The snow was still falling at around 7 a.m. last Wednesday morning when Colleen Day took to the streets. As per usual, her snowblower operator — a guest from the nearby Lincoln Park Community Shelter — quickly went to work.

But the historic blizzard from the previous night had proved to be a bit too much for the snowblower to handle alone, so Day went looking for more recruits. It wasn’t long before she found a band of guests standing outside the shelter.

“I good-naturedly ribbed them and said ‘how about grabbing a shovel?’ and they were so happy to help,” said Day, who lives a few doors down from the shelter, located at 600 W. Fullerton Parkway.

The ten-man shoveling team spent the rest of the day clearing snow from the driveways, sidewalks and walkways of homes in the neighborhood.

“Just about everyone who walked by, if they lived in the neighborhood, said that they appreciated what we were doing,” said John, a guest and volunteer shoveler who asked that Skyline not use his last name. At the end of the day, the workers had removed snow from about 60 properties in the neighborhood, said Day.

To a passerby, the gesture might have looked like neighborly goodwill at play, but for anyone who knows the history of the shelter, the scene may have seemed almost unbelievable.

Founded in 1985, the Lincoln Park Community Shelter has long stood as a beacon of advocacy for the homeless on the city’s North Side. For years, the nonprofit operated as a seasonal shelter, taking in guests from October to May.

But recognizing the increasing need for interim housing in the city, the shelter shifted to a year-round program in 1999. Operating at a reduced capacity during the summer, they also managed a facility at the nearby St. Paul’s United Church of Christ at 2335 N. Orchard St.

In June 2005, a group of residents filed a lawsuit against the shelter and the Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church, which donated basement space to the shelter, charging that the facility was providing sleeping and temporary residential accommodations in violation of the property’s existing zoning code.

The impetus behind this action was a growing belief among many neighbors that the presence of guests at the shelter had become a dangerous element in the area, which lies in close proximity to the Children’s Memorial Hospital campus and a number of senior living residences. The lawsuit cited three recent instances in which individuals alleged to be shelter guests had assaulted residents and broken into nearby homes, as well as numerous accounts of fighting, panhandling and public urination, among other offenses.

The leadership at the shelter sought to obtain a special use permit to continue operating on the property, but the move was blocked by a mounting resistance headed by the Lincoln Park Neighbors for Safety, a group formed with the expressed purpose of addressing the issues surrounding the shelter.

“When they went to get that permit we fought them tooth and nail,” said Day, who was one of the four residents who filed the suit and a member of the opposition group.

Cook County Court hearings over the lawsuit drew hundreds of residents, both in opposition and in favor of the shelter’s continued presence, according to news accounts by the community newspaper Inside.

The lawsuit was eventually settled with the caveat that shelter consolidate its beds to the Fullerton location in a push to stabilize their overnight guest population. The shelter was granted the special use permit, and undertook renovations at the church building to accommodate new programming.

In the months that followed, the tensions that had once put a strain on the community started to dissipate.

“There had been a change,” said resident Jane Curry,” I think everyone started embracing the shelter.”

Part of this new appreciation could be sourced to a nascent partnership with the shelter started by Day — one of the very people at odds with the shelter a year earlier. Around 2007, Day and the LPNS began organizing and paying shelter guests to take up the task of snow removal in the neighborhood during the winter months. The group even bought a snowblower for the job, and residents began to take notice of the service.

“It really was a very important first step,” said Curry, who lives across from the shelter on the corner of Geneva Terrace and Fullerton Avenue.

The shoveling tradition has carried over year after year, and residents in the neighborhood have returned the favor through increased volunteering at the shelter and by making donations to cover the organization’s privately-raised monthly budget, said Lincoln Park Community Shelter Executive Director Erin Ryan.

Ryan said that the neighborhood’s response to the winter task over the years has created a sense of the community among the shelter population.

“I think our guests are more than happy to give back, because they realize that this place wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for the support that we get from the residents,” Ryan said.

John the shelter guest said the work reminded him of when, as a teenager, he would help the older people in his neighborhood with shoveling and other odd jobs.

“It’s kind of nice to do that again as an adult,” he said.

Last year, the LPCS even took home an award from the city’s Department of Transportation for “excellence in sidewalk snow and ice removal” — a high honor, said Ryan. In recent years, she said, neighbors have started coming to the shelter looking for guests willing to do other jobs, ranging from babysitting to clerical work.

Day said the she was glad that relations between residents and the shelter guests have taken a good turn.

“I fought the shelter so hard, and now I’m a real supporter of theirs,” she said. “I handed them shovels and they were just very willing to help, so kudos to them.”

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By Kathy from Lincoln Park
Posted: 02/11/2011 7:10 AM

The same thing happened in Flint, Michigan. Given the tools they were happy to feel needed and not so needy. They see when the community gives to them and what better way to show their appreciation. All too often they are misunderstood. Homelessness could happen to any of us.