One cold night, Juan Rendon picked up a quiet young man on the South Side of Chicago. The rideshare passenger wore all black, with a ski mask covering his face. Eventually, he asked, “Hey, sir, could I ask you a question?”
Rendon responded, “Sure, go ahead buddy, what’s up?”
He asked, “What do you think about death?”
The young man shared that he had lost his uncle two days earlier and didn’t know how to cope. Rendon was familiar with sudden loss. In 2012, Junior, his lifelong best friend, was shot at age 19.
Rendon, then 23, said his peers had encouraged him to move on and accept the loss as a part of “city life.” Years later, he was glad to provide a space for the young stranger to unpack his trauma.
“He felt more comfortable with me, a complete stranger that drove him around,” Rendon said. It reminded him that help is still not often readily available for people experiencing a sudden loss.
During The Trace’s second Chicago Survivor Storytelling Workshop, all six participants said that survivors of gun violence should have easy access to mental health care and support groups — but despite officials’ rhetoric, resources are still falling short. In 2023, when Mayor Brandon Johnson took office, he promised to reopen the six mental health clinics that former Mayor Rahm Emanuel had shut down across the city.
It’s crucial, survivors said, to get therapy or counseling to begin processing the trauma wrought by gun violence. “There has been a disturbance in your life,” said Corniki Bornds, a storytelling network participant. “Although you want to go back to functioning like you used to, it’s just not possible.”
Getting a foot in the counseling door isn’t easy
Before people can start counseling, they often have to overcome several obstacles, including cultural stigmas. In the Latino community, Rendon said, seeing a therapist can mark someone as “crazy.” Men, he added, often are expected “to be tough” and “let it go.”
Some in the Black community, Bornds said, think it’s important to keep issues within families. But often, she said, that leads to leaving trauma unaddressed. Estela Díaz agrees. Sometimes, she said, people avoid discussing their loss to avoid awkward, painful responses. “When they kill our sons, the first comments you hear are: ‘Oh, probably because he was a gang member, that’s why they killed him,’” she said in Spanish.
Survivors have to explain cultural, racial, and gender differences to their therapists, sometimes pushing them away from starting at all.
After her daughter, Tyesa Abney, was fatally shot in 1992, Delphine Cherry said Metropolitan Family Services offered her counseling. She said she was told that if she didn’t meet their many attendance requirements, she would have to stop going altogether. She felt like a victim all over again and was discouraged.
It’s important, participant Jessica Brown said, that people have the opportunity to keep seeing the same therapist. In graduate school, she received therapy from a graduate student. It was cheaper, she said, but it was short-term. Other survivors said that bouncing from one therapist to another retraumatized them, because they had to tell their stories over and over again.
Campaign promises, not yet fulfilled
During his campaign, Johnson said he would prioritize mental health care. The city’s $16.77 billion budget in 2023 allotted $5.2 million to expand mental health services and $15.9 million to double the team of mental health and substance abuse crisis responders. Johnson cautioned that it would take time to create the infrastructure needed to reopen the clinics.
In May, Johnson announced he would reopen the Roseland Mental Health Center by the end of 2024. He also said the city would add mental health services at two locations on the West Side by the end of summer. The Legler Regional Library and the Pilsen South Ashland Health Hub are now offering services on the West Side. A spokesperson from the Chicago Department of Public Health did not respond to a question asking to confirm that the Roseland site had reopened.
While Chicagoans wait for the remaining mental health clinics to open, they can turn to a patchwork of nonprofits, including seven Community Healing Resource Centers run by Live Free Illinois, an organization focused on improving public safety. The city maintains a map of mental health service providers. Survivors can also apply for the Illinois Crime Victim Compensation Program, which can reimburse for therapy co-pays.
A support group for each community
Many survivors aren’t waiting for help. Instead, they’re channeling their pain into helping others by creating their own support groups.
In 2017, when Bornds’ 19-year-old son, Fontaine Sanders, was shot and killed in North Lawndale, there weren’t many support groups there. Now there are more of them, but she said the city still needs to improve them.
Sometimes, the bigger organizations fall short. A member of Bornds’ group who lost her son reached out to one for help, but because of high demand, she didn’t hear back for a month. “This is the time they should be totally hands-on with her, but she hasn’t got a call back yet,” Bornds said.
Bornds’ organization, Help Understanding Grief, is a faith-based group that helps survivors to process trauma together. Groups like hers would be more effective, she said, if the city paired each one with a therapist.
Díaz said support groups open the door to therapy. Like Bornds, she saw a need in Brighton Park and began a group through which bereaved mothers could connect. Her group partners with Centro Sanar to provide a therapist when needed.
In both therapy and in support groups, survivors said it’s important to not be discouraged by a bad experience. “Don’t just stop at the first group that don’t work,” Bornds said. “If you really want to survive this … you have to just keep trying groups until you find one that speaks to your hurt and your pain.”
