Chicago Design Student Revamps Homeless Signs

But it does little to improve the growing problem.

(Photo by Oriez)

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Chicago design student Ian Todd is getting attention for his attempts to help people who are often invisible to many city-dwellers. The 23-year-old, who’s a student at the Chicago Portfolio School, which focuses on advertising and design, is redesigning the signs some homeless people use to ask for support. He says when he arrived in Chicago, he was surprised at the number of homeless and thought he could do something to improve their visibility on the busy streets.


“My hope was that the Chicago project would create some awareness around the homeless,” Todd told the Chicago Tribune. “And also that people would be more inclined to talk when they walk by, and more willing to give.”

Todd isn’t the first to give signs like this a makeover. Boston-area artists Kenji Nakayama and Christopher Hope started a similar project in 2011, which was around the same time that Christopher Devine was doing his own such revamp in Chicago.

While the new signs may be more eye-catching — which may increase the amount of money sign-holders get from passersby — homeless advocates say that the problem requires systemic action.

Homeless populations are on the rise in many cities across the country, including Chicago and Los Angeles. (In L.A., Skid Row Housing Trust has taken a much broader design approach to helping the homeless by building aesthetically pleasing apartments, where residency comes with a range of support services.)

Ed Shurna, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, told the Tribune that about 6,000 people fill the city’s shelters every night, and that the current homeless population is the largest in recent memory. According to the Tribune, Shurna thinks Governor Bruce Rauner’s budget priorities could be calamitous.

“If the cuts being proposed at the state level continue, you are going to see shelters closing,” Shurna told the paper. “There is going to be a big increase in homelessness, and even now the shelters aren’t sufficient.”

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Jenn Stanley is a freelance journalist, essayist and independent producer living in Chicago. She has an M.S. from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

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Tags: chicagohomelessness

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