Not long after Peter Schwartzman was first elected Galesburg’s mayor in 2021, he set out to address a problem that was increasingly visible in the community.
Five years later, now in his second term, Schwartzman says homelessness remains a “vexing problem” in Galesburg — despite years of effort by many local people and organizations, enhanced collaboration, and increasing the number of beds available to people in need of shelter.
“We've been able to do some work over last five years to connect dots and find where the resources are. We do have resources available. They just have to be put in appropriate spaces, and maybe more resources have to be found,” Schwartzman said.
In a recent essay, Schwartzman laid out what’s been done so far and what challenges lay ahead. He told TSPR this is not just a Galesburg problem by any stretch.
“It's a national problem,” Schwartzman said. “We've seen income inequality grow in this country for the last 60 years. It's getting to the point where more and more people are one paycheck or one health crisis or one accident away from being evicted or being thrown out or losing their ability to live where they live.”
More beds but little affordable housing
Under federal law, a person is considered homeless if they lack a fixed, regular, and adequate place to sleep at night or if they stay in a temporary shelter or other location not intended for sleeping.
Schwartzman estimates there are 200 to 300 homeless people in Galesburg — or roughly 1% of the population.
In late 2021, the city worked with the Salvation Army to start an overnight winter warming shelter at Hawthorne Gym. That was to supplement the number of beds available in the community beyond what the Galesburg Rescue Mission provides.
That evolved into a year-round facility run by the Knox County Housing Authority partially funded by the city. Schwartzman said while the housing authority has helped re-house dozens of people in recent years, progress is stymied by a lack of affordable housing.
“We have a housing crisis and it’s affecting those at the bottom rung as profoundly as we can imagine.” Schwartzman said.
Earlier this year, Schwartzman attempted to find housing for a local person. He said he called 20 numbers as the mayor—not mentioning anything about the person he was trying to help.
“I got three phone calls back and they said, we don't have anything right now. We have a long list of people waiting for housing,” Schwartzman said. “So we have a housing crisis and it's affecting those at the bottom rung as profoundly as we can imagine.”
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the United States saw an unprecedented rise in homelessness in 2025, driven largely by an affordability crisis.
The organization’s 2025 State of Homelessness report notes that demand for homelessness services is on the rise, but available resources and permanent housing are insufficient to meet demand across the country.
Schwartzman said while having a place to live is foundational to anyone’s life, there’s more to helping people locally who have fallen on hard times.
“Do we have food for everybody? Do we have counseling for everybody? Do we have job training for everybody? Do we have jobs at the end of the line for people? And what I’ve come to find out through years of entering this fray and talking to people is that there are inadequacies across the board,” Schwartzman said.
All strata of society
A 2024 poll conducted by the National Alliance to End Homelessness found the majority of Americans believe homelessness is caused by addiction and mental illness. It also found a growing number of people see economic drivers such as housing availability, inflation, and low wages as part of the problem.
Schwartzman said he’s gotten to know around 20 unhoused people in Galesburg well enough to have a sense of why they are where they are.
“I would say there is no singular characteristic that they fall into. They come from all walks of life. They come from all strata of society,” Schwartzman said. “Some have encountered drugs, some have not. Some have addiction currently, some do not.”
He said many do not have family members in the area or have been estranged from their families.
“But I can tell you to every one of them is a human being who has dreams and ambitions and goals and wishes,” Schwartzman said. “Now, of course, when you're unhoused for a significant portion of time, you're dealing with all kinds of challenges, and on top of which, you're dealing with the wrath of some individuals in society who look at you horribly or spit on you or call you names or worse, right? And that becomes even another layer of challenge. I can't even imagine what it's like to be on the streets on a daily basis.”
Schwartzman said he knows of two people in Galesburg who work well-paying, full-time jobs but are unhoused. He noted barriers to housing can include criminal records or systemic biases that leave workers unfamiliar with the home-buying process and hesitant to walk into a bank.
“We have to as a society have to recognize that and provide the services, and make them normalized so that they don't feel uncomfortable about doing that. Because those individuals should be housed and they should be buying an old house in Galesburg and paying property tax and raising a family and not living in their cars or jumping sofa to sofa or living literally in the street,” Schwartzman said.
Helping all people thrive
Schwartzman said we live in a fractious time and people pick sides on difficult issues. It’s his wish, though, that the community can come together to help its unhoused citizens.
“I hope those who are very antagonistic towards the unhoused can find a space in their heart to recognize that this could be their brother, this could be their mother. I mean, it could, it really could. And hopefully it won't be, but it could happen tomorrow,” Schwartzman said.
He said beyond the organizations collaborating to help people experiencing homelessness, the city is working behind the scenes on long-term solutions to larger problems, while other organizations are stepping up. He pointed to Bridgeway’s recent announcement that it plans to open a walk-in mental health crisis center downtown as an example of the inroads Galesburg is making.
“That didn't come to be independent of everybody else. They heard from the community, they recognized they need to invest in a different way,” Schwartzman said.
Moving forward, Schwartzman said the 99% percent of Galesburg’s population that is housed should be working together for solutions, whether that’s getting together in the same room to talk about things civilly — or working together to improve and centralize services and feed the people who need food.
“When I talk about being resilient, the problem we have right now could very easily get worse. I'm not hoping for that, but we need to be prepared. In some ways, that's what we're doing here,” Schwartzman said. “We're trying to create opportunities for people to thrive. All people, not just certain groups of people.”
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