City’s unhoused population ‘do what they can’ to get through still-freezing temperatures

A man, who declined to give his name, sits outside the city’s only 24-hour warming center Dec. 26, 2022. Though it was supposed to be open, the center locked its doors at 7 p.m. (Zack Miller/Sun-Times)

Jerry Elkins was leaving the city’s only 24-hour warming center to head to a shelter Monday night. He said the “high winds and cold temperatures” had brought him to the warming center, though he had struggled to get there due to a series of epileptic seizures affecting his mobility. 

“My body’s a wreck,” Elkins said outside the Garfield Community Service Center at 10 S. Kedzie Ave. “Living out on the streets in these cold temperatures doesn’t really help.”