Safety net frays as things get worse for poor
By NEIL STEINBERG nsteinberg@suntimes.com February 18, 2012 3:58PM
Yanilka Muriel and her children Pablo,4 and Angelina, 7, leave after receiving some food during The Night Ministry Bus stop in Humboldt Park near California and Division Streets on Thursday February 2, 2012. The Night Ministry offers hot meals, hygiene kits, free health care and supportive services to several areas in the city. | Tom Cruze~Sun-Times
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Updated: March 20, 2012 8:03AM
‘Can I get two brownies?” asks Tuli, age 9. “Can I get another egg?” asks Noah, 13, who, emboldened by his sister’s daring, then ups the ante. “Can I get two more eggs?”
They are standing in line on a Division Street sidewalk just east of California about 7:45 p.m one cold evening this month. They’ve come to meet the Night Ministry health outreach bus, a large rolling clinic that visits this Humboldt Park neighborhood three times a week to dispense free medical care and hot food to whoever shows up — adults mostly, white and black and Hispanic, but some families and even a few unaccompanied kids, such as Noah and Tuli, their brother Jesus, 8 and a cousin, Khari, 11.
“Kids are survivors,” observes Cora Ward, 60, in line behind the children. “They come here as a group — always in groups — because they know nobody is going to touch them here, nobody is going to hurt them.”
In the hour the bus is here, dozens line up for chili, cornbread, hard-boiled eggs, brownies, coffee and cocoa, the meal brought by volunteers from Temple Sholom.
“I’ve been leading this for eight or nine years,” says Aggie Zarkadas, ladling her homemade chili, wafting its hint of cinnamon, from an orange 10-gallon barrel.
Why?
“It’s the right thing to do,” she says. “It only makes sense, seeing suffering, seeing human need, it would be depressing, it would tear you apart if you didn’t help and connect with people.”
It would tear some people apart. But not all — I’d say very few -- view life that way, noticing those in need and then acting. At times our political moment seems not only blind to suffering, but actually antagonistic toward it, at least to suffering that doesn’t involve the burden of taxes on the rich. The Night Ministry is a key strand of our fraying social safety net.
Founded in 1976, the Night Ministry has 70 full-time staff, 50 part-timers and 400 volunteers who go out six nights a week to Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. It also runs shelters and various other programs.
Most tonight are here for the food and not the medical care, though there is one agitated woman raving to herself — usually she’s calm, volunteers say, but now she’s off her medication, a common occurrence with state agencies being slashed to the bone.
“People are a lot more distressed,” says Paul Hamann, the president and CEO of the Night Ministry. “They go untreated for longer than they should.”
The economy means more families show up for help, more kids, and it’s going to get worse, particularly for those who need medicine.
“What we’re girding ourselves for is all the cutbacks on the state level,” Hamann says. “With the state cutting back on alcohol, drug abuse and mental health services, people who need meds are not going to have access to them.”
I ask Hamann if he didn’t think politicians trying to win elections are scoring cheap political points by demonizing poor people such as the Night Ministry’s clientele.
“Welcome to one of the things that keep me awake at night,” he says. “It seems that the bootstrap mentality is back. It’s more every man for himself, and nobody wants to care for those in need.”
The popular notion is, the rich deserve their wealth while the poor bring their woes upon themselves. Is Social Darwinism back?
“I didn’t say that,” he said. “But I would not disagree with you. And we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Who is going to care for individuals with high needs? If the social safety net is not going to be there, it’s going to be up to organizations like us even more, and it’s getting harder and harder to do.”
After an hour, the bus moves to Pilsen.
There 50 people are standing in the little triangular park at 18th and Loomis, waiting patiently in the cold night in silence for their hot chili and sandwiches, served by teenagers from the Holy Covenant Metropolitan Community Church in Brookfield.
Among them is a round-faced boy with black hair. His name is Jorge and he’s 8. His mother? She’s in the car, he says. Why is he here?
“I like the food here,” the third-grader says. “The Night Ministry is like a home to me. I like it. The food is good. All the people are nice. And you can get food.”
