Diedre Hamill’s son insists he does not want a whole lot out of life.
Twenty-one-year-old Gabriel would like a job. He wants a girlfriend, or even friends he can hang with that don’t exist in a virtual world.
Gabe also wants to get out of the wheelchair he’s been in for the last couple of years, ever since complications from chemotherapy led to neuropathy and other issues that impacted the lower part of his lean six-foot-five body.
But more than anything Gabe wants a place he and his Fox Valley family can call home.
And that doesn’t mean the 14-year-old SUV they have been living in for too much of the last six months. Nor does it mean extended stay rooms that have provided shelter for a few weeks here and there, thanks in large part to the generosity of a church group trying valiantly to keep this family warm and safe into the frigid new year.
Look into the desperate face of this young man, and all those statistics about the growing issue of homelessness suddenly take on more urgency.
Gabe, who fought leukemia for more than three years, admits he’s deeply depressed. He wants “normal.” He wants “a break.”
But hope, like affordable housing, is in short supply these days.
Which is the problem 55-year-old Diedre Hamill ran into with a safety-net program in Kane County that was put in place to help those like her who have fallen on hard times.
So how does a mom of four, including a young man in a wheelchair, end up in an SUV relying on the kindness of others to keep their lives – and even their vehicle – going?
This story is both complicated and compelling, but unfortunately one that is growing more common, say those who deal with the unsheltered in our communities.
“Right now housing availability is next to zero, especially if you’re looking for anything either, one, affordable, or two, that has multiple bedrooms for a family,” said Joe Jackson, executive director of Hesed House homeless shelter in Aurora. “And if you’re looking for both of those, it’s really next to impossible … which is making homelessness much worse.
“Homeless service providers are seeing a tremendous amount of pain and suffering, which is ongoing and undue.”
Back in 2020, Diedre Hamill’s family seemed to be living a comfortable middle class life in an Elburn subdivision. Diedre Hamill was a stay-at-home mom; her husband, an attorney. But in March of 2020, just as COVID-19 was shutting down schools, churches and businesses, Gabe, then a sophomore at Kaneland High School, was diagnosed with leukemia.
The news rocked Diedre, but his prognosis, she tells me, took an unexpected turn as complications from treatment led to sepsis, necrotic pancreatitis, renal and heart failure, blood clots and pressure wounds.
Gabe lifts his shirt to reveal the massive still-ugly scar that covers so much of his torso from this ordeal that nearly cost him his life and, at least for now, the use of his legs. Equally disheartening are the large scabs on his knuckles from crawling on the hotel room floor because it’s so difficult to maneuver in the wheelchair.
Perhaps one day those muscles will get strong enough for him to walk again. But that’s going to take plenty of physical therapy. And how do you even go about scheduling PT when you don’t know where you will be from day to day, asks his mother, who becomes emotional as she recalls that long year at Lurie Children’s Hospital, when Gabe teetered between life and death, when COVID was raging and she herself struggled with medical and psychological issues.
What made this ordeal even more horrendous: While her son was hospitalized, Diedre’s husband left and has provided no emotional or financial support, according to her and oldest son John, now 23.
With the main breadwinner absent and Diedre concentrating on a sick child, it’s no surprise she fell behind on the mortgage. It was during that scary period, with eviction looming, the mother was introduced to the Kane County Rapid Rehousing Program, funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide financial and legal assistance to prevent low-income residents from becoming homeless or help them quickly find housing.
The family qualified for this program, but unfortunately, there are more people in need than homes to shelter them, officials agree. Diedre explains how she herself scoured the internet, real estate pages, social media and Facebook Marketplace, even driving around neighborhoods and approaching landlords with rental property to see if they would be willing to accept payments through the program.
Last May, Kane County Rapid Rehousing – which has since taken “rapid” out of the title – offered the family a small home in Elburn, with the understanding Diedre would be provided 24 months of rental assistance, moving costs, security deposit and follow-up services to help reach financial independence.
According to the Kane County Office of Community Reinvestment, the county’s rehousing program has aided 40 households in paying rent since its inception in June of 2023 and is currently assisting 24 households.
However, Diedre said she had no choice but to turn down the house that was offered because it was not handicapped accessible, either from the outside or inside.
“I was told to take the house anyway … that it was the only option … that it was better than sleeping in the car,” she recalls.
A month later, the family was indeed evicted, and since then have relied upon Gabe’s $650 disability check and her oldest son’s paycheck working at a cellular store to survive. But when the money runs out, as it often does, they live in the SUV, which has had its share of mechanical issues.
If it weren’t for food banks and compassionate strangers, including police officers, a mechanic who fixed her brakes for free, and the organization that is paying for a hotel room through most of January, Diedre is not sure how she would survive.
“People have been so kind,” she says. ”But when is this going to end?”
Adding to their hopelessness, Diedre Hamill received a letter in October from the county’s rehousing program indicating the family’s case file has been closed.
The county’s only response is that it was “unable to comment on pending legal matters,” which is likely referring to a Jan. 23 court date after Hamill filed for an emergency hearing, claiming she was deprived of her right to participate in a review of the decision to close her file, and that officials failed to provide a clear statement of the reason for termination.
Diedre Hamill says her records and those of her older children dispute claims that multiple homes have been offered. Turning to the courts to try and get back into the program was a last resort as “I did not know what else to do … I feel like such a failure,” she insists, breaking down in tears again as she describes the trauma her now-scattered family has been through.
Her oldest daughter moved in with her fiance. Son John, tall like his brother and struggling with back issues from sleeping in the SUV, moved to Ohio with friends a few weeks ago but hopes to send money from his new job. And her youngest daughter is living with a classmate so she can finish high school.
Diedre, who says shelters are not an option because they can’t accommodate her and Gabe together, desperately wants a home to “get my family back together.” She wants a permanent address so she can apply for compensation as her son’s official caregiver. She wants a job. But mostly she wants to see hope again in Gabe’s anxiety-riddled face.
“Ever since I got sick, I feel as if I’ve been chasing my shadow,” the young man tells me. “Any control of my life has been scraped from me. I don’t know what to do anymore.
“I just want the pain to end.”
dcrosby@tribpub.com
