Doubled-Up and Overlooked: Homelessness Definition Doesn’t Reflect Most Vulnerable

Doubled-Up and Overlooked: Homelessness Definition Doesn’t Reflect Most Vulnerable

Jared Verdejo said he vividly remembers his mother being “extremely stressed” growing up in their crowded two room house.

“It was hard to see her always so angry,” 26-year-old Verdejo said. “She had to carry everyone on her shoulders.” 

Verdejo’s 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.

“We all have to kind of share a home that was meant for like three … but here we were 1,2,3,4,5,6 deep because we would have family members living with us,” Verdejo said. 

Verdejo lived “doubled-up,” which is when a person shares housing with others due to economic hardship.

Doubling-up is one of the most common forms of homelessness in Chicago experienced by predominantly communities of color. 

In 2023, over 68,000 people experienced homelessness in the city and nearly 45,000 of them lived doubled-up, according to a report by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. 

Out of nearly 20,000 Latinx people experiencing homelessness, 91% are in doubled-up situations, according to the report. Meanwhile, Black Chicagoans account for 53% of all people experiencing homelessness despite only making up 29% of the city’s total population.

Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a nonprofit that educates and provides resources to those experiencing homelessness, said the definition of homelessness that federal agencies use “needs to be amended.”

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) currently only provides homelessness services to those who are “literally on the streets or if you are in a shelter,” Duffield said. 

This means that HUD’s current definition of homelessness does not account for those living doubled-up, preventing many people from qualifying for necessary housing resources. 

“It doesn’t reflect the reality for families and youth. It doesn’t even reflect who’s the most vulnerable,” Duffield said. 

Among some of the most vulnerable communities experiencing homelessness are those who are transgender or gender non-conforming.

Sixty-three percent of transgender adults were unsheltered in 2019 compared to 49% of cisgender adults who were unsheltered, according to a report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. 

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. 

“Since I was four or five years old, I felt like and knew then I identified as a masculine person,” Verdejo said. “But I couldn’t tell my religious parents. I was very ashamed about it.”

There were some family members who were transphobic towards him, Verdejo said. 

“They 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,” Verdejo said. 

This led him to bounce between living with his mother, his father, a friend and a cousin. 

He now lives with his partner and four roommates in a townhome in Chicago. 

“It’s not comfortable because again, you don’t like living with a million people but it’s much better to live with people your age that share your same values,” Verdejo said. 

Another community that has recently experienced high rates of homelessness are the newly arrived migrants in Chicago.

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

As of August 31, 2022, over 51,000 immigrants have come to Chicago according to city data

Caitlin Ruiz, an Advocate for Students in Temporary Living Situations (STLS) at Jose de Diego Community Academy in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood, said last year, 90% of her students were in shelters. 

This year, “a vast majority” of them are living in doubled-up situations, Ruiz said. 

The city recently announced plans to merge its migrant shelter operations with its homeless shelter network. 

This means shelters like the one on 526 N. Western Ave. will close down, leaving Ruiz worried because that is where many of her students live. 

“Are 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?” Ruiz said. “I can’t get any answers on it right now.”

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

Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, said that it’s “critical” for homelessness resource efforts “to really focus on the youngest of the youngest.”

Approximately 2.5 million children are homeless annually in the United States, according to a report by The National Center on Family Homelessness. 

“You 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,” Duffield said.

Publisher’s Note: 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 ‘doubling-up’ or when a person temporarily lives with others.

Illinois Latino News and Latino Policy Forum, thanks the generous support of Chicago Funders to End Homelessness (CFTEH) in providing the funding to make the special coverage possible.

You can support stories like this one by donating to IL Latino News, HERE.


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