https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/things-to-know daily 0.75 2019-01-08 https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/things-to-know/2019/1/8/home-fire-safety-survey monthly 0.5 2019-01-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1546971508133-72HPXSH8CDUONPCS1GN3/img552.jpg Poverty: Things to Know - Home Fire Safety Survey https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1546971551633-ALSAT39JYE84I0N7TW58/img551.jpg Poverty: Things to Know - Home Fire Safety Survey https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/things-to-know/2018/9/7/prosecuting-homeless-for-sleeping-outside-may-violate-us-constitution-ruling monthly 0.5 2018-09-07 https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/things-to-know/2018/9/6/it-always-comes-down-to-money-how-a-nonprofit-is-changing-lives-by-paying-bail monthly 0.5 2018-09-06 https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/things-to-know/2018/8/23/the-truth-about-poverty monthly 0.5 2018-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1535032846792-04ZYVLBMH7WGW2M0P1LT/37579617_10156513133042229_7804606857082830848_n.jpg Poverty: Things to Know - The Truth About Poverty https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/things-to-know/2018/8/6/us-income-inequality-continues-to-grow monthly 0.5 2018-08-06 https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/things-to-know/2018/6/7/the-criminalization-of-poverty-the-washington-post monthly 0.5 2018-06-07 https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/things-to-know/2018/6/7/629zca6qu8thepcby7rexx6fis41fl monthly 0.5 2018-06-07 https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/things-to-know/2018/6/7/ymtlkb4oza0834csxkfc8serkvd7da monthly 0.5 2018-06-07 https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/things-to-know/2018/5/26/this-is-why-poor-people-can-and-should-have-nice-things-1 monthly 0.5 2018-05-31 https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/home daily 1.0 2023-03-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1512874975437-10P3I02I6IFRJKHG1Y21/2000+pixels+dpiToned1515.jpg The Quincy IL Poverty Project - Poverty Awareness https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/projects daily 0.75 2017-12-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1512932926922-N3YH1Z66O4ST47ALSKNI/APRIL_James+April+12+2017+dpi.+%281%29.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1512880412720-P7P3PTJZVOQ8H0A9RD82/dpi+test+photo+babiesimg347.jpg Projects Billie spent the summer of 2016 homeless in Quincy, where she struggled everyday to find a place to stay in the evenings. She was often harassed, and asked sexual favors of in order to crash on couches rather than sleep on the sidewalks where she doesn't feel safe from those who might assault her. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52a74d9ae4b0253945d2aee9/1390513827835-7X0ZFXSD0X2H8JVTM0G7/tumblr_mqvsd7ij1c1rkz363o1_1280.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1512878530416-M9CK5PVA1PK30YEK7TBF/dpi+projects+banner2486_AUG_.jpg Projects https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/billies-story daily 0.75 2018-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1526928129940-KUJB71TCI924IPUR16ZA/dpi+17inch+Billie+DSCF5912_SEPT_.jpg Billie - Quincy IL Poverty Project August 2016: Billie stays in the Quincy Public Library during the day to avoid being harassed and to search online for men who will take her in each night. She is now at the library sending out a message for help on social media. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1526928114245-OVLLR2VS6OVJQZWD7GGQ/dpi+17inch+Billie+DSCF5892.jpg Billie - Quincy IL Poverty Project August 2016: Billie is pregnant and says a woman is threatening to beat her. Billie says her adoptive mother struck her in the head with a baseball bat when she was 12 and that she still suffers from seizures. "I’ve been molested, I’ve been raped, I’m afraid to sleep outside." https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1526928163562-R7JMS2TFM7L2W49HI5UN/dpi+Billie_6006_17inchSEPT_.jpg Billie - Quincy IL Poverty Project August 2016: Holding three cell phones, Billie is calling a guy to find a place to stay the night. He keeps asking her to bring something to eat but she doesn’t have anything. “I’m asking people on Facebook for a place to stay. Sometimes I check dating sites. I sleep outside now and then but I’m afraid. I don’t like to sleep outside. I have nightmares. Some days I just wake up and I’m like, ‘God, why did you wake me up today? I don’t want to be here’” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1526931575206-C2DZO53I8XPKJMCJK8DH/dpi+Billie_17inch_3457_AUG.jpg Billie - Quincy IL Poverty Project https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527253395673-6WJHUITOGZG743FRQ9ZZ/dpi+Billie_17+inch_3295AUG.jpg Billie - Quincy IL Poverty Project August 2016: Billie walks to the Quanada domestic violence and sexual assault shelter in Quincy to escape threats of violence from an ex-boyfriend. “I’m just going to say this. Just don’t put yourself in the situation where you’re on the streets, and if you have to do whatever your friend, or husband, or whatever he is, wants you to do, and if it’s not good, don’t do it, because it could get you fucked up, like pregnant. It could get you AIDS, and everything like that. It’s hard to find friends out there. Sometimes I think if I’m dead I’ll find friends in the graveyard.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1526928186239-WO173YCSMAN76606TJJ5/dpi+Billie_17inch472_SEPT.jpg Billie - Quincy IL Poverty Project September 2016: Billie stands in line at the Horizons soup kitchen. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1526928146841-NRLR030QQJ22RA9UFZ4Z/Billie+17inch_3251_AUG_.JPG Billie - Quincy IL Poverty Project August 2016: “I’ve got scars from smoking, drinking, shooting. I thought that stuff would make my life better, but it’s made it worse. I want to change my life but it’s hard. … When a guy and a girl are homeless together and they don’t have money and his girl looks cute and sexy he knows she can make his money. She can make their money but he would practically say it’s his money because supposedly he’s the boss of everything. He tells you what to do and you have to do it. Yeah, I had this ex-boyfriend that told me if I didn’t make him his money he was going to shoot me in the head. I did it because I wasn’t ready to die." https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/about daily 0.75 2023-03-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1526413427766-87QILB76DR3R0HE48L5P/17inch+Poverty+Sean+Tony+poverty+Aug.A_+%288%29.JPG The Mission of the Quincy Illinois Poverty Project https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/brenda daily 0.75 2018-08-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527010390973-M7RBW1XWXBL5QAX9351M/dpi+FEB+Brenda+17inch.jpg Brenda - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: A volunteer at the Horizons Soup Kitchen, prays with Brenda after her brother died the day before. “The Horizons Soup Kitchen helps everybody out. They prayed with me, so I would feel more calm about losing my brother. They stand behind you. If you have a depressing situation or even need help with transportation, they’re there for us like family,” Brenda said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527010326961-X0WLAB49UOYVOC99SS88/dpi+Brenda+B%26W_July_17inch+004.jpg Brenda - Quincy IL Poverty Project July 2017: Standing to alleviate her chronic back pain, Brenda eats a free meal at Salem Church, which provides meals to those in need each Saturday afternoon. Brenda learned in October 2017 that she needed a hip replacement, which is scheduled for January 2018 https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/clarence daily 0.75 2018-11-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011726174-57BDJYYFQA1OTKZ71UDT/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Clarence+April+22+2017+%287%29.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Clarence and Vickie attend a Saturday night church serve at the Horizons Soup Kitchen. Clarence likes to attend to meet new friends. “I used to sing in a church choir in the ’70s. I wore a big white gown. We’ve been going to church six weeks now. We missed one Saturday because it was raining too hard for us to walk.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011807492-U7AYJPQ6SN33653JYJWD/dpi+17+inch+Clarence+Poverty+Edit+JUNE+201738.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project June 2017: Suffering from heat exhaustion, Vickie is taken to Blessing Hospital by EMTs. Those without transportation will walk from place to place, even in extreme weather. “It was real hot when Vickie had the heat stroke,” Clarence said. “I kind grabbed hold of her and Brenda called the ambulance. I rode in the ambulance with Vickie when they took her to the hospital.” Vickie was in Blessing for eight days and Clarence and Brenda visited her daily until staff told them that Vickie was discharged. Because Clarence and Brenda were not related to Vickie, they were told privacy law prevented the hospital from telling them where Vickie went. “It makes us mad,” Brenda said, “because nobody would tell us who took her out of the hospital. With the condition Vickie is in, a slow talker and everything else, you don’t know if she’s safe or not. It’s just not right, us not knowing where Vickie is. She’s like part of our family, and her stuff’s still at our house. So, what are we supposed to do with her stuff just act like she longer exists?” Desperate for information, Clarence and Brenda go to the Quincy Police Department to file a missing persons report. “They won’t tell us anything,” Brenda said. “They said she might have just met some new friends and left with them. Well, even if they are new friends, I don’t think Vickie’s the type who’d just get up and leave with them. Brenda and Clarence said they were offered no other assistance, or suggestions, so they returned home with no answers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527012173100-JPZZH5AB7Z3HYKP8YU2B/dpi+17inch+Clarence+July_+00.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project July 2017: Following Vickie’s death, Clarence learned of a son Vickie had named David who lives nearby in Taylor, Mo. The two met to share stories about Vickie. David gave this photograph of Vickie at his wedding to Clarence. “Vickie was my mother. Back when we were younger kids, she'd come get us roughly two or three times a year, maybe more, and do things with us. But we were usually at the bar playing pool, me and my brother, and she'd take us to the zoo and Six Flags, and stuff like that. But, then she'd quit coming around for years. Then, we moved closer, and I got back in touch with her and she got married and was doing great. She came to my wedding, and we'd stay in touch, and everything. She was doing fine then her husband lost interest in her, because of her drinking habit. So, she kind of drifted off. I'd still get in touch with her every once in a while, and then she would be gone. She didn't ask for nothing; didn't want nothing. But, I mean, after that, I got in touch with her seven years ago and we talked and then probably a year later she called me apologizing for everything that she did to us and wasn't there or anything,” David said. “Then, her sister called me,” David continued. “Two or three weeks ago, maybe longer, about her being in the hospital and they were putting her in a nursing home. After that, the next time they called me was when she had a heart attack. Then, they left everything pretty much up to me. The doctors called me on a Saturday and told me that she's still unresponsive for three days and had a little bit of brain damage and they probably didn't think she would come out of it because they asked me to take her off the ventilator, so I did,” David said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527010955575-BOCBQ2JQL2M5ZJL3VP2V/dpi+17+inch+Clarence+5438_DEC.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project December 2016: Clarence and Vickie walk home from a visit to the Catholic Ladies of Charity store where they received free clothing. Many of the poor and homeless in Quincy do not have the money to use a laundromat, wearing clothing until it nearly falls apart, in some cases. They rely on Ladies of Charity for the clean used clothing that is offered from clothing that isn’t sold in the retail thrift store through a once per month voucher system. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011493070-DLYSUD0FE8Q97KYREC6S/dpi+17inch+Poverty+APRIL_Clarence+april+14+2017+%288%29.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: Clarence and Vickie rest on a bench outside the $750-a-month motel. Vickie is carrying a bag of pastries she picked up at the Horizons Soup Kitchen. The couple rely on eating at the soup kitchen Monday through Friday and at Salem Church on Saturdays. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011123474-QJREUJGPP1DVM3RG2DI7/dpi+17+inch+FEB+Clarence_a.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: After eating lunch at the Horizons Soup Kitchen, Clarence and Vicki wait for a city bus to take them to their motel room. Quincy public transportation is an important service for those living in poverty, as many are without any other form of transportation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011897182-MT4IXWD46Q8V8DHTSRH3/dpi+17+inch+Clarence+Poverty+Edit+JUNE+201740.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project June 2017: Clarence explains to a Blessing Hospital emergency room nurse that he has had no relief from bed bug bites on his scalp and neck since March. Despite several trips to his doctor and the ER, the sores persisted. Some initial medication caused a severe burning sensation so the medication was changed. “It took probably four or five months to get the right medication,” Brenda said. “Clarence got to picking at them so bad that he had a big visible scars on the top of his head, on the side of his face, and everything.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011266057-MDYO3P0EUS8P0MR7JOA2/dpi+17inch++MARCH_Clarence_Bel_Air_e.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: Trying to escape the high cost of monthly motel room rentals, Clarence and Vickie found a rental trailer they liked but someone else had already rented it. The couple said when they complained about bed bugs at the motel where they rented a room for $500 a month they were asked to leave at the end of the month. Clarence then rented a room at another motel for $750 a month. Clarence said he checked into public housing, and said he would pay only $191 a month at the Lincoln-Douglas Apartments but there is a long waiting list. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527012206301-T35PWW4H74L2QXPCF8FU/dpi+17inch+Clarence+July_Cem08.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project July 2017: Clarence searches for Vickie’s burial plot in Green Mount Cemetery in Quincy. He’s heard Vickie’s remains may have been placed next to her parents’ grave, but thus far he’s been unable to find her. “Clarence just sits on the front porch mostly. He cries every day, missing Vickie,” Brenda says of Clarence, who was very active before her death. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527012012571-RWHR4BD7BG1HSA38SB0Z/dpi+17inch+Clarence+Nov.+2017_4192.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project November 2017: Clarence walks the fenced-in area at Sunset Nursing Home in Quincy. A psychiatrist at Blessing Hospital says Clarence’s disorientation (dementia symptoms) could easily be a temporary result of dehydration. However, Brenda and Ben have health problems of their own, making it difficult to take care of Clarence, so they ask about admitting Clarence into a nursing home. In his current state of confusion, Clarence believes people and institutions are trying to kill him. He’s constantly anxious. Because he was imagining people were trying to kill him, he stopped eating at home. Clarence went from 125 pounds in July, when Vickie died, to 97 pounds by November, only four months later. After nearly being placed into a nursing home far from Quincy by Blessing Hospital staff, against the family’s wishes, Clarence ultimately was admitted to Sunset Nursing Home in Quincy. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011019206-GUASDDO1NQX8OYFVQT56/dpi+17+inch++FEB+Clarence_Tats_c.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Clarence enjoys a Valentine’s Day meal at the Horizons Soup Kitchen. “I’d like a steak at the Golden Corral, but I can’t eat steak. I lost my false teeth two years ago — my dog found them in a chair and chewed them up." Although Clarence and Vickie rely on the Monday through Friday meals at Horizons, Clarence likes to take Vickie on a date out to eat, usually at McDonald’s on the first of the month after getting his monthly retirement check. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011532965-6CFYNRFPOBJ7GAZLPC0C/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Clarence++April+12+%26+13+2017+%282%29.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Clarence reaches out to help Vickie after she slid off the bed while putting on her shoes. A long-time alcoholic, Vickie is trying to apply for disability for leg and vision problems. She is still waiting for glasses and she needs lower dentures. Illinois Medicaid doesn’t pay for partial dentures, so she must get her remaining two lower teeth pulled before she can get the dentures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011432258-UYFSA6NL1CYBKR6JYIRZ/dpi+17inch+Poverty+APRIL_Clarence++April+12+%26+13+2017+%2819%29.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: Vickie washes up in the morning, as she and Clarence begin another day in the motel room Clarence is now renting for $750 a month. This cost doesn’t leave enough from Clarence’s monthly $930 retirement check to save deposits on a decent apartment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011934477-BBDE6ALONJJZSLXNGGB3/dpi+17inch+Clarence+Poverty+Edit+JUNE+201743.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project June 2017: Within weeks of not knowing anything about Vickie’s whereabouts, Clarence, depressed, is admitted to Blessing Hospital for dehydration. In July, Clarence is admitted to the hospital again. While there, Brenda says the nurses didn’t notice the change in Clarence’s blood pressure, which shot up to 201/115. “We were admitted to the hospital after being in the ER and waiting room for about eight hours,” Brenda said. By September, Brenda says Clarence was admitted to the hospital a third time with dehydration and pneumonia. “The doctor’s nurse called me and said Clarence was really confused. They told me he has dementia, then they found out he had a urinary tract infection.” By November, Clarence is admitted to Blessing Hospital again because of dehydration and confusion. After an argument with a social worker at the Blessing Hospital ER, Clarence, clearly disoriented, paranoid and confused, is admitted to the hospital and treated for dehydration. “With me not being able to find out anything from the hospital, I think it's kind of wrong, because here the woman was living with me for probably about a year, and then they just more or less shut me out of her life and I didn't like that. I wanted to be part of her life, so we was always helping each other and anything Clarence needed done, Vicki was right there to help him.” Brenda says she thinks what the hospital did was wrong. On Friday, July 20, 2017, Brenda notices Clarence is confused while at a local grocery store. Brenda says Clarence hasn’t been sleeping in the three weeks since Vickie was discharged from Blessing Hospital without information on her whereabouts. “His appetite just went down the drain. I’m really worried about his health,” Brenda said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527010756298-VX305BRHOX2P2VMHO52G/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Clarence+Vickie+portraits+april+9+2017+%281%29.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011168143-APJJGBUY0B73N0JNJKHS/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Clarence+April+21+2017+%286%29.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Holding a bra up to Clarence’s shirt, Vickie jokes with Clarence, calling him an “old goat,” as the two look through items on the “free table” at the Quincy Senior and Family Resource Center. At times, the couple collects aluminum cans, even cashing them out for less than a $3 payday, to help pay for necessities when they run out of money before the end of the month. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011577358-NRORB59DP1JWUTOV4XL4/dpi+17inch+Clarence+cemetery+April+15+2017+%283%29.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: Clarence and Vickie place ceramic angels from the Dollar Store on the grave of Vickie’s parents, and on the grave of Clarence’s son, Johnny. Clarence still struggles with the death of Johnny, who was only 18 months old in 1961 when a drunk driver swerved up onto a sidewalk, striking and killing the boy. “I miss him,” Clarence says. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011340056-BYGAY3I1X1KX9SGXPF35/dpi+17inch+MARCH_Clarence_Bel_Air_C_i.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: Vickie stands in the doorway of the motel she and Clarence lived in for a month. After finding bed bug bites on his scalp and body, Clarence asked for another room. Clarence said the manager then told them to leave at the end of the month. “I’m itching all night and I’m paying $500 a month," Clarence said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527344607140-L7BU1VCUPLOY1BAC4DJU/dpi+17inch+Clarence+July_00.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project July 2017: Within weeks of her death, Vickie receives a bill for her stay at a nursing following her release from Blessing Hospital. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527192275389-QF9UA4TGWMVCTZPEEBQ9/dpi+17inch+11_4_17+Clarence+4471.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project November 2017: Clarence sits on a bench in Washington Park. He says he’s not sure where he is. Disoriented, Clarence is admitted to Blessing Hospital for the fourth time in as many months, because of dehydration. After an argument with a social worker at the Blessing Hospital ER, Clarence, clearly disoriented, paranoid and confused, is admitted to the hospital and treated for dehydration. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527012059126-TTXXNXVI9GSERL036FCE/dpi+17inch+Clarence+Poverty+BJuly_11.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project July 2017: Minutes after learning that Vickie had died, Clarence retreats to his bedroom. “My heart stopped,” Clarence said. In the following weeks and months, Clarence slips into a depression leading to four hospitalizations in four months for dehydration. Clarence has spent every night walking about trying to find her only to end in tears. Unable to sleep, he barely eats. When he finally learned that Vicki has died, he responded that he did not want to live anymore. Clarence and Vickie were very close. Where you saw one, you saw the other. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011638555-78SV6WRRVV2DDV7WMN52/dpi+17inch+Poverty+APRIL_Brenda+%26+Ben+May+2+2017+%289%29.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: After experiencing two expensive motels, Clarence and Vickie return to living with Clarence’s niece, Brenda, and Brenda’s husband, Ben. “Andy (Clarence) and Vickie were staying with us once before,” Brenda says, “from I believe it was like September until around December, and we had another gal living with us, and the other gal started making all kinds of trouble. So, we kicked her out, and Clarence and Vickie thought they were going to get kicked out, too, so they went and got a motel room.