 Homelessness is also on the rise along with drug abuse and nearly every marker of societal disintegration. The poverty rate in Chicago is 20%. These dire conditions can be felt in the school system itself where the violence from the street often spills into the hallways and the classrooms as you might expect. The schools are so infected and surrounded by violence that many students are scared to walk home at the end of the day. Earlier this year, two 15-year-old students at one Chicago school were shot and killed in separate shootings on the same day near the school they attended.