A growing awareness of the growing homeless population

After I dropped our girls at school, I walked down the street looking for the homeless man I saw using the bush as a bathroom. I wanted to call the police, but needed a way to better identify him and give a location. Why didn't I call the police as soon as I saw it? Truthfully I didn't want to bring it to our daughters' attention. I figured they didn't see it so why make it an issue?

While some people might call it a teachable moment, we spend enough time in Chicago that we have a lot of teachable moments when it comes to the homeless population. If you ask our girls, they will tell you that we don't give money directly to homeless people. In our family we donate to organizations which can provide services to help these people get off the streets. We've talked extensively about why it's best to work through organizations. We also buy Streetwise whenever we can. We have talked about how these people are selling the newspapers to make money, so it's their own little businesses.

I couldn't find the man on my walk home. I was a bit surprised as he didn't move very quickly. We walked about two blocks in the time it took him to move down a couple of houses. In the end I didn't call the police. I wasn't quite sure what I'd say other than I saw a man peeing in the bushes, I can't really identify him and don't know where he went. 

I did call the school to let the office know what happened. It was at the height of morning drop-off. There had to be other parents who saw it. The school staff said they would talk to the Palos Hills Police Dept about the incident to make sure everyone was working from the same plan.

At the school pick-up, I talked to some other parents about the incident. Everyone had a story about some issue with the local homeless population. I heard about people dragging shopping carts through yards to get to the shelters. I heard a lot of stories of people using landscaping as bathrooms. I heard about people digging food out of garbage cans. I heard about homeless people taking shelter in different neighborhoods.

Actually, I was surprised to hear how many people were aware of the growing homeless population. No one knew why the population was growing, but they all knew it was happening.

One mom told me she also saw the man pee in the bush. She said I couldn't find him because he got on the next bus going north. She lives near a shelter and recognized him as a regular. She said she has seen an increase in the number of homeless people using the shelters.

My next task was to gather information about the scope of the problem and find out how Palos Hills was managing the homeless population.