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527011235198-ZQDBFMZO2SXF2IZGG6OX/dpi+17inch++MARCH_Clarence_Bel_Air_.jpg Clarence - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: Clarence zips up a jacket he bought for Vickie at a thrift store. Although Clarence owns only two pairs of pants and a couple of shirts, he occasionally buys Vickie nice but inexpensive clothing, toiletries, or other necessities for her out of his monthly retirement check. Many needed items are still out of reach. When Vickie’s purse was stolen with her glasses inside, she had to wait 11 months for replacement glasses. https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/dakota daily 0.75 2018-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527015380864-G9WXNPRBZNQ9XO3YPZ5G/dpi+FEB+06+17inch+122015DAKOTA+h.jpg Dakota - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Using the bathroom in some friend’s apartment, Dakota and Skyler color each other’s hair. “To people who are still homeless, what I can really say is run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must, but don’t ever give up, ever,” Dakota said. “Because no matter how despairing that situation can be, giving up makes it that much worse. People think about the homeless in stereotypes. They think they’re always dressed in rags or whatever but that’s really not the case. A homeless person could be your brother or sister. It could be anybody. There are so many misconceptions about what being homeless entails and what it really is. It’s a very sad feeling to know that the world still sees homeless people as more of a burden than anything else. It’s just not true. These are people who are unfortunate and who have been served a really crappy sandwich by life and they don’t really have any other option. Do you think that they’re happy to be in that situation? To be homeless. To be hungry, dirty, or outside? It’s just not the case,” Dakota said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527015125276-6P9J96WICTXR229VG762/dpi+17inch+FEB+15022015DAKOTA+d.jpg Dakota - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Dakota and Skyler wait outside for the Horizons Soup Kitchen to open for lunch. “Horizons Soup Kitchen did a lot to help us with food. They’re not open on the weekends, but Salem Church serves food on Saturdays. As far as Sunday is concerned, you better save up some food during the week, or you’ll go without. An organization that didn’t really help and I even ended up begging them for help and I hate to say this, but was the Salvation Army,” Dakota said. Dakota said he asked the Salvation Army for rent assistance or help with anything to try and get a roof over his head. “They did not help at all and I wanted to stay at their shelter. I can understand them being full, or them having literally no vacancies or anything. I didn’t receive any kind of assistance from them. Even a coat would have been nice.” Instead, Dakota turned to The Ladies of Charity who provided clothing. “Without them, we wouldn’t have had coats to get through the winter. Catholic Charities did a lot for us too. They did a lot more of the infant type aid, like baby formula and clothes.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527015412905-LM4ZPZYBM0NPNSIAKMFK/dpi+17inch+FEB_Dakota+weed+Feb.+21+2017+%281%29.jpg Dakota - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: “When I very first became homeless I was into the heavier drugs. I did try to commit suicide many times because I was afraid of what being homeless would and did entail," Dakota said. “I tried everything from K2 to injecting heroin. Homelessness leads to a lot of different things because you tried to find anything and everything to take you away from that current situation, to take just the vision of knowing that you don’t have anything or anyone at that point in time. It’s rather sad because you know you shouldn’t even feel like you have to turn to something so detrimental not only to your health but to everyone around you as well. I mean, being homeless, honestly the only thing I really did most of the time was to try find a cigarette and try to find a way to get high because I was so dissatisfied with my situation and how bad it was. I didn’t know any way out.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527014984042-Q78HR0V0BCELWKRF3YSN/dpi+17inch+FEB+03122015DAKOTA+q.jpg Dakota - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Dakota, 20, became homeless at age 16. Living in Hannibal, Mo., Dakota says he started doing a drug known as K2, or synthetic marijuana. When his father found out, Dakota says he kicked him out of the house. “He pretty much disowned me,” Dakota said. “Being poor and homeless teaches you how to survive.” Dakota says he came to Quincy involuntarily from Hannibal. “I was in the psych ward at Blessing Hospital for about two months. After I got out I didn’t really have anywhere else to go so I decided to stay in Quincy where I just roamed the streets and slept in abandoned houses. I tried anything I could to survive and find food.” Dakota says he relied on Horizons Soup Kitchen for food during the weekdays and Ladies of Charity to receive free, used but clean clothing each month to replace his dirty clothes which he had to wear for an entire month at a time because he couldn’t afford to do laundry. “You know, when you’re walking around, I mean you’re walking around in 103, 104 degrees heat and you can’t clean yourself. You can’t clean your clothes.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527015233179-H36S0G0R2N9Y3YC0ZYP1/dpi+17inch++FEB+03122015DAKOTA+m.jpg Dakota - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Dakota leaves the apartment that he shares with friends that took Skyler and him in for a few months. Previously, Dakota was living in an empty house that was up for sale until he was discovered by the owner. Soon after, Dakota says he was stabbed and robbed on the north side of Quincy which led to a bad infection and weeks of struggling to survive. “I got stabbed while I was sitting down smoking a cigarette,” said Dakota of the event. “When I got stabbed, I kind of fell back onto the sidewalk. I was more in shock than in pain. And, of course, the amount of blood. I couldn’t move my leg, so I dragged myself back to the abandoned house I was staying in. I was laying there on this couch that probably had more bedbugs in it than this entire earth. I had blood all over my leg, all over my jeans. It was running into my shoe. I got some water and table salt mixed together to clean the wound and covered it up with a dirty sock as a bandage. That worked for a little while until an infection settled in. Then I had to go to the hospital. I didn’t tell them exactly what happened,” Dakota said. “You know, being homeless, it’s a never-ending struggle. Once you do start to finally improve your life, you start to look back on it with fear, I mean definitely with respect. You look back and you think I don’t ever want to be there again.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527015203666-PHG8KAV0GIJVSUL1FR81/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Dakota+Jan+28+2018_287.jpg Dakota - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2018: After leaving Quincy for about a year and bouncing around from town to town Dakota and Skyler returned to Quincy where Dakota found a job. After a month-and-a-half wait, they found public housing. “The wait for public housing itself was a challenge. Them knowing that we had a newborn and that we didn’t really have any other options. I had to call them every single day after work to see where we were at on the list,” Dakota said. “Getting into housing is a milestone for sure, but there’s plenty of people still on that waiting list that are still outside in the middle of the wintertime and it’s ridiculous. It’s a very sad situation. To put it bluntly, our government puts a lot of money towards things that we don’t need necessarily and don’t help people who actually need it.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527015146188-JA8IHT37Y0HA2ZZREL5V/dpi+17inch+FEB+06122015DAKOTA+i.jpg Dakota - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Dakota reaches out to touch Skylar’s stomach, as she is now pregnant. “Throughout her entire pregnancy it was hard to find food, especially for myself. I made sure that those two, her and my son, were provided for but at much expense physically to myself, mentally and emotionally even. There were days when I’d have to go one to two, sometimes three days without eating just so I didn’t take up more food than we’d had,” Dakota said. “I lost, I don’t know, 60-70 pounds. I went from almost 200 pounds at one time to 133 now. The longest that I ever went without food was just under two weeks. After the first couple of days of not eating your stomach will start to have that cramp. Then there will be vomiting and diarrhea and it steadily gets worse.” Dakota said that at one point he resorted to eating his fingernails. “You know, when people walk by you and see you in that state and just walk by like it’s part of your everyday routine it’s ridiculous. I can remember crying and just looking like a concentration camp survivor at that point. I can remember eating things that I don’t necessarily think the average person would eat including leftover food, leftover garbage, whatever I needed after not being able to find anything especially in the wintertime. That is the very worst time to not have food when you’re homeless,” Dakota said. Homeless, struggling for food and shelter Dakota recounts winter hardships. “It didn’t matter how much I put on or how much old clothes I found, there was no way to keep warm. You start to shiver and shake. You can’t keep your hands still anymore. You can’t even concentrate or think when you’re that hungry. It’s an absolutely horrid experience that I don’t think anyone on earth should have to experience, ever.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/david daily 0.75 2018-08-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527083116384-VC4UZSM3T18RV6ENWDQ9/_dpi+17inch+FEB+01122015David_Carter_c.jpg David - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: David says he’s stuck out in the middle of nowhere. "Other people get help that they need, and that's a good thing. But I do know that there are some who fall through the cracks of the red tape of bureaucracy. ... It's like nothing applies to them. Then it all just goes to, in my mind, to survival." “It's really kind of saddening for me because a lot of places and stuff, 'Oh yeah, we're gonna help, we're gonna help,' and they do to a point, and then it just ... That's the end of it. What is to come along after that to help, to be beneficial? I feel that I run into a brick wall, a roadblock. And another one, and another one and another one. And it shouldn't be like that. It really shouldn't.” David sleeps outdoors often when he can’t arrange to stay with friends. David recently had cataract surgery, but his vision remains blurred because he can’t afford glasses, and Medicaid will only pay for glasses every two years. He must wait until December 2018 to qualify. David says he once stayed at the Fishers of Men shelter in Quincy, but a manager there asked him to flush his prescribed pain pills down the toilet so the manager wouldn’t be tempted to steal and use the pills himself. David then decided it was time to leave. “I became homeless three years ago. Medical problems, financial problems, poor relationships and loss of jobs -- a chain of events -- made it to where the only alternative I have is shelters, missions and camping out,” he said. David says things happen to him that he can’t always foresee or prepare for. “There’s probably a lot of people who face things beyond their control. People end up in situations like mine. It becomes a circle of survival. You gotta stay warm, you gotta stay clean, you gotta eat,” David says. “I find that even when I wasn't in this situation that I took a lot of these things for granted because it's just an everyday thing and that's what, you know, I was there. To turn around and have the world upside down, it's not all there. So you have to obligate your time to these things. I find that I don't really think a lot of people understand the roughness of these things gone … just simple little things, gone. You have to improvise and trade this thing for that to take care of things.” David said doctors have told him he has bipolar chronic depression and have labeled him a "chronic homeless.” “I have some anger issues, some other things that are happening that I really don't understand,” he said. “I’ve got vision problems. Got back and neck problems from an accident. Depression. I get depressed. Anxiety level. I don't wanna be around anybody. I don't like being closed in and indoors, small spaces. I have a real problem with medications. A psychiatrist might want to prescribe you a medication that has odd side effects, only in a certain percentage of test subjects. That scares me because if I have another medical problem with another doctor, and I'm not supposed to take that kind of medication, then there's a problem. More stress, more anxiety. Then after the doctors and the prescriptions and everything, then I find that there's times you can't afford it, even with your copays and that type of thing.” David says obtaining housing is pretty difficult. “Most everything is privately owned or state or city property,” he said. “You gotta be real careful. You don't wanna be camping out on somebody’s property without permission. That's go to jail, criminal trespassing. You’ll end up in court, fines, jail time. I had to be real selective of where I camp out because I don't want a whole lot of traffic in the middle of the night. Safety. Place that's dry. Wintertime. Dry, snow, rain. A lot of these things are real detrimental. You gotta have certain amounts of equipment, blankets, that type of thing. Stay warm, stay dry. “Last time I heard statistically, there's about 1,800 hypothermia-related deaths in the United States a year. You have to be pretty much aware, pretty much survival conscious, to be able just to deal with the elements. Not even worrying about the human element that may be lurking around out there. Bigger the city, more dangerous it is. Of course any town or city's dangerous. You never know what another individual might have going through their mind or what they wanna do.” David has tried staying at the Salvation Army. “There’s the possibility, this time of year in the winter months and bad weather, they stay pretty full,” he said. “I don't really think that they have enough accommodations for the amount of people who actually are out there living through this.” David is confident things will get better. “At least I'm gonna try my best to make that happen for me,” he said. “I'd like to see more people become aware and not have a blind eye against an epidemic that we've had in this country for years. People being broke, poor, in poverty. On the streets. Begging for handouts. Just trying to survive. “It's something that's not going away. A lot of people say, "Well, we gotta help, we gotta help. Let's put a Band-Aid on it.” Hey, maybe it's time that people looked around, opened their eyes. Instead of putting a Band-Aid on a broken arm, let's put it in a cast and fix it. This is America. There shouldn't be 1,800 people dying in this country from hypothermia in the wintertime because they're living out on the streets. Sixty-four percent of them are men. This is America. I mean, it shouldn't be this way.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/dennis daily 0.75 2019-11-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527084511009-64AXZUNXT3Z03IF247DW/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Dennis+5921_DEC.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project December 2016: Dennis collects his bag as he heads out of his tiny apartment to panhandle. Dennis served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War and says he’s worked all over the country in various jobs, including house painter, bridge builder, home builder, pipe layer, and general construction. “As far as how I survive after my injury — it’s like the Beatles, I get by with a little help from my friends. It’s the truth. Everybody needs a friend. Something to fall back on, but not to become a burden.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1530189914962-79YNDFD3TVLH848ULXZ5/13inch+Poverty+Dennis+June+26+20181249.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project June 2018: Dennis displays a rat he said he caught in his Quincy, apartment. Other tenants shared similar stories. "I was sitting on my bed watching TV when I saw one come out, and then another. When I turned on the lights, I counted at least seven of them." Dennis says he keeps dry foods in his refrigerator to keep the rats out of it, but they found a way to get in there too. "I'm afraid to report this to the health department, because they might condemn the apartment and I'll have no place to go," Dennis said. Using the disability income he began receiving earlier this year, within a few weeks, Dennis manages to find a different place to live. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527087037716-VQIO0TXLIISPVIEOJ64J/dpi+17inch_FEB+DENNIS_dunpster_a.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Wearing nearly new shoes, pants, and parka, Dennis exits a dumpster behind a Maine Street faith-based thrift store where he retrieved the clothes he is wearing a few days earlier. The dumpster is a well-known place to find nearly new name brand clothing and sometimes brand new clothing with the store price tags still on them. Hundreds of perfectly good items like clothing, warm coats, children books, luggage, and other household goods are tossed into the dumpster headed for a landfill on a regular basis. As he was leaving, a thrift store employee steps out to tell him to stay out of the dumpster. “At first when I started (dumpster diving), I felt like when somebody comes out to tell me, ‘Hey, you can’t do that,’ that’s like telling a possum ‘get out of my trash.’ I’m homeless but I’m not helpless … I’m only poor because of the injury I suffered back in August. Before then, I didn’t go into dumpsters. But you have to do what you have to do to make ends meet.” Dennis questions why a faith-based thrift store throws away clean, usable things people in need could use. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527346768180-I5932DV7HOAKQWGJW68C/dpi+17inch+FEB+DENNIS_class_a.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Dennis takes notes during a “life skills” class offered by a local social services program. He is promised help with finding housing and other services. However, Dennis says he didn't receive the promised help. The person conducting the classes was later arrested for drug possession and theft. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527087765862-14WQEH4C7MQJ0TAANLUH/dpi+17inch+Dennis+Nov.+2_2017_4442.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project November 2017: Visibly thinner two months after his diagnosis of lung cancer, Dennis walks home from a doctor’s appointment. He weighed 145 pounds in September and now weighs 110 pounds. Dennis says the demolition work he’s done for years probably contributed to the cancer. “They do things illegal all the time.” Now Dennis has stopped working his demolition job, and says he’s too weak to walk Levi. “I’ve had no food for two days. I’m in pain. I can’t deal with this pain anymore today.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527087169172-P69RM56JCDBTGISAKRPP/dpi+17inch++FEB+Dennis+dog+bleed2_a.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Dennis tries to calm his dog, Levi, after Levi chewed on a razor and cut his paw. A friend took Levi to a veterinarian at Four Paws in Quincy who treated Levi and provided his needed shots for free. “I acquired Levi when he was a month old from an Amish family. They gave him to me as a present. He’s my companion, he’s my guard dog, he’s my best friend I don’t know what I would do without him. If I have to make a choice between me or my dog eating, my dog’s gonna eat." “There’s been times when I was wanting to go ahead and check out. Nobody’s gonna miss me. But Levi seems to bring me back to my senses, because I don’t know what’ll happen with him after I’m gone. He’s so loyal that if I was to walk out on a bridge and jump, he’d hit the water first to make sure he caught me. If I had a good friend like Levi, I would never have to question their trust, their friendship, to me. That’s one thing about Levi, I don’t never have to worry about turning my back, because he’s got me 360 degrees.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527084208770-MLUQJSZAPQ7Y06IZFQDC/dpi+17inch+Denis+7382_OCT_.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project October/November 2016: Since his injury in August, Dennis is working 30 hours a month for Township of Quincy General Assistance picking up trash to obtain $250 a month in rental assistance. He said he was then suspended from receiving assistance because he didn’t turn in work applications on time. “I was on their program, and I was given a list, a paper. It’s a sign-off sheet for different companies, businesses, it’s an employment sign-off sheet. It was really cold on Thursday, I remember. I didn’t feel like running around filling out the applications. So I knew my appointment was on Monday morning at 8:30 to turn in my sign-off sheets. Well, I collected all my applications, like 12 of them filled them all out Thursday night. Friday morning, I got up to put it all together and get all my paperwork, and I couldn’t find my sign-off sheet. I called General Assistance. They were closed. It was Veterans Day. “Monday morning I go in…to hand in my sign-off sheet, and I explained … I think I left it at one of the restaurants where I was filling out applications. The lady there (at General Assistance) told me because I hadn’t turned in the sign-off sheet, that I was gonna be suspended from the program for 90 days, which they did. I told her if she could just give me another sign-off sheet I could have it back to her by 12 o’clock noon because most of the companies were right there at the mall and on the east side of Quincy, out in the industrial parks and stuff. … If they’d been at work on a Friday, Veterans Day, I could have gotten a sign-off sheet and I would’ve been all right for Monday. But they suspended me for three months, and that’s what started the snowball escalating into an avalanche.’’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527084557750-3QFWR352REZ2GCRRHMVK/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Dennis+5742_DEC.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project December 2016: For months, only one of two community bathrooms was in working order in Dennis’ apartment house, shared by seven units. Dennis said in one 10-day period, both bathrooms were unusable after water pipes in the building froze. Human excrement and urine were left in the toilet bowls, attracting cockroaches. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527084129129-UA9F2ZOKO3GO4U5IK0SV/dpi+17inch+Dennis_8303.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527087801016-4K8ZMUZCR8VMV2P2BJZH/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Dennis+12-11-17_014.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project January 2018: While standing outside the Horizons Food Pantry, Dennis tucks his shirt in. Dennis is awarded Social Security disability benefits of $500 a month, because of the cancer consuming his body. He used some of money from his first paycheck to buy a new pair of pants and shirt, for the first time after more than a year of living in hardship. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527087488331-MHZ6Z199O1SUHXMHPYNC/dpi+17inch+Dennis+poverty+Aug.CJuly_05.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project August 2017: Dennis rents an efficiency apartment for $250 a month. “It’s an old, old building. I mean, as long as the roof’s still standing, I got a place to sleep. Well, plaster’s falling off the walls, floor’s sinking, the ceiling’s sinking in. My refrigerator probably has been there for the last 50 years. It’s got rats, which I don’t mind. They don’t bother me. Cockroaches are often seen in the hallway in the daylight. Some residents refer to the place as “the slaughterhouse” because it’s rumored the building once housed a meat-processing business. The floor’s had a dip ever since I moved in. I told the manager the floor needed to be fixed. He assured me it would be fixed, but it never got fixed. Over two years it’s just gotten worse and worse.”Although Dennis points out issues with the building, he is grateful the manager has worked with him while he was in arrears on his rent. