For workers with the Night Ministry street medicine team and many of the homeless Chicagoans they serve, the warmth of their human connection made it worth braving the bitter subzero temperatures to provide material and emotional support Saturday. “Honestly, they’re like family right now,” said Dominic Elizondo, a 49-year-old man living in an encampment at Flournoy Street and Kildare Avenue in West Garfield Park. “It not only helps with the physical [needs] but also the mental and emotional.”This group of people, they touch on everything,” Elizondo added. After one of Chicago’s coldest nights this season, when the overnight wind chills were between minus-15 and minus-30, two Night Ministry employees and a volunteer spent hours driving around several West Side encampments they visit weekly, handing out hot cocoa, gloves, coats, sandwiches and scarves, in addition to badly needed medical care.At one stop, Derek Ma, clinical supervisor with the nonprofit’s medical outreach branch, treated a wound on a man’s hand. Night Ministry client Dominic Elizondo, right, chats with medical staff member Derek Ma after receiving food, hot cocoa and a blanket.Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times Ma said the Night Ministry “provides an alternative option for unhoused clients who have had bad experiences with health care.””We carry different antibiotics, cold [and] flu medications and we help kind of build that trust back up,” said Ma, 34. “And, hopefully, when we continue that relationship, we can hopefully get them back into a clinic somewhere.” One of the “foundational pillars” of the Night Ministry is the human…
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