Postwar. Laura McEnaney

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      As we know from the rent control stories, finding housing in Chicago was not for the timid. The very congestion that offered resettlers a “cloak of indifference” made finding a place to sleep almost unattainable. Hoofing it around the city, placing a desperately worded ad in a newspaper (should they divulge their race?), tapping into existing networks, and, of course, bunking with family until something came through, these were all a start. In a way, resettlers actually had a slight advantage at this stage because of the religious and mutual aid groups arrayed to help them. Fresh off the train, they could lean immediately on a member of the Friends Service Committee (who was often at the station to meet them) or on the downtown YMCA (where staff were attuned to their special needs). In fact, internees awaiting their work release while in camp could even reserve a bed at the Friends’ hostel, and if there was no space when they arrived, they could at least sleep on a couch or the floor, something a random newcomer who spent a night in the train station would have jumped at.

      Finding permanent accommodations proved much harder, though. Aid groups sometimes did advanced reconnaissance to see what was available or what might soon turn over. As described in Shotaro Miyamoto’s report, Friends staff, for example, “would canvass whole residential areas of the city, jotting down addresses of vacancies, making inquiries, talking to apartment managers,” and taking scrupulous notes so they could later describe a “desirable and undesirable area.” Even the director of the Friends’ hostel devoted over half of each workday to sniffing out new leads and verifying tips from other referral lists.⁴³ What these staffers learned from walking the beat was that no one could count on stability in the housing market; war migrations fluctuated in response to local and national economic factors, the situation in camps, even the weather. Turnover was the only sure thing, and even the hostels set up to ease this volatility experienced this. The Church of the Brethren lost its lease in the fall of 1943, and it was lucky to find another building after a determined hunt. The Friends had no such luck when their landlord terminated the lease, so they had to shutter their hostel in November 1943, just as evacuee numbers were swelling.⁴⁴