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527087828187-2A4SHFZ0H3A74J546YUN/dpi+17inch+Dennis+Oct+23+17+4180.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project November 2017: After the annual free Thanksgiving meal at the Kroc Center, Dennis shows the burns on his back from radiation therapy. With nobody to take care of him at home, he does his best to keep the burn areas from getting infected. And he is coughing up blood again. Dennis says he's grateful Blessing Hospital paid the $189 for medicated ointment he needs to heal the wound. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527084458119-GWNUSWXZQMOJHASEZMIF/dpi+17inch+Dennis+4113_NOV_.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project November 2016: Dennis speaks with Quincy Mayor Kyle Moore, who explains he has no authority to get Dennis reinstated in the General Assistance program. The mayor suggests Dennis try seeking help from veteran’s organizations and churches. But churches do not generally offer rental assistance. After calling three churches that said they couldn’t help, Dennis gave up. “You know, we can swing a hammer. We can read a tape measure. We just need a chance to work and get off the street. We’re not bums. If we were we never would have put on the uniform. But Quincy doesn’t do enough for the veterans. They do their song and parade and they march up and down the street and shake your hand and say, ‘Thank you for serving,’ but that’s as far as it goes. Words. Words don’t put food on a table, and words don’t put a roof over their heads, and it doesn’t help them with psychological issues, you know.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527086984977-XGTXZ8QIQDDIOWZHS00G/dpi+17inch+Deninis+7737_JAN.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project January 2017: After a long day of running errands, gathering discarded cigarettes and panhandling, Dennis shares his day with a friend living a couple of doors down the hall in his apartment complex https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527272655806-B9GLSC7G32OU9FIBBJG5/dpi+17inch+Dennis_B%26W_4789.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: With the bag of discarded unsmoked cigarette butts he collected from ash-tray receptacles around town, Dennis rolls a day’s supply of smokes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527087878486-T6DNOO46K2TPE6BTOIY0/dpi+17inch+Dennis+poverty+Aug.F_+%281%29.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project August 2017: Late one night, Dennis tries to repair the door to his apartment, but the frame isn’t square, which makes it difficult. Dennis is concerned about the possibility of someone breaking into his apartment, so he keeps his guitar in a local pawn shop, where it will be safely stored. “The traffic has slowed down. Before it was like they were all standing in line waiting to use the bathroom to shoot up. We’ll always have a dope dealer, dope people and cops chasing people through one door and out the other. That’s why I got a dog, to keep people away from my door.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527087638173-VVLX31LYIIALUOEHX9UP/dpi+17inch+Dennis+Oct.+2017+4003.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project September 2017: "My doctor said don’t go to work the day they put my medication port in” (he receives morphine by IV to reduce pain). Dennis went to work anyway, saying “Nobody is going to come to my apartment with the rent money. Now that I have cancer, I don’t think I can go back to panhandling.” Dennis talks about his childhood and how his father would beat him across the back with barbed wire until he would urinate in his pants. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527087292719-V58WBIGOAE2FV1D8EKEF/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Dennis+snipes+April+28+2017.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: “The rain killed all the snipes.” Dennis picks up a discarded partially smoked cigarette, referred to as a snipe. He and many others in poverty collect the unsmoked portion of cigarettes that they then extract and roll into their own cigarettes. Addiction to nicotine transcends social and economic circumstances. Those living in poverty often simply find creative ways to collect free discarded tobacco. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527345263646-LHO3619JLMK95N31X4IP/dpi+17inch+FEB+DENNIS_dunpster_e.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Dennis fishes out this bag of men's suits from the dumpster behind a faith-based thrift store on Maine Street in Quincy. While Dennis and many others can't afford to buy clothes, or even afford to do laundry, it's common to find hundreds of items like brand-name, clean, new, and nearly new clothing and other items like luggage, shoes, and children's books in very good to excellent condition in the store's dumpsters on a regular basis. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527087363733-UWLUSMSBUU6TZJ62JLE7/dpi+17inch+MARCH_DENNIS_Finger_c.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: Dennis had doctors at the VA hospital in Iowa amputate his injured finger so he could find work. “Through therapy I could have saved my finger, but at this point with it being paralyzed like it is, I’m having an issue with being able to go back to work. God said if your right eye offends you, pluck it out. Well, it didn’t offend me, but it was keeping me from being what I wanted to be — employed. I have to work until the day I die I’ll even help dig my own gave as long as y’all fill it in afterwards.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527087439387-6P105UR5Y3W9KOMB9H2J/dpi+17inch+Dennis+June+2017+EDITS05.jpg Dennis - Quincy IL Poverty Project June 2017 Within weeks of having his finger amputated so he could find work, Dennis lands a demolition job paying $9 an hour. “I had to go back to work. I gotta pay my bills. If not, I’m homeless and I sleep on the street and I wake up with a blanket, people staring down at me with a blanket over me. I don’t want that. If I can work — that’s all I ever knew. You’ve got to work for your keep.” Even after being promoted to job superintendent three weeks later, Dennis says his boss is two weeks behind paying him. Within a few more weeks, after spitting up blood, Dennis learns he has inoperable lung cancer. Dennis doesn’t tell his boss about the caner, fearing he will lose his job, and keeps on working, even on days he has chemo treatments. https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/elizabeth daily 0.75 2018-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527088568936-HLFR1RP66FJ34TKLLNA8/dpi+17inch+Elizabeth+2873.jpg Elizabeth - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Elizabeth breaks down in tears as one of several volunteers with trucks arrive to help her after learning of her plight on social media. “I was cold. I was really tired. It was 1 in the morning. My son had come over for a little while and had put some very heavy things on the U-Haul. How can you be organized when they take everything out of your house, when you're not there when they do it? And then nothing is packed in boxes except for the few I had packed? They're just thrown in a pile. My clothes are all wet. My clean work clothes of seven white shirts and about six pairs of white pants and three aprons are all soaked. Loading that U-Haul, I'm 55. I really don’t have aches and pains but I was pretty damn tired lifting all those heavy boxes. I was there all night long,” Elizabeth said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527193000870-MJMK1MKG5Z2FW3OLA5QF/dpi+17inch+Elizabeth+2863.jpg Elizabeth - Quincy IL Poverty Project https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527088475045-KICDDRWGOYWCIUQCG62E/dpi+17inch+May_Elizabeth+May+1+2017+%2812%29.jpg Elizabeth - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: Overcome with emotion, Elizabeth rests on her rain-soaked, antique piano, now a total loss. She said at age 36 she wanted to learn how to play piano and searched until she found one she could afford and took piano lessons. "I was saying goodbye to my old friend," she said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527088496484-PQMM28PFFTZ2OTIDL90O/dpi+17inch+MAY_Elizebeth+April+29+2017+%286%29.jpg Elizabeth - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Elizabeth is suddenly homeless. After working sleepless through the night, Elizabeth rummages through her belongings the following Saturday morning. She says she lost her home of 20 years because of about $2,000 in unpaid property taxes. She says she tried to fight the takeover in the courts, but when she lost, movers for the new owners arrived with sheriff’s deputies and set everything she owned out in the rain. She says trying to save her home from being taken out from underneath her, consumed her life night and day since July 24, 2016, when she first saw the legal notice in the newspaper. Assuming her mortgage lender had paid the 2012 property taxes, Elizabeth says she was on a sabbatical from work to take care of her 84 year-old-mother who had a broken back when she discovered in a newspaper her name and that they were filing to take her property. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527088756421-EXDMKN9NJX664D539ETU/dpi+17inch+May_Elizabeth+May+1+2017+%281%29.jpg Elizabeth - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: Three days after being evicted from her home of 20 years, Berrian Elementary School third-grade students deliver May Day flowers to Elizabeth, as they have for years throughout the neighborhood. She takes a short break from gathering her belongings to bask in the memory of receiving this special blessing from the children all these years knowing this will be the last time. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527088775892-JPLWVKRYO8ZFH4XV3MBL/dpi+17inch+Elizabeth+2930.jpg Elizabeth - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Family photographs and cherished letters lay waste in the heavy rains that persisted Saturday and Sunday as Elizabeth and volunteers struggled to load and transport her things to rental storage which was paid for by the generosity of volunteers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527088668645-TM1K7BQ6IT8WXQ1PSLRN/dpi+17inch+May_Elizabeth+May+1+2017+%286%29.jpg Elizabeth - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: The marks Elizabeth placed on her piano keys years ago when she began taking lessons are still visible after her treasured "friend" was left to ruin in the rain. https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/james daily 0.75 2018-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096129956-D4GYZWRX7KPIQGP2MMG9/dpi+17inch+James+SH_8416_NOV_.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project November 2016: James eats canned goods and potato chips for his Thanksgiving meal at “the slaughterhouse” where he rents a small room for $100 a month. The small room has a twin bed, a lawn chair and a cooler for a refrigerator. He shares two common bathrooms with six other tenants, but for months only one is in working order. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096808316-SJ2V8D5N4QI29PV4A73N/dpi+17inch+James+poverty+Aug.A_+%286%29.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project July 2017: James dresses himself in the morning behind a wall near Maine Street where he slept the night before. After someone stole his tent weeks earlier, James is reduced to sleeping on a concrete pad secluded near a small parking lot. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096402093-B1XMYE70WBTYQI33T7XI/dpi+17inch_James+April+26+2017+%2814%29.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: James walks through Quincy’s South Park looking for a hidden-away spot to set up his tent. James was renting a room at the Welcome Inn the past five days but left because “there were too many drugs going on there. “ I’ve had nothing but pain and anguish since coming to Quincy, from L.A. this time around, he says. “ I have to figure out what to eat tonight.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527095965916-UXZ3EV4HOR2K2H8K2F2C/dpi+17inch+Poverty+APRIL_James+Friday+night+april+7+2017.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096179898-8LH2Z1QNC82VRIHZDASE/dpi+17inch+MARCH_JAMES_slaughter_C_.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: James says his apartment building should be torn down. “It’s got bugs, mice and rats. This place is like wide open 24/7 and people come in and out. Sometimes they get high and have sex, sometimes just simply to use a bathroom, and nobody gives a damn. It’s a disgrace. I don’t need to be here, but I can’t find help getting a place I can afford.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096531086-STILMU6OV55HRCD9DF8K/dpi+17inch_James+April+25+2017+%284%29.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: After sleeping the night tucked into a small enclave on Maine Street, James hopes to find a spot to set up a cheap tent he purchased recently from Wal-Mart. “I let myself get bogged down with all this stuff this time after living in an apartment for five months.” He struggles with carrying a backpack, suitcase and grocery bags of belongings. “After living in that efficiency apartment, my body isn’t used to this … staying outside.” Within a week, James got rid of the large suitcase. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096229794-DS9RYG0USZUQKTX02T6N/dpi++17inch+Poverty+APRIL_James+April+27+2017++%281%29.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: James awakens in front of Catholic Charities on Maine Street and wraps himself in his sleeping bag to stave off the morning chill. “I prefer hot weather over cold. I’ll soak a T-shirt in water and put that on at night. I’ll sleep like a baby.” James will gather up his things quickly to avoid being approached by police. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096574703-4XBBI1R70R76O3Y9R6D5/dpi+17inch+MAY_James+May+7+2017.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: James washes up in a public restroom. “I know what it’s like to be hungry and freezing.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096710158-3J5JU8E82YU8HQ4E7KXI/dpi+17inch+James+EDIT+May+11+plus002.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: Hidden on a small brushy piece of land in the District, James wakes from a restless night. “My joints and muscles used to be strong, but now I ache all the time.” His tent was later stolen when he had to abandon it for a week after suffering a serious leg injury. His tent and belongings, including his Bible, are gone. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096749300-I0FZFJUSQ4B91ULH9WYN/dpi+17inch+James+June+2017+EDITS03.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project June 2017: James rests at the Welcome Inn after he injured a leg in a fall on a sidewalk. “It felt like somebody picked me up and slammed me to the concrete.” He went to the emergency room. “It ached and throbbed, but they wouldn’t give me anything for the pain.” The Salvation Army gave him a voucher for the Welcome Inn room. “I’m ignoring not having anything to eat today. I was supposed to get my Social Security check on the first, but something’s wrong with my SSI card, so my bank says it will take 7-10 days to straighten things out, so now I’ll have to go at least a week without any money.” The knee brace cost James his last $60. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527347711852-TQML8PCML6PJWZQ5UOFB/dpi+17inch+James+Poverty+BJuly_08.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project July 2017: James arranges a bed in a spare bedroom of a friend. He manages to stay at the location for only a few days until he leaves, because of the number of people using drugs and crashing at the residence. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096445990-Q8WFMYHUH5VHRTBEIPCH/dpi+17inch+_James+April+27+2017+too+%281%29.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017:After weeks of living outside, James is invited to borrow a bedroom from a friend for a couple of nights. “These mattresses are too soft, they will kill my back.” Grateful for a roof over his head, James decides to stay and sleep on the floor. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096486794-QTZMUU7GA1KI594HIKU8/dpi+17inch_James+April+13+2017+%281%29.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: After a sleepless night, James rests his head on a table at the Horizons Soup Kitchen. “You have to accept the fact, damn. The more you resist knowing the fact that you’re homeless, the worse it can be for you mentally and emotionally.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096663866-C0D4SYNHJH2RPGGGDQTC/dpi+17inch+James+EDIT+May+11+plus019.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: During the week of the Gus Macker Tournament in Quincy, James sifts through garbage looking for an extra plastic bag to replace one that is torn. James says once a Quincy police officer was going to take him to jail while he was getting food out of a dumpster, but when another officer intervened, he was only given a ticket for having a hole in the backside of his pants. He says he has to go to court over that. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527347301918-578WPZTO9CNVURUSRIXI/dpi+17inch+MAY_James+tent+May+6+2017+%282%29.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: After searching for more than an hour, James finds a suitable spot in South Park to pitch his tent. He'll be discovered within days by someone walking his dog and decides to find a better secluded area. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096382697-UKARWJNURASUYCA588RC/dpi+17inch+Poverty_James+April+12+2017.jpg James - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: James finishes a cigar early one morning after sleeping in a cedar grove next to the History Museum. “Man, it was cold last night. I ain’t used to this shit.” A few days later, police officers told him he had to leave. “They were nice about it but now I have to find a new place to stay.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/james-kyle daily 0.75 2018-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097298327-4AL8JV193VNWMM6JGWMW/dpi+17inch+James+1979_JULY.jpg James K. July 2016: James applies medicine to a wound on the face of a friend. James says he likes helping people. “Just buying things from certain people that need money is another way I help them out. Even though I don't have much I still do it to, just to help them out so they can get what they need. But it's making it harder on me cause I'm not watching what I'm doing and getting more careless with it and putting more people before myself. A friend of mine that has a three-year-old daughter needed help with the electric bill, so I took $50 out of my check and a $40 winning lottery ticket and gave it to her to help feed and keep the electricity on for that little girl,” James said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097782162-Y77AKTF1KX13AQR0Q3NE/dpi+17inch+Poverty+James+1733_JULY_.jpg James K. July 2016: Wearing a long sleeve coat in the heat of the day to protect against poison ivy, James clears brush for someone he met recently. James says he offers to help people with odd jobs. He says he doesn’t ask to be paid anything, but usually receives tips. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097524281-G02I2LS3O7ZZ5QMWSPZ5/dpi+17inch+James+4155_SEPT.jpg James K. September 2016: James is exhausted after a series of restless nights. “The last few months I ain’t been sleeping hardly at all, and I don’t know why. I think it’s my insomnia kicking in again. I’ll sleep wherever I can. Last week I stayed at a friend's house that didn't work out, so I slept in the gazebo in Washington Park two nights in a row. I slept over at another park and then I stayed in my wooded area, or under the bridge. If I'm under the bridge, I gotta make sure all the rocks are out of the way, so I don't cut myself or poke myself while I'm asleep, and just preparing myself where I can see, so if I hear a noise, I can be at a vantage point where I can see all around me and make sure it's nobody coming up on me.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097077657-MYMEDNKZJONN16WA5EX5/dpi+17inch+James+1175_AUG_.jpg James K. August 2016: Tired, with blisters on his feet from walking all over town, James and a girlfriend wait in line at the Horizons Soup Kitchen for a hot meal. James says all he has to do is clean and cook to stay with her. After about a week, the relationship ended and James was back out on the street. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527349041132-CD040GWE8XUTSWNV2P2V/dpi+17inch+Poverty+James+7901_NOV_.jpg James K. September 2017: On a warm afternoon, James hangs out with friends at Washington Park, while waiting to meet a friend he met online. He will sell his phone for some cash, so he'll have some spending money until the first of the month. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527348763716-LNAXKXCRRTM540I0ZTOQ/dpi+17inch+James+3476_NOV_.jpg James K. November 2017: James walks to the public bathrooms at Washington Park and finds the facility is closed for the winter months. The bathroom at the park serves as a restroom and a place to clean up for those who are homeless in Quincy. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097960891-E5G058W08P095O7FTZKU/dpi+17inch+poverty+James_2_B%26W3790.jpg James K. November 2016: Without warning, James has a seizure while staying with acquaintances who are renting by the week at the Welcome Inn. The two hold James down so he can’t hurt himself. The couple took James in for a few nights, after he paid for a room for a week. That was after someone stole his sleeping bag and pillows from under a bridge where he had been staying. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527096977487-CUT3T5TJMFOWADQQNS3T/dpi+17inch+James+17inch+4998_SEPT_.jpg James K. September 2016: James and a girlfriend snuggle for warmth while spending a cold, rainy fall evening sleeping under a bridge. “I’ve actually prepared and got clothes hidden now in different places so if I get wet, I know they're dry and I can go to those places and get my dry clothes. But it's difficult preparing for something like this cause with mother nature, you never know when she's gonna let go. I go through Ladies of Charity to get my clothes each month.” James says the Quincy Housing Authority (a Section 8 public housing agency) has a three month waiting list. “It’ll be winter before I can find a place to stay through them,” he says. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527186673181-YZP64O7XH96HC0WF40VJ/dpi+DSCF3321_NOV_.jpg James K. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527349652611-VAG7VQPMP3I86Q2IU09O/dpi+17inch+Poverty+James+2486_AUG_.jpg James K. August 2017: Escaping the rain, James has moved his meager belongings to an area under a local bridge where he will remain dry. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097152118-OQJZGR4KVMBR1KWLMN2E/dpi+17inch+James+1744_AUG_.jpg James K. August 2016: Just two days after being released from the hospital for dehydration, James is again admitted to the hospital for treatment of pneumonia. James said he was “chewed out” by an ER representative for showing up too often. James says a month later he went to the ER with a burning sensation in his chest and his throat was closing up. “I didn’t have my EpiPen and wanted to be sure I wasn’t having an allergic reaction, but the ER care coordinator said I shouldn’t be coming to the ER for that.” James says he has allergies related to bee stings, seafood, iodine, cherries, pineapple, and coconut that can be life-threatening. “The Blessing care coordinators in the emergency room, have pulled me in their office, saying that six times is too many times to be in an emergency room a month. I told them half the time it's because I'm having seizures and people are mandated to call an ambulance at the places I'm at. My seizure medication isn’t working, so I’ve been having more seizures. I had ambulances come, I’ve been woke up from the side of the road by the police and others calling the ambulance thinking I was dead. I’ve got a severe seizure disorder. Sometimes, I get a warning when one is coming on and sometimes I don’t. And they're still saying that's too much for me to be there. So now if I have a seizure the ambulance shows up, I just sign the paper and I refuse treatment. Even though I was at Blessing for dehydration and in-patient for two days for pneumonia, they still say that, I'm trying to think of the word they used, ‘abusing the ER privileges,’ is what they said over the phone to me the last time I talked to them.