Today is August 14, 2024, and I'm writing this the day after sitting through a 6 hour Peoria, Illinois city council meeting, where there was discussion of the creation of an ordinance which would prohibit people from camping on public property. The enforcement of this ordinance would include fines and jail time, and its creation is based on the idea that you can "eliminate the problem of homelessness" by criminalizing it.
For those of us who have been unhoused and/or who work with the unsheltered community in central Illinois, we know that this is not a solution. In fact, we believe that this would cause more harm not only to our unhoused friends and family, but for the city in general.
People become unhoused for a wide variety of reasons, including but not limited to: mental illness, substance use disorders, developmental disabilities, physical disabilities, trauma, etc. When people become unhoused, it takes a strong support system to help them survive on the street and hopefully "get back on their feet." If being visibly homeless becomes criminalized, our homeless friends will try to be invisible. And if they're not visible, we can't help them and provide the support that they need. Support that could not only benefit them, but also benefits us, as their neighbors.
So we're against this ordinance.
In listening to the discussions surrounding the possible implementation of this ordinance, we often hear that "there is housing available." "There are plenty of shelters." "They want to be homeless."
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
The common thread in all of the above conversations is that most of the people engaged in them have no lived experience with homelessness and have no meaningful relationships with people who currently live or who recently lived on the street.
However, we also heard people say that they were NOT in favor of this ordinance, and that, when discussing ways to address issues involving homelessness in Peoria, that they wanted a seat at the table where those issues are being discussed.
So where is that table? One councilperson said that the city council table was the table. Another said the table is the Continuum of Care. Perhaps the table is at a local church. It seems like there are lots of tables where lots of people have opinions.
We also have opinions.
We want the table to include people with lived experience being unhoused. It has to. You cannot talk about addressing homelessness and its many layers of complexity without hearing from the very people whose lives have been, and will continue to be impacted by living unhoused. And because we work with these folks on a daily basis, we're in a unique position to help them tell their stories. So we will.
We're less than 24 hours out from the city council meeting, so please consider this post a very rough introduction to the building of our virtual table.
We hope you’ll have a seat.
I would like to have a seat!