Advocate for the Homeless: Starbucks Changed My Life

With WiFi and a warm place to sit, coffee chain "crucial" to Oak Park man's well-being.

Starbucks like to consider itself a "third place," a spot where folks can gather outside the workplace and away from home. But how long is too long to linger?  Consider Oak Parker Revolution MacInnes, formerly Rob Sidio, who ekes out a living as a philanthropic officer at a Chicago nonprofit, most of the time using the Starbucks at Harlem and Lake in River Forest as a temporary HQ. In a HuffingtonPost Chicago blog, the formerly homeless MacInnes has a few words for Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. He writes:  Starbucks changed my life and helps me still change the lives of others by allowing me an Internet connection and a place to have a meeting with someone in need, or who wants to help those in need. I would love to see this goodwill work …

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Patch Portraits

Patch Portrait: Revolution, Twittervised

Getting real with Revolution MacInnes, Oak Park advocate for the homeless.

When you watch Revolution MacInnes walking through the streets of Oak Park, you get the feeling you’re seeing, if nothing else, someone different. He has the hulking frame and wardrobe of a pro wrestler, with the gray-white tendrils and big bushy salt-and-pepper goatee to match. Adorned with a scarf around his neck and a kerchief around his wrist, there’s a hint of aging Lothario, too. And then there’s the searching eyes of man who’s street wisdom and intellectual heft afford him a certain frantic professorial vibe, The Dude plus 30 pounds. Currently, he’s homeless. Sort of. *** Born with the name Rob Sidio, “Rev” is an artist, an employee of a nonprofit and an advocate for the homeless who’s taken his mission of help to social media. …

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