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097397768-7D7JQE0R04ESUPZB56OH/dpi+17inch+Poverty+James+Toned2085.jpg James K. August 2016: Meeting a friend at a local laundromat, James wipes sweat from his face. “I learned my grandmother died today. I cried for 30 minutes,” James said. “It’s faith that keeps me going, I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097821858-ITHXI4D2IR0V1VEKT7JQ/dpi+17inch+Poverty+James+8235_JAN.jpg James K. January 2017: James makes a call on his cell phone. Many in poverty qualify for an “Obama phone,” a basic cell phone with limited monthly minutes. With the lack of existing public pay phones, it’s essential to have a personal cell phone to make and keep appointments, seek housing, jobs or assistance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097594364-RZKOLR177F7MSE4KK04X/dpi+17inch+James+4637_NOV.jpg James K. January 2017: James stands in the center off his room in an apartment he now subleases with friends. After nearly a year of being homeless, James seems to have found a place that may work out for him. “I’ve come a long way from my little spot in the woods,” James said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097257788-YN3IPFSYUIIXED78UAA7/dpi+17inch+James+Aug.+2016+.jpg James K. August 2016: During a break from making rounds to the food pantries in town, James takes a moment to play with a friend’s dog. James says he likes to write poems, but then his depression kicks in and his whole mood changes. “My mood goes from upbeat to down low, almost suicidal thoughts,” he says. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097914385-GIL94FC7IVHGQT0I9446/dpi+17inch+Poverty+James+Toned1515.jpg James K. June 2016: James sleeps outside in a small brushy area within The District where he fends off mosquitoes and unexpected rain showers. James says he recently got caught in a storm and tried to cover up with his sleeping bag but got soaked. He has been trying to live off his $373 a month in food and cash assistance since April, 2016, when he became homeless after he says his mom remarried and moved to another state without him. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097023712-XUOBCZSM6SRM286S8Y0A/dpi+17inch+James+0207_AUG_.jpg James K. August 2016: James helps a friend tear down a motorcycle for parts. “I just try and help out whoever I can. If I see somebody needing help, I’ll stop and do it. I don’t even have to be paid for it; it’s giving me something to do to help others,” James said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097988946-5KNKM2ZGHWW7CHKBQ46G/dpi+James+17inch+0861_AUG_.jpg James K. August 2016: Walking back from moving his meager belongings from one spot to a drier spot in the anticipation of rain, friends try to help straighten-out James’ dislocated knee. James says, “no matter what situation you’re facing, its always best to keep your eyes fixed ahead towards the brighter light and it will always get better.” That’s what this whole thing is about, helping each other.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097681666-YF86SED8KTLU2X4BMAC0/dpi+17inch+James+3642_NOV_.jpg James K. November 2016: On a cold November morning, James makes his way to Catholic Charities for a cup of hot coffee. A week earlier James said he was attacked and struck in the face. Hiding for three days to recover, James missed his opportunity for a free meal Thursday and Friday at the Horizons Soup Kitchen and the Saturday meal at Salem Church. “I haven’t had anything to eat since Thursday," he said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527097455572-R18D1BOD917VACVN17RG/dpi+James+17inch+2042_AUG_.jpg James K. August 2016: After walking 26 blocks in the August heat to attend church, James sits by himself at a church picnic following services. The meal is the only source of food he will have that day. “The friends I had would let me stay until my food stamps or my SSI check kicked in. I'd help pay the rent and help put food in the house and the next day, within a day or two, they'd kick me out because they got what they wanted. They figured I'd be the perfect person for that, because I'm living on the street. It just brings my self-esteem back down to where it was, back down real low. Sometimes it just makes me feel like I'm a welcome mat everybody walks on to get what they want and then when I actually need help, there's nobody there to turn to.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/joseph daily 0.75 2018-07-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527098310712-JYU0624USVPCFH4NGMNM/dpi+17inch+MARCH_Joseph_d.jpg Joseph - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: Dressed in his Sunday church clothes, Joseph displays a knife he uses for protection. “It’s a shame I have to carry all this hardware around to protect myself,” he says. “It goes back to not having enough money for just simple survival. It's trying to have enough to eat, making sure that you don't starve to death out here in the streets. It gets down to the point where people break into your house and take your food, your medicine. My next door neighbor, Pat was killed,” Joseph said. “I guess they wanted drugs or something, but they had broken every bone in his face, every rib but three, and broke his arm in two places. He passed away in the hospital several days later.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527098394485-GBDPMBM7C7UON2XLE047/dpi+17inch+Poverty+APRIL_Joseph+April+28%2C+2017+%2819%29.jpg Joseph - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Joseph says he can’t afford his pain medication. “Just last year, they replaced the lenses in my eyes and they put me on a medication called Gabapentin,” Joseph said. “It's for neuropathy. It's nerve pain. The Gabapentin was in such an excess dose every day, it was causing my eyes to have problems. The eyes just don't adjust like your regular eyes would, because they're man-made lenses. I’m supposed to have knee surgery on my left knee. It doesn't look like that's gonna happen. They did the right one. There's not supposed to be anything in there that hurts, but it hurts every day.” Sometimes I have to go to the streets to find pain medication. And I know they say if you find money for that, how do you survive? I wheel and deal in the streets, sell this, sell that. I know it's not right, but you gotta do what you gotta do when you're in pain every day. Sometimes the decisions you make aren't good ones.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527098474988-94V17457CBO8AWAD8IHN/dpi+17inch+FEB+Joseph_home_B_f.jpg Joseph - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Joseph sits with his dog outside of his converted garage apartment on the north side of town. The apartment is tiny, with mice scurrying around inside during the day. Joseph doesn’t feel safe, but it’s what he can afford. Joseph used to be a furniture mover but became disabled when his knee blew out. “After the knee went, there wasn't a whole lot I could do,” Joseph said. “I did go to culinary arts school. I got two degrees in culinary arts, but I can't stand at a grill for eight hours any more to, you know, even to do shift cooking. After I was hurt, I couldn't work a regular job.” Joseph now volunteers his time at various organizations. “I worked with a lady here in town,” Joseph said. “She worked the Jefferson Center on the north side. She gave me a job working with kids, and that seemed like something I was good at. Kids and animals love me. I worked there probably 14 years. It even got to the point where she talked me into playing Santa Claus a couple of years.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527098232958-9CCWKWWT0MBU65P6UY8B/dpi+17inch+MARCH_Joseph_portrait_i.jpg Joseph - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: Joseph, a diabetic, says the scar on his forehead is the result of being assaulted and robbed for his hypodermic needles. “They woke me up during the middle of the night. They wanted a needle, a syringe,” he said. “I told 'em I wasn't getting out of bed to get them a syringe so they could do their drugs. They decided to just break into the house, and they busted me in the head, in the forehead with a roofing hatchet -- a hammer on one end and an ax on the other. They got their syringe, and I was lucky they didn’t kill me. “I'm a diabetic. That's where most of my extra money goes, because they don't give you any extra money for the stuff that's not covered by Medicare. I guess I'm only allowed four prescriptions, yet I have 11 or 12 scripts. Alcohol wipes, some of the other stuff isn't covered, either. So, I mean, whatever Medicaid doesn't pay, I have to either find a program that will help me pay for it, or I just don't get it, I guess. I try to be healthy, eat what I'm supposed to eat, but everything that's diabetic is twice as much as regular food.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/josh-and-brooke daily 0.75 2021-04-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527103937231-8A1YBMEFZML09B4225OW/dpi+17inch+Josh+%26+Brooke+June+2017+EDITS24.jpg Josh and Brooke - Quincy IL Poverty Project June 2017: Homeless, Josh and Brooke are staying with Brooke’s sister and her baby in the Welcome Inn. “Me and my wife was living with my mom, and she got upset over hot dogs. She got mad because somebody ate all the hotdogs, and kicked us out. So now we’re living on the street with my dog and I’m on disability SSI. And I don’t have nowhere else to go. My food stamp card’s $188 and my SSI is only $735, and that’s really not enough to live off of, with the rent and stuff around here. And some places don’t let you have your dog, and my dog’s been with me for four years. He’s like my own son. He’s protected me. I saved him from abuse and neglect, just like I was when I was a child, being abused and neglected.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527103776310-GZ2GXTNA3NYN85SKU2P6/dpi+print_17inch+FEB+Josh%26Brooke_h.jpg Josh and Brooke - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Josh and his girlfriend, Brooke, are looking for a place to live. While at a doctor’s office to update their infant son’s immunizations, Josh gets a text from a real estate agent. The two are living with Brooke’s mother but want to find their own place. “Starting at 7 years old, I grew up in foster care. I was in 30-something foster homes. Nobody wanted me. When I was 18, I committed a felony. I robbed a laundromat to survive because I didn’t have food, nothing. And I went to prison until I was 20. Got out. I lived in Chicago for a couple of years, then moved back here.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527103832499-PET0V7LBWMSHTGSW9D1D/dpi+17inch+FEB+Josh%26Brooke_C_f.jpg Josh and Brooke - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Josh and Brooke regularly eat weekday meals with their son at the Horizons Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry. Months later, they say they are trying to regain custody of their son after a relative said Brooke bit him on his arm. “I don’ believe she did it. What happened was Brooke was playing with him and accidentally put a bruise on him by tickling his arm with her mouth.” Josh says he believes the complaint stemmed from the drama of one of their relatives who is controlling. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527103875292-P27NB3KFW9EX2TN14YMX/dpi+17inch+Josh+%26+Brooke+EDIT+May+11+plus+13.jpg Josh and Brooke - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: “I try to do everything right by God because I was told that if I didn’t, I’d go to hell. And I’m not trying to go to hell. I’m trying to do what’s right. It’s a sin to not be married and to sleep with one another, and … It’s just, if you’re married, you know life could be a lot better than if you have to be single. It was really awesome. I thought it was the best thing in my life. The marriage, being married, it’s the best thing to experience, especially when I had no drama around me, nothing. It was just me, my wife, and the judge. It feels like I’m getting married in my second home. I’ve faced a lot of trouble here (in the courthouse) but I’m trying to change.” Josh and Brooke don’t have the $10 needed for a copy of their marriage certificate. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527350045911-UCBV5JHJZ230XJPRWBK3/dpi+17inch++FEB+Josh%26Brooke_b.jpg Josh and Brooke - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Josh and Brooke make their way across town. They are planning to get married in the coming months. Meanwhile, staying with family, they are searching for an apartment of their own. https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/mark daily 0.75 2018-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527104508095-CRTT4IUUCU0QUP0CPTR3/dpi+17inch++FEB+Mark_Friends_h.jpg Mark - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: Mark receives a hug from a friend who came by to see him in his apartment about a week before he died of a heart attack. Mark died April 6, 2017, just six days before his birthday. Days later, the family is selling Mark’s belongings to raise money for his burial expenses, but a basic funeral service is out of their price range. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527104110010-60DYEE2ZPNNJVDPVDXP3/dpi+17inch+MARCH_MARK_a.jpg Mark - Quincy IL Poverty Project https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527104286383-EGBWZ1GZIZR3RA5M5V6P/dpi+17inch+FEB+Mark_Bed_Bath_f.jpg Mark - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Mark’s personal assistant gives him a washcloth bath in bed. Mark receives help from the West Central Illinois Center for Independent Living. He said they helped him find wheelchair accessible housing and provided for a personal assistant. “They helped me with just about everything,” Mark said. “The bedding, dishes, the electric wheelchair - everything except the washer and dryer. I didn't have no place to go that was handicap accessible is what it amounted to.” Mark says there’s no way he could have paid the first and last months rent on his own elsewhere. Mark struggles with making ends meet. “I get $646 in Social Security, SSI and I get $140 in SNAP benefits. By the time I pay my bills and pay my copays for medicine that leaves me on an average of $30 to $40 for personal expenses. You know, I have to buy laundry detergent and cosmetics, shampoo and stuff like that. I mean by the time of mid month, I have no spending money at all. As far as the SNAP benefits it basically feeds me breakfast and I go to the soup kitchen at the Horizons Pantry on a daily basis for lunch. That's pretty much my eating. I go to the bread line. I go to a lot of pantries, you know, because I just try to keep what I should have or need and try to make it through the month. That's pretty much it. It's not something I'm used to.” Mark has difficulties stretching his meager income through the end of the month. “I currently take 14 different pills. I take two different kinds of insulin. I have to pay a copay on the medicines. Right now they’re running me more than $115 a month plus doctor's visits and specialists. There's never enough money no matter how hard I try. It's depressing.” “I used to be an electrician. I used to make what I make now in a week. I don't know how to deal with it sometimes. It's depressing. Super depressing. “ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527104464178-2HVRIPO0TTXKTNDYM3P0/dpi+17inch+FEB+Mark_Friends_m.jpg Mark - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: After a morning shower Mark’s personal assistant brushes his hair. Mark relies greatly on his personal assistant to help him with the basics of getting in and out of bed, and in and out of his wheelchair. When Mark’s washing machine broke, he couldn’t afford to purchase another, so his personal assistant began bringing his clothes home to wash along with the household laundry she does for her family of five. “Well, I have a PA that came with me from the nursing home. She makes sure my bills get paid, she does my shopping and now that my washing machine has broken down she takes my laundry home and does it.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527104199070-1WCBCF0I0QI9BLO725QN/dpi+17inch+FEB+Mark_outside_B_j.jpg Mark - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Mark maneuvers his wheelchair on the street to avoid sidewalks in disrepair. “I’m currently in a handicap accessible apartment which is ideal for my wheelchair and me. But, I also need to get to meetings, to get to the soup kitchen, and I need to get to the pantries, and that requires me to go out with my chair, which in itself has been an issue. I've had to have two complete sets of tires on my wheelchair replaced. The chair is just like a car to me. It cost me just about what a car would cost except for I don't have gas I got electricity. That in itself is 80 to 120 dollars a month.” Mark says maneuvering some of the Quincy sidewalks isn’t ideal. “They got potholes on the sidewalks that if you hit one of them with these tires it's gonna break 'em. I can't get around without causing damage to my chair. Without this chair, I couldn't do none of what I do.” Mark talks about wheelchair inaccessibility issues. “It’s demeaning, you know? I’m close to uptown and I like to shop. I don’t necessarily like to buy things but I like to keep track of trends. I can’t even get in the store to see what they got. There’s a lot of buildings I would like to get into but can’t.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527104409408-TM9G8FWT4T7VJWV8NMSJ/dpi+17inch+FEB+Mark_toilet_a.jpg Mark - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Mark relies on a lift for even basic things like maneuvering on and off of the toilet. “I have a sit and stand lift that allows my personal assistants to lift me up and set me on my wheelchair, in my recliner, or to put me on or take me off the toilet.” Mark says not having the lift would mean the fire department would have to come to pick him up even if he needed to adjust his position in bed. “I call my sit and stand ’Sarah’ because she is the love of my life and without her my life would be really devastating. You know, not being able to get out of bed, I couldn’t live like that.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/mike daily 0.75 2018-05-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527104688433-SPWBPUY27FGKLTH10YPU/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Mike+K+War+vet+3970.jpg Mike - Quincy IL Poverty Project September 2017: Mike, a Korean War veteran, sleeps on a bench at Washington Park in Quincy. Stranded in Quincy for a number of weeks, Mike has been panhandling for money and sleeping outdoors before catching a bus headed east. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that 39,471 veterans are homeless every night. About 1.4 million other veterans are considered at risk due to poverty, lack of support networks, and dismal living conditions in overcrowded or substandard housing. https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/nakia daily 0.75 2018-08-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527104848951-S1RUZZUAQ9IVVIN84EMC/dpi+17inch+Nikia+praying_2336.jpg Nakia - Quincy IL Poverty Project September 2016: Nakia says grace before eating lunch at the Horizons Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry in Quincy. Nakia says she is on the verge of homelessness. “I work at two different fast food jobs, and I’m a hard worker and a fast learner, but sometimes I’m only given five to nine hours a week between the two jobs. My babies depend on me,” she said. About a year later, after experiencing some financial stability, Nakia says her children were taken away by DCFS. She says she is woking towards getting her children back. https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/rebecca daily 0.75 2018-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527105006813-VIKTUDF3ZHQOM6V4O4JV/dpi+17inch+Rebecca+2017+4051.jpg Rebecca - Quincy IL Poverty Project October 2017: Recounting her history of homelessness Rebecca says, “Because of our opiate abuse, we ended up spending all our money on pills rather than on our bills, I sent my kid to go live with his dad because I knew things were going to get destroyed. I was dead inside. I wanted to be alive again, so I quit.” “I have a lot of friends who are actually selling their ass on the street right now,” Rebecca said. “A lot of them are addicted to drugs. Me, personally, that’s something I’m not comfortable with. I really have to rely on the people around me. I try to have a give-and-take system. See what you got, see what I got, meet somewhere in the middle, and we'll make things happen. It's a long journey in the night, my friends. By the end of the night, I'm hoping that there's a beer in my hand and some good people around me and whatever the day was like will rush and roll off of me.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/richard daily 0.75 2018-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527105202416-H01484SK12KL5AEN49SU/dpi+17inch+Richard+poverty+Sept.+3171.jpg Richard - Quincy IL Poverty Project September 2017: “I’m beat. It was a long day,” Richard says while he rests after mowing yards from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with a borrowed lawnmower. He made $40 for about 12 hours of work. “I’m an outgoing person. I do a lot of cutting grass here and there,” Richard said. “It’s hard out here. It’s a struggle, and I’m trying to get somewhere in life … just having a hard time. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s just difficult. Life is painful.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/ron daily 0.75 2018-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527105418622-203BEJ022HNZENYYJXB4/dpi+17inch+Ron+poverty+June__0028bw.jpg Ron & Destiny - Quincy IL Poverty Project June 2017: Ron and Destiny are resting in the sleeper cab of a semi-truck owned by his employer. Destiny is 19 weeks pregnant. The couple previously bounced around for three months between houses where people took them in briefly, but those living arrangements aren’t without problems. Ron says he’s had situations arise when he would return from an errand and find his belongings ransacked. “Life being homeless, it ain’t all that,” Ron said. “I mean, you got to worry about where your stuff’s at, whether or not your friends are true friends or if they’re going to go through it and steal it. It’s hard being able to trust anybody out here.” Ron said they turned to local agencies for help, but he claims many of the places he went to wouldn’t help because he isn’t the biological father of Destiny’s child, and he and Destiny don’t have marital status. Ron continued to look for a job until he could get back to truck driving with no success. