Beauty of Color

****JUST IN**** 5% of each donation we receive, we will donate the money to another Charity of our choice to help those of Haiti's recent Disaster!!
W.A.R.D(War Against Racial Division) Invites you to come out and support a cause that affects all of us here in Chicago by inviting you to our first ever Benefit/Fundraiser hosted at Betty's Blue Star Lounge Chicago. The night is gonna be filled with people making a difference in the community, as well as entertainment, spoken word, food, drinks, dancing, and You! Donations of any kind are always welcomed and we want you to come out and make a difference in somebody else life. Because this is a benefit, please dress to impress:-) You can purchase your ticket online at http://ward.ticketleap.com/benefit **Please Keep Your Ticket, Its the Only way To Enter to win the Dell Laptop**
Your $35 Donation includes a Skyy Vodka Reception from 8-9pm, Entrance, and an Entry to win a Dell Laptop.
**The Mission is to raise more awareness in the community
on how being homeless affects all of us. Your donation
provides bedding,clothing,food, and hygeine products.
W.A.R.D has been making a difference since 2005. by
offering housing, 3 meals, and a family-like environment
to those sent to us from nursing homes and hospitals in
the Chicagoland area.**

**RSVP from Facebook...Your Donation is $25 and you still have a chance to win.
This EVENT IS SPONSORED BY: W.A.R.D , Sweet Thangs Bakery, Betty's Blue Star Lounge..More To Join Us:-)
**This is a Black Tie Event.. No Street Clothes Please:-)
READ THIS:
Foreclosures, job losses and medical expenses have forced more of the city’s working poor from their homes as the state of Illinois, in fiscal crisis, slashes social spending. Rising homelessness in Chicago and surrounding areas is buckling the network of emergency shelters, pantries and aid programs.

The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) estimates that 21,000 people are on the streets on a given night. Of these, the Chicago Tribune reports that less than a quarter spend the night in a shelter. Nearly half the homeless population is under the age of 22.

The city shelters are notoriously overcrowded, and often dangerous. In a week’s time, hundreds of people can be turned away for lack of beds in Chicago. The Tribune recently reported that “only 5 percent of the shelter beds were vacant in 2009, down from 12 percent in 2008.”

Filthy conditions and violence in city shelters has many homeless, especially women, preferring to take their chances on the street rather than risk physical attack in shelters or robbery of what few possessions they have. Many seeking services approach emergency shelters only as a last resort; most come only after having doubled up with relatives or friends in overcrowded conditions before finally turning to the city’s emergency service providers.

Conditions in church shelters, though few, are marginally better. Gene, who has been homeless for six weeks, told the World Socialist Web Site that he rode the city’s elevated train for two weeks until a spot in a local church shelter became available.

A single man approaching middle age, Gene explained that he had been self-employed when the costs of a leg injury became burdensome, and he was evicted. Still under doctor’s supervision, he said he’d been scrambling to find a place to go after his allotted 90 days at the church shelter are up, despite the fact that he will not yet be able to work.

Gene told the WSWS, “You have people looking at you like you’re a loser, like you did this to yourself.”

Like thousands of others who have become homeless during this recession, Gene said that at first he had no idea how to navigate the network of services that might be available to him.

In February, the homelessness prevention hotline operated by the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness received 59 percent more calls that in February 2008, many coming from families whose income is more than $30,000 per year.

Since the 2010 Illinois state budget for homeless services has been reduced by $12.7 million, next year is expected to be particularly bleak for the homeless, as well as those seeking homeless prevention services. Some state officials aim to use funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to plug budget holes, while slashing state budgets for homeless services, which will make the existing problems much worse once the federal dollars are spent.

Illinois trails only California in its budget deficit, and state agencies that provide social services are under enormous pressure to continue to operate, though they have not been paid by the state of Illinois since the 2010 fiscal year began in July, as reported on Chicago Public Radio. As of this month, one Southside shelter serving homeless youth and their children owes more than $42,000 in rent.

Lack of affordable housing is a major driver of homelessness in Chicago and the surrounding area. The CCH states that in the first few days of the 2008 application period the Chicago Housing Authority received 500,000 applications for the 40,000 housing units available. In the spring of 2008, CCH also noted that in 117 municipalities in Illinois, less than 10 percent of the housing stock is considered to be affordable; 108 of these municipalities are in the Chicago region, mostly in the northern and western suburbs where there are more jobs available.

In 2007, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley pledged to eradicate homelessness by 2012 by broadening the Affordable Housing Ordinance to require developers to reserve at least 10 percent of most new housing developed for those making the area’s median income of $75,000. The proposal was broadly criticized as cosmetic.

The lack of affordable housing in the Chicago area reflects a nationwide problem. The National Low-Income Housing coalition estimates that 1.7 million more housing units are needed to meet housing needs for low-income households. The same study reports that one-fifth of US jobs do not bring in wages to meet a family’s basic needs. The result of decades of paltry wages and increasing housing costs is that one in seven households in the United States faces severe housing cost burdens as housing costs rapidly outpace wages.