It was 34 degrees on December 21st in Chicago. As shoppers crowded the Magnificent Mile, a retail destination that stretches along Michigan Avenue north of downtown, Lucy Connor, 29, sat quietly on the charcoal gray sidewalk with a cardboard sign indicating she was homeless, a cup for change, and bags presumably filled with her belongings beside her.
Connor says she and her husband have been homeless for more than two years. They lost their home after Lucy suffered a medical issue and had problems with their housing assistance. Her husband sat quietly at the corner across the street, his head bent down toward his lap. She says that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, a condition which caused him to have “episodes” and subsequently get thrown out of shelters.
Lucy’s Android cell phone was stolen a few days ago. She used it to talk to her two young children, Valerie, six, and Jacob, 12, who now live in Burbank, Illinois; as well as to schedule doctor’s appointments and connect her husband with his family. As passersby drop coins in her cup, she talks about wanting to get a replacement phone soon.
[For more of this story, written by Tatiana Walk-Morris, go to https://psmag.com/can-mobile-a...99d48ab64#.f2zk3n3yu]
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