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527105510219-WZZ1YW7KDW6GHECZH70I/dpi+17inch+Ron+poverty+June__0010.jpg Ron & Destiny - Quincy IL Poverty Project June 2017: After jumping from one house to another of friends and relatives, Ron and Destiny still don’t have a place of their own but now can stay in his employer’s semi-truck. Ron returned to work recently, but there’s a 3-week waiting period before he gets his first paycheck. “My boss requires a three-week hold back on the first pay check for paperwork reasons.” “We’re basically down to our last $6 now, and I have got a week to go before I get paid. Most of our food's gone, because we ended up leaving our food we bought with food stamps up in Macomb for our daughter. That’s hurting us, because we don't have nothing now, but we made sure our daughter was provided for,” Ron said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527105570022-OWV6EMLEZNYAKWT34F49/dpi+17inch+Ron+poverty+June_26__028.jpg Ron & Destiny - Quincy IL Poverty Project June 2017: Ron and Destiny are at the Horizons Soup Kitchen with Destiny’s baby niece. Ron and Destiny rely on the lunch meals served there Monday through Friday to survive. Destiny’s 18-month-old daughter is living with her parents in Macomb while the couple struggles with homelessness. “We feel it’s a better, stable environment, for Destiny’s daughter until we can get back on our feet,” Ron said. https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/sean daily 0.75 2018-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527105734410-B2AN3MMGKW6RACMRO9I4/dpi+17inch+Ron+poverty+June_26__028.jpg Sean - Quincy IL Poverty Project August 2017: Sean, 28, rests with his dog, Zeus, where he shares an apartment with a couple living in poverty, who took him in. Sean found the dog in a dope house where he says Zeus was being beaten. An untrained companion dog, Sean says Zeus can detect when he’s about to have a blackout. “Blacking out is the worst. It can happen anywhere. It’s almost like I can watch but I have no control over what I’m doing. It’s like a sudden aggressive, mean, hateful personality that can arise if someone yells at you, for no reason or something like that. One little nip to my leg to get my attention - it’s his way of saying, stop. He’s pulled me out of situations that could have been detrimental to me and others.” Sean says his dog means everything to him. “Like when you feel there's no purpose for you on this planet anymore, that will eat your soul alive. That would be the reason you commit suicide. When you don't feel like you'd do anybody any good. If it wasn’t for my dog, I would have pulled the plug a long time ago, but I couldn’t do that to him, he’s always been there for me. Despite how cruel you can be, he’s gonna love you with all his heart, and that’s the bit of hope I need. Zeus is a loving dog. He has love in his soul. Even when things are crappy and you’re sleeping on the streets, he gonna sleep right next to you, and he’s not miserable. He’s just happy you’re there with him.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527105719983-314JMTQ4910HZGYEEL17/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Sean+Tony+poverty+Aug.A_+%288%29.jpg Sean - Quincy IL Poverty Project https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527105705586-2UCUU1GKQFC00TNN7OEV/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Sean+homeless+0472.jpg Sean - Quincy IL Poverty Project July 2017: With window blinds drawn against the sunlight outside, Sean makes himself a meal from a can of soup. “I watched, just like everybody else, my world fall apart. I came back, wife was already pregnant by somebody else that she had moved into my house. I had such animosity. Like, I was tired of the world. I was tired of the world turning it's back on me so I turned my back on the world and I became a hateful, cruel person. Over there I had a purpose. I enjoyed protecting people. I wanted to make sure everybody came home, even if that meant giving my life. Being a homeless veteran was the easiest thing to walk into.” Sean says seeing the goodness in other homeless people helped him. “Seeing that good in them - It’s enough to keep you from killing yourself. These people who have given me a home off the streets - they remind me of me before, before I deployed. Just somebody who'd just give you the shirt off their back, you know. They don't owe you nothing. They just did it cuz. And that reminds me a lot of how I used to be. How I want to be once again. Someone who cares for others when nobody else will.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/steve daily 0.75 2018-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527105992544-0CBQNCIK1AVBWR09F2JV/dpi+17inch++FEB+Steve_Feet_k.jpg Steve - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Steve is living with an impoverished couple that took him in to help with monthly rent and utility bills. “Sometimes you just want to give up. There’s mornings when I wake up where I don’t want to do this no more, but I know that if I don’t I’m still going to be here, I’m just going to be laying there and suffering instead of trying to better myself a little bit as I can. By the time I pay rent and pay everything I need to, I don’t even really have enough to buy my own clothes. I‘ve got to get clothes donated to me because by the time I’m done paying all my bills there’s nothing left. There really is nothing left. I’m basically struggling, like I said, going to these food pantries just trying to survive. I just wish that if I could make a plea to anyone, it would be, don't look at us like we're a pest upon society. Help us.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527105855974-G6Q4IXCXQTGRB4M9AFUM/dpi+17inch++FEB+Steve_Feet_j.jpg Steve - Quincy IL Poverty Project https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527105895213-BQ8UAM20PBOUCHBZMCCN/dpi+17inch++FEB+Steve_Feet_i.jpg Steve - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Steve claims inadequate care resulted in permanent injuries to his feet. “They didn’t do any exercising to my feet or legs (while in the coma). They told my dad that there was no use, that I was going to be brain-dead. They didn’t exercise my feet or my toes, or stretch none of my ligaments out, so everything shriveled up.” Steve says he refused amputation. Walking the five blocks to a local soup kitchen that he relies on for meals each day is an exercise in pain. He says he has difficulty getting pain medication and blames that on the current opioid epidemic. “Doctors just look at me like I’m just, I don’t know, like I’m a drug addict or something because I ask for pain medication. It’s hard to be in pain every day. I’ve been up at the fourth floor at Blessing Hospital here in Quincy, Illinois like three times now for attempting to kill myself, because I was tired of being in pain. There's nobody around here that will touch me or help me. It just, it's upsetting.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/tony daily 0.75 2018-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527106189523-DUBVDPJVQDOG76TDIQUV/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Tony+%26+Andrea+jobs+apeil+T+14+2017+%285%29.jpg Tony - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Tony, 44, walks 10 blocks from his job at Pizza Hut to his home. After getting rent money from the General Assistance Program, he found a job at Pizza Hut where he made Employee of the Month. Tony had open heart surgery when he was 2. His dad died when Tony was 18, and his mother died when he was 30. “It's hard when you ain't got no family out there, like your mom and dad and shit. It's kind of hard to make it,” he said. “But you gotta try and struggle with your life to make it as far as you can.” He spent time in the penitentiary when he was 36, and when he left, he was homeless. Tony and his girlfriend Andrea often take in the homeless off the street, sharing what little they have to offer. “Being homeless on the streets, it's rough,” he said. “If I got a roof over my head, and a person's homeless, I give them a shot to let them come stay with me. I try to help as many homeless people as I can.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527106123113-FHJ0XGZ3JE1LBJAXA54E/dpi+17inch+Tony+homeless_June_002bw.jpg Tony - Quincy IL Poverty Project https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527106256311-GJK9YKTB97E0ST109Y2N/dpi+17inch+MARCH_Toni%26Andrea_b%26W.jpg Tony - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Exhausted from working extra hours and not sleeping well the night before, Tony is comforted by his girlfriend Andrea. Tony is admitted to Blessing Hospital later that day for dehydration and low blood pressure. Tony has been working as many hours as he can get, often filling in for others, so he can save enough money so he and Andrea can move to a better apartment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527106287478-M6HE6A9HGSC59OEVXG5Q/dpi+17+inch+APRIL_Tony+Anfrea+April+22+2017+%281%29.jpg Tony - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Tony stirs from his sleep in their small apartment, as he wakes up to get ready for work. “I’m glad to be working for money again,” Tony said. “It’s better than working for General Assistance, ‘cause now I have change in my pocket.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527106499240-NC5MLAMVQJTBZR15UYHT/dpi+17inch+Tony+poverty+Aug.A_+%281%29.jpg Tony - Quincy IL Poverty Project August 2017: Walking home from the Horizons Food Pantry, Tony pulls a cart of food up the stairs to his apartment. Tony says it took him about six months to get all of his paperwork in order to find a job. He needed a new driver’s license, Social Security card and birth certificate. “I got here in Quincy, September of last year,” he said. “It took me ‘til almost March to get my ID, all my stuff that I need to get a job. When we first moved up here, Andrea got a job, and we stayed with my cousin. We got kicked out on December 4 -- me and Andrea, on her birthday, in dead winter. I met some other friends, and they let us move in with until we got this place where we live at now. Now that I got this job, I think I can move on to better things and better places and help a lot of people out. Everything's looking good for me and Andrea.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527106330447-1AX4G700A2MSL4MHEVPU/dpi+17inch+Poverty+APRIL_Tony+%26+Andrea+jobs+apeil+14+2017+%2812%29.jpg Tony - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Returning home from work, Tony is greeted with a bowl of soup for dinner. He talks about the help he’s received by organizations in Quincy. “I was working with General Assistance,” he said. “They helped me pay part of my rent. I was going around picking up the community. I like to help the community out, because there's a lot of trash on the road where kids don't need to be picking up needles and all that drug paraphernalia and all that stuff. They don't need to be picking that up and hurting themselves." “Here in Quincy, I think the soup kitchen, it's gonna be booming real good, because they help people with food. There's another couple organizations around here, they help you with bills, and they help you with getting jobs. I think Quincy is a pretty good town because they try to help people -- good church-going people. And I'm glad I did move here so I can get some help." “It's been rough, but I'm back on top. I got me a little job. I'm working now. I'm doing good. I got me a little crib. It's gonna turn out perfect. I know it is, 'cause God's always with me.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/trish daily 0.75 2018-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527106896951-DRHJUCVBA443HWXF8TCU/dpi+17inch+FEB+Trish%26Dog_g.jpg Trish - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Trish sits with her dog in the apartment she lived in before being evicted. By spring she will be homeless, living in abandoned buildings, while trying to find a job. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527106792334-AV6959W51JSGQTBNUMQL/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Trush+7898_JAN.jpg Trish - Quincy IL Poverty Project https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527106929539-KEGOB5X9GUDD0QNTY2PK/dpi+17inch+Trish+Poverty+B+July_14.jpg Trish - Quincy IL Poverty Project July 2017: Trish rests in a church doorway. “I got stopped by the police yesterday for no reason at all, leaving my cousin’s place. For no reason he pulled me and my dog over, and then wanted to know my name, ran my name, seen I didn’t have no charges, no warrants, no nothing, and then wanna search my duffle bag that I carry my clothes in, my hairspray, everything like that. When I refused he had to go on because that was harassment. There was no reason for it. “People don’t care around here. They don’t care. They look at you like you’re shit and they don’t even know you. I’m almost 50 years old, was born here in Quincy. I have worked all my life, have my CNA, food sanitation license, even in Missouri, and can’t catch a break in this town. They don’t care about nobody. It’s old fucks, old bucks.” Trish says it was only the second week of the month and social service agencies were telling her they couldn't help because they were already out of money. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527107075731-K2DAPGTNWZLI1RDTPIQ4/dpi+17inch+Trish+poverty+June+edits007.jpg Trish - Quincy IL Poverty Project July 2017: Trish and her dog walk through an alley to check on an unlocked vacant apartment where she stayed the past few nights. The door was locked so she spent the night on a laundromat floor with newspapers for a blanket. Finding a safe place to stay is difficult. “I was staying in an abandoned house because the men that I thought were friends offered me a place to stay. But if I wouldn’t give them sex, I had to get out, and they treated me like crap. I mean I’m talking about four different people, people I thought were my friends for over 20 years. But if you don’t put out then you gotta get out. That’s why I’ve been sleeping on the streets. … You can’t sleep, you gotta sleep — you know the old saying, ‘Sleep with one eye open.’ Literally, that’s what I do. Every little noise scares you. You don’t feel safe.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527107001054-1PMC5KC6QXVZ309TTHJN/dpi+17inch+Trish+Poverty+B+July_18.jpg Trish - Quincy IL Poverty Project July 2017: Sitting on a curb with skinned knees after a fall, Trish cries in frustration after someone stole her purse the night before. The purse contained her personal identification documents, including her Social Security card. She will lose a job she had lined up because the employer had asked for her Social Security card. Replacing her Social Security card begins with getting a replacement driver’s license. A friend takes her to the Department of Motor Vehicles facility where she discovers a replacement license must be mailed to a valid address. Because Trish is homeless, she leaves in tears. Job-hunting is difficult when you are homeless. “I can’t get myself cleaned up. I have nowhere to do that. There’s no facilities around here where you can go pay a token like they do at truck stops to take a shower to get cleaned up for a job interview. Clean clothes, you know. How do they expect anybody to do all that when they don’t offer anything? “Here I am sleeping on the streets, and have always worked for a living. Never ever got workman’s comp. Never ever got unemployment, always worked. Never had a DUI. Never been busted for drugs, nothing. There’s nothing wrong with me. I got an IQ of 145. I’ve worked so hard to always take care of everything. Now I only got this dog. My son’s 29 years old and he makes a living, and I am embarrassed to tell him what I’m going through. So I haven’t even talked to my son. I don’t want him to know.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/walter daily 0.75 2018-08-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527351660444-738BEKRBFWK9Q10248HL/dpi+17inch+FEB+Walter_Fence_b.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Walter says grace during the lunch prayer at the Horizons Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry in Quincy. “My mother was a fine Christian woman, she took me to church. Started when I was 4 years old. Until I was 16 I didn’t miss a day when it was open, she made sure of that. When I turned 16 I thought I knew more than she did so I started going somewhere else. I was raised Pentecostal, if you know anything about Pentecostal religion. It’s not religion anyway, it’s what you got in your heart that counts, ‘cause that’s where the Good Lord lives, is in your heart." https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527188157025-AJP5PNRJZXY9TR4MKY8T/dpi+17inch+Walter+toned+8656_JAN.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project January 2017: Sick with pneumonia, Walter doesn’t make it to the bathroom on time before soiling his pants, so he cleans himself up. He’s using one-liter Pepsi bottles, which he gets from food pantries, as water containers. “It even wears me out changing clothes. I am so weak. Walter uses adult undergarments because of prostate cancer he suffered four years ago. “I didn’t get to wear Pull-Ups when I was a kid, so I’m turning back the clock and wear Pull-Ups now.” When Walter’s roommates moved out recently the water was shut off, so Walter carries water from a neighbors faucet to wash dishes and fill the toilets manually so they’ll flush. He is also resorting to drinking rain water. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527109445176-YL87NCB3OWPCQFQ5TFNZ/dpi+17inch_Walter+8578_DEC2017.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project December 2016: A few days after her death, Walter searches for the newspaper with Sandy’s obituary. He discovers his roommates inadvertently placed it on the kitchen floor where dogs use it as their bathroom. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527351161219-2TUWVH7QSI4887DT8SN1/dpi+17inch+Walter+6103_DEC.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project December 2016: A photograph of Sandy sits on a chair in front of the Christmas tree where she and Walter called home. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527109369785-X2AY5MUS5S46185LNJFP/dpi+17inch_Walter+3555_NOV.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project November 2016: Walter and Sandy walk from the Horizons Soup Kitchen to the bus stop as they make their way home. Sandy once weighed 135 pounds; she now weighs 84 pounds. “Twenty-four years ago I promised to love her and be with her until the day she dies,” Walter said. “I don’t think she will make it to Christmas.” Sandy died Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2016, while Walter was lodged for 15 days in the Adams County jail for failing to appear on a drug-possession charge. Walter was found by police officers with a couple of Sandy’s pain pills. He said he would take them sometimes to help him sleep. Walter was not allowed to see Sandy while she was dying in the hospital nor was he able to attend her funeral. “Sandy was married twice and she didn’t want to get married again so we didn’t, but I was gonna sing my wedding vows to her in stead of saying I do. I was gonna sing that song 'I’ll Go to My Grave Loving You.' (Walter sings the words.) That was going to be my wedding vow, but it didn’t happen. … She passed while I was locked up in jail and I couldn’t get to her. That’s about all I know about it. I just hope to meet her one day in the sky.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527109485895-IE75AU52O8E9IKVBSJQI/dpi+17inch+Walter+7579_JAN2017.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project January 2017: Within weeks after Sandy’s passing, Walter is stricken with pneumonia. He loses more than 20 pounds, while struggling to regain his strength. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111618927-6QYOTKT4PDE8JOF039X5/dpi+17inch+Walter+late+Nov.+2017_5210.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project November 2017: Walter displays one of the Christmas cards he makes in his spare time. Despite his meager financial situation, Walter says he believes God will take care of him. “I make cards and hand them out to people without expecting anything. Sometimes people give me a little money but I must like to make them for people. This morning a lady at a church gave me $20 and said, ‘Merry Christmas.’ I turned around and shook hands with the pastor and left the $20 in his hand. I pay my tithes. Another time a lady with a girl and a boy at a convenience store gave me money and I gave them some of my homemade spoon jewelry in return. I said, ‘At least take these rings for Christmas.’” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527109788547-3FTMIAUASZNRWJ7SGH9F/dpi+17inch+MARCH_Walter_Face_o.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: Wearing mascara on his face, Walter breaks out in to a favorite country western song. Walter says he suffers from manic depression and schizophrenia. “I woke up this morning and just felt like being black. I’ll wear a wig from time to time — once I wore a skirt and had a friend put makeup on me — sometimes I just like to blow people’s minds." “I’ve been going to see psychiatrists up here in Quincy for about, oh, I ‘ve been seeing her for about five or six years now. That was the first bout I’d had with it after I got back to Quincy 22 years ago. And they put me on Seroquel, started me off on 100 milligrams and then it went up to 300 milligrams and that’s enough to kick an elephant’s butt, but it don’t phase me, and it don’t control my anger. It quiets me down, but it makes me groggy. So, about a year ago I just quit all of it, cold turkey, except my psychiatrist, I still make my appointments with her. … “The main thing I had against the medicine they were giving me to control my temper was that it made me groggy and I do like to be clear-headed. Side effects are lots of times worse than the problem that you had to start with.” Walter said he applied for Social Security disability benefits 20 years ago. “I was denied, and I didn’t push it with a lawyer, so I didn’t get nothing. I went back to work.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527109204799-48UFJQLLJ081RB3FCU65/dpi+17inch+Walter+4449_NOV.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project November 2016: After volunteering to serve Thanksgiving meals at the Kroc Center, Walter begins telling one-liner jokes, tickling everyone’s funny bone. “Hey, I gotta flirt with all of them, I can’t leave any of them out, it might hurt their feelings,” he says, jokingly. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527188337475-1NIMJUHUS0JQ3QFGFI7D/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Walter+Appril+24+2017+%281%29.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Walter checks a friend’s dog to see if any ribs are broken. The friend, who sometimes stays on the couch at Walter’s rental house, arrived crying, fearing someone had broken her dog’s ribs. Walter said he enjoys helping people when he can. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527273763701-2OFKURXEXAF56EKVDEBE/dpi+17inch+Walter_8287_NOV.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project November 2016: Walter naps after a lunch as Sandy rests on the couch in their living room. Sandy was diagnosed with lung cancer and isn’t expected to live more than a few months. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111534353-8HJLXLF6ISD820QGK1W2/dpi+17iinch+Walter+poverty+Aug.A_+%283%29.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project August 2017: Walter relaxes in the backyard of the house he rented on Quincy’s north side after eight weeks of homelessness. Walter says he’s paying $350 a month rent and another $50 a month to use the washer and dryer his landlady left in the house. There’s no heat or electricity because the landlady’s son actually removed the utilities meter. Waiting for the meter to be replaced, Walter is living part-time in the yard, where he cooks on an open fire. “I’ve been living in the backyard for a month and a half making cowboy coffee, you know what that is, where you can stand a spoon up in it? I got a pretty good setup here in my backyard, I got me a barbecue pit that would hold at least a half of a cow, maybe the full damn cow. I built it myself out of cinder blocks, bricks and grates that a man gave me off a barbecue he had. Walter did some work for a man who paid him with three lawn mowers, three barbecue grills, and three air conditioners, all of which Walter planned to repair and sell. Then, Walter says, people began stealing from him. “There was a Craftsman, self-propelled, damn good lawnmower. I just needed to put some rear wheels on it. And there was a ‘green machine’ … You know what I’m talking about when I say ‘green machine’? Weed Eater brand. I went after my last lawnmower, I already had two here, I think. While I was going after the third one, someone come in, took the two I already had here, plus a weed eater that I paid $100 for. It makes me angry after buying something and having it come up missing a week later. I finally got a phone after six months without one and it came up missing too. They’re in a pawn shop by now.” A few months later, Walter’s backpack with all of his personal records is stolen. He must replace everything — his driver’s license, Social Security card, his SNAP card. It takes weeks to replace the identification cards he needs to reapply for his SNAP card. