I was in the Chicago area for a few months recently to help out with a family matter, so I note with interest that a man in the Chicago suburbs tried to do something about the astoundingly low temperatures we had there for a few weeks in December.
The reason he’s in the news? No good deed goes unpunished. For trying to help, he was persecuted by the local authorities in his town back around the turn of the new year.
When I was out there in South Bend, Ind., the temps were down to near zero and below (that’s Fahrenheit, Lincoln Chafee,) for several nights in a row, and it kept snowing like it was never going to stop. No joke, it was quite a relief when it got back up to 20 degrees. And so on a couple of the coldest nights, a good samaritan named Greg Schiller, an Elgin, Ill., homeowner who looks a bit like Cubs manager Joe Maddon, let a few homeless men sleep on cots in his unfinished basement. He referred to them as slumber parties, which he thought were permitted under city code. And he only held them on days when it wasn’t quite cold enough (15 degrees) for the nearby emergency shelters to open.
The city of Elgin responded to this by threatening to condemn his house. This was their excuse:
“While we appreciate those who volunteer to provide additional resources in the community, Mr. Schiller’s house does not comply with codes and regulations that guard against potential dangers such as carbon monoxide poisoning, inadequate light and ventilation, and insufficient exits in the event of a fire,” city spokesperson Molly Center said in a statement.
That’s right, carbon monoxide poisoning.
Of course, if you’ve experienced negative wind-chill nights in the Chicago area, you might volunteer to die that way, peacefully and in your sleep, before spending such a night outside. You’d certainly be willing to suffer “inadequate light,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Considering that Schiller only did this because there weren’t public shelter beds available on those nights, it’s pretty disgusting to see him persecuted that way. This is a property rights issue. Is he allowed to have other grown-ups spend the night, or isn’t he?
This problem of local governments attacking individuals for exercising their own property rights to show charity toward those in need has been noticed in the last three weeks. In El Cajon, Calif., nine people were charged with a crime for handing out toiletries and socks to homeless people.
Many cities have cleaned up their public spaces by forbidding camping and forcing the homeless into shelters at night. That’s certainly understandable, especially if there are enough beds. But going after individuals who try to do the right thing from their own means under extreme circumstances? It’s just wrong.
In Schiller’s case, there’s a semi-happy ending. After suffering a week of bad publicity, Elgin agreed to make sure no one would be turned away who turned up seeking shelter. But the underlying question about a locality micromanaging the affairs of consenting adults on private property — probably at the behest of a nosy neighbor — remains an important one.
