When Tony Clark first visited Chicago 11 years in the past, he mentioned he noticed homeless individuals expertise “a special sort of horror.”
Winters right here, the Australian mentioned, are on one other stage.
“I had by no means seen horizontal ice,” he says.
Clark was in Chicago then, in 2013, to simply accept an award for the “backpack mattress” he co-designed together with his spouse for the unhoused. The thought, which he mentioned got here to him in church, was to present individuals “heat, consolation and dignity.”
He helped distribute about 150 of his backpacks that convert into tents with a built-in mattress to homeless individuals throughout town then.
Now, Clark has returned to Chicago with the objective of handing out many extra of the backpack beds. The objective is 1,632, to be actual. That’s the variety of individuals estimated to be dwelling on the streets, in response to town’s final Level in Time survey.
Clark, 50, says he thinks that depend might be low. However he says it’s a place to begin.
On a moist Friday morning, Clark demonstrated the backpack mattress in Union Park, crawling into one himself. He was flanked by representatives from 4 homeless advocacy teams that can distribute the tents as soon as they increase funds for the $200,000 price ticket.
Tony Clark, CEO and founding father of Backpack Mattress for Homeless, demonstrates easy methods to use the backpack, which was changed into a sleeping bag, as Inside Voice CEO Jackie Edens and Road Samaritans Communications Outreach Specialist Chezeray Moore watch throughout a press convention at Union Park.
That roughly covers the tent worth of $124 for each individual dwelling on the road in response to the most recent survey, Clark says.
He’s asking individuals to donate at GoodnightChicago.org.
When the cash is raised, the tents may be shipped to Chicago in late December or early January, he mentioned. They are often distributed by the collaborating homeless organizations, which at present embrace Inside Voice, Road Samaritans, Our Mothers Mission, Franciscan Outreach.
Clark, a former IT entrepreneur who speaks with the passion of a tv pitchman, defined the advantages of such a small tent.
The 6-pound tent rolls out from its backpack into one thing that resembles a sleeping bag. However, in contrast to a sleeping bag, the tent is hardened for robust climate, together with snow, rain and even fireplace. The baggage are made from a fire-retardant materials that resists burning, he says.
When the tent is rolled up into its backpack, the bag nonetheless has unused area for belongings. Every tent features a clear window and two vents, and sports activities a small Australian flag.
This collapsible tent is designed to keep away from the pitfalls of different extra everlasting tenting tents that draw the ire of the group, avoiding what Clark mentioned is an “us versus them” dynamic.
Dr. Diane Washington, a retired behavioral well being psychiatrist at Prepare dinner County Well being, has been advocating for emergency room docs to distribute the backpack mattress to homeless individuals they discharge. The tents are particularly wanted for surviving the winter months.
“The No. 1 drawback is frostbite,” she mentioned. She’s seen homeless individuals undergo amputations through the winter from frostbite. Shelter, together with a tent like this backpack, would tackle that concern.
Two years in the past she and a philanthropic associate distributed 40 of the backpack beds.
Jackie Edens, CEO of Inside Voice, says the tents are wanted at a time when town lacks the funding to meaningfully tackle homelessness.
Final spring, voters shot down Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Carry Chicago Dwelling poll measure, which might have elevated the property switch tax for $1 million-plus to spice up funding for homeless companies.
“There must be political will” to handle the issue, mentioned Edens, who was commissioner of former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Workplace of Workforce Growth.
Clark speaks of a “philanthropic return on funding” that the tents present, past the sticker worth.
He factors to one estimate that every $124 tent produces $3,319 in “group influence,” when you think about the prevented emergency room visits and potential for employment.
Washington mentioned, primarily based on her well being care expertise, the financial savings from every prevented ER visits is extra seemingly over $20,000.
“The price of the mattress outweighs any of that,” she says.
Clark’s nonprofit has expanded since he final visited Chicago over a decade in the past. His nonprofit now offers away round 7,000 beds to over 1,000 homeless group in Australia alone. He says he’s linked with 65 teams within the U.S. and hopes to develop to extra.
“Dignity is step one to getting individuals off the streets,” Clark says.
