Let Them Take Cabs

What is being called a "Marie Antoinette moment:"

• The head of the city’s Department of Family and Support Services had a Marie Antoinette moment on Monday — when she suggested that homeless Chicagoans who need overnight transport this winter “take a cab” to emergency shelters.

  After testifying at City Council budget hearings, Commissioner Evelyn Diaz was discussing the $2.4 million, mid-year cut in state funding that forced Mayor Rahm Emanuel to lay off 24 city employees who worked the overnight shift picking up homeless residents and transporting them to shelters.

  Diaz was asked what would happen this winter without the overnight shift. How were homeless Chicagoans — many of them suffering from alcohol, substance abuse and mental health problems — supposed to get to emergency shelters overnight? Were they supposed to just hang tough until 8 a.m?

  “If they can’t find another alternative,” she said.

  Asked to identify an alternative, Diaz said, “Public transportation, cabs.”

  When a reporter reminded the commissioner that homeless people can’t afford cab fare, an apparently embarrassed Diaz ignored the question.

It's certainly better than what else has been suggested:

• When the overnight shift was eliminated this summer, Dworkin was told Chicago Police officers would transport homeless people who needed shelter after midnight.

  Shelter providers subsequently told her police were simply giving people the address of the nearest shelter and asking them to go there.

We aren't taxis and we shouldn't be used as taxis. Our stations also aren't shelters and shouldn't be treated as dumping grounds for the mentally ill or those who choose live outside of society.