City Council Agenda: Five-Year Plan to End Evanston Homelessness

At Monday night’s Evanston City Council meeting, The Mayor’s Task Force on Homelessness will present the council with a five-year plan, detailing recommendations on how the city can best tackle issues and cases of local homelessness.

In January 2011, Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl -- a group comprising community volunteers, school representatives, nonprofit leaders and city aldermen -- largely to create a comprehensive plan that would draw from various community resources to both provide a safety net for those in risk of becoming homeless and find housing for those .

“Evanston has always been a community that has prided itself on its compassion, diversity and depth of services to help those in need,” Tisdahl wrote in an April 4, 2012 open letter to Evanston citizens. “Yet…the problem of homelessness is getting worse. … It is time not just to ‘manage homelessness’ but to move forward in solving the issues creating and sustaining it.”

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The group reported that, in the past 15 months, it has helped prevent 149 residents in 85 households from becoming homeless by providing them with financial assistance so they could remain in their current homes. The task force also reported helping 88 people in 69 households that were already homeless, to find permanent, affordable housing.

Based on their recent experiences and research, the task force developed six recommendations, which sit at the core of their ‘Heading Home’ plan to help solve problems of local homelessness.

According to the meeting packet, the plan’s six main recommendations are:

• Establishing a permanent Housing and Homeless Commission.
• Increasing the amount of affordable housing and rental subsidies in Evanston.
• Collaborate with various local entities to coordinate resources toward a community response.
• Creating job and vocational training opportunities.
• Finding additional funding while better allocating current resources.
• Educating residents on the costs solutions to homelessness.

Tisdahl said she expected the City Council to support the task force's plan.

The Mayor’s Task Force on Homelessness states that it found 10 percent of Evanston’s population is either at-risk of becoming homeless or is homeless already, 50 to 75 ETHS students are homeless at any given time and upwards of 200 .

Updated at 4:14 p.m. with additional information from Mayor Tisdahl.