Jared Verdejo said he vividly remembers his mother being \u201cextremely stressed\u201d growing up in their crowded two room house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was hard to see her always so angry,\u201d 26-year-old Verdejo said. \u201cShe had to carry everyone on her shoulders.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Verdejo\u2019s parents divorced when he was in kindergarten, leading his mother to buy a small home in North Waukegan where his 4 siblings and several extended family members lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe all have to kind of share a home that was meant for like three \u2026 but here we were 1,2,3,4,5,6 deep because we would have family members living with us,\u201d Verdejo said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Verdejo lived \u201cdoubled-up<\/a>,\u201d which is when a person shares housing with others due to economic hardship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Doubling-up<\/a> is one of the most common forms of homelessness in Chicago experienced by predominantly communities of color.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2023, over 68,000 people experienced homelessness in the city and nearly 45,000 of them lived doubled-up, according to a report<\/a> by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Out of nearly 20,000 Latinx people experiencing homelessness, 91% are in doubled-up situations, according to the report<\/a>. Meanwhile, Black Chicagoans account for 53% of all people experiencing homelessness despite only making up 29% of the city\u2019s total population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection<\/a>, a nonprofit that educates and provides resources to those experiencing homelessness, said the definition of homelessness that federal agencies use \u201cneeds to be amended.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)<\/a> currently only provides homelessness services to those who are \u201cliterally on the streets or if you are in a shelter,\u201d Duffield said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This means that HUD\u2019s current definition of homelessness<\/a> does not account for those living doubled-up, preventing many people from qualifying for necessary housing resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt doesn’t reflect the reality for families and youth. It doesn’t even reflect who’s the most vulnerable,\u201d Duffield said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Among some of the most vulnerable communities experiencing homelessness are those who are transgender or gender non-conforming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sixty-three percent of transgender adults were unsheltered in 2019 compared to 49% of cisgender adults who were unsheltered, according to a report<\/a> by the National Alliance to End Homelessness.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though Verdejo had shelter throughout his life, it was difficult for him to come of age as a transgender young man living in his doubled-up household. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSince I was four or five years old, I felt like and knew then I identified as a masculine person,\u201d Verdejo said. \u201cBut I couldn’t tell my religious parents. I was very ashamed about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were some family members who were transphobic<\/a> towards him, Verdejo said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey kept saying they support me but behind my back I would hear some horrible things and they could never get themselves to call me by my pronouns or my name,\u201d Verdejo said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This led him to bounce between living with his mother, his father, a friend and a cousin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He now lives with his partner and four roommates in a townhome in Chicago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not comfortable because again, you don\u2019t like living with a million people but it\u2019s much better to live with people your age that share your same values,\u201d Verdejo said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another community that has recently experienced high rates of homelessness are the newly arrived migrants in Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The city’s homeless population has tripled due to a large influx of migrants needing shelter and facing delays in obtaining work permits, making it harder for them to secure housing, according to the Chicago Sun-Times<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n As of August 31, 2022, over 51,000 immigrants have come to Chicago according to city data<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Caitlin Ruiz, an Advocate for Students in Temporary Living Situations (STLS) at Jose de Diego Community Academy in Chicago\u2019s Wicker Park neighborhood, said last year, 90% of her students were in shelters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This year, \u201ca vast majority\u201d of them are living in doubled-up situations, Ruiz said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The city recently announced plans<\/a> to merge its migrant shelter operations with its homeless shelter network. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This means shelters like the one on 526 N. Western Ave.<\/a> will close down, leaving Ruiz worried because that is where many of her students live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAre they going to force these families to go through the go back to the port of entry and like, go through the process all over again? Are they going to be transferred to other shelters like it?\u201d Ruiz said. \u201cI can’t get any answers on it right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chicago tried to get voters to support a referendum that would have created a dedicated revenue source to fund homelessness services but it failed to get enough votes<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, said that it\u2019s \u201ccritical\u201d for homelessness resource efforts \u201cto really focus on the youngest of the youngest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Approximately 2.5 million children are homeless annually in the United States, according to a report<\/a> by The National Center on Family Homelessness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou don’t see babies in the same way that you may see single adults, but we have to go upstream if we’re ever going to really, truly address homelessness, because for so many single adults, their first experience of homelessness was as children,\u201d Duffield said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Publisher\u2019s Note:\u00a0<\/strong>The Latino Policy Forum and Illinois Latino News (ILLN) are partners in a two-year-long public awareness campaign illuminating the most common form of homelessness experienced in the Latinx community, which is through \u2018doubling-up\u2019 or when a person temporarily lives with others.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Illinois Latino News and Latino Policy Forum, thanks the generous support of Chicago\u00a0Funders to End Homelessness (CFTEH)<\/a>\u00a0in providing the funding to make the special coverage possible.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n