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527188367358-2MVJYKHZPS48CFFGKNNB/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Walter+April+21+2017++%2814%29.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Walter starts a yard sale to help raise money for rent and an overdue water bill. Although Walter’s name was not on the lease, Walter and Sandy lived in the rental house for about a year with another couple. After Sandy died in December 2016, the other couple moved out, citing mice and other issues. “The landlord said at first that I could stay there and then he evidently changed his mind because he started throwing my shit on his trailer, and he hauled a Bible and a dollar’s worth to the dump. And then he came back and started trashing everything in the house. Threw my mother’s Bible in the dumpster and damn near tore it in half. And that kind of made me angry. … “My Sandy was a collector. She collected angels, cookbooks, she was a cake baker. She did picture albums, padded ones. And she had a bunch of windup globes that played music that she had in a cabinet. And they trashed every bit of it. “I didn’t move out beforehand because the landlord told me I was going to be able to stay there and catch the rent up, but he didn’t give me time to do that. I started a sale there on my porch, and he hauled all that off. And then, he said I had one day to get the rest of it out.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527261922631-WLDE7BUIP2RBOVUH5WYF/dpi+17+inch+NEW+one++MARCH_Walter_Face_p.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111653200-A2SL7BE2X0JA418E0SEC/dpi+17inch+Walter+Dec.+3+2017_5287.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project December 2017: On a cold December day, Walter organizes a living area in his homemade shelter made of mattresses, tarps and a plastic swimming pool. The utilities meter still has not been installed in the house he rented back in July. The house remains without heat and water pipes have frozen. Walter says the homeowner told him, on a handshake, she would do a rent-to-own agreement with him, but that the landlady’s son is harassing him. “Well, I’ve been living in my back yard. At first, I was just around a fire pit sitting in a chair but since it’s got cold and it’s going into December it’s getting cold out there. I get kind of smudgy (from the fire soot) but it helps out. The way you deal with the smoke is you sit down and let it go over your head. I can heat water over the fire pit and wash off, but it’s not like being in a house with a shower and all that, and most people wouldn’t know. The landlady’s son jerked the meter out and evidently he messed up the meter box while he was taking it out because the power company will not turn it on with the meter box in the shape it’s in. It’s just got a small piece missing but that’ rules and regulations that we have to go by if we wanna live and do well. “I couldn’t get anybody to co-sign for me so I could buy a house with a regular mortgage so I had to rent-to-own which is risky, as far as I’m concerned, but rent-to-own is the only option I’ve got. I pay $350 plus bills for the house and also have a washer and dryer I could be using now with electricity, but I pay $50 a month on that so it makes it $400 plus bills for the whole thing. I like the house and the yard. It needs a little work on it but I know I’ll do that. It takes time and a little material. But the location is the worst in Quincy. And there is a lot of thieving and drug-dealing and all that stuff going on right around me and in my yard. So it’s really not a place that most people would want to live.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111685295-OXJZDQWONKNHOEQ36SKQ/dpi+17inch+Walter+12_25_17+5649.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project December 2017: Walter carries a bag of dog food, donated by a local good Samaritan, from his backyard shelter to the house he rents, which still has no electricity or heat. He says he must put the dog food in the refrigerator, which doesn’t work, to keep mice and rats from getting into it. Now five months later, the utilities meter is still not replaced so Walter use his open fireplace to keep warm and cook meals from canned food the receives at local food pantries. Freezing weather takes its toll, however. Walter spends many evenings in fast-food restaurants to stay warm and a friend allows him to stop by and take a shower every couple of weeks. “I got the Good Lord on my side. In fact, I’m one of the richest bitches on earth, if you wanna put it that way. I really got no worries except what’s in my mind that Lucifer put there. I just decided to live it day by day. Come what may and let the Good Lord take care of the assholes on this earth. I am still kicking, I will stay on this earth as long as the Good Lord says so. What that Man says come, I don’t give a damn if you’re the president of the United States, you come. That’s my belief. If a man don’t live by his beliefs he ain’t much of a man. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527109647889-CYO804HTMJ1AE3NEOR2Y/dpi+17inch+FEB+Walter_Bar_i.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017:Walter makes a few dollars with a small job cleaning tables at a local bar, where he likes to sing karaoke and dance, and socialize. He doesn’t drink alcohol because it makes him sick, but he enjoys having something productive to do. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527188428252-UHW903MW65MMWAOST8YK/dpi+17inch+FEB+Walter_Pantry_e.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Walter, 72, says he was born in the state of Louisiana and moved to Quincy to work construction about 25 years ago. “My dad was a full-blooded Choctaw. He was a mule skinner. We moved three or four times a year and followed his work. There were six of us kids. He had a pretty hard row to hoe just feeding us. That’s where I learned how to make stuff ‘cause I had to make my own toys; he didn’t have money to buy toys, barely kept us fed and clothed. Indians are rough and they live a rough life. “Twenty-two years ago me and Sandy went back down to Louisiana where I’m from. I was still doing construction work at the time, building condominiums. At that time we had a little bit more money than we did later, because I had a good job. While we were down there I was going to the laundromat one night, and I was driving a little woodie station wagon. Train come, it was kinda foggy, I started to go across the track, train coming along, no whistle, no nothing. It hit my little wagon and tore the front end of it off, tore the back end of it off. Scattered my clothes about six blocks. Separated the motor and the transmission about 50 feet. And there wasn’t a glass in the passenger compartment even cracked. Who was taking care of me? The Good Lord was. He’s took care of me for 72 years. He left me here for a reason. And I know what that reason is. To try to help other people know Him. That’s what it says in His Word, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' In other words, try to help someone else along the way. He’s saving me for some reason. And that’s to try to help other people, I know it with all my heart.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527110293638-VE7XC8MHU82C6P1NOU96/dpi+17inch+Walter+EDIT+May+11+Plus128.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: Homeless for two days now, Walter balances himself under the weight of his backpacks as he sits on a bench to rest. He made a makeshift leash for his dog with shirtsleeves tied together. “This is all I have left in the world. … Sandy died, then her dog died, then I had pneumonia. Now I’m homeless, but nobody will know any of this a hundred years from now.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111227958-C15EHXQ2VAJB9HGC2QJW/dpi+Walter+EDIT+May+11+Plus121.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: After sleeping on the bare sidewalk under the Washington Theater marque the night before, Walter wakes up to his 74th birthday, uses the restroom in Washington Park, and sets out to seek assistance from any social services organization that can help. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527188299277-UI4PMBMXZUQE48722PYZ/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Wallter+bread+April+26+2017.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Like many in poverty, Walter frequents food pantries to stock up on basic staples. His freezer is full of bread. Food pantries tend to receive and hand out processed canned and boxed foods loaded with sugar and sodium, which makes SNAP food benefits and soup kitchens so much more important to maintaining a healthy diet. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527109125963-PKL7HWZHTFBNCSZKYAA5/dpi+17inch+Walter+2404_SEPT_.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project September 2016: Walter makes jewelry from silverware and prides himself on the gadgets he makes. “ ‘Savage Wolf’ is my street name,” Walter says. “That’s my scalper, everyone needs one of these,” he says, pointing to one of two knives he’s carrying. After a stern warning from a police officer, Walter has stopped carrying knives. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111174671-3G1C260Z45RDKJV9O9GW/dpi+17inch+Walter+EDIT+May+11+Plus046.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: Walter stops to talk with a group of college students outside a bar across from Washington Park. They are intrigued by his stories. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111569761-V5LPZ7SSAQ61CFWHIU5B/dpi+17inch+Walter+Oct.+2017_4080.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project October 2017: Walter waits in the warm sunlight with his new kitten outside the doors of the Horizons Soup Kitchen in Quincy. A few days later he found the kitten dead in his yard. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527110097255-BEWZ2FKJX8WGJ8TR0MLU/dpi+17inch+Walter+EDIT+May+11+Plus122.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: Personal belongings, including his mother’s Bible, in the dumpster. “I’m not mad at anybody, I’m just mad at their fucking ways.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527261975276-C14OZB4NT40YDCP7WJ47/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Walter+Shelter+wind+12-_-17+_075.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project December 2017: Walter holds the center pole of his makeshift shelter so it doesn’t blow away on a windy afternoon. He’s covered in soot from the open fire he uses for warmth and to cook. He wonders if he brought his recent troubles on himself because of “living in sin” with his girlfriends of 24 years. “I walked away from my teaching and got in trouble by not doing what the Word of the Lord says. You’re not supposed to live with a women unless you’re married, that’s what the Bible says. Paul said ‘marry or burn’ and that means either get married or go to Hell. And if you don’t believe in Heaven and Hell, I feel sorry for you Enough said on that subject.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111282175-CCKBFKTT5I2J8P6645KT/dpi+17inch+Walter+EDIT+May+11+Plus130.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: After five nights of sleeping in the cold on concrete sidewalks, Walter is feeling exhausted as he waits at the Horizons Soup Kitchen for lunch to begin. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527110183466-582IA46VOLKCU9HK05NP/dpi+17inch+Walter+EDIT+May+11+Plus034.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: Walter sleeps on a bench in Clat Adams Park after being evicted from the house in which he had been living. The bench is just wide enough for him. “It was fairly comfortable ‘cause I had my backpack with my clothes, my stuff in it. I put it up against the arm of the bench I have to sleep sort of sitting up anyway. I have a breathing problem that makes it hard for me to lay flat.” He later moves to sleeping on downtown sidewalks. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527188321490-KZ30TJ5UJZX8X0UPTR89/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Walter+April+22+2017+%288%29.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Walter, in his kitchen, prepares to launch a “karate kick” to demonstrate his physical prowess at age 72. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111302284-HDIABCL06Q1RO6BM5HQY/image-asset.jpeg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: While waiting in line to eat lunch, Walter plays with an infant, an interaction that raises his spirits after being homeless for five days. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111371755-LKYZZTEIX71YZ7HOZ8C3/dpi+17inch+Walter+June+2017+EDITS12.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project June 2017: Homeless and out of money, Walter finds a bonanza of cigarette butts while walking by a local motel smoking area. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111326505-7I6L92XXY7VTMPXR60U1/dpi+17inch+Walter+EDIT+May+11+Plus132.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: Walter sets his heavy backpack down after arriving at a motel room at the Welcome Inn in Quincy. Several social services agencies provide vouchers, when they have the funds, to the homeless for temporary shelter. Walter was given a voucher to stay at the Welcome Inn. “Thank God I’m here and not on the fucking street no more. I’m going to get to stay here the rest of the month, and I’ll figure out what to do after that.” Walter said he asked about living at the Quincy Senior Center but was told he was ineligible because of his mental illnesses. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111774164-IWKD4FGSKQWB21LRDEG0/dpi+17inch_Walter+Jan.+26+2018+Rick+Hood258.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project January 2018: Walter stayed away from the rental house for about a month because of what he said were threats made by the landlady’s son. Walter returned in January to find the shelter torn down and Walter’s belongings trashed. His clothes are wet and mildewed. His small collection of art supplies is ground into the mud with much of his other person property. After confrontations with the son and a stay in the Veterans Hospital in Iowa City, Iowa, Walter is able to return to the rental house but it still does not have heat or electricity. Walter said he applied for public house but was told there was a two- to three-month waiting period. Walter says he can’t find a place he can afford on his $681 monthly Social Security retirement check. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111397340-QQGZ1K4Z2XJ0STSXYZMS/dpi+17inch+Walter+June+2017+EDITS24.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project June 2017: Walter and his dog, Blondie, walk down a sidewalk with two vacuum machines Walter recovered from a nearby dumpster. He hopes to sell them. Blondie, like Walter, is homeless. “Blondie’s a good dog. She’s 14 years old. She’s like a 90-something-year-old person so she’s kind of slow getting up. She walks at a pretty good trot. She’s a darn good dog, a little pug beagle. They call a puggie. I call her a puzzle. You don’t never know what she’s gonna act like sometimes she be stubborn as all get out. Other times she be just as loving as you’d want. She’s a good dog, though. One day while Walter was homeless, a passerby noticed Walter and Blondie resting near a convenience store and called 9-1-1 because of his concern for the dog. When the police arrived they told the man that if they confiscated the dog she would risk being euthanized. The man asked Walter if he would allow him to foster Blondie for a while. Walter agreed and after a few weeks Walter found a temporary place to stay and retrieved Blondie. Blondie lives on food scraps Walter saves for her from the soup kitchen. “Food stamps don’t buy Gravy Train. … Blondie, she ain’t worth two cents, but I wouldn’t take $100 for her even though I could use the money real bad.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111473932-KH35RKTEF0PHN2LS6U0W/dpi+17inch+Walter+poverty++CJuly_12.jpg Walter - Quincy IL Poverty Project July 2017: In the heat of summer, Walter asked a neighbor, watering flowers, to spray him down. He found a house to rent but it doesn’t have electricity because of a damaged meter box. Walter says the owner will fix the problem and has agreed to a rent-to-own contract. “I want a place I can call my own, so nobody can evict me again.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/wendy-gay daily 0.75 2018-05-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527111888621-S10BCG404ZNT2J1EC5I9/dpi+17inch++APRIL_WENDY+GAY+april+28+2017.jpg Wendy H. April 2017: Wendy is consoled by a friend when she tells him her girlfriend of 13 years broke up with her two days earlier. “Before my vision got as worse at it is right now, I used to work in a factory, fast food, you name it. Then I became fully disabled, and now I'm on this,” Wendy said. “My vision's always been bad, since birth. They say that you're born with borderline personality disorder too. I’m not sure about that, but here I am now.” Wendy says she gets health insurance benefits to help pay for her medications and doctor visits. “I get my medicine, and that's really all I worry about,” she said. “I can go in the hospital if I need to, and I'll be covered. It's important, because I'm nothing without my medication. If I didn't take those medicines, I don't know where I would be right now.” Wendy says she hears a fight outside every night while living on the north side of Quincy. “One day, these guys are going to bring a gun to this fight, and it's going to go straight through our window, through the alley right there and everything,” she said. “People fighting all the time, running everywhere, going crazy for their drugs. It's just not a safe place at night, and any more, during the day either. Just move onto the north side. You'll find out. Just don't go out at night. North side of Quincy's dangerous, and there's anxiety when people start pulling out their guns and shooting each other. I guess the north side of town's basically Quincy's ghetto. Best way I can explain it.” You see domestic violence like anything here. Just the other day, I saw some guy climb up on his girl's chest, beat the hell out of her. Nobody did anything, just sat there and watched. Isn't that crazy? So yeah, there's a lot of anxiety right there. There's not much to say about Quincy. It's become a little Chicago. At least that's what people call it.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/wes daily 0.75 2023-03-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527112312784-0BGU9OO3CB45GQXOU4A8/dpi+17inch+MAR_Wes+March+12+2017+%281%29.jpg Wes - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: With weather reaching low temperatures, Wes sleeps on the floor of an empty apartment on the North side of town. “Sleeping outside, when it's nice weather and people will leave you alone, and trust me, that doesn't happen very often, it’s nice. But you're kinda always on edge, you're always uncomfortable. It doesn't matter if it's summer, winter, fall or spring, it doesn't matter. Winter, winter sometimes, I mean you'll be out, it'll be below freezing and you're cold and you're just cold even in your sleeping bag, and you've got all these damn clothes on and everything. You just can't sleep because you're that cold and you're so tired that you can't get up and walk around to actually warm up.” “I know of a couple of places you get into to get out of the cold and yet even that is kinda creepy to me 'cause it's like people are always patrolling that area, you know. Really, why are you doing that because it's no skin off of your teeth. It's not your room, it's not your house, what the hell are you doing? And I'm not talking about police either. I'm just talking about people. I've been treated badly by people who just sit here and look at me and go, you're homeless, you're carrying around half your weight in bags and your whole life - you're worthless and blah blah blah blah blah. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527112498750-ED2O3H70EYSZO76BFGCV/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Wes+April++12+2017.jpg Wes - Quincy IL Poverty Project April 2017: Wes wedges himself into some shrubbery at a local church for the night. “I do not want to go to a Christ-based shelter where they're gonna make you read the Bible every night before you scratch yourself and go to bed and whatever ... that's just ... that, to me, that's just wrong. It shouldn't be that way. I've been there, I've done that. I spent four years in Heartland, in Missouri. And I actually think it's one of the better things that's ever happened to me in the last eight years. I did it for four years. I don't want to do it again. I don't know. I'm just ... you don't have to ram God down my throat. I believe in Him. Okay. I just don't like him too well. I know that's kind of crude to say, and that has a lot to do with my wife and my kids but I, yeah, I just ... yeah, just 'cause I believe that God is there does not mean I have to like it.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527112209119-0239YGBIACTODEJLP8RH/dpi+17inch+FEB+Trish%26Dog_g.jpg Wes - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: Rising early on a freezing morning to avoid any possible complains, Wes rolls up his sleeping bag where he often sleeps on Maine Street in Quincy. “The first night I was actually homeless, I’m sitting here carrying around, at the time, everything I own, which is about three big black trash bags. And I'm sitting here going, oh my God. I'm actually gonna have to sleep out without a tent, without a sleeping bag. How in the hell am I going to do this? I ran onto a dude and he and I talked a little bit, and we kinda got along. This is the middle of February, it turned out cold that night and he and I were like, I mean, you talk about a couple of dudes not wanting to, but then yet still, I mean, if we hadn't snuggled up to each other we probably be both dead. I mean it got below freezing that night.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527112254977-83W0AV9A1IPCJ8Q613GF/17inch+MAR_Wes+homeless+Mar.+1+2017+%281%29.JPG Wes - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: A diabetic, Wes finds a public bathroom to administer insulin. He says he’s grateful to have Medicaid to pay for the bulk of the medicine he must take. At $300 for a month’s supply of insulin alone, there’s no way he could survive. “I can't get insulin, I know I damn sure can't afford it. I mean, I'd have to go to the hospital every other week and then they'd have to keep me because I'd be suffering from ketoacidosis 'cause I didn't have the insulin. Wes worries if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, he won’t have the means to receive life-saving medications. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527112440714-LAGDJEG7EY49LL9GEFN7/dpi+17inch+MAY_Wes+May+5%2C+2017.jpg Wes - Quincy IL Poverty Project May 2017: Wes cleans a vacant lot for a man who lets him stay with his wife and him for a time. Wes said when he asked for some pay, the man said, “You’re working for room and board, motherf---er,” so Wes left. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527112415249-ZBZZRC5FNJEB3I8L62VO/dpi+17inch+Wes+1998.jpg Wes - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Wes sits in the Catholic Charities lounge on Maine Street to warm up with a cup of coffee, as a volunteer checks to see if a heat vent is working. Wes likes to drop in to read. “There’s a few people in this town who will go out of their way to do anything for you. I love to read. I’ve always loved to read. I read at least a book a week and I’m talking fiction, I mean, you know, nonfiction, yeah, I’ll read some of that too but just to keep up on the way of the world. I played music too. I loved music since I was old enough to fart, for crying out loud, and I played guitar for 20 years. But I haven’t touched it since my wife and kids were killed in a car accident.