Shelter aims to be the breakthrough for Chicago homeless

By Meghan Lichte
A lamentable site: An abandoned house on the city’s West side looms over a road that separates it from railroad tracks. With walls made of crumbling plaster and a frame constructed of a material akin to wigs, it stands as a remnant of a scattered past—the past of a man named Cedric Strickland.

At one time, it may have been a home with a warm hearth and cheery Christmas dinners. But it now stands, worn on the edge, like the frayed edges of this community known as East Garfield Park, where crime, poverty and homelessness are as glaring as this old house on a snowy, cold winter’s night.

Most recently, the house, some around here say, did not serve a family but as a makeshift haven to the homeless and a place where drug addicts smoked crack. But just steps away stands an organization know as, Breakthrough Urban Ministries, whose mission is to help rehabilitate those like Strickland—a self-admitted, former crack addict—who says he once dwelled in abandoned houses as his only refuge and used the old house a few feet from Breakthrough’s door as a place to do drugs.

For Strickland and others, Breakthrough and shelters like it are a refuge from the cold, from the harsh Midwest winters that grip this city when it turns cold—a time of year that can prove deadly for the homeless, perhaps more than any other time of year.

“The cold is the homeless person’s worst enemy,” said Laura Stemberg, a spokeswoman for Pacific Garden Mission, a more than 100-year-old shelter in Chicago, “The homeless don’t survive in the cold, they go to shelters.”

Strickland was among them this winter, the tens of thousands of men that experts say roam the city, seeking shelter, finding even a dim, cold and damp abandoned building as a refuge from a brutal, unforgiving Chicago winter’s night.

For these men and women, there’s is a story of survival. And for the lucky ones like Strickland, Breakthrough is a second chance sometimes for a new start in a shelter they find safe, especially compared to some other urban shelters, which can be dangerous places to lay one’s head.

Breakthrough Urban Ministries founder, Arloa Sutter, said that “most of the people who come to us have been to other shelters and they talk about sometimes there’s fights.” It seems, according to Sutter, that gang activity can sometimes be attributed to control in the shelters.

“I’ve heard complaints that some of the shelters are overcome by some of the gang leaders,” Sutter said. It can be just as bad on the streets, if not worse, some say.

“People say their things get stolen and women are sexually assaulted,” Sutter added. “With men, there is spite and muggings.”

Sutter says that’s not the case at Breakthrough.

“It’s safe, it’s clean, and there aren’t fights. Their space is respected; they have storage for their belongings. They feel safe. It’s the group time and the one-on-one with case managers. Relationships are developed through all that.”

Strickland is among the men and women who have found a place to rest and recoup. But standing at the back of the abandoned house, in the shadow of Breakthrough recently, he recalled harsher times.

“We used to come through this back window like it was our apartment,” he said, his words echoing a sense of pride over how far he had come—even if with a few scars, some of them visible on his youthful face, others not as visible.

Strickland says he never lived in this particular house but had gone there several times to escape the cold and the pain of being homeless with crack cocaine.

“It’s kind of like an anesthetic,” he said of using the drug. “You know, the crack cocaine would numb the pain. It made me able to walk more. And in my walking, I would hustle to get more money to get more drugs. As soon as the drugs wore off, I would get more drugs to ease that pain and the cycle continued.”

Strickland said he was not alone in his endeavors, and that being homeless is like being part of the general populous.

“Sometimes you grow kind of close to certain people and you form a bond, like a family, basically,” he added.

His drug family, however never replaced his true family, he says.

“I came from a two parent home with a younger brother and older sister,” Strickland said. "I was taught good morals, but harbored some resentment toward my father. I felt neglected and that he didn't spend enough time with me."

“I was good at school, but just wanted to hang out a lot,” Strickland said.

Strickland says he grew up on the West Side, in “K Town,” and that he has a wife and five children who now have two children of their own. After becoming homeless, he said he lost contact with them, but has recently seen them.

“They respect me as their father,” he said. “They can talk to me about this like friends. I miss that. The whole time I was addicted I missed that.” Strickland said that being on the street and seeing people avoid him affected him greatly and led even to a personal breakdown.

“I would walk across the street and I could hear the car doors lock and the eyes watching to make sure I wasn’t gonna come to the car. I knew they were judging me by my appearance and it was kind of a hurt feeling,” Strickland said.

He often found safety on the streets, he said, simply by taking cover, when gunfire erupted between gang rivals. There were times, he said, when “young guys” threw bottles at him and recalled time he was asleep in a park and a young man kicked him in the jaw.

With a sense of consequences and also community, and with the help of Breakthrough, Strickland says has turned over a new leaf.

In his new environment, he said he has had time to reflect on his time as a crack addict.

“At first, I thought I could quit it any time I wanted to,” he said. “Even today I want it, but I hate it. I don’t like the consequences: I don’t like being dirty, not being able to hold a job and going to jail.”

His addiction put him on the street, he said, and led him to leave his family, and caused him to steal from extended family members to survive. Things are different now, he said.

“I’m overcoming that pain now and setting certain goals,” Strickland said. “I am going to register for a computer literacy class tomorrow and see where I can go from there. And I’m still drawing,” he added, referring to his artwork.

His words fell delicately as he spoke of his past, much like the snow falling on the abandoned house.