3 days Ago By Caroline Kubzansky
Anjela Brooks McGrone and Sanaii Hale rummaged through a set of black garbage bags Thursday night, rearranging sleeping bags and parkas as the first snow of the season died down outside. The mother-daughter pair were among a group of about 60 people getting ready to spend the night outside a Loop high-rise as a fundraiser for Covenant House Illinois, which provides shelter, housing and social services to homeless and housing-unstable young people. Brooks McGrone, 50, said this was her fourth year participating in the annual “ Sleep Out .
” She worked for one of the event’s sponsors and said it reminded her of her own experience with housing instability at 19. “I do know what it feels like to not have your own bed, your own space, not knowing where you’re going to go, where you’re going get your next meal,” she said. Social service providers sometimes refer to young adults ages 18-24 as a hidden sector within the overall homeless population because of their tendency to pivot among different housing situations as opposed to staying in more visible locations like a tent city .
On the heels of Donald Trump’s re-election earlier this month, Chicago-area organizations and advocates are anticipating a possible influx of homeless young people. They say many of these youth, who are disproportionately Black and LGBTQ+, may see Chicago and Illinois as a safer or more welcoming place to find housing and build lives than their states of origin. Some have already noticed an uptick in arrivals from far out of state as attitudes and legal protections toward LGBTQ+ populations have deteriorated in other parts of the country.
Susan Reyna-Guerrero of Covenant House Illinois pulls a dolly stacked with flattened cardboard boxes for an event called Sleep Out at 10 S. Wacker Drive, Nov. 21, 2024, in Chicago.
(John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) Anjela Brooks, right, and her daughter,, Sanaii Hale, second from right, talk with Susan Reyna-Guerrero of Covenant House Illinois before the Sleep Out at 10 S. Wacker Drive, Nov.
21, 2024.(John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) Covenant House Illinois workers sign in participants for an event called Sleep Out at 10 S.
Wacker Drive, Nov. 21, 2024, in Chicago. (John J.
Kim/Chicago Tribune) Covenant House Illinois worker Nyesha White, center, waits to help participants place their overnight belongings into plastic garbage bags for an event called Sleep Out, Nov. 21, 2024, in Chicago. (John J.
Kim/Chicago Tribune) Pal Ijari, center right, gets checked in by Covenant House Illinois workers for the Sleep Out in Chicago. Nov. 21, 2024.
(John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) Susan Reyna-Guerrero of Covenant House Illinois pulls a dolly stacked with flattened cardboard boxes for an event called Sleep Out at 10 S. Wacker Drive, Nov.
21, 2024, in Chicago. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) Covenant House Executive Director Susan Reyna-Guerrero said said she was encouraged by local and state elected officials’ support for efforts to address homelessness for people of all ages although she was concerned about how the national landscape might continue to shift for homeless youth.
“It’s requiring us to be more vigilant, more deliberate, more efficient in using our resources,” she said. Reyna-Guerrero said they were hoping to raise about $650,000 and offer participants a way to better understand the “experience of what it’s like for young people who don’t have the safety and security of their own bed.” “We’re not pretending to be homeless, but we’re trying to increase awareness of what it’s like to be unstably housed,” she said.
Hale, 20, said it was her second year sleeping out along with her mom. She described the event as a way to support a cause that was largely outside her control. “When my mom told me about this, I was like, ‘Let’s go,’” she said.
“I don’t care if it’s below zero.” A cart of flattened cardboard boxes sat nearby and other sleeping bags were lined up waiting to be claimed. Hale and Brooks McGrone were expecting to be cold.
But, they said, it was just one night. They would go home in the morning..
