UPTOWN — Ald. James Cappleman says he was unaware that an Uptown men's shelter was closing its doors until it was too late — a statement the head of the shelter says is "untrue."
The shelter in the basement of Uptown's Preston Bradley Center, 941 W. Lawrence Ave., has been on the brink of closing since June. So when the 46th Ward alderman said in a newsletter to constituents last week that it was too late for him to help, the head of the shelter, run by North Side Housing and Support Services, took offense.
"I’ve been respectable toward him to try to maintain a good relationship with the alderman’s office,” said Richard Ducatenzeiler, the shelter's executive director. But Cappleman's newsletter “is full of inaccuracies,” he said.
“He knew back [in June] there were issues as far as funding.”
The alderman's office, however, said Cappleman knew of a budget crisis but thought until September that a closure had been averted.
At the end of June, North Side Housing and Support Services announced the shelter would close at the end of July. Its board of directors voted to close the shelter after the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services said it was unable "to process a contract" until a state budget was passed.
But the program announced it would stay open until the end of the year after Illinois politicians signed a makeshift budget to keep the state afloat through the end of the year.
In his newsletter Thursday, Cappleman said he learned "of the shelter's budget crisis" in September "after they had already made the decision to close."
The board of directors already had made its "decision to let their City contract lapse because they were unable to raise money or obtain grants for an additional $100,000 in funds," he said in the newsletter.
Friday, Cappleman's chief of staff Tressa Feher clarified that the office heard about the closure over the summer, but once it received funding through the stopgap budget, “they didn’t say anything [else] about closing” or needing additional funding.
“We were shocked to hear they were closing,” she said. “The last we had heard of the closing was in June."
While both sides disagree about who contacted whom, Cappleman said he offered to find funding to help the program "at least stay open through the spring, if not indefinitely."
Ducatenzeiler said that statement was "completely untrue" and was particularly offensive to him because Cappleman "is not the one who secures funding."
“He did not help in any way,” Ducatenzeiler said, adding that if any public official would have helped secure funding, the shelter likely could have survived. “He did absolutely nothing to advocate for us.”
The shelter is set to close Friday, but will remain open as long as necessary to transition its remaining clients, he said.
After the closure, the Uptown community will have six shelters left in the area, including three locations managed by Cornerstone Community Outreach. The other locations are the Salvation Army, 800 W. Lawrence Ave.; Sarah's Circle, 4838 N. Sheridan Road; and Apna Ghar.
None of the remaining shelters are open to the single men who'd been staying at the Preston Bradley Center shelter, however. The Salvation Army doesn't accept walk-ins, but is an option for people with children. Sarah's Circle serves homeless women or in women who've suffered domestic violence.
Apna Ghar is moving into a bigger spot in Uptown and not accepting new clients, according to Hannah Gill, an employee there.
The closest men's shelter is Epworth Church, 5253 N. Kenmore Ave., which houses 65 men nightly. It also provides personalized case management, referrals and and advocacy from the Cornerstone staff, which operates the facility, according to Feher.
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