A man has been charged with first degree murder after throwing a fire extinguisher down five floors to kill a homeless man. more ›

The saga of Scott Huber, who has camped out on the streets of downtown suburban Naperville for almost a decade, has finally come to a close. more ›

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. more ›

According to a CBS2 article, "someone is organizing some street beggars [in Chicago], giving them ready-made signs at the start of the day, then taking a cut of the take at the end." The advance in homeless person strategy appears to have been caused by a city ordinance against panhandlers using aggressive tactics. The crackdown on vocal solicitation led to an increase in the use, and, subsequently, the value, of signs. more ›

A woman is suing a Jewel Food Store and a homeless man and woman after an attack in August, Chicago Breaking News reports. more ›

The good folks at Gapers Block tipped us off to an organization called Chicago Shares that found a creative way for us to help a homeless person on the street without hesitating or stopping to reach in our pockets. Chicago Shares sells vouchers in $1.00 increments which are redeemable for food and personal care items by area merchants. You can purchase a book of 5 vouchers for $5.00 by mail, or at participating locations. more ›

Naperville, home to 7-figure historic houses, Ribfest, and 2 Targets is a suburbanite wet dream. Which is probably why their city council doesn't want homeless people cluttering up their spiffy downtown. They recently passed an ordinance 6 votes to 1 "banning sleeping, camping and storing personal property" anywhere on their downtown streets. The Naperville city attorney says they enacted this measure to "protect the economic vitality" of the area. more ›

The CTA is creating a stink with some with new signs that are aimed at "continuous riders" that critics say are aimed at the city's homeless. The signs have gone up recently and some, like Chicago Carless' Mike Doyle, suggest the signs are aimed at curbing the number of homeless people who take to the warm train cars during Chicago's harsh winters.

Any regular ‘L’ rider can attest to the wave of homeless Chicagoans who take to the warm interiors of CTA rail cars during the city’s brutal winter months. Although generally a benign presence in the system, their downtrodden visual appearance–and in many cases odor–earns them the ire of many fellow, more fortunate passengers. more ›

We're not very good at this rah-rah patriotism stuff sometimes. Especially when it seems like there's so very little to be patriotic about. Day in and day out, we're bombarded with information about our dysfunctional County Board, our crumbling mass-transit system, a stumbling economy, a dismal federal government and a long-term embroilment in a far-away sandbox, so on and so forth, fill in your own blank here: _________________ more ›

Angels will get their wings this Saturday night at Custom House. From 6-9 p.m. Shawn McClain's South Loop steakhouse is hosting a fundraiser to benefit Blue Sky Inn. Frequent shoppers at area farmers markets might be familiar with Blue Sky Inn for the work they do with their transitional work program, "A Taste of Success." The program hires and trains homeless youth in baking pastries, which are then sold at farmers markets and through catering... more ›

Home for Kitty? more ›

A few days ago we unwittingly created a monster when we expressed our frustration about having to wait to see the schedule for this year's Chicago International Film Festival, which runs October 4-17. Well, we finally have a copy of said schedule in our hot little hands. What follows is a very brief, cursory summary of what you can expect this year (the full schedule will be online within the next few days). Regardless of... more ›

Every day, we walk along a stretch of Madison Street in order to get to work. Outside a certain Dunkin Donuts west of Wells, we frequently spot a bike with a trailer on it filled with blankets and newspapers. That particular bike belongs to an aging, mild-mannered man and his large yellowish dog, who squat in alcoves and under awnings, looking for handouts. We’ve seen plenty of people who take a couple minutes out of... more ›

As we briefly noted in the Extra, Extra last night, two homeless men were shot in Uptown over the span of 24 hours last week. Sadly, early on Monday morning, yet another person was added to the list of those who have been murdered in recent days in the neighborhood. To give a recap of the tragic violence that has occurred: Phillipi Larrnarri, 32, was sleeping on a park bench when he was shot in... more ›

SHOOTING: Two homeless men shot in a 24 hour span in Uptown -- they appear to be unrelated. In more shooting news (why is there so much?!): Police have two "persons of interest" in custody Sunday morning after two teenagers were shot in a playlot on the South Side in the Woodlawn neighborhood, blocks from the University of Chicago campus. TRAINS: Our dear friend warns us: This is why you NEVER put headphones in... more ›

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom... more ›

Here are some other news items of note while we're at Millennium Park enjoying Muhal Richard Abrams and Reginald Robinson: The U.S. attorney's office has joined an ongoing Cook County probe into the rogue actions of an elite squad of the Chicago Police Department . Blue Line passengers can expect (more) delays starting this weekend. The sculptor who created Berwyn's spindle claims that the shopping plaza where it sits is "prostituting" the sculpture under... more ›

