If ever there were a definition for fatherhood the name of Gerald Hamilton, a 54-year-old Chicago homicide detective, would probably come to mind.
If ever there were a definition for fatherhood, the name of Gerald Hamilton, a 54-year-old Chicago homicide detective, would probably come to mind.
Since 1975 the husky, 6-foot-3 Hamilton has served as a foster dad to roughly 100 young men who otherwise may have ended up in prison or bounced around from one foster home to another until they reached adulthood.
Hamilton said he initially became a foster parent by default.
“I was working at a private child care agency and caring for my grandmother when I found out that a foster family had changed their mind about taking in a seventh grade boy that I arranged,” Hamilton told the Defender. “The kid was all excited about going to his new home, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth so I went to my supervisor to see if I could temporarily take him until a home was found for him.”
Hamilton ended up keeping the boy until he graduated from high school.
He would later become a police officer where he saw young, Black boys being locked up daily for what started as petty crimes, such as shoplifting, but ended as violent crimes like battery and murder.
Hamilton decided to be part of the solution to fatherless Black boys. Though the majority of his foster kids have been males, he also had a few girls, which he described as a whole new job.
“Girls have babies, and unlike boys, the baby usually stays with the mom so that means I now have to help provide for small children,” he told the Defender. “That aspect takes me further than I am prepared to go at this time.”
Two of the six boys living with him today were previously locked up at the Juvenile Detention Center because even after serving their time, they had no family to go home to. By law, they would have had to remain at the center until they turned 21 or a foster home was found.
The two young men, Antonio Scott, 18, and Cornelius McDade, 16 are doing fine. Scott attends Kennedy King College, and McDade finished his sophomore year of high school last week.
It is not uncommon for Hamilton to come home and find one of his adult foster sons who no longer lives with him sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal.
“Cereal killers live here. You wouldn’t believe the gallons of milk we go through each day. Cereal is in big demand in the Hamilton house,” he said.
Hamilton estimates spending $160 on cereal and $150 for milk in a month. Though he does most of his grocery shopping at discount stores like Aldi and Sam’s Club, he still spends about $1,500 a month buying groceries.
“While we may go through about 20 boxes of cereal a week, I don’t want to give people the impression that all we do is eat cereal because we don’t,” he added. “We also eat fruit, vegetables and various meats, from fish to chicken.”
These days the 24-year veteran cop is mentoring six boys who live in his home in the South Shore community. They range in age from 13 to 20, and as fast as these young men grow up and move out, another crop of boys slide into their place.
Just recently one 18-year-old foster son moved out and into his own apartment.
“The goal here is to help them become self-sufficient, so I recently assisted one of my sons (Tracy Miller) in getting his first apartment, and he loves it,” said Hamilton. “His biological brother still lives here at the house with me.”
Hamilton’s two-story brick house has a basketball court in the backyard and is completely gated for security reasons.
“Just because I am a cop does not mean my boys are out of harm’s way. They still need to be protected from the bad elements out here,” he said. “But make no mistake, gangbangers fear me. I don’t fear them.”
He receives checks each month from the state for each of the foster kids living with him, but the money, he said, is hardly enough to raise them.
“I usually give the money to the boys as allowance, but I still have to go in my pocket to cover their expenses,” Hamilton, who also has five biological children, said. “Just food alone runs over $1,000 a month, (and) I would challenge anyone to say otherwise.”
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