24, Repeat 24

The City of Chicago has counted only 24 homeless sleeping on the streets after conducting a 15 week foot poll.

Homeless advocates beg to differ with the city on the definition of homelessness. Sun Times:

Homeless advocates maintain the actual nightly homeless population is 21,078 because of an "invisible" group that includes people "doubled-up" with relatives and friends.

Homeless advocates upset the City of Chicago is trying to help the homeless become homeless no more:

Ed Shurna, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, branded the city's downtown count "ludicrous."

"I could find 24 people walking from my office [at 1325 S. Wabash] to City Hall. The Pacific Garden Mission has 600 people every night. They're downtown. They're homeless. There's got to be at least that many living on the street," he said.

Shurna accused the city of trying to "sanitize" Chicago's marquee shopping district to bolster Daley's Olympic dream.

"That's what they did before the [1996] Democratic Convention. That's why they moved all of the shelters out of downtown. They're trying to get people off the streets and sweep the problem away," he said.

The city had instituted an apparently successful program called Street to Home which works to build trust and provide permanent housing and services. You would think the compassionate homeless advocate Mr. Shurna would be a happy man. Now he can turn his attention to some other worthwhile cause.

P.S. The Sun Times is asking readers to vote on whether the count is accurate.