Excerpts from among the best of the class... Fall 2008

When the city turns cold;
Thumbing through trash for treasure

By Antony Caldaroni
At the Adams Street entrance to Chicago’s Union Station, a man sits among the scurry of rush hour, holding a tattered cardboard sign that reads, “Hungry and out of work.” Commuters, bundled in long black wool coats with matching leather gloves and earmuffs, look straight ahead and do not make eye contact with him. As the endless group moves from the icy sidewalks toward the glass doors, a parameter forms around the hungry man as though a barrier were erected around his body.

“I try to make me enough to get somethin’ to eat and get some money for CTA,” says a man who calls himself Terrel James. “That’s what I do. Every day.”

James is a slender man with dirt-caked hair and an untrimmed beard. He wears an old Starter Cowboys winter coat two sizes too small for his tall stature. Worn grey shoes with no laces cover his feet. For socks and extra padding, he uses old newspapers that protrude from the base of his legs.

Winter in Chicago is particularly hard on James and others like him who have no place to call home. And while some sleep in shelters, others survive on their own terms in the streets. The 2000 US Census estimated that 6,378 homeless lived in emergency and transitional shelters in Illinois. As far as the number of homeless nationally, Robert Bernstein of the U.S. Census Bureau questions the agency’s accuracy in accurately predicting their total population.

Some experts say the best approximation is from a study done by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which concludes that about 3.5 million people, 1.35 million of them children, are likely to experience homelessness in a given year.

“As far as the homeless population, we haven’t produced any kind of estimate or count of the homeless population recently,” says Bernstein. “In 2000 we produced an estimate of a number living in a transitional shelter but that was not intended to be an accurate count of the homeless.”

Whatever the count of homeless on American streets, organizations such as the Lincoln Park Community Shelter, work diligently here to feed and clothe many of Chicago’s less fortunate.

“We provide beds and three meals a day for the homeless,” says Steve Brown of Cornerstone Community Outreach on the city’s North Side. “We make sure folks get what they need for the cold. We have a free store here so they can get things like coats, clothing, toys and anything else that they need.”

Yet efforts to reach out to the homeless often fall on deaf ears. Regardless of how cold it gets, some, like James, refuse to go to shelters for a warm bed.

“I don’t go to no shelter,” says James. “Every time I go there, someone’s takin’ my stuff or is tryin’ to tell me about Jesus.”

Instead, James spends most of his time on the street, braving bitter gusts of cold air accentuated by the manmade canyons of Chicago’s skyline. When the numbness of cold overcomes him, he goes into the station and naps until the rail police remove him. When hungry, he scavenges through trashcans, he says. Most of his late evenings are spent moving throughout the city on Chicago’s CTA. It is a place where he can get out of the cold and remain alone.

“Two dollars a night,” says James. “I get out of the cold and I got a place to be by myself, ain’t nobody bother me.”

* * * *

Recently, after hours of sitting on the cold, concrete slab outside of Union Station, James decides to go inside to warm up. He is hungry. As he stands, he folds his sign into quarters and stuffs it into one of his two large Old Navy bags.

In these bags James carries what he calls his “treasures”: magazines, newspapers, tattered cloths, scraps of food and cigarette butts. What others throw away as trash, James collects as treasure.

Once down the stairs, James walks toward the wooden seats located near the outskirts of the food court. Before sitting, he removes the black circular top to a large trashcan, thrusts himself into the receptacle and pulls out a Styrofoam plate inside a plastic bag marked “Thank You” in bold red letters.

“I eat better on my own than in any shelter in this here city,” says James with conviction. “I get some barbeque chicken and noodles or the rice almost every day.”

James reaches into his “treasure” bag and pulls out a small handful of white, Popeye’s hot sauce packets. He opens three and begins spreading them liberally on his dinner. With his chapped, dry hands, he grabs a plastic fork in his fist and begins to shovel the food into his mouth. The long, lo mein noodles reach down past his chin as he sucks them up, leaving a trail of red hot sauce on his spotty beard.

When finished, James collects his things and begins a different method of asking for money. He walks toward the standing tables, which have a clear view of the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers game featured on two flat-screen TVs at the bar.

“I got some friends on Western,” says James to a man drinking a beer in a frosted plastic cup. The man focused on the game intently, trying to ignore the homeless man’s imposition. “I just need another two dollars to get a ticket, can you help me?”

With no reply, James moves to the next table where he again is ignored...

To hear more on this story in a report on literary journalism by Reporter Antony Caldaroni, click below: