Devastating Storms a Disaster for the Un-Housed—Emergency Supplies Need Now

 

The series of drenching thunderstorms and gale-force winds that swept McHenry County this week and are expected to continue struck the homeless population especially hard.  “We know from experience that many camp sites were destroyed and ruined,” said Compassion for Campers coordinator Patrick Murfin.  Compassion for Campers is the program that provides basic gear, supplies, personal items, and non-perishable food to those who must live all or part of the month outside.

The program distributes supplies on the first and third Fridays of every month at the recently renamed Community Resource Days hosted by Willow Crystal Lake, 100 South Main Street.  The next event is scheduled from 10 am to 2 pm on Friday, July 15.

“We will not be able to meet the huge demand this time without immediate help from the community,” Murfin said.  “We are ordering what we can from our available funds from Amazon for delivery next week.  But it will not be enough.”

Compassion for Campers is appealing for direct donations of certain critically needed items from the public.  These include:

Two and three person easy to erect tents.  Must be new or gently used and clean and in original carrying cases with all parts.  No heaps of fabric and frames please.

New or like new single and double sleeping bags in their carrying bags.

Waterproof Camping Tarps 7.5’ x 9.5’.

16 oz.  Propane fuel tanks for single burner camp stoves.

Bug spray—High DEET content wet and dry.

Please, no bags of clothing.

Items can be dropped off at Murfin’s Crystal Lake residence, 522 West Terra Cotta Avenue (Rt. 176).

Compassion for Campers will also need monetary donations to continue our purchases over the summer.  The program is a ministry of the Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation in McHenry.  The program has a special dedicated account which the church cannot use for any other purpose and the congregation donates all administrative expenses, so all donations go directly to serving our clients.  “It’s the biggest bang for your charity donation,” Murfin said.

Donations can be made by check to Tree of Life UU Congregation, 5603 Bull Valley Road, McHenry, IL 60050 with Compassion for Campers on the memo line.  Give by text from your cell phone to 815 332-0643. Enter the dollar amount you wish to give along with designating Compassion for Campers.  Give online at https://treeoflifeuu.breezechms.com/online.  You can choose to give by credit card or authorized ACH bank transfer.  Again, designate donation to Compassion for Campers.

For more information contact Patrick Murfin at 815 814-5645 or e-mail pmurfin@sbcglobal.net.

 

A Victim of Our Own Success—Compassion for Campers Needs our Purse Refreshed

Compassion for Campers volunteer Andy Myers showed off just some of the supplies available at the first Community Empower Shower event at Willow Crystal Lake on June 25.

Compassion for Campers, the program that provides camping gear and equipment to the unhoused in McHenry County, has become the victim of our own success and is in urgent need contributions to continue its service effectively.  We have been distributing essential supplies including tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, tarps, stoves and fuel, as well as non-perishable food, mosquito spray, sunscreen, and personal hygiene items at Warp Corp, 114 Benton Street in Woodstock on a daily walk-in basis.  We recently joined the Community Empowerment Shower collaborative service event at Willow Crystal Lake, 100 S. Main Street, where we served more clients than at any previous individual event.  The next scheduled Empower event will be Friday, July 16 from 10 am to 2 pm and then the first and third Fridays in August—6th & 20th.

We are out of our big ticket items for both Warp Corps and Willow and need to resupply but our funds are way down.  In May and June, we ordered supplies for $1,866 and $1315 respectively but will have to significantly up our order to meet the current demand at both locations.  The trouble is as of June 28 we only had $904 on hand—less than we need to completely supply even one of them.

Community Empower Shower event will serve the homeless in July and August.  Help Compassion for Campers bring needed supplied.   

With two events at Willow beginning in August we will need even more.  And we are also trying to build reserves so that we can contribute to supplying hotel rooms in case of another cold weather emergency this winter.

We hope that you can help us out with an urgently needed donation.

Contributions to support Compassion for Campers can be made by sending a check made out to Tree of Life UU Congregation, 5603 Bull Valley Road, McHenry, IL 60050 with Compassion for Campers on the memo line.  For information on how to make donations online or by direct deposit from your account contact Judy Stettner at office@treeoflifeuu.org.   The donations are placed in a dedicated fund and not used for any other purpose.  Tree of Life also donates all the administrative expenses of the program so 100% of all donations go directly to client assistance.

Thanks so much for your consideration!

