'It's not always better than living on the street': Couch surfing young adults part of a Chicago homeless population with unique struggles
CHICAGO - Johnny Rivers was doing everything right.
For the first 18 years of his life, the Englewood native managed to overcome the disenfranchisement plaguing his neighborhood: He graduated from Jones College Prep, becoming the first in his family to finish high school; started college at a historically black university in Memphis; and found a passion producing music. "I was on a high horse," he proudly recalled.
No one could have predicted he'd be homeless by age 19. But by the spring of his freshman year at LeMoyne-Owen College, the stability Rivers had grown up with was stripped away after he heard in an unexpected phone call that his mom had died from heart failure.
"It was just a shaky, unstable road after that," he said.
For the next five years, Rivers bounced around, searching for a place to plant new roots. He lived with his oldest brother
