In Evanston, organizations like Connections for the Homeless and McGaw YMCA are publicly hailed as beacons of compassion. They receive millions in public funding, secure endorsements from elected officials, and craft press releases about helping the unhoused. But behind the polished narratives lies a darker truth—one that rarely makes headlines.
I know because I lived it.
My story, which I shared previously, was not an isolated incident. It was a symptom of a larger, structural problem: the privatization of care, where nonprofits function more like gatekeepers than guardians, and where survival is a lottery ticket doled out by those with power—not a right protected by the community.
These organizations, while tax-exempt and mission-driven on paper, often control access to life-saving services—shelter, case management, transitional housing—with opaque criteria, unchecked discretion, and unaccountable leadership. They can decide who is “help-able,” who is “deserving,” and who gets quietly discarded.
Connections for the Homeless claims to serve those in need, but when I sought help while working full-time for them—while homeless—they turned away. When I was harassed on the job and followed every protocol, they did nothing. When I was terminated without due process, every door around me—McGaw YMCA included—closed in coordination. These organizations are deeply entangled, and that entanglement allows gatekeeping disguised as partnership.
Let’s be clear: federal and state funding helps prop up this illusion. Grants are awarded not based on real-world outcomes, but on reports, metrics, and “success stories” carefully curated for donor satisfaction. There is no room in those reports for what happens when a worker, or a client, is pushed aside for being too focused on equity, quality programming; for being too inconvenient, or too honest.
And too often, the most vulnerable are punished for trying to stand up for what is right and fair.
This system, and Connections for the Homeless rewards compliance, not resilience. It uplifts those who remain silent, not those who speak truth. It is not built to rehabilitate, but to manage. To filter. To maintain control.
Worse, political figures like Jan Schakowsky and Mayor Daniel Biss publicly praise and fund these organizations without ever hearing the stories of those left behind. Why would they? Challenging the system would mean acknowledging its failures—and risking the wrath of entrenched nonprofit leadership whose influence spans boards, neighborhoods, and ballot boxes.
This isn’t completely about one or two organizations or one or two people. This is about a structural betrayal: a community that says “we care,” then outsources compassion to institutions that care more about image than outcomes, aka Betty Bogg and Connections for the Homeless.
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To the people of Evanston and Illinois: You must start asking better questions. Where is the oversight? What happens to those who don’t make it onto the “success” list? And how many others, like me, have been buried beneath the silence?
The gatekeepers must be held accountable. Because compassion isn’t just about providing services—it’s about telling the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Evanston deserves better. And so do the people who call it home, especially those on the margins.