Stepping Up—An Emergency Response to Cold Weather Crisis for McHenry County Homeless

This man (Tom Steffens) and dog are not homeless themselves but their trudge illustrates the conditions many many of the McHenry Count homeless have to endure in the cold and snow emergency.  Photo by Beth Hoover. 

After a mad scramble on Thursday, February 4 the homeless in McHenry County had for the first time this winter emergency cold weather housing in local hotels available.  A County Board Finance Committee meeting that morning made clear that there was no emergency housing plan or any immediately available funding to start one.

District 3 McHenry County Board Kelli Wegener got the ball rolling on an emergency push to put the homeless up in hotels until temperatures once again reach the 20s,

That afternoon Democratic District 3 County Board Member Kelli Wegener, who is also the church administrator for the First Congregational Church of Crystal Lake, sprang into action along with her senior pastor Eric C Fistler.  They sent e-mails to the members of the Faith Leaders of McHenry County, local congregations, and social service organizations asking for emergency funding to place the homeless in hotel rooms while the crisis lasted. 

Tree of Life UU Congregation administrator Judy Stetner received the appeal and called me in my role as coordinator for Compassion for Campers.  I was able to authorize the immediate release of $4,000 leaving over $1,000 in our account for the purchase of new camping gear as needed.  A total of more than $9,000 was raised that night with more expected to come through in the next few days.

Hope Takes Action, a program of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is administering the emergency hotel room program.

Hope Takes Action, ministry of The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, a lay, volunteer, Catholic non-profit stepped up to collect, administer, a distribute the funds.  By Friday homeless individuals were being identified and placed in Super 8 Hotel rooms in Crystal Lake and McHenry.  Local police departments, the County Sherriff’s office, and social service agencies were reaching out to the homeless to inform them of the availability.

The following announcement was widely circulated:

HOUSING the LOCAL HOMELESS during the FRIGID COLD:

Additional support to shelter the homeless has been set up in McHenry County.  If you or someone you know is homeless and living in places unfit for human habitation, please contact Hope Takes Action at 815 385-3251.

You can also call the police/sheriff's office and they will take the person to the shelter.

This emergency service will remain available until the temperatures increase to above 20 degrees for a high.

This morning Jeff Röt Hermel, veteran who has faced homelessness himself posted the following testimonial on Facebook:

Great start to a frozen day. I passed a guy walking in this bitter cold and I recognized him as a local homeless vet that I spoke to years ago. I was worried he had died because I haven’t seen him in a while. He and his camping buddy will now have a Super 8 room for the next couple of days thanks to a local charity and the Compassion for Campers program at Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist in McHenry Illinois. Ty fb for allowing that to come together also.

So a stopgap program is in place for now thanks to the energy and dedication of individuals and faith communities but a far greater need continues.

The sad fact was that when McHenry County was hit by a major snowstorm earlier this week on top of deep layers left by earlier storms and that was followed by Arctic temperatures which will stay in the teens and single digits for more than a week there were no emergency beds available on a walk-in basis for our unhoused population and no plans for such service despite the perfectly predictable crisis.

The traditional rotating PADS shelters hosted by area churches have not been in operation since last March when the Coronavirus hit and there are no plans to resume that service even after restrictions are limited.  Pioneer Center which operates a long-awaited permeant shelter has restricted admissions and limited beds due to Covid-19 protocols.   A handful of other agencies have had a limited number of beds, but none for emergency use.

Compassion for Campers stepped up to provide those with no reliable housing including campers, those living in vehicles, couch surfers, and those who stay a few days in motel rooms until their Social Security, unemployment, or other benefit money runs out each month, with camping supplies, gear, warm clothing, and other essentials.  It has been a pitifully inadequate response to a chronic problem but was the best we could do. 

Unfortunately just as the weather emergency began, Compassion for Campers had to reduce its distributions from twice a month to monthly and centralized them at Warp Corps, 114 North Benton Street in Woodstock.  The storm hit on what would have been a scheduled event on February 2 in McHenry.  We had no way to notify our clients and open on that date in at Warp Corps.

Warp Corp folks and Compassion for Campers volunteers at a regular distribution at the Woodstock site.