Remember growing up, there was that one graveyard you just didn’t go into? You weren’t sure why, but something about the place just gave you the creeps at any time of day. Chicagoist recalls wistfully (maybe not wistfully; more like hysterically) one dare-fuelled drive into Barrington's famed White Cemetery, where two of our friends wouldn’t even breathe the open air, opting instead to cover their mouths with their shirts. And when the car became mysteriously stuck in the boneyard’s driveway … well, it wasn’t a feel-good situation. (Later reflection points to the winter weather rather than impish ghosties.) more ›

We don’t know about you, but Chicagoist always feels healthier just by walking around a farmers market. And that’s even before we get home and sample any of our beautiful bounty. That’s especially true at the Green City Market, which features products from local, small-scale, certified organic/sustainable vendors twice at week at the south end of Lincoln Park. Perhaps it’s the colorful array of produce, soothing live music, pristine flowers and giggling kids here that feed our inner Pollyanna and make us feel that, yes, things really are going to get better (the occasional sighting of a hunky local chef doesn’t hurt either). Heck, even the dogs are down with the program and get along. more ›

A few of us have some pretty refined tastes here at Chicagoist. Among things we've probably overpaid for are dinners, movie screenings, concerts, sporting events, and computer equipment. But $600 for a makeup job? We don't even think the girliest girl on the staff would spend that much. Yet that's what Governor Blagojevich did as recently as March, when he went to Crystal Lake-based makeup artist Deborah Lee for a touch-up prior to giving his... more ›

This morning three relatively young men were charged for viciously beating a homeless man with chains and a sign. The only provocation for the attack was apparently when the man bumped into one of the men as they were walking out of a bar near Randolph and Wabash. Because of an accidental run-in, 40-year-old Franklin Hayden ended up in Northwestern Memorial Hospital in serious condition with the possibility of losing an eye. To be honest,... more ›

The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless estimates that 166,000 people experience homelessness in Chicago. We aren't going to try to imagine how difficult it must be to be without a place to come home to, and we certainly don't know what it is like to be so hungry you would dig through garbage for a bite to eat. We've led a pretty charmed life, so far, and so we try to give back where we... more ›

Chicagoist knows one shouldn't get Ditka angry. A former player, especially, should know better. But then, we know Dave Duerson isn't exactly one of the classiest guys. To be honest, we don't even know how he is one of six trustees overseeing retiree benefits as part of the NFLPA benefits committee. Duerson's role on the NFLPA retiree board currently pits him against Mike Ditka, who has been working lately to help disabled retirees to get... more ›

While we won't get into Chicago's homeless situation, we have to believe the city's vagrants are 97% responsible for the tantalizing aroma of urine that permeates our street corners and mass transit system (the other 3% is made up of drunk bar patrons). While we try to look away, we can't help but be smacked in the face by that indefinable musky pungency that carries in the cool morning air. Since apparently everyone is... more ›

"this is ultimate." by davidhwang. more ›

Daley thinks the General Assembly should increase CTA funding. Check out the Sun-Times' new look. Some new ballistics analysis disputes accounts by Chicago cops about what happened in a 2005 shooting of an unarmed man. A dog near Prairie Isle Golf Club got bit by a rare Eastern massasauga rattlesnake. No charges will be filed in connection to the Chicago cop/DC cop bar brawl. A homeless woman has been indicted on murder and aggravated... more ›

We hope you're reading this weekend's blotter on a laptop outside somewhere. A homeless woman is being questioned concerning a fatal fire in Wrigleyville Saturday morning. Around 7 a.m. a fire broke out in a three-story apartment building at 3553 N. Fremont in a stairwell, quickly spreading throughout the structure. Three unidentified men and one woman, 24-year-old Jennifer Carlson, were found dead. Witnesses saw an unkempt woman hovering around three smaller fires the previous night... more ›

When Ditka speaks, Chicago listens to what Da Coach has to say. Does the same go for the NFL Players Association? more ›

Playing a little catch-up this week after our first round of reader contributions. There's no overriding theme this time other than a general lack of foresight. To paraphrase Gov. Rod's campaign commercials, "What were they thinking?" The municipal elections offered their fair share of the ridiculous. We'd like to thank Arenda Troutman, the campaign volunteers in the 16th and 24th wards, and supporters of Bernard Stone for their special contributions. (Thanks Jerry) A Chicago man... more ›

Poor widdle Redwalls. more ›