By Danny YadronThe Daily Northwestern
More families will have the chance to enjoy Evanston’s beaches for free this summer with the city’s expansion of a program for residents with low incomes.
The city opted to increase the number of free beach tokens that it is distributing through a beach token scholarship program it started last summer.
The program is intended to make it easier for low-income families to take trips to the beach, said Director of Health and Human Services Jay Terry.
“Some of these directors came to the city and said, ‘We work with these families, we think their access to the beach is blocked economically,’ ” Terry said.
Last summer, the city provided 700 free tokens to eight community outreach organizations that distributed them to Evanston families.
“Folks that are (at the beaches) are way disproportionately white compared to Evanston’s overall population,” said Dan Baker, executive director of Youth Organizations Umbrella, Inc. “You see a fair amount of people of color, particularly Hispanics, along the park doing picnics and things, but not on the beach because that’s where you have to have a token.”
Beach tokens, which went on sale Monday, cost $22 for residents who haven’t received scholarships.
This season the city is distributing 25 additional tokens to the Outreach Services Office, a city group that assists Evanston immigrants with limited English skills.
Ald. Elizabeth Tisdahl (7th) requested the extra tokens, which give the organization a total of 70 tokens to provide to its members.
“We weren’t sure what the demand was going to be,” said outreach specialist Adela Hernandez. “It was higher than I thought.”
If demand is even higher, the Department of Health and Human Services might consider allotting them even more tokens, Terry said.
According to Tisdahl, the other seven organizations didn’t report any shortages, perhaps due to the distribution methods used by Youth Organizations Umbrella.
“We did not want to create a kind of ‘you’re in or you’re out’ system,” Baker said. “We approached families that we knew wouldn’t be able to afford it and we thought would use it rather than making some big open statement.”
Two of the city’s primary concerns when the program was created last February, were whether the influx of people on the beaches would lead to overcrowding or require the hiring of more lifeguards.
But Tisdahl said neither of these concerns turned into problems.
“There were enough hot days last summer that if didn’t occur then, I think it’s less of a problem than people feared,” she said.
Instead, the only problem Tisdahl predicted is a further shortage in the supply of tokens.
“It’s possible that demand will grow as people become more aware of the program,” she said. “If it does, I’ll fight for more tokens. At this point I think we may have it covered.”
Reach Danny Yadron at [email protected].