Now for those who can’t or won’t access the hotel rooms in the short run, Compassion for Campers willstr be bringing their major camp supplies—tents, sleeping bags, pads, and stoves to Warp Corps on Tuesday February 9 to be available on a walk-up basis to those in need in addition to supplies and warm clothing Warp Corps already has on hand.  Many thanks to Rob Mutert, Heather Nelson, and Carlos Salgado for their continuing work with the unhoused.

Compassion for Campers will be bringing their full range of supplies to Warp Corps on Tuesdays February 16, March 16, and April 13 from 3:30 to 5 pm.

The current emergency should be a wake-up call to the county to establish a regular emergency plan and protocol including reliable funding.  Better yet more safe beds and accommodations for the homeless should become a top priority of the County government, the community, and concerned social service agencies and providers.  Many of those entities have been part of a Continuum of Care Committee for years now.  That group has to become even more focused on finding some permeant solutions to a chronic problem.

Meanwhile if you wish to contribute to these efforts on behalf of the homeless you can call Hope Takes Action at 815 385-3251 or contributions to Compassion for Campers Donations by sending a check made out to Tree of Life UU Congregation, 5603 Bull Valley Road, McHenry, IL 60050 with Compassion for Campers on the memo line. The donations are placed in a dedicated fund and not used for any other purpose.  Tree of Life also donates all of the administrative expenses of the program

 

Surprise Surprise! George Floyd et al Ignite McHenry County

The call for the youth-led march and rally on Woodstock Square. 400 or more showed up.

Who would have thought that the murder by police of a Black man in a distant city would touch off more than a week of sustained and militant action by hundreds of people in McHenry County, Illinois?  That’s right, the suburban/exurban/rural county in the northwest boonies of the Chicago metropolitan area which was 90.1% white by the 2010 Census and until recently an unassailable conservative Republican bastion has been swept up in a national Black Lives Matter movement that has seen demonstrations in more 450 cities and towns across the United States.

Of course since 2010 the Latino community has grown and there has even been a modest influx of African Americans but my guess is the 2020 Census will show only about 2% Black residents. 

Activism of all sorts has been on the rise since the election of Donald Trump including Women’s March events, March for Our Lives and National School Walk-out anti-gun violence actions, March for Science and climate change, immigration justice rallies, and LBGBQ Pride events each of which have turned out hundreds.  Meanwhile grass roots progressive Democrats have changed the political landscape carrying the county for Barack Obama, Senator Tammy Duckworth, and Representative Lauren Underwood.

A lot of that activity was organized by a small overlapping core of activists, many of the women and/or gray haired elders like the Old Man who pens this blog.

But the energy and leadership behind the current wave of protest has been entirely different—young people under the age of 25 most of whom have had no relationship with existing organizations.  Inspired by the nation-wide protests, the local movement was spontaneous and without either charismatic figure head leadership or organizational backing.  Protests in different towns have been organized independently.  Those taking the lead include Black and Latino high school and college students but also white youth allies.  They also include significant numbers of LGBTQ and gender queer young people showing that the movement has a clear understanding of intersectionality.

A portion of the crowd in Woodstock on Sunday listen to speakers before taking off on a march around the Square.

Crowds at marches and rallies in Huntley, Woodstock, McHenry, Crystal Lake, and Harvard have included up to 600+ participants, 80-90% young and reflecting the local demographics mostly white.  Geezers like me who have turned out have been happy to simple foot soldiers in the struggle taking our cues from collective youth leadership.  All of the actions have been entirely peaceful.

The first action I participated was in Woodstock on Sunday May 31.  There were well over 400 in attendance—enough to completely and continuously surround the Square in an angry and determined but entirely peaceful march. Better yet more than 85% of the marchers were under 25. Many geezers my age stayed home due to health concerns. At 71 years old, I have some of those too and I got winded after three laps around the square. Most of the young folks kept up the march for at least an hour and a half. My granddaughter Mathilda was born earlier that day and I felt I owed it to her to leave her with a better and more just world than the dangerous crappy one into which she was just born.

Protesters in Crystal Lake lay face down with hands behind their backs in front of the City Hall.Police Headquarters.

Yesterday afternoon I was at an even larger event that began in Crystal Lake’s Veterans Acres Park and marched several blocks to the City Hall/Police Department and lay down silently on our stomachs for the nine minutes that George Floyd had a cop’s knee on his neck. Safe to say Crystal Lake had never seen anything like that.

