Nestled inside the safety of Lakeview Lutheran Church, which is just around the corner from the Center on Halsted, The Crib is a new shelter for displaced young adults aged 18-24.
Sponsored by The Night Ministry, which has been in operation for 35 years, The Crib opened Jan. 7. It is staffed by Heather Bradley, who is the youth outreach manager, and her co-worker, the Rev. Jen Rude, along with 12 youth workers and three on-call employees.
Lakeview Lutheran Church has made its building a welcoming place for the young adults who stay at The Crib by changing the bathrooms to gender neutral spaces and giving them an all purpose room, storage space and a place to have a washer and dryer.
Collaborating with The Night Ministry and Lakeview Lutheran Church, First Slice provides most of the shelter's food with weekend meals coming from individual or group donations. The food ranges from salads to hot vegetables to main courses of all kinds. Before they eat they have a gratitude moment, which was started by the young people, where people celebrate their accomplishments, make amends and share fellowship according to Bradley.
The Crib can only hold 15 people a night so people line up to get in each night at 8:30 p.m. The lack of space has led the facility to establish a link with the comprehensive community-based youth services to find alternative shelter for those individuals when they show up at The Crib.
When the young adults arrive each night, they scramble to sign up for chores to get incentives as well as shower and laundry time. They like to dance and make artwork that they sometimes leave behind to decorate the space. When it is time for bed each person gets his/her own mattress, which is stored each day with bedding inside individual bins. What has struck Bradley is the fact that young adults are so resilient they don't traditionally consider themselves homeless, despite their circumstances. She said the key is meeting young people where they are and not where adults want them to be.
Although The Crib is only open between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m. the following morning, last week it stayed open around the clock during last week's historic snowstorm. They listened to the radio to find out if Chicago Public Schools were closed since some of the people who stay there are still finishing high school.
The Crib is the only low-threshold emergency shelter for all genders of youth in Chicago. "Low-threshold" means that the shelter is easy to get into and does not create obstacles. The Crib does not require referrals, identification or income verification nor does it have many rules as to who stays at the facility. Each person must meet the age criterion in order to stay the night. Of note is that the facility does not segregate its bathrooms or any other space at the shelter.
High-threshold facilities, on the other hand, have a waiting list; require lots of paperwork, a meeting with shelter personnel, a background check, identification including a person's social security number and their birth date; and institute a drug test and complex orientation processes.
The Night Ministry has a continuum of care with The Crib as well as a transitional living program. This is higher-threshold program for people who have proven themselves and express another level of need. The ministry has been active for many years with other low-threshold drop-in programs with the goal to provide spaces where young people feel comfortable. The philosophy is that "there is no young person on the streets of Chicago by him or herself," said Bradley.
Street outreach is also a part of The Night Ministry, as the organization has a mobile health outreach bus that goes out six days a week on a regular schedule doing HIV testing while also providing basic health needs like triage and crisis intervention along with housing for homeless youth. It has worked with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and other organizations and about 15-20 years ago they worked to get legislation passed to provide young adult housing because it was illegal to provide this service before the legislation was passed. Since then there has been interim housing since 1992. They have had three housing programs in the past and now The Crib is the fourth.
This shelter will be operational until the end of April, but organizers hope to keep it open year-round.
Bradley said that they are working on ways to provide additional funding to keep this space open with outreach to each mayoral candidate and Mayor Richard Daley. They also want to expand the program to another church around the corner since young people say they want to stay in Lake View because they feel safe there. With youth homelessness a huge problem among the LGBT community, especially among transgender youth, it is Bradley's hope that the funding continues for years.
