in Rockford, Illinois, they knew they would need to find answers to these questions. Outreach workers also have to convince people who have given up hope that finding housing is a real possibility. Some are wary that there are unbearable strings attached. Others talk about their friends on the street and what it will mean to leave a familiar group.
In Rockford Angie knew a group of men who had lived on the streets for as long as eight years. This group lived in tents and abandoned buildings, sometimes seeking shelter in concrete construction tubes. But this group was a special challenge. But Angie suspected they were really just doubtful that her offers of help would amount to anything. Those who have been homeless the longest have generally been offered emergency services time after time without much changing for them.
The notion of a real solution, housing, would be radical. Angie knew it was her responsibility to find a way to house these men. She suspected that if they experienced a taste of what it was like to sleep inside again, they might be willing to accept more permanent housing.
The opportunity to test her instinct arose from an unlikely place: the Chicago Cubs. One day, Angie overheard the men talking about the upcoming World Series in which the long-suffering Cubs would be playing. Angie made an offer on the spot: come inside and watch the Series. She knew she could get them into a nearby short-term residency hotel, so she invited the men to stay there and watch the games. It worked. The men put aside their discomfort, moved inside, and watched the Cubs win the World Series for the first time in years.
This taste of housing warmed the men to the idea of living indoors again. They asked to stay in the hotel a bit longer. Soon Angie and her team were moving them into permanent apartments, ending their homelessness for good. Housing the hardest-to-reach people in a community takes creativity and a refusal to give up.