A separate youth led group is planning two days of   Crystal Lake Protests For Black Lives  today, June 5 and tomorrow June 6 both beginning at 11 am at the five way intersection of Crystal Lake Road, Walkup Road, and Grant Street near The Cottage pub and will participate in the first civil disobedience in the McHenry County protests—intermittent occupation of the streets.  Crystal Lake Police are not expected to take action against the protestors.  The group will then march to the Gazebo by the Metra Station on Woodstock Street for a short rally.

Details on Saturday’s march through Crystal Lake’s downtown and rally at the Gazebo will be announced later.  Both days rally speakers will be exclusively Black and other minorities to lift up often unheard voices.

On Monday, June 8 McHenry County Faith Leaders are planning a George Floyd Memorial Service at 7pm at churches across the county.  The faithful will gather in the Church parking lots or on the grounds observing safe social distancing for services to coincide with the public viewing at The Fountain of Praise Church in Houston, Texas where Floyd was an active member before moving to Minneapolis.  There will be prayers and eight minutes of silence in memory of Floyd and other victims of racial oppression.  The congregations will acknowledge their own privilege and repudiate the systematic racism embedded in their churches. Check with your own church to see if it is participating. 

McHenry County Faith Leaders plan George Floyd Memorial Services at churches in McHenry County.

The Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 5603 Bull Valley Road in McHenry will host one of the memorial services on its grounds.

The is so much going on now in McHenry County that it entirely possible  that other local actions have been planned that I don’t yet know about.  Keep your eyes peeled for them.

And thanks for the new generation showing us all the way.  They/we/I are not giving up!

Families Belong Together Woodstock Rally Highlights Local Protests of Border Policy

Citizens outraged by President Donald Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents at the border and placing them in virtual internment camps came together quickly this week to organize Families Belong Together Woodstock, a rally and march around the Square on Sunday, June 24 at 1 pm.  The event is part of nationwide Families Belong Together protests that will include marches in Washington, DC and major cities like Chicago on June 30.

“I have seldom seen such passion about any issue,” said Patrick Murfin, a veteran local activist with the Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Team who was asked to coordinate the event.  “Within 24 hours of posting a notice on social media more than three hundred people have said they were going or expressed interest, and that number swells by the hour.  I would expect attendance to rival other protests on the Square over the last two years including last summer’s six month anniversary of the Women’s March, and the March for Our Lives event in response to school shootings this March.”

So far, the list of sponsors from the rally include the Illinois Migrant Council; McHenry County Progressives; Peter Janko, Democratic State Central Committeeman 14th Congressional District; and the Tree of Life Social Justice Team with additions pending.

 

Photo courtesy Families Belong Together.

The rally, which will begin around the Gazebo on Woodstock Square at 1 pm will feature an invocation by the Rev. Lou Ness, an Episcopal Deacon; Maggie Rivera, Interim Director of the Illinois Migrant Council and Illinois Director of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC);  community leader and candidate for McHenry County Board from District 5, Carlos Acosta; lawyer Beth Vonau, a partner in KVR Legal which has represented clients held in ICE detention at McHenry County Jail; the Rev. Eric C. Fistler, Senior Pastor of the First Congregational Church of Crystal Lake giving the benediction; and Janko.  Others to be announced.  Music and sound system services will be coordinated by Keith Johnson of Off Square Music.  Murfin will host the program.

Following the Rally at around 2 pm there will be a symbolic march around the Square using the sidewalks.  There will also be petitions circulating to help people make their voices heard on this issue.

 

Photo courtesy Families Belong Together.

Other events have also been organized locally to protest the draconian immigration policy including Build Bridges Not Walls—Keep Families Together, a roadside vigil and rally at Route 120 and Riverside Drive in McHenry from 5:30 to 7 pm Thursday, June 21 which was organized by Terry Kappel.  On Sunday July 1 there will be a vigil outside the ICE Detention Center housed in the McHenry County Jail in Woodstock from 2 to 10 pm. 

In addition, there will be a Families Belong Together action at Congressman Peter Roskam’s (R-IL6) office at 200 S. Hough in Barrington on Saturday June 30 at noon sponsored by IndivisibleNWIL of Crystal Lake and a major regional Families Belong Together march and rally beginning a Daley Plaza in Chicago on Saturday June 30 beginning at 11 am.

For more information about the Woodstock event, contact Patrick Murfin at 815 814-5645 or email pmurfin@sbcglobal.net .