City To Create Name Registry For Homeless

By Anna Deem in News on Aug 21, 2010 8:00PM

Over 120 volunteers will hit the streets and the homeless shelters next week in an attempt to create a "name registry" of all homeless Chicagoans, the latest effort in the city's participation in the 100,000 Homes Campaign. The campaign is a nationwide attempt to house 100,000 of the country's "most vulnerable" homeless individuals by 2013.

"You don't just treat 'em as a number...they're not just a faceless person. You're trying to identify these people as human beings. They have a name. They are somebody. They have done something in their life. You have to know that," Mayer Daley said in a news conference via the Chicago Sun-Times.

Nancy Radner, CEO of the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness, said the name registry canvass will target "people who we didn't already get off the streets and those people in the shelters who've been there a while and we can't get 'em out." Radner also revealed to the Sun-Times that volunteers will survey the homeless, take their picture, and put them in database where they will be able to receive the assistance they need.

Daley said during the news conference that he believes the homeless will cooperate with the survey because "we're trying to help them."