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527352964035-2IN42DJ4DOAR2LIZ5HID/dpi++MARCHWes+cold+Mar.+11+2017+%286%29.jpg Wes - Quincy IL Poverty Project March 2017: Looking for loose change on the ground, Wes walks to the drive-up pay window at Burger King in Quincy. "When I first got to Quincy, and I'd been here like, I don't know, it was maybe four months, I got jumped and robbed by a couple of people that I thought were my friends and they put me in the hospital for two days. Just to steal nothing. I didn't have anything.” I've had good experiences. There's a few people in this town who will go out of their way to do anything for you. I was sitting at Burger King the other night and a guy walked up to me with his tray and there was a bunch of fries on it and he said do you want these 'cause we're done with 'em. I'm like, well, if you're not gonna eat 'em, 'course I will. He then proceeded to go up and buy me a burger and a drink to go with those extra fries. He didn't have to do that.” Wes says, often times people will stare at him. "You'd be surprised how often I'm sitting in there, I've got my bags with me, you'll have people just sit there and stare at you. Like, why are you here? You're homeless. I can tell. I'm not stupid, I'm not a stupid person. When people are staring at you they're trying to figure out one of two things ... How they can fuck you, or how they might be fucked.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527112176967-022PEXAZMM0LAJXD3TPL/dpi+17inch+Poverty++FEB+Wes_General_B__e.jpg Wes - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Wes walks from where he slept the night on the sidewalk on Maine Street in Quincy. Like others living in homelessness in Quincy, Wes is up and moving before daybreak so he won’t be harassed. He’s on his way to a gas station to use the toilet. Wes, 47, says he’s been homeless off and on for about 10 years. Wes says he became homeless after his wife and three little girls were killed in a car accident. "When they died, it takes a lot from you, you know. I was working, it was a city job, and I kept it for about another six months and then it was like, I fell off. I mean, I'd sit here and I'd get just ... I don't know, I just drank all the time and I just ... I still haven't got over their deaths. To kiss and hug your family and then find out a few hours later they’re dead - That’s PTSD in the making. It’s going to affect you that way,” Wes said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527112378488-37T2J1U5BC8MKGWQ3EZH/dpi+17inch+FEB+Wes_d.jpg Wes - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Searching vending machine coin return slots, and the grounds beneath fast food pick-up windows, Wes comes up with $1.60 in change. In a week's time, I might find $10 worth of change. I'll go through drive-throughs, soda machines sometimes. You might see a five dollar bill on the side of the road or a 20 if you’re paying attention. I've found a 20 several times. It happens. And trust me, a 20 in my situation can last me for a while. Drive-through restaurants, places kinda like that, you know, those are really good places where people, they change their money, and they will occasionally lose it and they won't get out of their car to pick it up or whatever. Like I said, sometimes you can find dollar bills like that too. Don't just look in the little hole and not see anything, no, push the coin release button or whatever it is on the top because I've had a dollar's worth of change come out of one of those at any given time.” “I’d like to have a life and maybe a family again, but I don’t see much of a future, and that’s really sad.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527112154194-FLRDIFKWZMKTZKIF88VO/17inch+APRIL_Wes+April+25+2017++%281%29.JPG Wes - Quincy IL Poverty Project https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527112353584-3W8KTQ1RXF3GJ2OIZ3Y3/dpi+17inch++FEB+Wes_General__eB%26W.jpg Wes - Quincy IL Poverty Project February 2017: Wes stashes his bags at a location near a church, but a few hours later, his bags are found by a maintenance worker, and he is asked to no longer use that place to hide his belongings. “I’ve got two whole sacks, I've got a backpack, and I got another backpack that keeps my sleeping bag in it so I'm basically carrying three bags, which at any given time probably would weigh at least 50 pounds, which is okay, I gotta work out somehow. But, like, if I need to go in a store, I can't take that in with me. If I need to go in and get some food, or whatever, I can't so I need to try and find places around town where I can stash my bags for a little while anyways, and it always makes me nervous. I will do it and it's been okay, all right, except for a time or two. I've actually had my stuff stolen in the past. So I'm very leery. I want to keep it with me but you can't and you can't just stick it around the corner of the store and walk in. It's just really difficult.” “I had my bag stolen one time - it had my insulin and syringes in it. I had to be admitted to the hospital for two weeks.” I'm gonna tell a story. I stashed my stuff to go to the store because I can't carry it in with me. This person noticed it and immediately ... and she's supposedly Christian - she immediately was like going, is that your stuff? I'd been gone a half an hour and that's all it takes. She said you can't put your stuff in there. We don't allow people to sleep in there. And I'm like, ma'am, I have never slept in there. She was like, okay, all right. Just don't ever do it again, blah blah blah. I don't know, that was really Christian like, wasn’t it?” In Springfield, Missouri, they used to have a day shelter with lockers. It didn't cost you anything. You could wash your clothes in there. Didn't cost you anything. You had to wait in line, and it wasn't the best in the world but still, you could store your extra stuff there.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/wendy-smith daily 0.75 2019-11-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527194590907-5770SVYOOIB5F9ZAF7GX/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Wendy+Smith+April+9%2C+2017+%283%29.jpg Wendy S. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527195601534-4O65NZG6X4EIJ9J0ZM1H/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Wendy+Smith+12-20-17_061.jpg Wendy S. December 2017: Carson, 3, carries a box of Salvation Army “Christmas food,” as the family helps unload the holiday goods from the car. This is the first new car Wendy has ever owned, but it came with the cost of a high interest rate. The minivan is the first car they have had in three years. Monthly payments are $461 on a five-year loan. “I got the vehicle back in February of last year and I did not have no credit. I've always tried to get a loan to get a vehicle, but I always got turned down because I always had to have a lot of money down, which would be over a $1000,” Wendy said. “When I got ahold of these people online, they called me and told me that they would come and get me. And I said I don't have money to put down. They say you don't have to, we got you covered. I was very thankful and then this one comes with a five-year warranty, no matter what the mileage is. I've got to come up with the deductible to get it fixed now though. The interest rate is high. The car was like $17,000 loan, but the rate, man it really jacked it up.” After paying interest on the five-year loan, Wendy will have paid $27,660 for the $17,000 vehicle. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527195908540-W44K5XXBGEYUGX558553/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Wendy+Smith+Feb.+25+2018703.jpg Wendy S. December 2017: Chris tries to quiet his grandson Carson, so he’ll take his afternoon nap but receives bad news, his cancer has returned and spread to his lungs. “The cancer came back and it's in my lungs. Since then, they've had me on three different kinds of drugs trying to cure it,” Chris said. “I've had three different kinds of chemo. So far, they said it ain't spreading nowhere. It's still in my lungs. It's gotten a little bigger, but not much. Right now, I'm fighting it. They got me on oxygen. All I'm doing now is just fighting it one day at a time. It's hard. Sometimes I want to give up and sometimes I don't. I'm in a depression, I guess. I don't know what it is. I hate putting my family through all this. It hurts. I've got grandkids now. I don't know. I don't even know if I can do it anymore. This cancer is taking a toll on me. So, I don't know what to do.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527195728196-HT46URU746LQQAWLHTAJ/dpi+17inch+Wendy+S.+poverty+Aug.B_+%285%29.jpg Wendy S. August 2017: Carson, 3, makes his way down the staircase. The plaster patches and duct tape on the walls are the result of Wendy’s daughter’s boyfriend’s attempt to cover several holes that have been there since before the Smiths moved in. Wendy and Chris say the first landlord said he would make the needed repairs but never did. They say when their current landlord purchased the house more than a year ago he said he would make the repairs to the walls. But a year later, no repairs. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527194614079-CEA5THIZ5OYPN4E76MBM/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Wendy+Smith+april+13+2017+%286%29.jpg Wendy S. April 2017: Wendy sits nearby as Chris waits to have his newly implanted chemotherapy port checked at Blessing Hospital emergency room after he experienced pain and swelling at the site of the port implant. Chris began his first rounds of chemo and radiation therapy April, 4, 2017, after his diagnosis. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527194644610-FK0E34XSNXT8FGGVBZI1/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Wendy+Smith++%286%29.jpg Wendy S. April 2017: The markings from his first radiation treatment outline Chris’ cancerous tumor on his wrist. Chris says a doctor removed a small bump on his wrist 3 years earlier, didn’t test it for cancer and said it wasn’t anything to worry about, but the bump returned as a sizable cancer tumor. Chris believes the doctor didn’t do the testing on the bump three years ago because he only has Medicaid. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527194866680-9HPPU3QOATZ0VPU46T3H/dpi+17inch+MARCHMAR_Wendy+SmithA77.jpg Wendy S. March 2017: Wendy brushes Jessica’s teeth as she gets the kids ready for school. Wendy describes a typical day. “When you first wake up, you get the kids off for school. You either have appointments you have to take Chris to, or myself. And you take care of Carson, my grandson, throughout the whole day. By the time that's done the kids are home and then you're dealing with feeding them supper and then getting them to bed. “We struggle about the food part, but we get by,” Wendy adds. “And sometimes I have friends that loan us something where we can go get it, like money to get food. I put in the money that I have extra a month with my Link card. My Link card is only $52 a month, so I put the money I have extra with it to get food.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527194714318-O8TLXRFK4X7AP9N15U0Q/dpi+17inch+MARCHMAR_Wendy+SmithA37.jpg Wendy S. March 2017: Wendy pauses a moment to gather her thoughts while preparing laundry and supper for the family of eight. Despite health problems of her own, she has had to assume all household chores, as Chris is debilitated by cancer. “Wendy's been there beside me the whole time I've had cancer, and she hasn't let me down. I thank Wendy for every day she's been there beside me. She gets out here and she knows I can't do it, she gets out here, she cuts the grass, she helps take care of the house, takes care of the kids and the laundry. She does a lot and if anybody calls and needs a ride somewhere she gets up and she goes and does it. I don't care if it's all day or all night long, she'll do it. She'll do anything for anybody. She don't get much rest. I try to help as much as I can, but she does a lot,” Chris said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527195155769-TO6NPJVPKUGL8M7LMUSG/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Wendy+Smith+-+April+2017.jpg Wendy S. April 2017: Overwhelmed with chores and keeping the kids settled down as they run through the house one afternoon, Wendy alleviates a severe headache with a cold washrag. “Sometimes when I'm down, you know my faith is down, and I don't have any hope. But when you put your trust in the Lord and you know he's there, it gets easier. So you just got to keep praying,” Wendy said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527196063182-80J03HJL6WW1M7HFBBPJ/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Wendy+Smith+2-21-18603.jpg Wendy S. February 2018: Chris looks on as Carson gives Wendy a kiss. Wendy says Chris died at the kitchen table where he felt most comfortable. She says she was shaken and hurt by the way Chris’ body was handled by the Adams County coroner and the funeral home representative when they arrived to pick up his body. Wendy describes how Chris' body was handled when retrieved by the coroner and another person at the scene. "They didn't move the table to get him. They more or less, they picked him up front-ways and when they tried to get him over they, dropped him on his face before he got to the gurney. So, then they scooted him on the gurney to take out, but they didn't put him in a body bag. They put the black bag directly on top of him, but it didn't cover all of his body. We saw the side of his body. His arm kept coming out. It came out twice before they got to the door and my 5-year-old granddaughter and my 3-year-old grandson, they screamed and they cried, and then my 12-year-old daughter Jessica, she even cried… Everybody was just in shock. We were all in shock.” “What upset me is there was a cop here. Why didn't they ask for a cop to help them lift the body over to the gurney? It upset me. They didn't ask for no help from the family,” Wendy said. At a May 15, 2018 Adams County Board meeting, Wendy addressed the board about what happened. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1542064040238-N5AX76LOX8G1XKXOLEMN/dpi+17inch+Wendy+Smith+June+2017+EDITS044.jpg Wendy S. June 2017: In excruciating pain,Wendy waits for more than an hour and a half to be admitted to the emergency room at a local hospital in Quincy. Scheduled to have kidney stones removed a week later, Wendy collapsed to the pavement in the ER parking lot from the pain she was experiencing. Wendy asked for a pillow to help ease the pain while she waited, but 20 minutes later nobody had even responded to the request. Her friend inquired to hospital staff about the pillow only to be given the answer, “We can’t find a pillow.” Wendy was in such pain she was visibly trembling and vomiting in a trash can in the hallway. A passerby, who didn’t even know Wendy personally, was so upset about the lack of attention Wendy was getting, she cursed at staff for not doing something for her. Wendy said she later learned the pain was due to a stint placed in her urinary tract earlier by physicians, which had become infected. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527195684063-6JO317AWX2SCS5V2R90Z/dpi+17inch+MARCHMAR_Wendy+SmithA74.jpg Wendy S. March 2017: Jessica plays in her room with her dolls. Many of the walls in the apartment have several large holes that were there when they moved in eight years ago, according to Wendy. Wendy says they have tried to patch the holes themselves. She says a large piece from the ceiling fell in Jessica’s bedroom and in the stairway. When they moved in the walls, kitchen counter top, drawers and other areas of the house were in disrepair, but the landlord promised to make repairs, Wendy said. Wendy says her current landlord has had the house for about two years and hasn’t followed through on much of the repairs he said he would make. “I remember when he bought it, he bought it last year,” Chris said. “He started working on the walls and he's been saying he's going to fix the walls last year. Never did do it. But he did replace all the windows. He got all the windows fixed. He did do that ... took him awhile to do that. It took him five months to fix the leaks. But he finally got them done. Every time you call him, he's always got something else to do, or he don't answer his phone. I know he's got other properties ... rental properties. And then he says, ‘well, I can't do it all.’ He don't have no help, for one thing. This place ain't worth $800 a month, Chris said. “It makes me feel that ... oh, how do you say it? That he don't care how we live. He knows we got kids. I just feel like you can't turn him in. If you do, then he's gonna get mad.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527195979548-ACQXRYCAY5BYBFOQLNXU/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Wendy+Smith+2-21-18597.jpg Wendy S. February 2018: Chris cradles his new granddaughter, Madison Lou May, in his arms. Chris was told the cancer is spreading to other organs in his body and he has perhaps two or three months to live. Hospice arrangements have been made. Chris died within three weeks, on April 15, 2017 at age 57. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527195635688-8GIBEPEE0BWY3OQ8DF9Y/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Wendy+Smith+April+21+2017+%281%29.jpg Wendy S. April 2017: In spite of her own poor health, Wendy mows her yard and helps neighbors by mowing theirs. Later, in September 2017, while having routine outpatient surgery on her foot, she went into cardiac arrest and had to be revived. “I was under anesthesia, but then I kept twitching and moving and they didn't understand why. So they was gonna put me under a little bit more. But when I started, my oxygen level started dropping, they said that by the time that they turned me over, my heart rate stopped. So then they had to, how do you call that, resuscitate? …resuscitate me by doing compressions and they said that it took a couple minutes. Of course, I don't remember anything. I was in ICU for two days,” Wendy said of the ordeal. “And when I woke up on the 7th, (two days later), I did not know where I was at. I was confused. Then later on I got moved to another room in the hospital. They done some tests, all kind of tests, and now I have to go do sleep apnea test and then I got fluid on my heart and didn't know it." “I wouldn't wish this on nobody, to ever go through what I did. Now I know how people feel when they do their compressions and how it hurts after, hurts worse than having a heart attack,” Wendy explains. “And I was in the emergency room last night. They wanted to keep me for monitoring my heart. I didn't have no one stable enough to watch the kids. Nobody could take care of them, get them up for school." “Chris, he wasn't feeling good, so I was worried about him of course. So I had to sign myself out. I’m used to mowing grass and getting up and doing everything,” Wendy said. “Now, I just gotta take a step back and kinda just let someone else take over. Like mowing the grass and stuff like that but it's just like I said. I like doing things, I don't like sitting. I like helping. Now that I got my health issues with fluid on my heart. I'm just trying to get through that and make sure I'm okay. I gotta be around for these kids and grandkids.” Ever since, Wendy hasn’t been able to “slow down.” She can’t afford to. “I didn't get much sleep when she was in the hospital,” Chris said. “I'd sit there all night long and all day and waited for her to wake up. And you know, it was scary. I thought I lost her. We've been together 18 years. That's the love of my life and I don't want to lose her. It's a scary thought and I'd sit there and cry the whole time. I thank God that she's still alive and still here. I pray every day for her. I know she's still going through pain but we'll make it.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527195430060-0V8VMXZODA6MWA9JSCSF/dpi+17inch+Wendy+Smith+EDIT+May+11+Plus028.jpg Wendy S. May 2017: Having difficulty breathing at the Horizons Soup Kitchen in Quincy, Chris is comforted by Wendy and Courtney. During the summer months when the kids are out of school, the family stretches their food budget with the free lunches offered at the soup kitchen. “It's hard when you don't have any food because you feel like that you're a horrible parent. You feel like you failed your family, your children. I know from my experience, I just have to have faith in the Lord that we could get by. They're not starving, but there's sometimes that we've actually fed them a bowl of cereal. But I’m very thankful because if we have that, at least they're not going hungry,” Wendy says. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527194821563-U4N4VQIW6UUY3N0YJX9J/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Wendy+Smith++%281%29.jpg Wendy S. April 2017: Wendy listens patiently as Nicholas and the other children return home from school with lots of stories to tell. “I have five children. Jennifer is 30, Courtney's 21, Zachary is 16, Jessica is 11, Nicholas, he's 9. And I have 3 grandkids. Zachary has ADHD, ODD, and we will find out next month when he goes through these treatments, to find out really what he has. Or if he's more than just ADHD, which I know he is, because he can have violent outbursts in the home. He has broken windows and we're having struggling times to pay for them. Jessica, she just has ADHD, and Nicholas has ADHD. And they all go to Dr. Styles. He's been seeing them for quite a while, since Zachary was five, he's been seeing him. And that's how old the other two were too.” An avid reader, Nicholas is inquisitive. “All five of my children went to Washington School. They work with my kids real good, they have worked with all them. I love what they do there. To me, that school is always the best one that they've ever been to. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527196040426-INUBO38VQBHBLUQSN13D/dpi+17inch+APRIL_Wendy+Smith+April+2017+SK+%282%29A.jpg Wendy S. April 2017: Courtney plays with her son Carson, while at the Horizons Soup Kitchen. Five teenage girls threaten to beat Courtney’s ass, harassing her relentlessly. Then someone called the police to say Courtney was physically abusing Carson in the Horizons Soup Kitchen. On her way home, Courtney was removed from a city bus by police and interrogated. She says she asked the officers if she could call her mom, but they said “no.” A review of the video camera recordings inside the soup kitchen show there was no merit for the anonymous complaint. Rather, the teenagers who were harassing Courtney likely called the police for fun and to make her miserable. Despite the evidence from the video camera recordings, a case was opened by The Department of Children and Family Services, but ultimately no wrong doing was found to have occurred. The process left Courtney shaken, so rather than risk threats of losing her son to frivolous complaints, she quit going to the soup kitchen. