Chicago clears homeless tent camp ahead of DNC as last residents are told to leave

For weeks, the signs had been up on poles outside the blue-and-orange tent city at 1100 S. Desplaines St. in the West Loop, marking July 17 as cleanup day.

One of the city’s most visible homeless encampments would be shut down weeks before tens of thousands of politicians and protesters descend on Chicago for the Democratic National Convention.

The 30 or so people who’d pitched their homes in a shady, weedy strip abutting a Dan Ryan Expressway ramp had been offered space in one of the city’s most coveted shelters and warned that demolition day was coming.

Early Wednesday, a dozen people still congregated under trees as the city assembled its fleet of construction vehicles along Desplaines. One woman snoozed on a tattered sofa. Heads popped out of the last few tents. Two men used a shopping cart to move their belongings across Roosevelt Road.

From the city Department of Streets and Sanitation, four yellow front-end loaders and tractor-trailer-sized dump trucks were reading. The Department of Transportation had white bobcat loaders in place. Chicago police officers walked through the encampment. And outreach workers from the Department of Family and Support Services plus a bevy of social service agencies approached the remaining residents.

One of them said she didn’t know where she would end up.

The given deadline was 9:30 a.m., with demolition at 10. Police officers searched tents with flashlights in their latex-gloved hands in case anyone was still sleeping — or hiding. One last tent occupant emerged and walked away, a bag on his back.

For anyone tempted to return, a chainlink fence was bolted into the sidewalk, encircling the campsite, no longer just along one side.

Two women talked their way past police to carry away armfuls of tarps and tents just before 10 a.m. But everyone who turned up late, looking for friends, was out of luck.

The last of the tent city residents already were gone.

Of the Desplaines encampment’s 29 residents, 23 have been relocated to a temporary shelter of 60 beds at the former Tremont Hotel, 100 E. Chestnut St., where a city contractor has been removing other unhoused people. Two others moved to a shelter in Pilsen, according to city officials. It’s unclear what happened to the remaining four.

The remaining beds at Tremont, which residents prefer for its private rooms rather than dorm living, are going to people from 10 other encampments, none as big or as visible as Desplaines.

Some of the former Tremont residents say they were pushed out without other housing options, with several saying they are now living on the street, though the city says most former occupants were relocated to other housing.

A man who gave his name only as William said he moved to Tremont from the encampment earlier this month and returned to help others move their belongings. He said he likes that the shelter provides a permanent address and three meals a day: “It gives us a chance to get our lives in order.”

Chezeray Moore of the Street Samaritans advocacy group said he convinced a couple from the encampment to go to city shelters even if they have to separate for now. He said he has seen how hard it is for people who are used to an “abnormal normality” on the streets to choose a new normal.

Behind him, four giant loaders barreled up the grass from the expressway and began scooping debris into long dump trucks. They loaded it all: rotting plywood, old couches, crumpled tents, burnt garbage, old clothes and hypodermic needles.

An army of smaller bobcat loaders buzzed around tree trunks, making piles of their own.

Next came the Safer Foundation’s Clean City Crew, in fluorescent vests, wielding large bucket shovels and rakes and chainsaws to deal with brush and weeds and tree limbs.

Across Desplaines Street, Gregg Fishman has witnessed the growth of the tent city in the past decade from the fabric store his family has owned since 1903. Fishman said the encampment had problems. There were crimes — shootings and fires — and his parking lot had been vandalized. But Fishman also built relationships with the residents, some there eight or nine years.

By Wednesday afternoon, any remnant of those residents was gone as city crews secured the newly cleared area with chain link, an operation that had prompoted a mayoral ally to accuse the city of “hiding Chicago’s homeless.”

But, as Fishman watched the commotion out front Wednesday, he said he hoped the residents would end up somewhere better.

“For the most part, they were good neighbors,” he said.