WBEZ: A U.S. Supreme Court case could affect homeless people in Chicago and Illinois

Chicago Coalition for the Homeless filed suit against the city of Chicago on behalf of Robert Henderson (pictured above) in what is believed to be a first test of the state’s Homeless Bill of Rights. | Mark Brown/Sun-Times

By Esther Yoon-Ji Kang, April 11, 2024

In 2015, Robert Henderson returned from panhandling to the viaduct under which he was sleeping on Chicago’s West Side. He was unhoused at the time.

“When I came back, I saw a blue garbage truck,” recalled Henderson, now 70. “When I finally looked around, everything that I owned at that particular time was thrown in the garbage truck.”

His belongings included blood pressure medicine, his Social Security and Medicaid cards, a copy of his birth certificate, family photos and clippings of loved ones’ obituaries.

With help from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Henderson sued and settled a case against the city of Chicago on the grounds that tossing his belongings violated Illinois’ Homeless Bill of Rights, enacted in 2013.

Now, Henderson, who has lived in a Chicago Housing Authority apartment for the past seven years, is using his experience to speak out against a high-profile case on the U.S. Supreme Court docket.