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527195809714-NMSG1TRGS5VI9IJBCZMN/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Wendy+Smith+12-20-17_047.jpg Wendy S. December 2017: Wendy, Courtney, and Carson, wait in the cold without heat for repairs to the gas lines in the basement to be completed. Outside it’s below freezing. Wendy and Chris say the landlord told them they would have to move out of the apartment earlier that day when gas leaks were discovered. But with nowhere to go, they panicked and called several social service agencies for help. Chris says they were told there was no help available. Their duplex neighbor, confined to a wheelchair, said she was told the same thing, that she would have to find a place to go. The neighbor and Wendy and Chris stated after the neighbor threatened to sue, the landlord returned and promised repairs would be made by that evening. “When we smelled the gas, my daughter Googled it and it come to say that it smells like rotten eggs or anything. Then you've got a gas leak,” Wendy said. “So, we called the fire department and they came out. Well, the landlord come in and tells both sides we had to move out and all because of the gas leak. Then come to find out, they went downstairs and looked and they found one, two, three, four leaks in the basement around the hot water tank and the furnace. The landlord told us we had to pack and move. We had nowhere to go. I was worried about Courtney being pregnant and Chris has cancer and then I have my cousin Kristy that's got one foot, problems with my health problems of my heart and everything,” Wendy said. “We had four little kids in the home. My cousin, Jeffrey, I mean my nephew Jeffrey lived with us. We had nowhere to go because we had no family. I didn't have nowhere for the dog to go either. “I was upset. I cried. Courtney was crying, I had to calm her down because of the baby. It was just hard,” Wendy said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1527196098231-0CLN7UJXB3DBJKM33813/dpi+17inch+Poverty+Wendy+Smith+4-20-18814.jpg Wendy S. April 2018: Nicholas Weible, 10, offers his mother Wendy Smith a tissue during the memorial service for his father, Chris Weible, Friday, April 20, 2018, at First Christian Church in Quincy. The family, which struggles to make ends meet every month, learned from the Adams County coroner that Chris’ death certificate and ashes will be withheld until the family can reimburse the county $1000 for Chris’ cremation. Wendy lacks the $1000 demanded by the coroner and without the death certificate she fears she can’t have Chris’ social security benefits transferred to the children. The Adams County coroner says the State of Illinois is supposed to pay for the funerals of those who can’t afford them, but they haven’t been paying funeral homes for years, so the funeral homes are looking to the counties to pay for the funerals of indigent people. According to the coroner, if a person can’t pay for a loved one’s funeral, the county pays the funeral home $800 for handling the body and the county pays an additional $200 for the cost of the actual cremation. In an interview, the coroner said he has the survivors sign their rights of the deceased over to him. He then holds the ashes for up to six months. Those who can’t afford to reimburse the county the $1000 within that time are told they won’t be notified of where the ashes will be placed, other than the ashes will be placed in a cemetery of the coroner’s choosing. Wendy said that she was told by the coroner that she needed to sign a paper agreeing to pay $1,000 before getting Chris’ death certificate and his ashes back. “And if we didn't come up with it, he would be buried anywhere in some cemetery and we'd never know where he's at,” Wendy said. “He was just blunt. You'll never know where they're at.” The Adams County coroner at the time of this story has since resigned. https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/quincy-slums daily 0.75 2023-03-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1551054165678-TRAIRE1CLPM9J6DWM8HW/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Melanie+11-17-20184113.JPG Quincy's Housing Crisis With fly swatter in hand, Melanie kills more of what seems like an endless number of cockroaches. Melanie says she must keep all food items in the 4 large tubs pictured, in an effort to keep the cockroaches out. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1554481468342-WK24Z0HEEZ6EQ0XSG7MX/17+inch+Poverty+Greg+and+Debra+2-28-19-4930.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis February 2019: The flooring under the kitchen sink is completely rotted, making way for rodents to enter the home freely. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1554563448628-WK6S3ANE02XYDPOZU628/dpi+Wendy+Aug.+2018_DSF4943.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis August 2018: With a box fan nearby to keep cool, a three-month-old infant sleeps in her playpen. Not one outlet in the rental is able to handle the electrical load of even a small air-conditioner window unit. With no central air, or window unit, temperatures in the apartment reach 98 degrees. The tenat said landlord refused to install a dedicated electrical line to handle a window unit, because he didn’t want to spend the money for it. Meanwhile the family of 7 suffer through the high temperatures. The rest of the apartment has more problems including leaking water lines, which have caused months of water bills exceeding $230 per month, the tenant says. With no resources to find another place to rent, the family makes due living in a dangerous substandard dwelling. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1551053821066-GDTYTEL9Q2IPS9VKEL3A/dpi+17+inch+IMG_5092A.JPG Quincy's Housing Crisis A wall near the baseboard heater in her daughter’s room is literally crawling with cockroaches. There are so many roaches not even bright light deters them. They simply don’t scurry away, but boldly remain in place. “You’re not allowed to live a normal life like this. My kids can’t have friends come over. Even my parents, you know, they don’t want to come over here, because they don’t want to see me and my kids living like this,” Melanie said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1554481202896-3F4K215PD3BD4TE85BSB/dpi+Poverty+Greg+and+Debra+2-28-19-4928.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis February 2019: The kitchen sink is literally separated from the countertop contributing to the number of rodents in the apartment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1551058051232-IOH994OG4IJ5PT7M29V4/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Melanie+11-17-20184118.JPG Quincy's Housing Crisis Melanie speaks with her son for a moment regarding school. Large sections of paint are chipping and peeling throughout the entire apartment, which creates hiding places for cockroaches. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046839000-RDE6EZBO9NK2WQ9NCZ39/dpi+B%26W+IMG_4687.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046838631-5CKHWRT7LZDLA6M3C8QE/dpi+bw++IMG_4684.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046840126-F6ZXO9D4G4LDP2I128HS/dpi+bw+IMG_4671.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046841235-VYLLJ70VXXZ211SVOOEN/dpi+bw+IMG_4674.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046841592-DM8NKTZ9DZ7FE36AU635/dpi+BW+IMG_4675.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046843211-KVJRXM0OT8KQYS9P10EG/dpi+bw+IMG_4678.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046843171-UCUM1PB7IIW0N1HF8BVU/dpi+bw+IMG_4679.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046844728-T09ZFAZUDLV5XIIMS3WW/dpi+BW+IMG_4681.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046845544-JDPRAHTSLB0FSBXXWPE9/dpi+BW+IMG_4682.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046846309-J8KA6H18JJORPJOYCFWO/dpi+BW+IMG_4686.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046847696-4IHNRD167X72RIMPMAUY/dpi+bw+IMG_4689.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046847951-GHLWCBBV0188RI9OG19T/dpi+bw+IMG_4690.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046849131-QRZP1KMLRDS13800RSET/dpi+bw+IMG_4692.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046849742-L702SN1MTKXWES65IQQV/dpi+bw+IMG_4693.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046850396-M027WOT8FXDUAJR2VP2S/dpi+bw+Poverty+Vickie+inspection+9-7-18_1854.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544046917456-J69FPJ4RWN6GNAZZC9RY/dpi+IMG_4688.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1551057499895-JQOSW2TDD0Q4TYIJ02HR/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Melonie+Howe+11-7-18_3921.JPG Quincy's Housing Crisis Chipped paint in the kitchen above the cabinets hides dozens of cockroaches, which creep in and out, both there and in several other areas of the apartment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1536428385594-4PWUDQKMAJ4P7VKDVBZT/dpi+13+inch++Poverty+Dennis+June+26+20181249.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis June 2018: Dennis displays a rat he says he caught in his Quincy, apartment. "I was sitting on my bed watching TV when I saw one come out, and then another. When I turned on the lights, I counted at least seven of them." Dennis says he keeps dry foods in his refrigerator to keep the rats out of it, but they found a way to get in there too. Other tenants of the building shared similar stories. "I'm afraid to report this to the health department, because they might condemn the apartment and I'll have no place to go," Dennis said. Using the disability income he began receiving earlier this year, within a few weeks, Dennis manages to find a different place to live. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054460359-6V0HT6PLDLB57SM31QFE/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3797.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054928634-STWU912GANQTVTFQYYKH/dpi+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3754.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054457382-ZN7CZN8ZYJUCGAWSAGUO/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3802.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054459986-7WSF486LJCUDX7G5M7LC/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3805.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054464445-UP0NXWV4ZE3T587XQ56H/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3810.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054462697-U6JT8GWPMISAOIVASIDB/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3811.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054467188-DVX1HTYFTA9AO8F8S3QL/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3816.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054467072-CSYHA71TE2D01MBHFXXI/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3818.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054470958-R8EJINMNRGHCOILUCEZZ/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3819.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054470029-G8DLA5ZQEUZXH4Q7W3DO/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3820.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054474387-EY419MBVRP0TZ4VS0NH0/dpi+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3732.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054473261-HYFR8XT4IWJZFCVVXSH3/dpi+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3733.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054476428-4F6CXG2IMPYZNX7EDWHU/dpi+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3734.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054476420-S1AM37N8UGNZFO2P8EWT/dpi+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3735.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054479810-SP8HNSQUEN9NGL5JGFT3/dpi+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3736.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054482875-LFSYVY2G9NHPLZWRK2T7/dpi+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3737.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054482355-4PDG3QJ0EEXYXF4OY4US/dpi+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3738.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054486595-PTCRY2EKORBJWWATOY7V/dpi+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3739.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054485726-PEZJRJLXNYAQW4HLOS7T/dpi+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3740.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544054489967-DSDOL2027VJ6KBQ68V5G/dpi+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3741.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544057034616-LS3BNZXR1DRTT7X97COW/dpi+17inch+Walter+12_25_17+5649.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis December 2017: Walter carries a bag of dog food, donated by a local good Samaritan, from his backyard shelter to the house he rents, which still has no electricity or heat. He says he must put the dog food in the refrigerator, which doesn’t work, to keep mice and rats from getting into it. Now five months later, the utilities meter is still not replaced so Walter use his open fireplace to keep warm and cook meals from canned food the receives at local food pantries. Freezing weather takes its toll, however. Walter spends many evenings in fast-food restaurants to stay warm and a friend allows him to stop by and take a shower every couple of weeks. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1551057742614-O1WEKYAGIVTCD6KWBSPJ/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Melonie+Howe+11-7-18_3942.JPG Quincy's Housing Crisis The paint on the living room window sill chips easily, as rust and corrosion stain the walls. Melanie says, it’s impossible to clean the walls because the paint just peels off. There are several crumbling interior walls in the apartment, which adds to the unattractive living environment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1551053302313-JG2B78KWXYVV0WVSCXE7/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Melonie+Howe+11-7-18_3917.JPG Quincy's Housing Crisis Like a monument to she and her children’s nightmare of living with a pest infestation at Indian Hills low-income apartments in Quincy, a dead cockroach rests inside the thermostat lens dial located in the living room of Melanie’s apartment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1554480870692-87SUZE1EUOFPJ9LTN5FA/17+inch+Poverty+Greg+and+Debra+2-28-19-4933.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis February 2019: The lighting fixture in the kitchen shows signs of faulty, burned wiring. Substandard housing is one of the major causes of house and apartment fires in Quincy. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1554480285368-9RQ9T20XZ6G6QGISMC1D/17+inch+Poverty+Greg+Debra+2-28-19-.JPG Quincy's Housing Crisis February 2019: In broad daylight, a mouse scurries across the rough plywood floor of the apartment. With exception of the kitchen floor, the entire flooring is exposed. Greg says the landlord said he would replace the carpeting 2 years ago, but never did. “I’m paying $500 a month for this, but can’t even walk around barefooted or with socks on, because of splinters,” Greg said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1551054609094-EVQRZFXFBQT36XJ9JEWH/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Melonie+Howe+11-7-18_3940.JPG Quincy's Housing Crisis Melanie says she reported the mold in her son’s bedroom to the director of maintenance and says the director’s response was to say she could have her maintenance men clean the mold for $25 an hour, or Melanie could do it herself with bleach and water. Melanie says the mold appears every summer because the apartment on the other side of the bedroom wall uses an air conditioner, which creates high humidity in her son’s adjacent bedroom. Melanie says despite asking on several occasions, the last time anything was painted in the apartment was one bedroom that was painted seven years ago. Large swaths of paint hang from the ceiling in her daughter’s bedroom. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1554481668453-8NMM0DCQCQ8J4WCAA1IV/17+inch+Poverty+Greg+and+Debra+2-28-19-4914.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis February 2019: Mold, mildew and water stains remain on the ceiling tiles from a leak in the bathroom above. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1551052418079-GM534I2EDHBJZLBSO0PX/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Melanie+11-17-20184045.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis Foreground. A cockroach trap on the microwave near the stove is filled with dead roaches as Melanie prepares dinner for herself and her two children. A dozen cockroaches begin crawling from the stove as it heats up. Melanie says she has to re-clean her washed and put away dishes and eating utensils, before using them each time, because there no place to store the items to keep the roaches off of them. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1537451797505-ZO6D7VWI39C8FQ48P48H/dpi+17+inch+Walter+poverty++BJuly_05.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis July 2017: Walter, 74, cooks his dinner of rice on an open fire in the yard of the house he is renting for $400 a month. The landlord had promised the meter box housing would be replaced upon move in, but that didn’t take place. Walter, living without electricity, or gas, must cook on an open fire outdoors. This situation lasted through the entire winter. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1544106809025-PIS1A2XPQUQJJ3NF025O/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Wendy+11-5-18+3773.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis November 2018: A child sits on the bed where nails and splintered wood crashed down upon the spot he and his grandmother sleep, after his mother fell through the ceiling, above. The tenat said she’s been asking her landlord to repair the dangerous upstairs floor for 6 months, but he didn’t do the repairs and her daughter fell through the ceiling, escaping serious injury, or death. “It's got me to where I'm scared, I'm frightened, I'm overwhelmed. I'm scared for my kids. Its not safe anymore. So, I just need to be done. My anxiety is through the roof. It's through the roof. The room looks like it's just like somebody dropped a bombshell and the whole thing came down. I can’t imagine if I was sleeping and waking up to that hitting you, and ... No, I just thank God that it wasn't at night. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1551058606950-LESFXOBC0T1KX3MU5RZI/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Melonie+Howe+11-7-18_3935.JPG Quincy's Housing Crisis Live and previously smashed cockroaches greet those who walk into any of the bedrooms. Cockroaches are smashed each time one opens and closes an interior door. The dead roaches accumulate within minutes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1551057219492-163RN2RBF07HIR1VHEQM/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Melonie+Howe+11-7-18_3959.JPG Quincy's Housing Crisis The cockroach infestation is so bad, they have made their way into Melanie’s refrigerator. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1541784910683-SKGYNKXMLHR2LJOCIF03/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Assit+Cheif+Greg+D.3018.jpg Quincy's Housing Crisis October 2018: “One of the best things we can do to put out a fire is prevent it from starting,” says deputy chief of operations, Quincy Fire Department, Greg Dreyer. “One thing we do have in Quincy, from time to time, we do have fatal fires and usually they occur in older part of the neighborhoods, the older housing. A lot of times they have been in rental properties.” Dreyer says if we had a proactive rental occupancy inspection, “maybe we could help prevent people from dying inside of fires.” Dreyer says a proactive rental occupancy inspection program would help catch a lot of problems early on. “Part of the proactive part of that would be an inspection where we’d catch things like electrical, gas leaks, and all the things that can be found and fixed before they turn into a fire.” Dreyer says a lot of the fire calls they go on are in the older parts of town, especially old buildings where electrical services and equipment on the sides of the buildings haven’t been updated. “Electrical is a big thing, sometimes we have problems with the old circuits. The new air conditioners, space heaters and things like that can’t keep up.” “One thing we do have in Quincy, from time to time, we do have fatal fires and usually they occur in older part of the neighborhoods, the older housing. A lot of times they have been in rental properties.” Dreyer says if we had a proactive rental occupancy inspection, “maybe we could help prevent people from dying inside of fires.” Dreyer adds, “No matter what kind of condition you're living in out there, there's things you can do to help hopefully, so if a problem starts, that you can get out of your house. Smoke detectors, CO detectors are also very important. The other thing I might recommend is the National Fire Protection Association, NFPA, has a home inspection checklist on their website you can go to. It walks you through your house and talks about things like if you're using a space heater, how far to keep combustibles away from it. It just talks about a little bit of everything. It's a little bit of a checklist that you can walk through your house and make your house safer.” “Currently in the city of Quincy, with the Red Cross, we come out and install free smoke detectors inside of people's homes for them. All you have to do is call the Red Cross or call the Quincy Fire Department. We'll come out and get those detectors installed. Second thing, if we get a smoke detector in the house, the second thing you should have, if you have gas appliances in your house, you should have working CO detectors, because CO is an odorless gas.” “If you have a furnace malfunction, or a hot water heater malfunction, a CO detector can save your life.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1551054787881-B5YZ33M49TURGY4GR5TU/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Melanie+12-1-18_4255.JPG Quincy's Housing Crisis The walls in Melanie’s son’s bedroom are covered in mold caused by high humidity created by the neighboring apartment’s window air-conditioning unit. Jerry Gille, Executive Director, Quincy Housing Authority, says “mold or mildew go hand in hand with peeling paint typically.” Gille says they have a hard time keeping paint on the walls, because there’s no ventilation system in the apartment units. “Running an air-conditioner condensates (on the walls). It degrades the paint, causing the paint to pop and peel. And it will cause mildew or mold to form. It happens all the time.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1551058873971-UN8VKXNYX359DOMX6S40/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Melanie+12-1-18_4260.JPG Quincy's Housing Crisis After being evicted from her Indian Hills low-income apartment on November 29, 2018, Melanie finishes up cleaning on her last move-out day. She managed to find a small house to rent. Melanie says she and her children’s lives feel normal now that they have a clean and pest-free environment to call home. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1551056690886-XG12E2JE0AQI6HTWUY6F/dpi+17+inch+Poverty+Melonie+Howe+11-7-18_3958.JPG Quincy's Housing Crisis The cockroach photographs for this story, according to this October 30th sticker left on Melanie’s fridge, were made just 6 days following a routine cockroach spraying at Indian Hills apartments. Melanie says cockroach spray is supposed to be applied every 28 days, but it does no good. Melanie says two months prior they did a full treatment. “They also did a full UV treatment on my apartment in September of 2018. That was supposed to kill all the roaches.” https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/illinois-legal-aide-tenant-rights daily 0.75 2019-01-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1547250847518-IRS4GUUAS5CT3KHNUJK4/50000482_370661436824751_5257681015647764480_n-2.jpg Illinois Legal Aide This is a portion of housing related issues the Equip For Equality group gets involved with. This information is provided courtesy of Jennifer Bock-Nelson. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1547228861114-B2W7XKD5RJF8JLNJVXUZ/dpi+17+inchJames+Poverty+BJuly_08.jpg Illinois Legal Aide https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1547248859708-16C3FPSIVPJ7NK4WLK05/Poverty+Pamphlets+Legal+4547Rights.JPG Illinois Legal Aide https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1547248916181-A8B8UZGU25GR53RACMJH/Poverty+Pamphlets+Legal+4548Rights.JPG Illinois Legal Aide These pamphlets provided by the City of Quincy Human Rights Commission are available just inside the main door on the west side of Quincy City Hall, located at 730 Maine St. #1, Quincy, IL 62301. https://www.quincyilpovertyproject.org/pri-letters-of-support daily 0.75 2020-06-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a2ca302cf81e08b48a0bcc5/1568381261140-V8I7ZTXECZ2Q5WOZMXMJ/img603.jpg PRI Letters of Support 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